Indians seriously need to be taught a lesson on love thy neighbor. The PIO card website states that the eligibility criteria for PIO card is “All persons of Indian origin who are in possession of the passport of any other country except Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, China, Sri Lanka…” Who exactly is eligible then? Probably India would be the only large country in the world whose ALL neighbors hate/have dispute/cold war/active war(with no exception). That probably is a notable record for a so called peace loving nation.
At the time of Independence India had a sizable population of people from Chinese origin. But they locked them up for 5 years without any trial/justified reason. Between 1962 and 1967 differently looking people were rounded up (sometimes at the middle of the night) and shipped to remote desert concentration camps Deoli, Rajasthan. Some were never heard of again and some were forcefully deported. Defense of India Act 1962 and war with China were a convenient excuses to do an ethnic cleansing and seize the property of these folks.
This was not a one of incident. In Feb 2014 the Delhi law minster did a citizen arrest of Nigerian nationals living in Delhi. They were released soon afterwards because authorities could not charge them for any violations. Bangladeshi immigrants are prosecuted everyday due to political reasons. Infact we sometimes don’t even spare people of Indian origin. You don’t have to go in history to read about Mihirakula or find why Buddhism was eliminated from its birth country. Anti-sikh riots of 1984 or Anti-Muslim riots which happens several times every year are live examples.
What I am trying to ask is by what right do we ask Western countries modify its foreign policy when we ourselves are not tolerant of foreigners or cultural diversity?
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1 reply on “Indian Immigration Policy”
We don’t. We are hypocrites. Forget inter-country, we have inter-state xenophobia. This will require a deep cultural shift and some smart policy making to bring in some level of tolerance in the attitudes.