Greenpeace activist Priya Pillai was not allowed to board a flight to London from Delhi on Sunday, January 11, because, she says, her name figures in a government database of people debarred from travelling abroad.

‘I was informed by the immigration bureau that I will not be allowed to travel because my name figures in a database of the government of India and people whose name figures in that database are not allowed to travel. No reason was given to me.’

‘I don’t know what that list is. I don’t know why the government is treating me like a fugitive as if I’m somebody who is running away from the country,’ Pillai has been quoted as saying.

Her work among tribals in Mahan, Madhya Pradesh, could be the reason for this unjustified ban, Priya Pillai told A Ganesh Nadar/Rediff.com in an interview.

Is this the first time that the government has taken such action against you?

No! Earlier, Greenpeace activist Ben Hargreaves was not allowed to enter India and was deported from Delhi airport. I have been working for the implementation of the Tribal Rights Act in Mahan, Madhya Pradesh, where a coal mine is slated to come up.

It is their Constitutional right and I was fighting for that.

Have you been accused of getting foreign funds to stall development projects in India?

Yes, we have been constantly accused of receiving foreign funds. This is not true. Sixty one per cent of our funds come from Indian donors. We do not accept corporate donations. We have three lakh (300,000) members in India.

All we are asking is that the Forest Rights Act be fully implemented. It is there in the Constitution of India. For this we have been regularly called anti-national. We have been fighting for the Constitutional rights of the people in Mahan, for their human rights.

Is this your first encounter with the government?

This is my third job. Earlier, I was working with Action Aid and Oxfam. I was not so vocal. I have been fighting against climate change and the environment for 12 years. I have now been working for tribal rights.

Have you been told who in the government took this decision to not let you travel abroad?

I have absolutely no clue. I am reading various views in the press. Many people are saying many things. I have not received any intimation from the government, not even a phone call.

What have you done about this?

We have written to the ministry of home affairs and the ministry of external affairs asking for an explanation. We hope the government will reply to us. If not, we will take the legal route.

Have you received any threats over your work?

In Mahan we have received many threats over the phone and in public. We have been complaining to the superintendent of police in Mahan since 2012 about these threats but not a single FIR (First Information Report) has been filed.

Editorial in the Deccan Herald dated 14/12/2014 – Why was Pillai put on watchlist?

“Modi govt is attempting to stifle dissenting opinions.”

The government’s barring of Greenpeace-India campaigner Priya Pillai from boarding a flight to London lays bare a deepening anti-democratic streak in its approach to alternative voices, dissenting opinion and activism. Pillai was not a convict; yet her name figured on a ‘watchlist.’ She was given no explanation for why she was being offloaded from the flight. Nearly three days after the unseemly incident, the government remains silent. But for unnamed Union Home Ministry sources and intelligence officials giving disparate explanations to the media, no official explanation has been issued why she was barred from going abroad. According to Greenpeace, Pillai was scheduled to talk to British parliamentarians about the infringement of forest dwellers’ rights by the coal mining industry in Mahan in Madhya Pradesh. Was she stopped because the government did not want its policies criticised abroad? Why did she figure in a watch list when she is not a criminal? Is she being targeted for her political beliefs, her opinions on the development path being pursued by the Modi government? The government’s deafening silence suggests that it endorses the action against Pillai. It sees nothing wrong in it and believes it doesn’t owe its citizens explanations for its actions. This is untenable. It is insecure authoritarians, who fear criticism, silence dissent and are opaque in their decision-making and insensitive to the anguish of ordinary citizens.

NGOs and activists critical of the government’s development agenda and policies have come under fire from the Narendra Modi government as well as its predecessor, the UPA government. Activists are arrested on trumped up charges; an entire village protesting the Kudankulam nuclear project was charged with sedition and the passport of the protests’ leader S P Udayakumar was impounded. Such actions are brazen violations of the constitutionally guaranteed rights of citizens to freedom of speech, expression, opinion and movement. Action against Pillai is part of a series of steps taken by the Modi government against dissenting opinion. Acting on inputs from the Intelligence Bureau, it froze funds of NGOs that were critical of its development path. Greenpeace was among these NGOs.

If activists are being disingenuous in their critiquing of government policy, the government must counter them by placing facts in the public domain. If Pillai’s speech was factually incorrect, it should have countered it with a clarificatory statement. By silencing opinion and putting citizens on blacklists and watchlists, the government is acting unconstitutionally. It is only shaming itself. The road from intolerance to authoritarian is a short and slippery one.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s strong pitch to investors, both at the Vibrant Gujarat summit and during the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas celebrations, was of a piece with the campaign and initiatives launched by the government to invite more investments into the country. The state governments are also trying to outdo each other in wooing investments by announcing incentives, policies and facilities to make the best impact. But the reddest carpets and the best promises may themselves not be enough to translate investment intentions and proposals into concrete projects. This has been seen in the history of unrealised investment ideas even in Gujarat which is claimed to be most business-friendly. Lakhs of crores of rupees worth of investment proposals have often come down to fractions of the promises at the time of implementation.

That is why the Prime Minister’s promise of making India the easiest place to do business has to be supported by adequate policies and effective action on the ground. India’s position in the World Bank’s Index of Ease of Doing Business is a lowly 142 among 180 countries. To take the country to the targeted rank of above 50, as announced by the government some time ago, is a Herculean task. Ambitious aims are fine and may even be inspirational when they are articulated, but they also have to be realistic. Many policies to create the right environment and to promote investment are announced but they need timely and effective implementation. The government unveiled the Make in India programme some months ago but it is yet to take off. There is the need to go beyond rhetoric and a play with words like “democracy, demography and demand’’, as all these d’s and even a Modi to boot may not be enough to attract investors and give them the confidence to commit their money to projects on the ground.

There is a lot of competition among countries to attract investment in a world where most national economies are in a slow gear of growth. The World Bank chief said India offered a bright spot, but it is necessary to create a congenial environment for business and industry to thrive in. Many restrictive laws have to be liberalised and labour laws need reforms. Rules and regulations about permissions and procedures are still unhelpful, and infrastructure, for which the government has the responsibility, is still inadequate. A corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy is another obstructive factor. The increase in socially and politically disruptive actions and campaigns in the country is not conducive to investment growth. Unless these issues are addressed, development plans will remain only plans.