For the last few years, I’ve published blogs for Freedom Firm, since Greg and I are founders and I love to write. Our work in India in anti-human trafficking over the last 17 years is documented on the Freedom Firm website. Recently, I have found myself reflecting more personally on our current fight to practice our constitutional freedoms in this great land of India.
The outcome of this fight will have far-reaching implications in our own lives as well as the lives of other foreigners in India who are also Overseas Citizens of India (OCI’s). This is a fight about religious freedom and the right to practice and share our faith under the constitutionally sanctioned rights under the OCI privileges. This is a battle to convince the government that we cannot be thrown out without a fair hearing. This is our protest to practice our freedoms within the law of this land.
Currently, I am operating on borrowed time in the midst of a flurry of urgent litigation, hearings, and appeals in court as I respond to the latest “Leave India Notice” delivered just two weeks ago. Fourteen months ago, four days before Christmas, my husband Greg, daughter Abigail and our son Morgan were handed similar letters instructing us to leave India within seven days.
We won a small victory when the courts told the central government of India that they needed to do a proper investigation and find evidence to deport us. The government took the court demands seriously and five separate government departments have conducted exhaustive investigations of our family, our work with Freedom Firm and Freedom Firm itself looking to find evidence for the charge of “missionary activity.”
I was born in India and currently hold and Overseas Citizen of India status, granted to me by the government of India. My husband and four children also are OCI holders based on my original status. My daughter Abbi graduates from high school in June here in Ooty, and Morgan, our son will graduate in 2018. We fight for the right for our children to finish their education. We fight for the right for us to stay on the land we purchased and the home we built. India is our home.
