Rohi's Blaag

Collection of my travel trips, random thoughts, experience, knowledge, feelings and anything which goes through my mind.

Friday, December 22, 2006

NRI parents blame India when it is their fault

Saw this in the news yesterday.

http://ia.rediff.com/news/2006/dec/20george.htm?q=tp&file=.htm

It is hard to digest that the parents forgot to take the required documents (visa) with them and trying to blame "India" for that. The person on the counter was doing his job and as per rule "he did what was the law" and he is being blamed.

We point fingers at India when Indians do not follow rules and we point fingers at India when they do follow rules. Won't we check our passports many times after we start planning for a trip to USA and how can you expect to enter USA when you do not have any documents on you. Same applies here.

If Paris officials did not check the documents , that does not mean what they did was right. And if that family was not leaving the French airport, I don't think it will even matter to French authorities that whether all documents are perfect.

Any US official would have done the same and if any of us did not have the required visa to enter, we would be deported and no one would have said anything. Why can't we stop blaming India for our mistakes.

The parents are telling their son, that even if we forgot the papers, Indian Immigration authorities should have let us go. What proof did they have that the kids are their own. I am sure, if somebody tries to smuggle kids using this technique then we will surely blame the authorities, why did they let the kids enter India without all the documents. I feel sorry that the kids had to suffer but it way parents fault not India's.

This is the parents side of the story, which may not be 100% true. In general going on a foreign travel without travel document is a big mistake. Deportation is a general procedure in any country in such situations.

In terms of why they weren't given an additional amount of time, this is possibly related to the next available flight back to Paris. Its very likely that had they not been deported when they were, the authorities would have had to find some place to put them up in for the night (assuming the next available Air France flight to Paris was in 24 hours). Since they were not allowed into the country, this would have had to be in the airport or a jail cell connected to the airport, neither of which are very attractive options. This probably drove part of the decision to send them back when they did.

Way to go - immigration officials. You folks did the right thing.

5 Comments:

  • At 12/27/2006 6:25 PM, Blogger Ram said…

    I totally accept your views. It's parents fault and they have to pay for it. Would they have done the same thing if they were traveling to US?

    It's mentality that we can somehow get through by not following the rule is what bugs me.

    Good post

     
  • At 12/27/2006 8:14 PM, Blogger Indian said…

    "neither of which are very attractive options"

    LOL!

     
  • At 12/29/2006 10:40 AM, Blogger guyfromblore said…

    Hey Rohith,
    yeah this guy is a complete moron for not taking his documents with him.

    but the one thing that pisses me off is the different treatment given to the French guy. how do you explain/ justify that?

    The problem, from my limited experience, has been that Indian officials behave like bitches with Indians but treat 'foreigners' like they were Gods. However, when we go to a USA or to a France or anywhere else, the officials treat their countrymen at least as well as they treat us Indians (in most cases better)

    anyways, yeah this guy deserves to get screwed.

     
  • At 1/09/2008 3:19 PM, Blogger Unknown said…

    Rohit baba whatever you said is all by law and what not, my argument is if they can grant transit visa to person who even did not apply for Indian VISA. they would have granted transit Visa on condition they have to stay inside airport and if no FAX received in say 2-3 hours they have to pay for next available international flight and have any rout back to USA. Its not pointing figure at any one, making law equal for all humans

     
  • At 10/07/2008 11:12 AM, Blogger Unknown said…

    The Biggest surprise is how did the airlines board them in the first place. The airlines are supposed to check if the person they are boarding have the required VISA or not.

    I am with Mumbai officials who have done the right thing. Personally i think it was Great gesture by them to say have them faxed.. I don't think anybody would have done that.

     

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