Nobel prize winners for literature Orhan Pamuk and John Maxwell Coetzee, and Booker winners Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan are among 260 authors, journalists, activists and artists who have signed a letter urging Prime Minister Narendra Modi to review the decision of revoking Aatish Taseer ’s Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) status.

Other signatories include Chimamanda Adichie, Jonathan Franzen, Zadie Smith, Elif Shafak, Steven Pinker, Sir Harold Evans, Mia Farrow, Thandie Newton, Tina Brown, Gloria Steinem, Anita Desai, Kiran Desai, Amitav Ghosh , Jhumpa Lahiri and Anoushka Shankar .

“We, the undersigned writers, journalists, creative artists, academics, and activists, are writing to join PEN America, English PEN, and PEN International to express our grave concern regarding the Indian government’s recent decision to revoke writer and journalist Aatish Taseer’s OCI status,” the letter begins.

“We are extremely concerned that Taseer appears to have been targeted for an extremely personal form of retaliation due to his writing and reporting that has been critical of the Indian government. We urge that the spirit of the OCI regulations, which are designed to provide status and connection to their roots and family to citizens of other countries with Indian heritage, are upheld, and do not discriminate against single mothers,” it further says.

“Denying access to the country to writers of both foreign and Indian origin casts a chill on public discourse; it flies in the face of India’s traditions of free and open debate and respect for a diversity of views, and weakens its credentials as a strong and thriving democracy . We write to respectfully request that the Indian government review this decision, to ensure that Aatish Taseer has access to his childhood home and family, and that other writers are not similarly targeted,” the letter concludes.

