POLITICS-INDIA: Protests Over Curbs on Foreign Delegates

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Apr 13 2001 (IPS) - Newly revealed Indian government curbs on delegates from some nations attending international conferences in the country, have triggered loud protests.

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and those trying to promote people-to-people contacts, say the Home Ministry’s order is a blow to efforts to reduce political tensions on the subcontinent.

The organisers of such meetings will now have to get the ministry’s prior approval if the participants include nationals of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, Pakistan or Sri Lanka.

Clearance must also be had from the foreign ministry if the meeting “has a bearing on external relations”, says the order.

The interior ministry has also advised against inviting foreign delegates if the conference is of a “political, semi-political, communal or religious nature or…related to human rights…which can be utilised as a platform for any particular line of propaganda.”

The order was issued last year, and though supposed to have been publicised widely, was actually revealed in April.

“This is a blow against efforts to build people-to-people contacts with the neighbouring countries,” says leading Indian peace activist and women’s leader Mohini Giri.

Giri says the order is absurd because it duplicates what is already being done by the foreign ministry when it grants visas to delegates.

“We are very upset because it will affect plans to hold a peace conference here in November, called South Asians for Human Rights,” she says.

She also finds the curbs contrary to the government’s claims of promoting peace with arch-foe Pakistan by encouraging people-to- people contacts.

The so-called Track-Two diplomacy has acquired great importance specially after the two South Asian rivals tested nuclear weapons in May 1998.

Kuldip Nayar, member of the Rajya Sabha (upper house of Parliament) and a former Indian envoy to Britain, too accuses the government of “trying to stall people-to-people contacts between India and Pakistan through the order.”

“It seems New Delhi would rather widen the gap of ignorance and misinformation which has developed in the region due to lack of contact,” says Nayar, who is one of the main organisers of the November peace conference.

He laments that the order came at a time when hopes of peace were being raised by limited contacts between, jurists, lawyers, journalists, students and others in the region.

“Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Nepalese and Sri Lankans are pooling their liberal ideas to attempt to remove the backwardness and to uproot the nettles of hatred which their rulers have sown,” he points out.

Nayar also worries that the curbs will make it difficult to mobilise international support for human rights protection in the country.

“Suppose some organisations in India were to try to mobilise regional support against police torture, the foreign office and the home ministry could withhold permission for such a meet because a concerted effort in the region might not be easy to stall,” he says.

Nayar thinks there is every chance that people “may go ahead with meetings, conferences or workshops without seeking government permission and defy an order which is against the country’s ethos.”

According to Anil Singh, chief of the Voluntary Action Network of India — an umbrella group of Indian NGOs — the curbs will make the work of Indian NGOs more difficult.

Indian NGOs are already constrained by the interior ministry, which closely scrutinises foreign funding received by these groups, he says.

The only relaxation ever made was in the case of foreign relief contributions to NGOs working in areas devastated by the Jan. 26 earthquake in western Gujarat state. But that came to an end on Mar. 31.

Ravi Nair of the New Delhi-based South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre too says the new rules will curb the work of NGOs. Nair’s group has special consultative status with the U.N.’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

The rules limit the right to freedom of assembly and association guaranteed by the Indian Constitution, he adds. “The clearance requirement represents another diminution of political space for NGOs in India,” he says.

“Organisations already working under difficult conditions, must now contend with a requirement that provides substantial political control over their work,” he adds. The curbs also violate India’s international commitments, he says.

But it is the tourist industry that is likely to be hurt most.

“The organisers of conferences and seminars will now prefer to hold them in places like Dhaka or Kathmandu where there are far less hassles,” says a tour operator who specialises in conference management.