UK Visa barriers: India should hit back soon

India should respond to visa barriers

For those Indians who wish to travel abroad, the hurdles are already far from easy to surmount - but they are about to become even more difficult. The United Kingdom's home office has confirmed that it will go ahead with what it says is a "pilot scheme" for requiring a £3,000 (Rs 2.8 lakh) refundable cash bond from those visitors that it determines to be "high risk". Indian visitors will not be exempt from this scrutiny. This is in spite of the fact that British Prime Minister David Cameron, on his visit to India earlier this year, had effusively invoked a "special relationship" and "strategic partnership". It appears that wooing his Conservative Party's domestic base is more important than his basic foreign policy agenda: the UK's press release reveals the rationale for this regressive measure is that it would be a "step in making… [the] immigration system more selective, bringing down net immigration". In other words, Indian visitors will be deemed to be guilty of harbouring a desire to settle in Britain until proven innocent, with the burden of proof being entirely on the visitor.

Other countries also erect similar hurdles. The US demands voluminous documentation, including income tax returns and bank statements for three years. Those European Union countries that are signatories to the Schengen pact are reluctant to issue anything other than very short-term tourist visas. South Africa requires an invitation or sponsorship by a resident. Even Bangladesh and Tanzania appear to have strong reservations about Indian visitors, judging by their cumbersome visa procedures. Indian travellers who decide to add a country to the itinerary while already abroad are told to go back to India and apply to the local consulate.

The reasons for such actions are not hard to discern: first, the history of some Indians abusing the terms of their visa and overstaying, and second, the near-certainty that the Indian visitors' need or desire to go abroad being so overwhelming as to make them comply with the most stringent and often humiliating conditions. All that India has done in response to this latest hindrance is to register its protest, which has obviously had not much effect. Arguments that all Indian travellers should not feel the need to prove they are high-risk - and that Indian migrants in any case have made rich contributions to their host countries - have so far proved fruitless. It is perhaps time, therefore, that India realised that foreign travel is two-way traffic. True, some of the obstacles - of paperwork, in particular - are already in place in Indian consulates. But business travellers to India have it easier than tourists. If India were to impose greater hurdles for such travellers, it would lead to quite a hue and cry. But reciprocity, as a principle, is unassailable and must apply to all aspects of visa protocol, such as fees, classifications, durations and restrictions. The privilege of visas on arrival, for example, must be restricted to citizens of only those countries that treat Indians in a like manner. The folly of erecting barriers in a flat world will not hit home unless the boot on the other foot pinches just as hard.