NEW DELHI: Notwithstanding Delhi high court describing Greenpeace activist Priya Pillai ’s offloading from a UK-bound flight as “inappropriate”, the Centre has decided to dig in its heels and justify its action as one aimed at preventing her from testifying against the Indian government’s economic agenda, before elected representatives from the UK.In an affidavit to be filed in the HC shortly, the home ministry will argue how Pillai, set to travel to London last month on an air ticket funded by Greenpeace UK, planned to slam the government for ignoring the interests of forest dwellers and others while pushing the Mahan coal mining project in Madhya Pradesh.A senior government officer told TOI that there was specific intelligence that the central purpose of her proposed visit was to talk to British parliamentarians , “which is akin to engaging the UK government”, on how the Mahan mining project would threaten a large forest area, affecting the livelihoods of several locals dependent on it.The affidavit will justify the decision of immigration authorities to offload her from the UK-bound flight on January 11 on the basis of a lookout circular issued by the Intelligence Bureau “in national interest”. A government official said Pillai was free to travel abroad in future but would be offloaded again if the visit was sponsored by foreign agencies with the purpose of building opinion against the Indian government.“If she does have a genuine grievance, there are avenues of protest available here. She can write to the government, sit on a dharna or even go to court. But going and complaining to foreign policymakers, who have no jurisdiction to redress her grievance, is not acceptable,” said an officer.The affidavit will have a set of intelligence reports attached, detailing the grounds on which Pillai could not allowed to undertake a visit funded by Greenpeace, whose Indian arm faces a funding ban. To be filed ahead of the next court hearing on February 18, the affidavit reportedly warns how foreign NGOs deliberately “sponsor” visits by Indian NGO activists abroad to address global forums on the negative impact of economic projects in India on environment and people’s livelihoods.“Their testimonies obviously carry a lot of weight, coming as they do from Indian citizens. These form the basis of global think tank reports slamming India for its economic policies and serve to downgrade India’s ratings on various socio-economic indices. They are also used against India in international trade negotiations. “Allowing sponsored foreign trips by Indian activists to badmouth the government on economic projects here is akin to permitting anti-national propaganda abroad,” said a government official.The Delhi HC, while hearing a writ petition filed by Pillai, had last week termed her offloading as “inappropriate” and asked the government to learn to distinguish between “nationalism and jingoism”.To prohibit citizens from travelling abroad merely because they might criticise the actions of the government or make adverse comments on our society is to impose restrictions that smack of totalitarian regimes. Dubbing such activity as 'anti-national' is really stretching the term beyond all reasonable limits. India's reputation is not so precariously built that it can be destroyed merely by some individual or group's utterances. If anything, it is such intolerant behaviour by the state that can do immense damage to our reputation as a mature, liberal democracy.