India Denies Asylum to Snowden

The Guardian/Reuters National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden in Hong Kong on June 6.

NEW DELHI-Edward J. Snowden, the world's most famous homeless person, has a wish list of 19 countries where his representatives are seeking his political asylum from the United States. The list includes Cuba and Ireland, Finland and France, Russia and China, and more. And then there is India.

On Tuesday, India's embassy in Moscow received a request for asylum on behalf of Mr. Snowden. Within hours, his plea was officially denied.

“I can confirm that earlier today o ur embassy in Moscow did receive a communication dated 30 June from Mr. Edward Snowden,” Syed Akbaruddin, spokesman for India's Ministry of External Affairs, said in a statement released in New Delhi on Tuesday afternoon. “That communication did contain a request for asylum. We have carefully examined that request. Following the examination, we have concluded that we see no reason to accede to the request.”

Mr. Snowden is now living in limbo inside Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow. American officials have revoked his passport and charged him with espionage after he leaked confidential information about domestic and international surveillance programs conducted by the National Security Agency.

Sanja Baid/European Pressphoto Agency Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh on June 27.

In the past, India has often granted political asylum to international figures, especially from the surrounding region. The Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, fled China in 1959, navigating the Himalayas by foot and eventually settling in Dharamsala, where he remains perhaps the world's most famous exile. Another Tibetan leader, the Karmapa Lama, made a similar exodus. Then there are Tamil leaders from Sri Lanka, the family of the former king of Afghanistan and the Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin.

Virginie Lefour/European Pressphoto Agency Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin at a press conference in Belgium on Feb. 2, 2011.

In fact, India regularly grants asylum and provides assistance to refugees from neighboring countries, like Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, China, Myanmar and others. And this doesn't include the steady cross-border flow of illegal immigration, including from Bangladesh, which is periodically a factor in ethnic violence in the northeastern state of Assam.

“In an ideal world, India should have provided asylum to Mr. Snowden,” said Amitabh Mattoo, professor of international relations at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. “India, in the past, has given asylum to Dalai Lama, to Tamil separatist leaders, so why not to Mr. Snowden? But India would not jeopardize its relations at this stage with America on the issue of Mr. Snowden.”

Mr. Snowden's advisers at WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy group, may have included India on his wish list out of the hope that Indian officials are annoyed by the Snowden-leaked revelation that American agencies have been spying on the embassies of many countries, including those of several allies, among them India.

But the Indian government is no crusader against surveillance programs. In fact, India is already in the midst of its own domestic debate about privacy and government surveillance of citizens.

India had quietly announced its surveillance system, the Central Monitoring System (C.M.S.) in 2011 in an official report, and the surveillance project is expected to be implemented by August across the country. The surveillance project would allow the Indian government to read e-mails, s earch inboxes, monitor activity on social media, track Internet usage of an individual and also tap landline and mobile phones in real time. The C.M.S. project can target any of India's 160 million Internet users and 900 million mobile phone and landline users.

Yet very little has been known about how it will be used, who will be authorized to use it, and what legal safeguards would citizens have against its abuse by security agencies. “This has created a serious risk of overreach and monitoring of innocent by the security agencies,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director for Human Rights Watch.

“What is to protect a citizen from a policeman deciding that a comment that person makes on Facebook is not seditious and arrest the person? India's sedition law has repeatedly been misused as it can be interpreted in a dangerous way. We are demanding a repeal of the sedition laws and greater transparency and information about the C.M.S. project,” she added.< /p>