Thought Policing or Fighting Terror? - Home Ministry’s curbs on foreign scholars
Foundation for Media Professionals - Background Note on Media Dialogue No.10
Thought Policing or Fighting Terror?
Home Ministry’s curbs on foreign scholars
India is unique among open and democratic societies worldwide in that its government attempts to scrutinise, regulate and vet the credentials and entry of all foreign academics and scholars invited to the country for conferences on “politically and socially sensitive” subjects.
In the case of scholars from a list of eight countries — Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Sudan — or any scholar of “Pakistani origin”, regardless of nationality, official vetting is necessary regardless of the “sensitivity” of the subject of the conference they have been invited to.
In a communication to The Hindu on February 23 outlining the policy and explaining its rationale, Ashim Khurana, Joint Secretary (Foreigners), Ministry of Home Affairs, wrote:
“The guidelines on Conference Visas have been in place for quite some time. These guidelines were revisited through a process of Inter-Ministerial consultations with the stakeholder Ministries/Departments concerned and revised instructions were issued in July, 2009.
“As per the revised guidelines, prior security clearance from MHA is required
• in respect of participants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, Iran, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Iraq, Sudan, foreigners of Pakistani origin and Stateless persons;
• if the participation involves visit to restricted or protected areas in India or areas affected by terrorism, militancy and extremism, etc. viz. Jammu & Kashmir and North-Eastern States;
• if the conference involves politically and socially sensitive subjects.
“The participants from other countries can obtain Conference Visas from the Indian Mission concerned on production of
(i) invitation letter from the organiser,
(ii) event clearance from the Ministry of Home Affairs,
(iii) administrative approval of the nodal Ministry,
(iv) political clearance from the Ministry of External Affairs and
(v) clearance from the State Government/UT concerned.
“The above guidelines supersede all the previous instructions on the subject.
“The fresh guidelines were put in place to streamline the procedure for grant of Conference Visas to bona fide participants. In the present scenario, security imperatives cannot be ignored. As security vetting is a comprehensive process to be performed within a prescribed time line, a period of six weeks has been prescribed to the organisers to submit the details of the proposals so as to ensure that the clearance from MHA is granted well in time for the event and for the participants so that they are not put to any undue hardship in making their travel plans to attend the conference.
“The guidelines are intended to facilitate conferences, not to control free speech or thought.”
In the earlier version of these guidelines, prior to the 2009 revision, the reference to “politically and socially sensitive subjects” was spelled out as subjects which are “political, semi-political, religious, communal or linked to human rights, or which have a bearing on external relations or national security”.
Consider how these guidelines would work in practice. Let us say Professor Jan Breman a leading Dutch scholar of India, is invited to a conference in Ahmedabad on the social consequences of the decline in Gujarat’s textile industry. Before he can get his conference visa at the Indian embassy in The Hague, he must arm himself with four separate clearances: (1) Security clearance by the MHA, (2) Administrative clearance by the Ministry of Textiles, (3) Political clearance by the Ministry of External Affairs, and (4) Event clearance by the Gujarat government.
This entire maze of clearances has been set up to make it as difficult as possible for foreign scholars to come. And though the bureaucrats and politicians say they are motivated by security concerns, the question that is uppermost on their minds is really this: Who is Prof Breman to be interested in Gujarat’s social problems? Why should he be allowed to come to India?
The drive to give the Ministry of Home Affairs a role in scrutinising the credentials of foreign academics goes back to the Indira Gandhi era. In the 1960s, it was quite easy for Western political scientists and sociologists to come to India and conduct research but access became harder in the 1970s, especially during and after the Emergency when the State saw foreign scholars as both a source of subversion and criticism. That mindset has continued down to this day. Foreign PhD students and scholars, in the main, still manage to come to India to do their research but more often than not they do so by coming on a tourist rather than research visa or by hiding the actual subject they wish to study.
In 1999, the Vajpayee government turned its attention to academic conferences and workshops, and specified, for the first time, the requirement that foreign scholars wishing to come to India must secure multiple clearances.
According to overall “Guidelines for organisers of international conferences, seminars, workshops etc. being held in India’ — issued by the ministry in 2000 and still in force today — official clearance from a “nodal ministry” is needed to invite foreign scholars and experts for any event “where substantive discussions/deliberations/interaction and exchange of thoughts and ideas will take place on a specific subject matter.” The nodal ministry will then decide whether to permit the event or refer it on to the MHA if any of the three conditions cited in Mr Ashim Khurana’s note above are triggered.
Business and corporate meetings with foreign participants are excluded from the purview of visa restrictions, as are sporting and cultural events. But what is striking about the ministry’s guidelines is the attempt to regulate and control every branch of learning. Thus, the rules say that the organizers of an academic event involving foreign scholars must first approach their “nodal/administrative ministry” — defined as that ministry of the Government of India “which is dealing/regulating framing rules etc. in respect of subject matter chosen for the event”. Now a conference on education can be referred to the Ministry of Human Resource Development but one wonders which ministry the organizers of an international conference on the hermeneutics of Gadamer would have to go to in order to get “clearance” for their event, or one on emergence of nationalism in 19th century Europe! Presumably knowledge isn’t knowledge if our omniscient babus are not framing rules for it. A scholar can’t be a scholar if she or he has no “nodal ministry”.
The fact that a foreign scholar needs to be vetted by the Home Ministry only when he is attending a conference and not when he is planning a tourist visit to India has led observers to conclude that the object of the visa guidelines is thought control rather than “security”.
The restrictions are, in fact, of a piece with another set of guidelines, less well known and less well implemented, requiring Indian scholars working for public sector institutions (and that includes all state-run universities) to apply for political clearance from the Ministry of Human Resource Development and Ministry of External Affairs prior to attending conferences abroad.
Are such guidelines and restrictions compatible with the freedom of speech and association and the principles of openness that lie at the heart of democracy?
This is the subject the Foundation for Media Professionals wishes to debate on March 9.
(Background note written by Siddharth Varadarajan, who moderated the debate.)
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