New Delhi: Nitasha Kaul, a London-based academic who has been critical of the Modi government, said that the latter revoked her overseas citizen of India (OCI) status in a move she has called a “bad faith”, “vindictive” and “cruel” example of “transnational repression”.Kaul, a British citizen of Indian origin who heads the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster, was in February last year barred from entering India upon landing in Bengaluru.In a post on X on Sunday (May 18), Kaul shared a photograph of what appears to be a Union government communique about the cancellation of her OCI status, which alleged her participation in “anti-India activities”.The notice claimed she participated in these activities “motivated by malice and complete disregard for facts or history”.“Through your numerous inimical writings, speeches and journalistic activities at various international forums and on social media platforms, you regularly target India and its institutions on the matters of India’s sovereignty,” it went on to say.IMPORTANT NOTE – I received a cancellation of my #OCI (Overseas Citizenship of #India) *today* after arriving home. A bad faith, vindictive, cruel example of #TNR (transnational repression) punishing me for scholarly work on anti-minority & anti-democratic policies of #Modi rule. pic.twitter.com/7L60klIfrv— Professor Nitasha Kaul, PhD (@NitashaKaul) May 18, 2025The cancellation of her OCI status, Kaul said, is a “bad faith, vindictive, cruel example of #TNR (transnational repression) punishing me for scholarly work on anti-minority & anti-democratic policies of #Modi rule”.“Will overseas PR delegations of GOI say why ‘mother of #democracy’ denies me access to my mother?” Kaul asked, referring on the one hand to the government’s decision to send multi-party delegations abroad to convey its stance on terrorism and on the other to Prime Minister Modi’s calling India the mother of democracy.She told The Wire last year that her ailing mother lives in India.“This is thin-skinned, petty insecurity with no respect for well-intentioned dissent that arrests/imprisons citizens in India & bars access to family for overseas citizens of #India,” Kaul added on Sunday.Her post also came on the day that the Haryana police arrested political scientist Ali Khan Mahmudabad and invoked charges pointing to sedition as well as pertaining to outraging religious feelings and promoting enmity between groups against him.One of the two FIRs against Mahmudabad, who teaches at Ashoka University, was registered on the complaint of Renu Bhatia, chairperson of the Haryana women’s commission, which had summoned him for Facebook posts he made against warmongering during the recently concluded India-Pakistan conflict.OCI status grants foreign nationals of Indian provenance certain benefits, including a “multiple-entry, multi-purpose lifelong visa to visit India”. It has been noted that the Modi government has revoked the OCI status of various critics over the last few years.Last year, H.C. Mahadevappa, Karnataka’s social welfare minister, invited Kaul to participate in a conference in Bengaluru titled ‘The Constitution and Unity in India’.However, Kaul was not allowed to enter India upon her arrival in the city’s airport and following a 24-hour-ordeal there was deported to Britain.Speaking to The Wire from London, Kaul had said she was “taunted” for her critique of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its leaders by immigration officials who did not give any reason in writing for her deportation.On Sunday she referred to her being barred from entering India, writing that the Modi government “humiliated themselves & insulted non-BJP Karnataka state govt that invited me last year by ill-treating me & in spite of my 20,000 word response to their ridiculous inanity about ‘anti-India’.”A woman of Kashmiri Pandit background, Kaul has among other things criticised the Modi government’s reading down of Article 370 in 2019.That move, she wrote then, “does not serve Indians, Kashmiri Pandits, or anyone other than the Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party … backed by the far-right Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh … paramilitary and their supporters and crony industrialist backers.“It makes Indians less secure and makes the future of Pandits ever more uncertain and hostage to circumstances.”