Learn from China, says Indian diaspora

“OCI? Doesn’t it stand for Overseas Conned Indian?”

This joke making the rounds in desi circles in the United States takes a dig at the non-transparent and high-handed manner in which the Indian government and its overseas avatars such as embassies and consulates exploit the Indian diaspora to draw maximum pecuniary benefits. The Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card, the lifetime visa given to Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs), is derided as the Overseas Conned Indian card.

OCI regulations are being added, revised or even made redundant with such alacrity that many critics warn that the Indian government could lose its credibility in the eyes of the diaspora in the United States.

The chorus of frustration and anger over the Indian government’s frequent and unfathomable changes to OCI requirements — some of the regulations were introduced retroactively after the OCI cards were issued — resonates among the Indian diaspora in North America and other parts of the world.

Many Indian community leaders say it is a myth to characterise the OCI card as a “lifetime visa”, as the sticker in the passport suggests. What is even more frustrating is that politicians and bureaucrats handling matters of interest to the Indian diaspora maintain a stonewall indifference to the confusion, discord and heartburns their myopic and, often, illogical actions can cause to PIOs.

“The government’s reaction has always been notoriously ad hoc in nature. After David Headley (the Pakistani-American jailed in the US for his role in scouting targets for the Pakistani terrorists who attacked Mumbai in 2008) visited India several times, the Indian home ministry in a kneejerk reaction tightened the visa screws for Indian visitors, including OCI-card holders who were asked to surrender their old Indian passport or, in the absence of it, provide an affidavit along with the requisite fee. How do you expect to locate your old Indian passport if you are an Indian in the US and were naturalised 10, 15 or 20 years ago?” asks Suresh Wadhwani, a California-based businessman who, like thousands in the diaspora, is worried over the Indian government’s “ever-changing requirements”.

Effective 2010, all Indian nationals who had acquired another citizenship have been required to surrender their Indian passports, even if they were naturalised decades ago. The announcement caused panic and chaos among former Indian nationals who were unable to trace their old Indian passports that were no longer valid and useless.

John Abraham, a prominent community leader in New York, who was naturalised as a US citizen decades ago, faced this problem because he did not have a passport-surrender certificate or a police report about his lost or misplaced Indian passport. How could he ever ask the local police to give him a certificate or tell a lie that he had lost it?

The frequently revised OCI regulations, many suspect, serve as an excuse to the Indian government to “milk the Indian diaspora of hard currency”, as Pune-born Jennifer D’Souza, who works for a US software company, puts it.

The latest source of outrage comes in the form of a set of new rules introduced by the Indian government requiring the OCI visa to be reissued each time a PIO acquires a new passport of his adopted country, for those up to 20 years of age and over 50.

“You don’t even understand most of the time what Indian politicians and bureaucrats really want. The consular staff at Indian diplomatic representations here offer no transparency and merely repeat the requirements in a parrot-like fashion, saying they are merely following orders,” D’Souza remarks.

First launched in 2005, the OCI card purported to “seriously” address the needs of the diaspora and give it a sense of belonging to their motherland. Indeed, the Indian government even presented the OCI as a “better option” over the PIO card with its limited 15-year shelf life: the OCI constituted a lifetime visa, eliminating the need to register with the police in India and offering other benefits.

But things soured soon thereafter when the government began to “improve” upon the terms for the OCI card holders, adding a slew of requirements.

Visiting Indian ministers, in their meetings with the diaspora, tend to be ambiguous and vague. The Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA), V. Ravi, during one of his visits to the US, assured the Indian diaspora that “everything will be made simple and easy” for the community soon. That has yet to happen, the diaspora complains.

It is hardly surprising that a large number of PIOs in the US maintain a negative view about the Indian government’s attitude towards the diaspora; they feel that the Indian government only wants their money and their strong lobbying support when it faces problems or wants issues resolved with the host country. For many in the US, the annual meet called the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, dedicated to PIOs, has become a farce, when pompous but substantively hollow statements are delivered before the crème de la crème of the global Indian diaspora.

The diaspora is also frustrated and angry over the “passing-the-buck” game played by Indian politicians and bureaucrats when it comes to resolving issues of concern to PIOs. For example, the MOIA argues that regulations are enforced by the Ministry of Home Affairs which, in turn, puts the onus of responsibility on the Ministry of External Affairs. The Prime Minister’s Office, when called to intervene, merely assures that the matter will be looked into by the “appropriate office” without saying who that really is.

“The hair-splitting semantics and arguments that Indian babus and netas present have little or no substance … this is the Internet age requiring solutions within the shortest possible time. Because of its 19th-century mindset, the Indian government is also unable to connect with the modern world of the 21st century,” observes a US based medical surgeon who had a nasty experience on arrival at an Indian airport because some of his family members did not bring the OCI booklets, although their valid US passports had the necessary OCI stickers.

“My family members carried US passports with the relevant OCI stickers. A simple computer verification by immigration officials would have revealed that we are bona fide OCI card holders. Finally, after a long-drawn verbal battle and humiliation at the hands of a high-handed and adamant official, my family was allowed to enter India for 76 hours,” the surgeon said, preferring to remain anonymous because of his “Indian ties”.

“We visit India because we love it and because we are of Indian origin, but the shabby treatment on arrival is hardly welcoming,” he adds.

In fact, many OCI card holders lament, Indian immigration and other officials tend to treat a PIO worse than a foreigner arriving in India without a valid visa. The latter is more likely to receive all the courtesies and get a temporary visa; indeed, with the visa-on-arrival facility now available at Indian airports to most foreign nationals, the foreigner has a much better status than a PIO visitor.

Under the new requirements, introduced for security reasons, PIOs up to the age of 20 or those above 50 should get OCI visa stickers reissued in their new passports. Experts counter that if the reason behind the new rigid OCI regulations is indeed security and prevention of terrorist-related activities, then it is the visitors of the 21-49 year group who should get reissuance and not those up to the age of 20 or above 50 because those from the latter two age groups are unlikely to carry out these activities. This viewpoint was also conveyed by the Indian National Overseas Congress to the Indian Government. Indeed, a delegation of the US-based Indian Overseas Congress recently visited Delhi to urge senior Indian politicians to rescind the unnecessary and irrelevant OCI regulations.

Both the World Malayalee Council and the Gujarat Samajam have urged the Indian government to use the OCI card as a stand-alone document, similar to the green card used by the US immigration, thus eliminating the need for a sticker in the passport. The diaspora, which considers the sticker as the “core problem” entailing additional documentary requirements and high fees, wants the OCI card to be used as the single lifetime, multiple-entry visa document.

The Indian diaspora has urged the Indian government to learn from the way China treats its diaspora abroad. China applies the “once-Chinese-always-Chinese” principle, with all kinds of benefits, including the provision to immigrate to China; the Chinese diaspora reciprocates such gestures by proactively supporting China in achieving many of its foreign policy goals.

“India can learn a great deal from China’s success story,” says Shyam Ahluwalia, a New Jersey-based financial consultant.

Manik Mehta is a commentator on Asian affairs.