An article I found on silly photography laws in India.

Photography: Why Foolish Restrictions?

A photograph accompanying this article shows London airport, one of the largest, most elaborate and important in the world. 

The original shows every detail of hangers, runways, administrative and public buildings, as well as construction in progress on new facilities to handle the jumbo jets, when they come. 

The photography reveals, in fact, every minute detail of military importance to a potential enemy. Yet it was taken by a London commercial firm of photographers and published in a famous magazine of world-wide circulation. Any member of the public can buy as many original copies of it as they like for a few shillings. 

Forbidden 
Here in India we are told as soon as we take off in an I. A. C. plane that the use of cameras during flights is forbidden, though many of us would like to take snapshots of the temples and villages over which we pass at low altitudes. 

On the ground, glaring notices warn that photography is strictly forbidden, though many of us would like to take pictures of our friends leaving or arriving or the spectacular take-off of Boenings and Caravelles. 

No one forbids photography on international flights. On my way to London last year I took perfectly satisfactory photographs of the Gulf of Aquaba and of the Suez Canal from the V.C. 10 in which I was a passenger, and this was just two days before the start of the six day war - the air below us thick with jet fighters. 

For some quite incomprehensible reason, officials in India are mortally afraid of photographs. Could it be, one wonders, that photographs are apt to reveal incontrovertible evidence of negligence and inefficiency. Every where photography is frowned upon and often quiet illegally-forbidden. 

This goes to such absurd extremes that in a recent visit to Orissa, at a remote region on the southern finger of Chilka Lake, I found a notice announcing that photography was not forbidden! It would never have occurred to me or anyone else, that it was! There was nothing there to photograph anyway-nothing but a few barren hills and a flat, featureless stretch of the lake. Nothing, in fact, except the absurd and badly written notice itself! 

On my first visit to Calcutta, a few years ago, I was greatly impressed by the smartness of the policemen there, clad in immaculate white overalls, with contrasting black belting and white plastic helmets of the most modern pattern. I wished to take a photograph of one of them and merely out of polinteness I first asked if he would mind my doing so. 

"No!" he said bluntly.
"But why ever not"? I asked him
He though for a minute and then: "No rule permitting," he said.

Can freedom and progress, I wondered, ever flourish in a community where nothing can be done without legislation of some kind to permit it? 

These idiotic restrictions can, and often do, have serious results and are another of the many reasons why India has such a bad name among international tourists, any why so many are frightened off. 

For example, foreigners have been arrested for taking photographs of the Howrah Bridge, though picture postcards of the bridge can be bought anywhere in Calcutta. Many photographs, including captions giving every possible technical detail about the bridge, have been published in newspapers and elsewhere from the time it was built. Back in Europe or the United States, the word quickly spreads among intending visitors that its no good going to India where it is often actually dangerous to take photographs. 

I was informed recently that even in the celebrated Hanging Gardens of Bombay there are notices up forbidding photography, on account, apparently, of some reservoir or other just below. 

Professionals
Another absurdity concerns ordinance survey maps of India. At one time any membger of the public could buy large-scale maps of India, but since the Chinese invasion of the north-east this has been forbidden. Now the last ordinance survey of India was carried out in British days-1943 was the year. I believe and naturally the British still have the maps. Anyone can buy a complete set of those forbidden maps in London to do what he please with them. 

For the professional press photographer working in India the prospect is even worse. A few months ago I watched Madras harbor lobourers unload a wheat ship, wasting a great deal of grain by the use of hooks which tore the sacks. An official told me that he had frequently tried to prevent the use of hooks, but the men threatened to strike. A photograph of this waste, appearing in the press, would do much to arouse public opinion on the side of the officials. But as the harbour is a restricted area I was not permitted to perform the public service of taking it-which is very much a part of my job. 

A few month ago I was repeatedly threatened with arrest by a sub-inspector when I took photographs of a perfectly ordinary lorry crash on an open road. 

A few days later I sent on of my photographers to the Madras High Court to take a picture of the bronze statue there of Sir Bashyam Iyengar, the first Indian Advocate General and the first Indian to be knighted. Sir Bashyam happens to be my wife's great grandfather. We wanted a good picture of the statue and the inscription for family reasons. 

My photographer was bullied and insulted by the security officer there, who again threatened him with arrest should he dare take the photographs. It is certainly difficult to see why a photograph of a bronze statue should constitute a security hazard! 

Now what is the actual legal position of taking photographs? Why does the British Government raise no objection to a photograph of London airport being widely published? 

The answer is that any potential enemy of the State could take such photographs any way, and quite certainly many of them already have. 

Opportunities 
It may be recalled that the photographs President Kennedy caused to be taken of Khrushchev's missile based in Cuba prevented a world war by rousing universal public indignation. 

Photographs of any installations of military interest can be taken with little risk of detection. There are of course the highly sophisticated methods such as high-flying aircraft fo the celebrated U-2 type, or the artificial satellites, and so on. Photographs of the London airport kind could easily be taken from regular civil aircraft of a foreign nation while circling to land, and no one would be the wiser. 

Down on the ground, the old-fashioned spy himself has limitless opportunities. He can use subminiature and button-hole cameras, telephoto lenses and even infra-red photography at night. In fact anyone taking the necessary trouble could secure all the photographs he liked under the very nose of security officers. 

Prohibiting photography at such places therefore puts a potential enemy under no disadvantages whatsoever. It does, however, bring the nation into ridicule and serves as a constant and totally irrelevant irritation to perfectly innocent press photographers, visitors and tourists, And India can be sure that any potential enemy who wants the information such photo0graphs could bring, already has them. 

The affair with the sub-inspector-which I am glad to say is at present the subject of an enquiry - is not an isolated incident. 

I was once physically prevented from taking photographs of a minor political demonstration by two burly plain-clothes C.I.D. men. During rioting we have had occasions when our photographers have been physically abused by the police and the film torn form their cameras. 

The latest was during student rioting in Madras on December 10 when the camera being used by an Indian Express photographer was confiscated on the direct orders of the police Commissioner. 

When it was pointed out him that him action was illegal and that interference with the freedom of the press was unconstitutional, this officer's reply was that it was he who was giving the orders there. 

The camera was later released, but no apology has since been forthcoming despite strong protests lodged with the Chief Minister of Madras and the Central Minister for Information by associations of Press Photographers situated as far away as Delhi. 

Libellous 
In all these cases, of course, the police are acting quite illegally. A policeman's duty is to enforce the law, not to invent it. There are, of course, certain laws governing photography which are internationally observed. For example, you may not publish a photograph which constitutes a libel and can be subjected to heavy penalties if you do. 

You may not take photographs in a court of law (though they do often enough in America) and I am strongly in favour of such restrictions. Then there are the laws of copyright, of privacy and so on. 

Photographers, whether amateur or professional, must also exercise restraint and good manners in the pursuit of their craft. There are many who do not, and are a disgrace to the profession but these are a small minority execrated by the rest of us. 

As for the Defence Regulations we have them as though we must sincerely hope they will sensibly changed. 

It would be very much in the country's favour if press photographers-Indian or foreign - were allowed into places like Assam and the Mizo Hills, just as photographers using still and television cameras roam freely in South Vietnam, often dropping by parachute or landing by helicopter in the midst of vicious, raging battles. 

It is the work of cameramen in Vietnam that has turned such a large number of the American people against the horrors of this war - or any other for that matter. Yet the United States government encourages photography there, not the reverse. 

Sailors on foreign vessels in Indian ports can take all the picture of those ports they like without showing themselves if need be. But privilege is denied to all Indian photographers. 

Officials including police officers who mistakenly believe that they have right to forbid photography whenever they like, should be properly apprise of their position in law, while restrictions on photography at places like airports and harbours should be removed as foolish anachronism. 



Source: http://bit.ly/fmFXcS