New Delhi: For more than half a century, Amrit Wilson has written about borders—of race, gender, migration and belonging. Her landmark book, ‘Finding a Voice’, which won the Martin Luther King Award and was reprinted in 2018, speaks of life experiences of South Asian migrant women navigating Britain’s racial and patriarchal fault lines.
But in a turn she describes as both “shocking” and “absurd”, Wilson is now confronting a limitation of a different kind—a bureaucratic one. In March 2023, the Government of India cancelled her OCI (Overseas Citizenship of India) card, citing an Intelligence Bureau report that claimed she had engaged in “detrimental propaganda against the Indian government” and “multiple anti–India activities”.
Fight to return
For Wilson, born in 1941 to two Indian parents in Kolkata, and who left India for the United Kingdom in 1961 and became a British citizen decades later, the fight is not merely legal—it is deeply personal. The cancellation of her OCI status, she says, has disrupted her research, professional commitments and, at 85, her ability to remain connected to the country of her birth.
Three years later she still awaits her OCI card which would allow her to work and live in India indefinitely. In her plea before the court, Wilson says that the cancellation of her OCI card has caused grave hardships in her life, and has affected her professional career as a writer.
In September 2024, Wilson told human rights NGO Amnesty International that she was quite “shocked” to know that her OCI was cancelled. “It is also extremely unfair because I have done nothing against India… It is absurd to say I’m anti-Indian. I grew up there. My parents lived their whole lives there,” she told Amnesty.
Usually, an OCI card is granted to eligible foreign nationals, on the payment of a fee, if they were a citizen of India at the time or any time after the commencement of the Constitution, or even if they are the children, grandchildren or great grandchildren of Indian citizens, among others.
An OCI card acts as a multiple entry life-long visa which enables the holder to have unlimited travel and stay in India. It also has other benefits attached to it which are not available to other foreigners such as permission to work in India even if their employer doesn’t grant them a visa.
Seeds of the dispute
Nearly four years ago, in 2022, the Centre had first issued her a show-cause notice, asking for why her OCI status should not be cancelled. Nearly a year before that, Wilson had authored an article on the farmer’s protest titled ‘The Women on the Frontline of India’s Resistance to Modi’. Critical of the Modi government, it was published in UK-based Tribune Magazine.
“It has been brought to the notice of the Government of India that Ms Amrit Wilson engaged in detrimental propaganda against the Indian government and has been involved in multiple anti-India activities which are inimical to the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of India and to the interests of general public,” the show cause notice said.
Wilson’s plea against the Ministry of Home Affairs points out that in the show-cause notice issued to her in 2022, there were no material details or even reasons to substantiate the allegations levelled against her, which left her with no remedy and deprived her of a right to fair hearing. Despite this, her OCI card was cancelled through an order passed by the Centre in March 2023.
Wilson’s 2021 article spoke about how Indian farmer protests were garnering international attention, and highlighted the resistance of women against what it termed as “Modi’s reactionary government”.
“Many in the UK first heard of two brave young women allied to the farmers’ protests—climate campaigner Disha Ravi (charged under the colonial-era sedition law for the ‘crime’ of sharing a toolkit for online campaigning) and Dalit Labour Rights activist Nodeep Kaur (accused of attempted murder and extortion for demanding workers’ rights and back pay)—as a result of tweets by Greta Thunberg, Rihanna, and Meena Harris, but not many of us have heard of anyone else,” the article reads.
Apart from this, the story also alleged that in January 2018, Hindu right-wing terror groups attacked thousands of Dalit families, gathered at Bhima Koregaon village in Maharashtra, where they had come to commemorate the 200th anniversary of a battle central to Dalit identity. “Instead of arresting the key organisers of this violence (one of whom is a close associate of Modi), the police carried out a witch hunt of Dalit youth and children,” the piece reads.
Amrit Wilson has also alleged that another reason for the cancellation of her OCI card was her participation in an online discussion about Kashmir. According to an affidavit filed by the government earlier in this case, Wilson had criticised the abrogation of Article 370 on social media.
Hearing her plea challenging the cancellation of her OCI card Monday, the Delhi High Court asked the Centre to file its response in the case, and listed the matter for hearing on 27 August.
A bench of Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav also remarked after examining the contents of a sealed envelope presented to it by the Centre that, “We can’t be so tolerant that we allow the country to be maligned on international platforms.”
The Centre also informed the court that the Intelligence Bureau’s (IB) report said that Wilson was engaged in anti-India activities, causing the single-judge to remark that the allegations appeared “serious”.
Issues before the court
Aggrieved by the loss of her OCI card, Amrit Wilson first approached the Delhi High Court in May 2023, under Section 7(D)(e) of the Citizenship Act,1955, which allows the government to cancel the registration of any OCI-holder if it deems it necessary to do so “in the interest of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of India, friendly relations of India with any foreign country, or in the interests of the general public”.
In her plea, Wilson termed the cancellation of her OCI status as “arbitrary” and “illegal”, and argued that it was done in a mechanical manner, without any application of mind and in complete violation of the principles of natural justice and due procedure.
In April 2023, Amrit Wilson also filed an appeal, also known as a revision application under Section 15 of the 1955 Act, which allows appeals to be made against any order under the Citizenship Act, within 30 days. But this too remained pending before the Ministry of Home Affairs, she said, despite repeated requests.
This not only resulted in a gross violation of her fundamental rights, but also prevented her from travelling to India, she said in her plea.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
Also read: OCI cardholders charged with offence inviting 7-yr-jail term now liable to lose registration