Her investigations were not welcome in Modi’s India, so neither was she

Singapore: The ABC’s lead India correspondent Avani Dias has returned to Australia after a campaign of intimidation and bureaucratic meddling by the nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

A decision to withhold Dias’ visa came after an episode of Foreign Correspondent about Sikh separatism aired last month and before the final instalment of her podcast investigating Modi’s life.

Avani Dias, ABC’s South Asia correspondent, has returned to Australia after more than two years reporting from India. Credit: ABC

Lobbying from the office of Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong won Dias, from the ABC’s South Asia bureau, a mere two-month visa extension – but it was not delivered until after she and her partner had packed up their New Delhi home and made arrangements to leave.

They flew to Australia the next day, which was also the opening of India’s weeks-long national elections. Modi and his right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are expected to win comfortably.

Dias discusses the situation in the finale of her podcast series Looking for Modi.

“The Modi administration gave me the visa in the very last minute,” she says in the episode.

“But it felt too difficult to do my job in India. I was struggling to get into public events run by Modi’s party. The government wouldn’t even give me the passes I need to cover the election.

“It’s by design. The Narendra Modi government has made me feel so uncomfortable that we decided to leave.”

It is understood Dias, a multiple Walkley Award finalist and former host of Triple J’s current affairs flagship Hack, applied for a routine one-year visa extension early this year. But shortly before the existing visa was due to expire this month, Dias was informed her Foreign Correspondent story was not welcome, and neither was she.

The phone call from the official inside the Ministry of External Affairs also raised the podcast about Modi.

Weeks later, while the Australian government was working behind the scenes, India’s Press Information Bureau told the ABC she would not be granted election accreditation because of a direct order from External Affairs.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi campaigning in Chennai, India.Credit: AP

Journalists in India say they are increasingly subject to state intimidation, or worse. Some have been jailed. Others have been stripped of their status as an Overseas Citizen of India, a scheme allowing foreigners of Indian origin or with an Indian spouse to come and go easily.

However, such extreme cases involving Western organisations with reporters established in the country are exceedingly rare.

Critics accuse the government of enforcing an authoritarian brand of Hindu-nationalism and using state institutions to silence dissent, including the jailing this year of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

Weeks after the BBC broadcast a documentary about Modi’s actions as the Chief Minister of Gujarat during deadly 2002 sectarian riots, tax authorities raided the broadcaster’s Indian offices.

The Modi administration stresses its agencies are always independent.

The Foreign Correspondent piece explored the murder of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada, which authorities there pinned on Indian state operatives. Filming took the crew to Nijjar’s family home in India and to several activists still agitating for an independent Sikh nation called Khalistan. The issues – Khalistan and Nijjar’s personal story – are extremely sensitive to the Indian government.

The journalists were questioned in Punjab by the Criminal Intelligence Department and, despite prior approval, were blocked from filming a public event at the India-Pakistan border.

After the program aired, the Indian government used its laws to force YouTube and other social media sites to wipe this episode, and a separate news package featuring Australian Sikh activists from their Indian platforms.

The phone call from the ministry came soon after. In addition to crossing the uncrossable line of Sikh separatism, the ABC was told the episode breached foreign journalist visa rules because it was 30 minutes long. Authorities, therefore, deemed it a documentary, which had different visa requirements.

Dias and other news journalists have previously reported at this length without trouble.

“The ABC fully backs and stands by the important and impactful reporting by Avani Dias during her time as ABC correspondent in India,” ABC managing director David Anderson said.

“Avani joins the Four Corners team as a reporter in coming weeks. The ABC believes strongly in the role of independent journalism across the globe, and freedom of the press outside Australia.”

The Ministry of External Affairs and Wong’s office have been contacted for comment.

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