Priya Pillai, an Indian citizen and Greenpeace activist, was stopped from travelling outside the country last month, preventing her from voicing her views against a coal project in Madhya Pradesh. The government offered no convincing reasons for this.
The incident calls into question our understanding of what constitutes anti-national, and the basis of our rules for profit-making companies and not-for-profit ones?
If the state allows the former to use foreign funds to promote their cause, shouldn’t the latter be allowed the same? Why should opposition to forms of development always be misconstrued as anti-national, and call for extreme measures to curb it? Do listen.