The Foreigner Bogey

India Must Get Over Its Multiple Paranoias

The year 2004 ended tragically for large parts of South Asia, with thousands of lives lost and an equal number struggling to survive in its aftermath. But if there is one thing the natural disaster highlighted, it was the importance of international cooperation and coordination on issues that concern the poorest and the most vulnerable. As the Representative of the UN Secretary General on the human rights of internally displaced persons (IDPs) has pointed out, while the global response to the tsunami-induced crisis was heart warming, it also served to underscore the fact that if a regional system of disaster management had been in place, the loss of life and property would have possibly been much lower.

The tragedy has proved that there are issues and crises that span national boundaries and which demand a response that cannot be confined to the parameters of domestic policy. However, South Asian countries, including India have been unwilling to acknowledge this fact. In the case of India, the twin notions of ‘self-reliance’ and ‘national sovereignty’ are routinely used to dismiss cross-border, regional or international solutions to common problems. This paranoid mindset has in the past led to severe, but avoidable suffering. As The Indian Express pointed out, the El Nino phenomenon resulted in two droughts in India, affecting vast sections of the population. The United States, on the other hand, had received intimation of the El Nino visitation months in advance. The principle of self-reliance, as The Indian Express rightly observes, must not mean the rejection of advances in technology, such as in the area of weather forecasting.

Similarly, the problems of internal displacement of people due to the tsunami are a question of rights – the government is obligated to ensure that they are resettled and rehabilitated. The victims are qualified to demand this right, not merely to request it.

‘National sovereignty’ is another bogey that has often been used to stall assistance and cooperation on issues impacting on the lives of its citizens. To take another current example, several international organisations based in india have reportedly been unable to join the relief effort in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Much of the area is off limits to foreigners due to security concerns and because the government wishes to protect the indigenous people on the islands. However, the aid agencies, such as Oxfam and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), have a long and credible history of delivering humanitarian relief in critical situations. To suggest that the entry of these agencies would jeopardise national security and the indigenous people’s way of life is absurd. The agencies have been reporting as saying that valuable time is being lost due to the government’s refusal to grant permission. The denial of access is inexplicable in a situation where thousands of lives are at risk. 

Multifaceted Paranoia

This paranoia extends to a host of other areas. For years, the Indian government refused to allow foreign direct investment (FDI) in the print media, chiefly on the grounds of ‘cultural invasion’ and ‘national security’ before finally changing the policy in 2002 to allow 26 percent FDI in that sector. And yet, the ghosts of the past do not let go easily. The government is now considering bringing a law that will prevent the publication of foreign newspapers in the country.

Other areas where human lives, dignity and basic freedoms are at stake are viewed with equal mistrust. Scrutiny is anathema to the Indian establishment, whether internal or external. Thus, from 1999 onwards, all NGOs wishing to hold international conferences in India must first get prior permission from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) as well as other relevant ministries, i.e. pertaining to the issue of the proposed conference. The clearance requirement is not pursuant to any law, rule or guidelines. It is simply a practice arbitrarily fixed by the government which came into automatic effect. Since then, there have been numerous instances of denials of visas for foreign participants on spurious grounds. In adopting the clearance requirement, the Ministry of External Affairs has established a firm political control over the subject matter of international conferences and the involvement of foreign nationals in conferences on issues the State perceives as “politically sensitive”. The clearance forms issued by the Ministry of External Affairs state that the ministry takes note of the “political angle” in deciding whether to grant permission for the holding of an international conference and the participation of foreign delegates.

The Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA), 1976, is one of the most instructive examples of India’s skewed obsession with the ‘national interest’. An anachronistic Emergency-era statute, the FCRA is used to restrict the work of Indian NGOs by requiring either registration or prior permission for the receipt of foreign funding. Genuine and credible sections of the NGO community have continually maintained that a scrutiny of NGO accounts and activities is indeed necessary. However, the financial scrutiny should be the task of the Ministry of Finance, not the highly politicised Home Ministry. And, regular criminal justice procedures are sufficient to check any wrongdoing by the NGOs. The Home Ministry has been known to blatantly employ the FCRA as a political tool, basing its decisions on the issues the NGO works on, the extent of criticism of laws and policies by the NGO, and threatening to cancel registration of NGOs whose activities it finds inimical to the ‘national interest’. 

As for international scrutiny, the Indian government mostly dismisses it on the grounds that its democratic character makes external evaluation unnecessary. For a country seeking permanent member status in the United Nations Security Council, it has shown great reluctance to engage with human rights experts who, in fact, work in an independent capacity. New Delhi has consistently refused to issue invitations to the Experts of the UN Commission on Human Rights, whereas even countries like China and Iran have done so.

“We are a democracy”, the State affirms, and yet, lurking in this confident proclamation is a deep disdain for international institutions and contempt for the idea of transparency. Few in the Indian establishment acknowledge this incongruity; in fact, most would rather have it this way. Nowhere was the inflated and pervasive notion of national self-respect more evident than in this revealing interaction between former Indian prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao and the editor of a top Indian newspaper (the answer is instructive, but so is the tenor of the question):

Shekhar Gupta: Mr Rao, will you tell me how intense was the pressure on you at that time? Kashmir erupting; crises in Babri Masjid, Charar-e-Sharief; pressure on human rights and proliferation.

P.V. Narasimha Rao: The pressure on human rights is very interesting. We used to get a missive every day or every three days from Amnesty International. The answer to that was we had our own human rights commission. And after that Amnesty International just forgot about India.

(Excerpted from ‘On the Record: P V Narasimha Rao’, The Indian Express, 13 May 2004)

It was thus this stunted understanding of democracy, transparency and self-reliance that led to the creation of a human rights commission, not the sincere desire to safeguard the human rights of this country’s citizens. It is a legacy the National human Rights Commission of India (NHRC) has been unable to live down. It functions as any other government institution – tired, lethargic and too afraid to speak its mind. The government’s contempt for scrutiny – whether national or international – has meant the routine disregarding of the NHRC’s orders, the refusal to grant it adequate powers, a crippling lack of resources, and more recently, an attempt to pack it with yes-men.

Conclusion

It is ironic that even as India opens up its economy to foreign investment, it continues to suffer from xenophobic attitudes in other areas. Foreign direct investment in sectors such as power, telecom and even defence production is no longer considered a threat to national security. However, the entry of humanitarian organisations wishing to assist victims of a natural disaster is apparently too dangerous. So is the holding of an international conference, or a request by an independent human rights expert to visit the country. Such paranoias are a reflection of a country’s insecurity. For strength and self-reliance, look elsewhere.

 Human Rights Features