The denial of research visas to American scholars raises some fundamental questions about the state’s stranglehold on higher education in India, questions that are not all answered by strange bureaucratic ideas, as reported in this newspaper, involving red and green channels for research proposals. All countries regulate visas on considerations like financial solvency and likelihood of return to home country. But India is possibly the only democratic country that gives itself wide latitude for regulating visas based on research subjects scholars propose to study. This paternalism is part of a larger and onerous pattern of state control over institutional life. The idea that universities are autonomous is almost a complete joke here.

Indian universities cannot often invite researchers or give them long-term affiliations without prior permission of government. Can you imagine Harvard and Berkeley having to ask the US government every time they organise a conference or hire researchers? Can you imagine professors at American universities having to seek government permission before they travel? Why cannot Indian institutions be given the same autonomy? Why should a simple letter from a recognised Indian university not suffice for establishing the bonafides of research? The issue is not whether the institutions are public, private or not-for-profit. In education, institutions should have the autonomy to best judge what their research requirements are.

Genuine reform requires adherence to two principles. First, the state should allocate its time efficiently by setting its priorities right. And second, only those competent to judge the importance of a particular matter should be empowered to do so. The entire visa regime for researchers violates both principles. It creates mountains of work for applicants and the state alike. And such policies empower babus to judge on matters they know almost nothing about. A state that thinks it is omniscient and all-powerful and should have a monopoly over judging what research is appropriate can be a stifling entity. The solution therefore does not lie just in tinkering with visa regimes, creating more bureaucratic distinctions, or promising more efficiency. The solution lies in radically deregulating higher education, so that both public and private institutions can exercise genuine autonomy and freedom. The ability to affiliate researchers from all over the world is part of that freedom.