Indian High Commission upholds decision banning critic Sapna Samant from returning home
Dr Sapna Samant was warned in January her Overseas Citizen of India status could be revoked, but she was allowed a written appeal.
Photo:
Supplied
An Indian New Zealander has been stripped of her automatic right to return to her home country, being told she has tried to "fuel disharmony" among the community.
GP and filmmaker Dr Sapna Samant was
warned in January
her Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) status could be revoked, but she was allowed a written appeal.
The decision has now been upheld by the Indian High Commission in Wellington.
It has not replied to RNZ requests for comment.
"It has been brought to the notice of the government of India that [Samant] has reportedly involved herself in activities that are inimicable to the sovereignty and integrity of India and the interests of the general public," the High Commission's letter said.
It named her Twitter account, YouTube Channel, and a broadcast on radio station 95bFM.
"Contents used by the foreigner on the said platforms can cause disharmony among various members and sections of the diaspora and Indian society.
"She has been active in anti-India activities, and is often found carrying out anti-India propaganda. She has been issuing posts/tweets extensively, calling India an 'authoritarian country' and a 'majoritarian terrorist regime'. She has been trying to fuel disharmony among various members and sections of the Indian of the India community."
The Commission's decision did not mention one of the more controversial grounds given in January for rescinding her OCI - her involvement with the Green Party, or specifically, her presence on its website.
She stood as a candidate in the 2023 elections.
It said her appeal was "bereft of plausible explanation" and had not clarified or submitted facts which denied her role in the activities it had named.
The Indian government has cancelled more than 100 OCI cards over the last decade, but hers is believed to be the first in New Zealand.
The OCI is a status given to Indians who become New Zealand citizens, allowing them to keep certain birthrights - including travelling to India.
Samant said the appeal's outcome was not unexpected but was still disappointing, as she had held onto a little hope of a change of heart.
"It still makes me sad that we have to reach such a stage where India has fallen from being this vibrant democracy where arguing is a national trait," she said.
"And all kinds of perspectives were perfectly valid, because we all knew that we all loved India, and we want this country to to flourish.
"India is an authoritarian regime country at this point. It's an electoral autocracy, so you have elections in the name of democracy, but your representatives are actually not about democracy."
It meant she could not visit India unless the Government changed, and she worried about Indians at home and overseas being 'silenced' by the government's approach, she said.
Supporters of Indian PM Narendra Modi deny the administration is a threat to an inclusive society.
Samant said she had been hoping to take her foster son to India this year, and that she had received 'solidarity' from activist colleagues and friends.
"Nothing lasts forever. And I have great faith that I will visit my ancestral temple one day, which is on the west coast of India in a little village. I'm not sad that I can't ever go or I won't ever go, but I am sad in the moment. But I also know that there's a bigger cause. I'm not trying to make myself into a martyr, but it's a collective force."
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero
,
a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RNZ News
an hour ago
- RNZ News
Kinleith pulp and paper mill falls silent
Kinleith pulp and paper mill was opened 71 years ago by Prime Minister Sidney Holland. Photo: Libby Kirkby-McLeod The Kinleith pulp and paper mill in South Waikato was opened by Prime Minister Sidney Holland in 1954. On Monday, 71 years later, the last functional paper-making machine falls silent , with the loss of about 150 jobs. A RNZ documentary about the mill shortly after it opened captured the mood of a booming town, a valuable export industry and cutting-edge technology. Seven decades later, and after many cuts and retrenchments, South Waikato Mayor Gary Petley described the mood in town. "A fair amount of uncertainty, a little bit of angst, because of what has happened, and I think more of a realisation there's not a lot they can do about it," he said. Petley once worked at the mill and he still had two sons employed there. He described the mill in its heyday as a local industry that enabled intergenerational wealth and opportunity. "If your grandfather worked there or your father worked there, there was every probability that the sons or daughters would follow." It led to a vibrant community in Tokoroa. "One of the biggest things for me is the richness of the culture side of things, with all the different races of people, who came here to build Tokoroa and make Tokoroa what it is." You heard this even in the RNZ documentary from the 1950s - there were interviews with mill staff from Canada and Poland. Not that Tokoroa ever wanted to be known just as a mill town. Erica Rowe worked at the South Waikato News in the 1950s and told Rex Sayers that, although locals knew the mill was responsible for most of its growth, they did not want to feel that, without the mill, the town would be non-existent. Tokoroa Mayor Gary Petley once worked in at the mill and still has two sons working there. Photo: Libby Kirkby-McLeod / RNZ That sentiment was echoed today by the owner of local station Cruise Radio, Johnny Dryden. "You need to be mindful now that the mill's not the only large employer in Tokoroa or in the nearby vicinity of Tokoroa," he said. For his part, Dryden felt positive about the town's future. "It's a great area to bring a family up, where you can go and pick your kids up from school, and go and do things in the community." There was no doubt that the end of paper manufacturing would hit some hard. E Tu mill union delegate Ian Farall said everyone was disappointed paper production was finishing. "The fact is this is the last bastion for making paper in New Zealand," he said. "There is no other producer of what we do in New Zealand, so it's not like I can go down the road and get a job." He said working at the mill had enabled him to live a good life and he worried for younger workers who had lost their jobs, knowing several who had given up on New Zealand and moved to Australia. "[It's] not good for those people who have young families and have got no job, and have a mortgage locally and everything like that - that will be a tough time for people." South Waikato Investment Fund Trust (SWIFT) chief executive Clive Somerville said the end of paper production at Kinleith marked the close of an era, one that shaped the South Waikato's identity for generations. Ian Farall: "It's not like I can go down the road and get a job." Photo: Libby Kirkby-McLeod "There's definitely a sense of loss and uncertainty around town, but also deep pride in who we are." However, he said the community was built on primary industry and hard work, and that heart was still strong. "Despite global and national headwinds, there's real momentum here - residential and commercial development is underway. "Project Phoenix is backing displaced workers, and agencies like MSD are stepping up alongside community groups and employers." OJI Fibre Solutions chief executive Jon Ryder said the mill continued with pulp-only production. "Our priority has always been to minimise job losses through redeployments, and to run a thorough and fair process," he said. "Through these efforts and a voluntary redundancy programme, we managed to redeploy more than 30 people within the business and keep the number of compulsory redundancies to less than half of the total." The mill was still in a transition phase for some operations staff and currently reviewing support role requirements, so the final number of job losses was not yet known. "However, we can confirm around 150 employees will depart OjiFS on 30 June." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
2 hours ago
- RNZ News
The Detail: Kiwi journos tackling issue of distrust in NZ media
Media executive Richard Sutherland and RNZ head of podcasts Tim Watkin. Photo: Davina Zimmer There's been a lot of discussion over recent years on the lack of public trust in institutions and the levels of disinformation. The issues increasingly concern media organisations, as they watch the levels of trust in their work slide. While the latest figures show that slide may have been arrested , that's a bit like saying the floodwaters have stopped rising - there's still a flood to clean up. RNZ head of podcasts Tim Watkin is one media executive tasked with serious research to work out how to restore trust in journalism. He spent three months at the University of Glasgow's philosophy department and, on The Detail , shares what he's learnt and what he's telling RNZ's top brass needs to be done. "If we actually can't trust the information around us, then it is potentially at least society-threatening, democracy-threatening, if not species-damaging," he says. "This is really important stuff, so I think we have to fix this. We have to wrestle with it, we have to make it a priority." This isn't the first era historically where trust in news outlets has been poor. Watkin says, while we are stretching our trust muscles so thin these days, living our lives online and more disconnected from face-to-face transactions, journalism has been in this place before - and has won back trust. "A hundred years ago... the propaganda out of World War I really had the public sceptical about what they could believe. "That was the yellow press era, the rise of the tabloids in the UK and the US... [people were] just making stuff up, crazy stories." Like this one . "Through the late 1800s in particular and early 1900s, there was a real problem with trust in media. Journalism has often been unreliable, for most of its time in existence, but in the 20th century, journalism really buckled down and earnt trust. "If you go back 50 years, the trust stats were way higher than they are now." Watkin tells The Detail about the importance of a discipline of objectivity to show people journalists can take themselves out of the story to avoid bias - and the pressures that have tempted the media to push the boundaries between facts and opinion. Richard Sutherland is a media executive who's worked in several big New Zealand newsrooms - he's currently back at RNZ, but later this year, he will travel to Estonia to do an MA in Disinformation and Societal Resilience. "There's a lot of disinformation out there and what are you going to do?" he says. "Shrug your hands up and go, 'There's no point fighting back against it', or do you go, 'We've got to work out how do deal with this'.". Why Estonia? Well, it's a western-facing country with an English-language course in combating disinformation, which is of special interest to the nation. Sutherland says Estonia is an interesting case study in rebuilding a country from the ground up, after the break-up of the Soviet Union. There was a recognition in 2007 that Russia was flooding the place with disinformation and, as a result, a decision was made to teach school children media literacy from a very early age. New Zealand, he suggests, perhaps doesn't see this issue through the same urgent lens, after being isolated by geography for years from war tearing down our cities or real sectarian violence. He says, while 100 years ago, that may have given us a degree of protection, it doesn't any more. "The internet means the bad actor can be sitting 12,000 miles away and still have an impact on you. These guys know what it's like when things are bad, they don't want to go back. "In the 1940s, there was a great mass deportation of people from Estonia and the other Baltic states. Tens of thousands of people were shipped off to Siberia and most of them never came back, so every family now has a story about a great uncle or a grandmother or a grandfather shipped off by the Russians to Siberia, and never returned. "When you have that kind of theme running through your national story, it focuses your mind on, 'Well, we did that once, we didn't like it and we're not going back'. "The disinformation piece the Estonians are working on is very much based on that." Check out how to listen to and follow The Detail here . You can also stay up-to-date by liking us on Facebook or following us on Twitter .
RNZ News
13 hours ago
- RNZ News
Justice Minister proposes higher penalties for assaults against first responders
The proposed legislation was promised in National's coalition agreement with New Zealand First. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has proposed the introduction of higher penalties for people who assault first responders. Goldsmith's proposal would expand the current assault against police to also cover prison officers and all first responders. The new offence of assaulting a first responder with intent to injure would mean up to five years in prison - two years higher than the standard offence. Actually injuring them would carry a sentence of up to seven years and counts against the three strikes regime, which can impose mandatory minimum sentences. The proposed legislation was promised in National's coalition agreement with New Zealand First. More to come ... Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
