Passage to Europe

Over 2,000 Goans, bureaucrats and politicians included, gave up their Indian passports for Portuguese citizenship in 2015

As he reveals his "game plan", Antonio Tellis places a hand on his hips, shifts his weight from one foot to another and takes quick sips from a small water bottle. The 42-year-old pastry chef has, for some mornings over the last few weeks, made the climb to the Consulate General of Portugal in Altinho along with hundreds of fellow Goans hoping to apply for Portuguese citizenship.

Tellis, the first man in line, says the strategy is to get here as early as possible so your evenings are spared for work. By 8.30 am, he has already spent seven hours in waiting with his wife and son.

While some like Tellis believe in getting to the consulate early, a few applicants cite medical reasons to be exempt from the queue. While waiting by the steps outside, they exchange notes and tired smiles, and form temporary friendships. Toilet breaks have to be taken in the bushes further up the hill.

At ten minutes to nine, people urgently stir to fall into a disciplined line. A door cracks open and four guards step out to either guide or screen entrants. Soon, people are directed to different sections inside, based on whether they are there to submit documents, to receive the Bilhete de Identidade, or national identity card, or to collect their Portuguese passports.

In recent years, an increasing number of people from Goa, Daman and Diu, erstwhile colonies of Portugal, have been applying for Portuguese citizenship.

Portugal, which ruled Goa for four centuries until it was integrated into India in 1961, recognises Goans born before 1961 as well as their children and grandchildren as Portuguese nationals so long as their births and marriages are entered in the Lisbon Central Registry.

Once granted, this citizenship translates into unrestricted travel, welfare benefits and employment in the European Union. The eventual goal for many applicants is to move to the United Kingdom.

Sources within the consulate say 50 to 60 passports are issued each day. In 2015, an average of 2,000 people are said to have surrendered their Indian passports. Real numbers could be higher since non-resident Goans also give up passports at Indian missions abroad. Around 40,000 Goans are known to have registered births in Lisbon, although unofficial estimates put that figure between 300,000 and 400,000.

The subject became controversial after it was revealed that several politicians, police officers, and bureaucrats hold Portuguese passports. Two legislators, Glen Ticlo and Caetano Silva, were found to be Portuguese citizens. The singer Remo Fernandes was reported to have changed nationalities as well. RTI activists in Goa are pushing for cases of dual citizenship to be pursued against them. Charges of unpatriotic behaviour are flying thick and fast.

Once they acquire the maroon booklet that reads União Europeia Portugal passaporte, there is still work to be done, says Cordencio D'Costa, a retired sales executive who plans to send his daughter abroad.

While some countries allow dual citizenship, India does not. So people are advised to make trips to the regional passport office and Foreigner Regional Registration Office to surrender the Indian passport and register as Overseas Citizens of India. Transitioning citizens lose the right to vote, hold positions in government, and own agricultural land here.

Today, Goan cable providers may offer Portuguese channels but in 1961, after Goa was incorporated into India, the language was systematically wiped out of schools. Portugal did not acknowledge Indian sovereignty over what it called its "overseas territories" until 1974 when a new government replaced the dictatorship there. Relations improved thereafter and an opportunity to take up Portuguese citizenship was given.

Before the Altinho office was set up, citizenship changes had to be done at the embassy in New Delhi or Mumbai. More hopefuls are lining up outside the consulate these days on rumours that the office will shut in a year.

The scramble for Portuguese citizenship has opened up new avenues for business. Passport agents, who are sometimes also lawyers, help in vetting papers, locating birth and marriage certificates, translating documents from English to Portuguese and vice versa.

Portuguese translators are in demand. Consultant Elvino Pereira, with an office on the second floor of a commercial building in Panjim, handles 30 to 40 requests a month. His father, an advocate who has been in the passport business for 15 years, handles even more.

Pereira says scores of small-time agents are cropping up in Panjim and Margao who charge less and are open to manipulating documents. That is why, services like his come at a premium cost that he declines to reveal. Estimates from clients show agent charges could be anywhere between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 5 lakh based on the level of paper work involved.

Bruno Gomindes of Travco, a prominent consultant in Margao, says he gets enquiries from Punjab and Chandigarh too. Classifieds sections of local English language papers like Herald or The Goan are filled with advertisements by agents offering to handle documents. There are also several announcements of name change, which are usually made to align details in various documents at the time of application.

Consul General Rui Baceira's office declined requests for an interview saying he is not very keen on having anything written about the matter. In a previous interview with Business Standard columnist Sunil Sethi, he talked of sifting fraudulent immigrant applications from the genuine.

Unscrupulous agents and lawyers in both countries assist illegal immigrants in forging birth certificates and creating fake family histories. "It's tricky. People can go to absurd lengths like visiting graveyards to cook up false pasts. Luckily there aren't too many, I would say about 10 in a hundred," he had said.

Goans queue up outside the Portuguese consulate

Goans have always been a nomadic lot. At the time of Portuguese rule, they routinely travelled to Portuguese territories like Angola or Mozambique for work. Some pursued jobs in Mumbai or in West Asia, mainly in catering, hospitality and on ships. As job opportunities at home shrink, Portuguese citizenship offers them a way out.

Pascal Fernandes (name changed), for example, worked in Saudi Arabia and Mumbai before attempting to set up business in Goa. When that failed, he went back to being a medical representative and earns a salary of Rs 20,000 a month. With rising cost of living, this is simply not enough to support the aspirations of his family of three. He would like his son to have the superior lifestyle and education that his nieces and nephews in UK seem to enjoy.

So far for him, a happy outcome of the prolonged application process has been the discovery of his roots. "The church maintains clear records. I could trace my family tree back to the 1800s." Hindu and Muslim Goans are said to have a relatively difficult time considering their births and marriages were not recorded as systematically.

The rush for citizenship is rarely out of love for Portugal, whose economy is in the doldrums. The reasons that take people from the sunshine state to rain-swept regions in and around London are financial. According to an Oxford University report, India-born Portuguese citizens form the only group larger than 10,000 with a common EU country of citizenship and a common non-EU country of birth.

Their numbers in UK were roughly 20,000 during the first quarter of 2015. Swindon, an industrial town, includes a Goan Catholic population of around 12,000. However, it is not the cream of Britain's job market that is available to India-born Portuguese. They often work in packaging units, supermarkets and airports.

EU citizens, however, enjoy benefits like free medical aid and dole money or job seekers' allowance. Life is expensive but people find ways to save. They follow the Goan kudd system where families rent part of the apartment to others in the community. Two to three people share a room.

Osvaldo Fernandes, an old-timer and former journalist in Panjim, says they return with visibly refined behaviour. "Boys who once had the foulest tongues and zero prospects come back and greet you politely."

Changes are evident in villages like Rachol or Agaçaim where youths have made the shift. At quaint Siridao, where the phone reception quietly dies, most old houses seem to have come alive with coats of paint, freshly-built levels, polished verandas, and extended courtyards. More homes are under construction. New money is apparent but a majority of the structures are unoccupied.

As children work abroad and parents divide their time between UK and Goa, the fishing village wears a ghostly look. The traditional profession of fishing is also on the decline here.

Big towns are experiencing changes too. Balchandra Wagle, proprietor of a popular fabrics store in Panjim, says local tailors have almost vanished, and the orders of his customers are instead handled by tailors coming in from Odisha and Andhra Pradesh.

At Fontainhas, the old Latin quarters of Panjim filled with Portuguese-style homes, mostly the elderly have remained. Young residents are an anomaly and often only visit on holidays. Several bungalows are locked up, while a few have been converted into commercial establishments.

The "backdoor entry" has not escaped the notice of pressure groups in Britain. As the population of migrants rises, Prime Minister David Cameron plans to hold a referendum in June to consider UK's exit from the European Union.

But Goans like Sandra Gracias, who lives in Hounslow and is back in Siridao for a break, are confident they are helping UK's economy. "Brits want the high-level jobs. Who will they get to do the work we do?"

Ave Cleto Afonso, retired professor of philosophy, questions the very basis of the dual citizenship allegations. In his sunlit office on a Panjim hillock, the 73-year-old, who introduces himself as perhaps the last Goan to be strict about time, brings out a book he co-wrote outlining the legalities of the subject.

Portuguese colonialism in India was brutal because it took an existing civilisation and imposed its culture on it, he says. But it was different from British colonialism in that it recognised people in the colonies as citizens and not just subjects. When Indian citizenship was granted to Goans in 1961, they were not required by law to give up Portuguese nationality and neither could that nationality be forcibly cancelled because it pertained to the law of another country, adds Afonso.

While mentions of Goa, Daman and Diu, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli as overseas territories were removed from Portuguese law in 1974, the Portuguese nationality of people in these regions was not revoked. Clauses of the Indian Citizenship Act currently do not address this unique bit of history, according to Afonso.

With recent crackdowns on those seen as anti-national, people applying for Portuguese nationality refrain from talking about it or make it a point to state their decision was purely economic. Pascal Fernandes insists his decision is guided neither by a love for Portugal nor declining patriotism for India. "I will always want to come back here," he says. "Goans can never cut that umbilical cord."