Maps are serious business. I should know. Over the years, my publications have twice been sued by an over-zealous home ministry for publishing the wrong map of India.
The images in both cases came from our contributing editor Harish Mehta (younger brother of the late editor-in-chief of Outlook). Harish was then posted in Singapore.
India’s borders with Pakistan and China are especially sensitive. The slightest variation in a published map draws the wrath of the state. One of our cases dragged on for years in a criminal court (yes, publishing an inaccurate map is a criminal offence) before a kind judge acquitted us.
The government’s new Geospatial Information Regulation Bill, 2016, is seeking public responses till June 3, 2016 before it is debated and legislated in Parliament’s next session.
On the face of it, the Bill has the imprint of the heavy hand of a colonial-minded bureaucracy in the home ministry. According to the draft Bill, publishing an “illegal” map will carry a seven-year jail term and a penalty of up to Rs. 100 crore.
As if this weren’t ludicrous enough, the government will monitor violations through a newly established Security Vetting Authority (SVA) whose permission will be needed, as one newspaper reported, “For acquiring maps, geospatial data through ‘space or aerial platforms such as satellite, aircraft, balloons, unmanned aerial vehicles or terrestrial vehicles, or any other means.’ An ‘apex committee’ will oversee the SVA; publication/dissemination of India’s map, online or offline, to be vetted by the SVA, after the publisher gets a licence; older maps must seek a licence within a year of the Bill being passed; licencees must display ‘insignia of clearance’.”
Obviously, national borders are sacrosanct. So is their depiction. But the government’s proposed Bill has three problems.
First, it is impossible in the cyber age to monitor and “vet” every map. Websites or newspapers may inadvertently publish an image of a map that inaccurately depicts India’s borders. The original source may be untraceable. To place the onus of accuracy on a secondary or tertiary publisher of the map transcends both law and commonsense.
Second, the need for a licence brings back the dark shadow of the Licence Raj. The job of government is to make things simpler, not complicate them. Geospatial maps and GPS devices are used by all manner of entities – from Uber cabs to logistics firms. Requiring all such businesses, small and big, to acquire a licence is regressive, unnecessary and counter-productive.
Third, the penalty for violation – a fine of up to Rs. 100 crore and/or seven years in jail – is like using an AK 56 to kill an ant.
There is no practical way to ensure that India’s borders are depicted in every map produced or published in the country with 100 per cent accuracy. In any case, deliberate violations will take place in countries like Pakistan and China.
The Bill is manifestly targeted at companies such as Google and Twitter which often represent India’s borders inaccurately. Twitter did so some months ago, grossly misrepresenting the border of Jammu & Kashmir. It corrected the error following strong protests on twitter itself.
The Geospatial Bill would make sense if it were specifically aimed at big global companies that wittingly or unwittingly misrepresent India’s borders with Pakistan and China. Clubbing individuals and small businesses with them makes little sense.
Public comments for the proposed Geospatial Information Regulations Bill, 2016, close on June 3. It’s time to write to the home ministry that a differentiated, light-handed approach works better in such matters than the heavy hand of bureaucracy.
Columnist
Minhaz Merchant is the biographer of Rajiv Gandhi and Aditya Birla and author of The New Clash of Civilizations (Rupa, 2014). He is founder of Sterling Newspapers Pvt. Ltd. which was acquired by the Indian Express group
