Who is Nitasha Kaul? UK-based Kashmiri pandit scholar whose OCI card is ‘cancelled’ over ‘anti-India’ activities

London-based Indian-origin academic, Professor Nitasha Kaul has said she recieved a cancellation of her Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) card on Sunday. Professor Nitasha Kaul is a Kashmiri Pandit British citizen who works as a scholar in the United Kingdom. 

“A bad faith, vindictive, cruel example transnational repression punishing me for scholarly work on anti-minority anti-democratic policies of Modi rule,” Kaul wrote in a post on X sharing the portion of OCI cancellation notice. 

"And whereas, it has been brought to the notice of the Government of India that you have been found indulging in anti-India activities, motivated by malice and complete disregard for facts or history. Through your inimical writings, speeches and journalistic activities at various international forums and on social media platforms, you regularly target India and its institutions on the matters of India's sovergnity…." the notice reads.

Prof Nitasha was in the news in India last year too. In February 2024, Prof Nitasha was denied entry when she landed at Bengaluru airport. She was invited by the Congress government in Karnataka to attend an event in the state. Karnataka VHP leader Girish Bharadwaj while questioning the Congress government in Karnataka over inviting Prof Nitasha had then written to Union home minister Amit Shah requesting the ministry to terminate her OCI card.

The Bharatiya Janata Party had then claimed the Congress government was "threatening the unity & integrity of India" by extending an invitation to the Kashmiri Pandit professor -- who has written and spoken extensively on Kashmir, Bhutan, and other topics.

OCI, or Overseas Citizenship of India, is a special status for individuals of Indian origin who hold citizenship in another country. It grants them a multiple entry, life-long visa for visiting India, allowing them to travel and stay without restrictions, according to the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Prof Nitasha's OCI card cancellation update, comes on a day when Ali Khan Mahmudabad, who teaches Political Science at Haryana-based Ashoka University, was arrested for his remarks regarding press briefings on Operation Sindoor.

The arrest was based on a complaint filed by Yogesh Jatheri,the general secretary of the BJP Yuva Morcha in Haryana, reports said quoting his lawyers. 

Who is Nitasha Kaul?

Professor Nitasha Kaul is an Indian-origin British citizen who works as a scholar in the UK. A Professor of Politics, International Relations, and Critical Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Westminster in London, Prof Nitasha also describes herself as a ‘Kashmiri novelist.’ Her focus areas include "right-wing politics, postcolonial neoliberal nationalism, the Hindutva project in India, and the history and politics of Kashmir".

Kaul was born in November 1976 in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, into a Kashmiri Pandit family that had migrated from old city in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir. Kaul was raised in New Delhi she had her early schooling at St Thomas' School.

Kaul did her BA Honours in economics from SRCC, Delhi University. She moved to England from India in 1997, at the age of 21, for pursuing her post-graduate degree from University of Hull. Then she did a master's in Economics with a focus on Public Policy, and a Joint PhD in Economics and Philosophy from the University of Hull, United Kingdom in 2003.

Kaul worked as assistant professor of economics at the Bristol Business School between 2002 and 2007. She has also worked asassociate professor in creative writing at the Royal Thimphu College in Bhutan in 2010.

Kaul is also a writer, and a poet. Her debut publication, a scholarly monograph titled ‘Imagining Economics Otherwise: encounters with identity/dierence’ (Routledge, 2007), explores the intersection of economics and philosophy.

‘Can you Hear Kashmiri Women Speak?’

Kaul has also co-edited a special volume for Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) in 2018 focused on ‘Women and Kashmir’. She also co-edited 'Can you Hear Kashmiri Women Speak? Narratives of Resistance and Resilience' (Women Unlimited, 2020) and has provided expert testimony on Kashmir and Human Rights post the 2019 revocation of autonomy for the region.

On October 22, 2019, Kaul served as one of the key witnesses at a United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing about the human rights situation in Jammu and Kashmir, following the revocation of Article 370 in August that year.