Should Indian passports be called ‘stop-ports’, in that people who have them are routinely stopped from entering foreign countries, or even transiting through them?
This happens all the time. Recently, Bunny’s cousin and his wife who were going to visit their daughter who is settled in the US had their family plans ruined when the Canadian authorities refused them permission to transit through Toronto airport on their flight to the US. The reason? They did not have a Canadian visa.
They argued that since they are not going to actually enter the country, but would only be in a cordoned-off area in the airport, and as such there was no logical reason why they should require visas. Such reasoning was of no avail. If you are unfortunate enough to have an Indian passport, you cannot even pass through a Canadian airport without a visa. What next? That if you have an Indian passport you can’t even look at a map of Canada without a visa?
Canada is not the only country where an Indian passport is treated like a stop-port. A couple of years ago, Bunny was denied entry to Finland. Why? Because though she had a valid Schengen visa – which Finland accepts – it was stamped not on her new passport but on her old passport which was stapled onto the new one. The US, and all European Union countries, accept valid visas stamped in an old passport, if this is attached to the new passport. But not Finland. Bunny was turned back from Heathrow airport where she was to board the flight to Helsinki, losing out on the airfare and the hotel in Finland that had already been paid for.
To add insult to financial injury, some other passengers who were not Indians but who also had a similar visa problem were allowed entry by the Finnish authorities. The message was clear: if you have an Indian passport, you’re not just a second-class citizen of the world but a third-class citizen.
The reason for this is obvious, and known to everyone. Sixty-seven years after Independence, economic conditions for the majority of India’s population are so terrible that this country has become globally notorious for its illegal immigrants, who’ll risk any hazard to find employment and a new life in a foreign land.
It is to India’s shame that the country forces so many of its citizens to become economic refugees, to be exploited and ill-treated in alien and often hostile climes. To make matters worse, the Indian government grants visas on arrival to citizens of Finland and many other countries which discriminate against Indian travellers.
By doing this, our sarkar tacitly accepts that in the eyes of the global community, India is a third-class country of third-class citizens.
India’s new Prime Minister is known to be a no-nonsense person, who can not only talk tough but act tough when necessary. It’s time that countries which openly discriminate against Indian citizens be deterred from doing so by being given a taste of their own bitter medicine.
Canadian passport? Finnish passport? Sorry, no swagatam for you guys.