Free speech for non-citizens?

There's one aspect of the recent furore about the treatment of Taslima Nasreen which I believe hasn't received sufficient attention: the question of her citizenship. Unlike the producers of Jodha(a?)-Akbar, for example, she is not a citizen of India. She is a visitor at the courtesy of the Indian government, and as such is subject to restrictions on the enjoyment of certain rights which Indian citizens can avail of freely. To argue that what the Indian government has done in her case is unconscionable (and I refer here to her being asked to leave, not about her 'house arrest') is to take a position on an issue about which reasonable disagreement can exist.

The Constitution's founders, in their wisdom, founded the republic on the following basis:

'We the People of India having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a Sovereign Democratic Republic and to secure to all its citizens...liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship' (the Preamble to the unamended Constitution)

The limitation of the enjoyment of the right of free expression was quite deliberate, as may be seen from the wording of Art. 19(1)(a):

'All citizens shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression'

Understanding the Constitution as it stood in 1950, therefore, it appears quite evident that certain freedoms are not automatically available to non-citizens of India. Parliament may, at its discretion, have extended these freedoms to such individuals, but this is not mandated by the Constitution. Thus, there's nothing immediately unconscionable about restricting the speech and expression rights of Taslima.

I don't think it should automatically follow, either, that the Indian government has an obligation to extend these constitutional freedoms to non-citizens in general, and to Ms Nasreen in particular. An Indian's citizenship is a valuable part of her identity, we have certain peculiar rights and obligations to enjoy and uphold by virtue of our constitutional position in the Indian state (since the Union of India rests on the endorsement of we, the people). To extend the enjoyment of the rights available to Indians to everyone else wholesale is to depreciate the value which one's own citizenship has. We have certain rights by virtue of our Indian-ness; either we have been born to the country, and have political, cultural and/or social ties (however distant) to it, or our parents do, and we enjoy the same ties by virtue of our relationship to them, or we have demonstrated a commitment to the idea of India by living there for a certain period of time (these are the requirements of Art. 5, and the Citizenship Act). Ms Nasreen is a political refugee, and it is quite a matter of pride that she chose India as her base away from persecution (as did the Tibetans, but more about them a little later), but she chose to live here at the pleasure of the government, and on the terms which it imposed on her, as on other visitors. In this respect, she is different from those who protested her presence in the country: the government is constitutionally obliged to respect their wishes, but it is not so required to protect her speech rights. When caught between the demands of (some of) its constituents, and the interests of a visitor, the government chose the former. It can well be debated whether this was the right postion to take, this is a matter on which reasonable disagreement can exist. It is unfair, however, to hold that there is only one position which the Indian government could morally take on the issue, to do so is to ignore the ethos of our Constitution: that being Indian means something special, and the enjoyment of the rights of Indian citizenship are a mark of distinction in this respect.

This is not to appear to be a rabid nationalist, far from it. Cosmopolitan arguments carry a good deal of influence with me, and I cannot deny that I have fully enjoyed the protection of good laws in the countries I have lived in as a guest. However, cosmopolitanism is not a universal value, it is possible to have reasonable (and morally acceptable) disagreement about whether a State should be cosmopolitan or not (e.g. Bhutan), and the degree to which it should be accommodating of the rights and interests of others who are not part of its political constituency. In light of India's experiences with imperial domination not too long ago, it is perhaps not surprising that its citizenship requirements are so onerous. Perhaps some day this will change, but that day is not here yet.

A word about Tibetan refugees and speech rights: I am a strong critic of the government's policy to bar Tibetan refugees from protesting in Delhi. This needs a longer discussion than a post-script, but I will outline my position in brief here: given the strength of the Tibetan government-in-exile's association with India, and the invaluable contributions of the Tibetan community to the State and the regions where they have settled, it is unfair to deny them the protection of the rights which other citizens enjoy. Questions of line-drawing, and substantive distinctions may well arise, but I think the point should not be over-emphasised too much. It would be tough to compare the contributions of the 100,000-odd Tibetan settlers in India with those of Ms Nasreen, and not just for reasons arising out of numerical superiority.