Restricting international conferences

The Supreme Court, in its wisdom, has dismissed the petition challenging the Union Home Ministry memorandum making it mandatory for organizers of international conferences and seminars to seek prior clearance if such events cover certain subjects or are attended by members from specified neighboring countries.

While the Court's general observation that certain restrictions on free expression are justified in the interests of the country's sovereignty cannot be faulted, the Home Ministry's order deserves to be questioned on many grounds.

To begin with, it is baffling why a broad procedural hurdle of the kind laid down in the memorandum is necessary in the first place. Clearances are mandatory under this order for conferences on subjects which have been defined in an extensive and imprecise manner.

Some of these subjects, such as human rights, seem to have no direct bearing on questions of national security and the country's sovereignty -- the very issues which have been invoked to defend this and other such procedural rules.

And finally, the memorandum contains a discriminatory and offensive provision by making it mandatory for conference organizers to secure prior clearance in case any of the events has participants from five select neighbors -- Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, China and Sri Lanka. To identify foreign scholars and academics wholly on the basis of their country seems reflective of paranoia and not of reason.

It is true, as the Supreme Court has pointed out, that the Home Ministry's memorandum is only in the nature of a procedural guideline. But, as past experience has demonstrated, such rules -- particularly when they are broad and ill-defined -- are capable of misuse in the hands of an insensitive Government.

Therefore, it is not surprising at all that the Home Ministry's new order is seen as a threat to free expression as well as a potential danger to the autonomy of Indian universities, NGOs and think-tanks which organize international conferences and symposia.

Procedural rules of this nature also seem very much out of place in an age where technology has made the free flow of information across borders not only possible but also unstoppable. The Supreme Court's decision to dismiss the petition challenging the order must not be treated by the Government as an approval to implement the order in a discriminatory or excessive manner.

-- The Hindu, New Delhi