New Delhi: Nitasha Kaul, an Indian-origin, UK-based professor and author has been in the news for some time now. The author and poet, in a series of social media posts, has claimed that she landed in India but was not denied entry and was deported back to London, hours later. Nitasha Kaul claimed that she landed at the Bengaluru Airport after being formally invited by the Government of Karnataka but based on ‘orders from Delhi’, she was sent back to London. According to her, she was denied entry because of her views on ‘democratic and constitutional values’. Read to know what happened to her and who is her…
Nitasha Kaul Denied Entry To India, Deported Hours Later
As mentioned earlier, Nitasha Kaul, an Indian-origin UK-based author and academic landed at the Bengaluru Airport but then on ‘orders from Delhi’, she was denied entry to India and was deported back to London, after a few hours. In a post on the social media platform ‘X’ (formerly known as Twitter), Nitasha Kaul said, “I was given no reason by immigration except ‘we cannot do anything, orders from Delhi’. My travel and logistics had been arranged by Karnataka and I had the official letter with me. I received no notice or info in advance from Delhi that I would not be allowed to enter.”
IMPORTANT: Denied entry to #India for speaking on democratic & constitutional values. I was invited to a conference as esteemed delegate by Govt of #Karnataka (Congress-ruled state) but Centre refused me entry. All my documents were valid & current (UK passport & OCI). THREAD 1/n pic.twitter.com/uv7lmWhs4k
— Professor Nitasha Kaul, PhD (@NitashaKaul) February 25, 2024
She further added, “I spent 12 hours in a flight from London to Bangalore, several hours at immigration where they shuttled me here & there, provided no info on process, then 24 hours in a holding cell (no BA flight back until next day) under direct cctv w restricted movement, a narrow area to lie down and no easy access to food and water, made dozens of calls to airport for basic things as a pillow and blanket, which they refused to provide, then 12 hours on the flight back to London.”
Who Is Nitasha Kaul?
Nitasha Kaul is of Indian-origin and did her BA Hons in Economics, from the Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) in University of Delhi. Post graduation, Nitasha did her Masters in Economics with specialisation in Public Policy; she later did her Joint PhD in Economics and Philosophy from the University of Hull, United Kingdom (UK). After working as an Assistant Professor of Economics at the Bristol Business School from 2002-07, she worked as an Associate Professor in Creative Writing at the Royal Thimphu College in Bhutan.
Apart from being a professor, Nitasha Kaul is a novelist, writer and poet – her first book ‘Imagining Economics Otherwise: Encounters With Identity/Difference’ was a monograph on Economics and Philosophy. She has been a co-editor of an Economic and Political Weekly Volume on ‘Women and Kashmir’ (2018) and ‘Can You Hear Kashmiri Women Speak? Narratives of Resistance and Resilience’.
The author has also said that she is anti-authoritarian and pro-democracy, and not anti-India; in her words, “I am a globally respected academic & public intellectual, passionate about liberal democratic values. I care for gender equity, challenging misogyny, sustainability, civil & political liberties, rule of law…Decades of my work speaks for me.”
