"Forced To Leave India": Another French Journalist Says After Centre Denies Renewal Of Work Permit
On Thursday, French journalist Sébastien Farcis said that he had been forced to leave India by the Central government after the Ministry of Home Affairs denied renewing his journalist permit. Farcis claims that despite making repeated requests and appeals, the Ministry has not provided any reasons to justify the work ban.
Farcis, who has lived and worked as a journalist in India for over 13 years, took to X (formerly known as Twitter) and stated, “Three months ago, on 7th March, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) denied the renewal of my journalist permit, preventing me from practicing my profession and depriving me of all my income.”
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The journalist stated that since he began working in India in 2011, he has obtained all the necessary documents, including visas and accreditations. Despite following all regulations imposed on foreign journalists and the MHA even granting him permits to report from areas near the border, the unexplained work ban came as a “big shock” to Farcis.
“It was communicated to me on the eve of the Indian general elections, the largest democratic elections in the world, which I was hence forbidden to cover. This appeared to me as an incomprehensible censorship,” Farcis stated.
In his statement, Farcis states, “At least five OCI foreign correspondents have been banned from working as journalists in less than two years.”
The French journalist, who has Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) status, is married to an Indian woman and has expressed his deep attachment to India, his “second homeland.” With no means of livelihood here, Farcis states that he is “forced to return to France.” He has applied for a new work permit and is hopeful.
After 13 years working as a correspondent in India, the authorities have denied me a permit to work as a journalist. I have thus been forced to leave the country.
Here is my statement. pic.twitter.com/m52Q4ABsRk— Sébastien Farcis (@sebfarcis) June 20, 2024
Created in 2005 under the Citizenship Act of 1955, the OCI allows foreign citizens of Indian origin or foreigners married to Indian citizens to enter India without a visa, work, reside, hold property, and more.
Farcis is not the only journalist whose OCI status has been revoked. He is not even the first French journalist. Several Indian-origin academics, activists, and journalists, particularly those critical of the BJP’s Hindu majoritarian ideology, have seen their OCI status revoked.
In February, Vanessa Dougnac, French journalist and a South Asian correspondent living in India for over 23 years, claimed that she was being forced to leave the country by the government, which described her articles as “malicious” and harming “the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India.”
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Australian journalist Avani Dias, also a South Asian correspondent, was forced to leave India after the PM Modi-led central government made it “too difficult” for her by blocking her from accessing events, issuing takedown notices for her news stories uploaded on YouTube, and refusing the renewal of her standard visa, she claimed. She said, “It’s all by design. The Narendra Modi government has made me feel so uncomfortable that we decided to leave. There’s always a feeling of unease that this sort of backlash could come your way as a journalist in India, I’ve felt it the whole time I’ve been here, so have my colleagues from other publications,” as quoted by The Guardian.
In 2019, Aatish Taseer found out that his OCI status was cancelled, citing allegations that the journalist concealed his father’s Pakistani origin. Taseer had written a critical profile of PM Modi in TIME magazine around the same time.
A report by Article 14 in February revealed that the central government led by Modi has cancelled more than 100 Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) cards over the course of nine years, and blacklisted several others. According to the report, Indian embassies are tasked with monitoring and prohibiting entry for individuals who have spoken, or even tweeted, against Modi, his policies, and Hindutva.
