No House Arrest

News of the arrest and detention of Harvard student Amar C. Bakshi ’06 in Zimbabwe came as a surprise to many students and faculty in the College. The idea that a visiting student could get arrested for doing legitimate academic work and be held in a Third World prison in appalling conditions for four days is all but unthinkable for those of us living in cushy Cambridge. Despite the seriousness of what happened, we are pleased that no one in the Office of International Programs nor in the wider College administration is reacting to Bakshi’s adventure with talk of re-tightening international travel policies.

Until recently, the College enforced a policy that denied funding as well as study credit for students traveling to areas for which the State Department had issued medium-level travel warnings. Since this policy affected mostly undergraduates, a number of college students (400 of whom signed a petition) and student groups called for a review of the travel policy. Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71 obliged by forming an evaluative committee this fall, and restrictions on 13 countries were lifted in October. The less restrictive policy was greeted with enthusiasm by students, a number of whom are embarking on spring semesters abroad in Kenya, Nigeria, and other areas that were previously barred.

Bakshi’s experience should not raise eyebrows, however, as his travel was privately funded, leaving the College less liable for the mishaps he encountered. It is debatable whether, under the current travel policy, funding for research like Bakshi’s would have been provided by the College, given his destination. The Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe has a propensity for detaining individuals it considers even slightly hostile. Only recently, the U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe was detained for trespassing in a public park on charges that he was trying to overthrow the Mugabe regime.

This incident was an isolated one. It in no way reflects the general condition of all nations that merit a medium-level warning from the State Department. If anything, the incident is an outlier that illustrates the caution that students must be prepared to take when traveling abroad to certain places. Police states like Zimbabwe—with unpredictable laws and where tactics like arrest may be veiled attempts at extorting bribes from foreigners—are uniquely dangerous. But their study can yield uniquely valuable insights. Bakshi’s research will add to the scholarly community at Harvard in a way that would not have been possible without his first hand interviews and primary source materials. Though riskier than a summer at the Sorbonne, these sorts of opportunities abroad should continue to be available to as broad a range of students as possible.