Registration? What's that?

[karira]

As reported by Satya Naagesh Ayyagary of TNN in timesofinida.com on 17 May 2008:
Registration? What's that?-Hyderabad-Cities-The Times of India

Registration? What's that?


HYDERABAD: Here is a poser if you are an Indian passport holder: do you know that there is a section in the inside back page called Registration?

The chances are most wouldn't, and if some did, they wouldn't have read it completely. This is what it says: Indian citizens resident abroad are advised to register themselves at the nearest Indian mission/post.

The question is: How many do? And surprisingly most don't. The reason? They don't want anything to do with the government and are loathe to put up with the'sarkari' attitude of the mission. After the travails of acquiring a passport, they see any interaction with the Indian mission overseas as an extension of that ordeal.

"The Indian mission staff's attitude towards their fellow countrymen is condescending. This is more acute in Gulf countries where lakhs of Indians work and reside. Hence we avoid them," explains Anwar Khan who worked in Saudi Arabia for over a decade.

"They behave as if we are begging them for some favour when it is our right," fumes another engineer working in the Gulf.

The poorer you are, worse the treatment. The fact that the Indian mission does not have a complete list of Indians residing in Kuwait when the country was invaded in 1991 and hence could not plan an effective evacuation says a lot.Compare this with the behaviour of the diplomatic staff of the western countries where a citizen walks in to his country's mission and is provided with all assistance including various facilities.

"They treat their citizens with so much respect," says N Satyababu, an Indian citizen working in Australia.

Interestingly, when an Indian journalist asked a senior official in the Indian Consulate in Sydney sometime back about the register of Indian citizens there, he expressed complete ignorance. When he was shown the Indian passport and the column on registration, the surprised diplomat promised to start one.

"It may sound incredible but shows how ignorant even many diplomats are about something as basic as registering their citizens," says the journalist.

Also, many Indian citizens who go to study or work avoid the Indian missions there because they feel they have no need of them as most of them are self-sufficient and are planning to settle down there.

"After I came to Australia as a student I was only focusing on getting a permanent residency at the earliest. Once I got that, I did not have much do with the Indian mission," says N C Jayanthi, working as a consultant with the an Australian government department in Canberra.



In fact, it would not be a surprise if most Indians resident overseas do not even know where the nearest Indian mission or post is.

"I never bothered to register myself while I was working in New York. It was too much of a bother. Anyway, what assistance would they give me?" questions L Ramesh who worked for a media agency in New York.

The fact that during the recent murder of Indian student Jyothirmayi in Birmingham in the UK, it was announced that she was not registered with the Indian mission is revealing.

"Had she registered herself", says an analyst, "the process of identification, assistance and contacting her family in India would have been simply faster," he adds.

[opsharma]

"After I came to Australia as a student I was only focusing on getting a permanent residency at the earliest. Once I got that, I did not have much do with the Indian mission," says N C Jayanthi, working as a consultant with the an Australian government department in Canberra.

"I never bothered to register myself while I was working in New York. It was too much of a bother. Anyway, what assistance would they give me?" questions L Ramesh who worked for a media agency in New York.


"Had she registered herself", says an analyst, "the process of identification, assistance and contacting her family in India would have been simply faster," he adds.



The above quotes are not out of context,but core problem -- indifferent ,selfish and cynical attitude of indians dying to settle in fairylands. No doubt there are some black sheep in our missions,but helpful souls outnumber these anyday.