Incredible Indian Red Tape

She’d spent the two previous days clearing bureaucratic hurdles: filing an FIR at a south Delhi police station,and getting a new confirmed flight booking so the British Consulate would issue a temporary passport,and a letter detailing her circumstances. These,they said,would be enough to get her an emergency visa.

After two thus far futile trips to the FRRO,she wasn’t entirely convinced it was. The previous day,an officer at the reception assured her it would be ready this afternoon. Now,he summarily dismissed her,telling her to wait,or,tersely,to “sit down”. His blustering “Ho jayega,ho jayega,” would give way,in an instant,to: “Kuch confirm nahi hain.” When she persisted,he said that over and above the e-ticket printout,they required a confirmation from the airline counter at the airport that the flight was indeed listed on their computer. When she reminded him,nearly in tears,that her flight was in a few hours,he told her: “It is your own fault that your flight is today.” She eventually did get her visa,and caught her flight,but by the end,she was in tears,and says the experience was “emotionally awful”.

Every day,the corridors of the FRRO resound with hundreds of such stories. Combined,they resemble the tense subsonic hum familiar to any Indian who’s queued up at the gas agency or the passport office. The difference is that many of those who wait at the FRRO have time-bound,urgent reasons to do so.

Bandage-swathed Afghan medical tourists — so numerous they have their own separate queue and processing centre — come to register within 14 days of landing in the country. Some need exit permits to fly back home. Burmese and Bangladeshi refugees await residence permits to be issued or renewed,without which they are liable to be deported.

Congolese students,Japanese businessmen or foreign correspondents who stay longer than 180 days must get registered. And European hippies make desperate “paper illness” claims to help explain why they’ve lingered on beaches and organic farms,well past their visas’ expiration.

Many have travelled from other parts of the country,only to extend their trips indefinitely as they’re batted between the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the FRRO. Foreigners have to first fill up a form and take documents to the MHA,which gives them,eventually,a sealed envelope to take to the FRRO. Throw in language and cultural difference,and you’re faced with a head-on collision of the Indian state and the tourists,students,and businesspersons it wishes to welcome. 

From the FRRO’s perspective,though,everything that foreigners find irksome — the endless waits; the fondness for paperwork attested in triplicate; even the apparent callousness — results from their own sense of urgency. The office is short-staffed,and processes up to 500 cases a day,which,says Ajay Chaudhry,the Foreigners Regional Registration Officer,“wouldn’t be possible without systematic processing,ie,queuing and allotting counter numbers”. Security checks,he adds,are mandatory and require a “minimum processing time” so that “multiple agencies”,including the National Crime Records Bureau and Narcotics Control Bureau,can provide their reports. The FRRO is also answerable to the Intelligence Bureau — especially because David Headley,alleged architect of the 26/11 terrorist attacks,was here on a tourist visa.

However,to foreigners who find themselves unwilling actors in an absurdist play every time they visit the FRRO,nothing about the experience strikes them as necessary or justifiable. “There is no reason to herd people into a tiny,poorly ventilated room and subject them to such treatment,” says a British journalist,who has travelled extensively in South Asia and West Asia. “Other countries can be hard to get visas out of. Bangladesh’s attitude to visa-seekers is an utter mockery of its claim to be a democracy,while Sri Lanka behaves like a tinpot dictatorship to anyone it does not like. But none makes the physical process of applying any harder than India does.” 

It all starts to unravel under an Incredible India poster on which a brightly turbaned Rajasthani man merrily bites on a stalk of wheat. This is where the three-man reception committee sits. Two parse through foreigners’ papers,turning many away for more documents or photocopies. A third man is on bouncer duty,holding off those who’ve been asked to wait,when they drift dejectedly towards the desk out of turn. “Sit down!” he says to a blonde in black harem pants. “Go home!” he yells at a young Nigerian boy. “You go! Come tomorrow!” he tells a Burmese monk. “Don’t touch!” he bellows at a frail Japanese lady,rifling through a stack of files on the desk for her own. “This mine,” she says,sadly. “I say you sit!” responds the official.

For most long-term residents,the list of documents required hasn’t changed even after 26/11: visa,passport,negative AIDS test,“details of residence”. But those “details” are sometimes a matter of interpretation — or,it would seem,whimsy. While a lease agreement or electricity bill ought to suffice,often times people have been turned away for unexpected documents,such as the landlord’s electricity bill.

“We are slaves to the system,dancing around in this totally senseless paper game,” says a Scandinavian hippie,on her fifth trip here. A foreign correspondent says,“You always queue up for hours only to find you’re missing an unexpected item. The last time,it was a notary’s stamp on a property document — not requested before. The year before last,the registration booklet,not supplied.”

Some are entirely unwilling to play the obligatory round of fetch-the-missing-document,like a bespectacled NRI IT professional,who is asked to “go home”. “Is that your intention?” he replies,in a voice rising with barely restrained rage,“To send me off? What else do you want?” “I say you require attestation,” intones the man at the reception desk. “I have all the documents!” roars the man. “You go to in-charge,” says the official,shuffling through a new set of papers.  

Such meltdowns are common,due to the unending repeat visits,and the attendant sense of uncertainty,futility and powerlessness. The situation is exacerbated,foreigners say,because nobody behind the counters takes the time to clarify doubts. Even to ask a simple question calls for a three-hour wait in the queue,says a European photojournalist,who took seven trips to register successfully. He recalls once seeing a Korean girl in front of him being handed a piece of paper with something scribbled on it. She couldn’t read it,and asked one of the officers what it was. Whereupon another officer snatched it out of her hand and threw it to the first official. “At this point,” says the journalist,“she got desperate,thinking she wouldn’t get her stamp,and kept saying,‘I pay you! I pay you!’ She wanted to bribe him in front of 50 people!” 

An Italian journalist says she only got her visa stamped after eight trips to the FRRO and six trips to the MHA. She was turned away repeatedly to bring new documents,and only to return and find they’d misplaced her file. “It’s the messiest place I’ve seen. Nothing works smoothly.” When she hinted as much,they flew into a rage. “On my third or fourth trip,the officer was looking through my file,which was a big pile of paper by this point,and asked where my rent agreement was. I said,‘It’s in there. If you look through it,you’ll find it.’ He shouted at me.”

Thanks to the arduousness of the process,bribe-takers and agents are rumoured to do brisk business. A Congolese student claims you can make “files go so fast” if you give the man who does the “check-up” (police verification) about Rs 2,000. A French journalist talks of a mysterious man with gold rings and a big smile,who takes her documents and Rs 5,000 to ensure she’s in and out of the FRRO in half an hour. 

At the entrance of the FRRO,however,sunnier tales unfold on yellowing email print-outs pinned to a noticeboard. These are from foreign visitors and NRIs,profusely thanking officers for helping them out. “Very kind to listen to my problems and helped me willingly…” “It is the attitude and efficiency of Mr Ravi which our service industry needs to emulate…” A Congolese college student walking past says gloomily,“Three weeks I come here constantly. I have asked him,he say ‘Sit down. Come again tomorrow.’” His friend says,with a wise,world-weary air,“There is no immigration office with a human face.”