The decision to revoke the visa issued to Chinese dissident Uyghur leader Dolkun Isa has averted a bigger diplomatic face-off with Beijing. It has also put an uncomfortable spotlight on the Central government’s handling of such a sensitive issue. There is, first, the question of how Mr. Isa’s application slipped through the cracks of India’s much vaunted ‘e-visa’ system. If, indeed, as the government now claims, the visa approval was inadvertent, then it must be investigated how the system did not flag an application from a person with a Red Notice from Interpol. Second, the episode exposes a failure of coordination between the External Affairs and Home Ministries and the intelligence agencies, which failed to detect and vet applications of all those seeking to attend a high-profile conference in Dharamsala, with participants representing Taiwan and the Tibet and Uyghur regions. While India prides itself on support to groups fighting for freedom of expression around the world, it also has a stringent system of scrutiny for those entering the country. On the other hand, if, as sources in the government were quoted widely as saying, the visa decision was deliberate and meant to be a response to China blocking a proposed United Nations ban on Masood Azhar, then that too must be explained. Was the decision meant to indicate a shift in India’s China policy, as well as in its security policy on Interpol notices? If so, were all concerned government agencies informed of the shift in policy? Equally, if the decision to grant the visa to Mr. Isa and his colleagues of the World Uyghur Congress was a carefully deliberated decision, what prompted the move to revoke it? It has been suggested that the revocation came in response to China’s outraged response. Given the alarm domestically and from Beijing over, for diverse reasons, the issue of the visa and its revocation, the government must face these and other uncomfortable questions.
There is a larger principle, however, that the government appears to be in danger of ignoring. In its efforts at the United Nations to ratify a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism, India has often made the case that it refuses, on principle, to encourage separatism or interfere in other countries’ internal matters. This is part of the country’s larger case that all charges of terrorism must be treated equally, that there can be no distinction between “good” and “bad” terrorists. Delhi may well protest China’s cover to terrorists based in Pakistan, such as Hafiz Saeed and Masood Azhar. But it must think carefully before adopting the path that China or Pakistan have. Its moral positions on terrorism, and its refusal to bend its principles regardless of provocations from repeated terror attacks, have benefited its global outreach on crucial issues, including security. To lose this would be a huge setback. An “eye for an eye”, “tit for tat” policy in this regard is unlikely to bring India the justice it demands, however justified that demand is.
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