In an article in the TIME magazine, author and journalist Aatish Taseer has addressed the cancellation of his Overseas Citizen of India status. In the piece, Taseer says: “The Indian government had limited means by which they could legally take away my overseas citizenship. Yet they have now acted on those means. For 39 years, I had not so much as needed a visa for India and now the government was accusing me of misrepresenting myself, accusing me of defrauding them.” 

Taseer framed the stripping of his citizenship in the larger context of the Indian government scrapping Article 370 that took away Jammu and Kashmir’s “statehood, autonomy and basic human freedoms”, the NRC in Assam and the attack on intellectuals like Ram Guha. He has also indicated that this was a fallout of his May 2019 TIME magazine article that was critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Last night, in a series of tweets, the Union Home Ministry stated that Taseer had become “ineligible” to hold the OCI card because he had “concealed the fact that his late father was of Pakistani origin” in his application for this status. The ministry also claimed that Taseer was given the opportunity to submit his reply on his PIO/OCI cards, but that he failed to dispute the notice.

Taseer refuted this claim and said that he did reply and that he was not given the standard 21 days but 24 hours to respond.

It is important to note here that Taseer was raised by a single mother, Indian columnist and journalist Tavleen Singh. He was born out of wedlock, and was not in contact with his father, Pakistani politician Salman Taseer, until he was  twenty-one. In the Time magazine piece he notes: “She [Tavleen Singh] had raised me on her own in Delhi and was always my sole legal guardian, and the only parent I knew for most of my life.” Pen America and the Committee to Protect Journalists have issued statements condemning the Indian government’s move.

In an interview with Newslaundry last year, Taseer spoke about his disappointment with the Modi government’s support for extremist elements. He called his leadership a “total catastrophe”.