500 days for an US tourist visa? It's ridiculous!

Observational and anecdotal evidence clearly confirms that it might take more than a year and a half for an accomplished Indian to grace California, or Las Vegas for that matter. Due to obsolete policies and staffing perils of the issuing centers, which diligently inherit a longstanding culture of strategic prejudice.

I remember well the 'Western' visa interviews of the late 1980s and the 1990s, comparable to terrifying employment and admission ordeals. We had to be dressed in the finest colonial regalia, the knitting of the suit and the rigours of the knot needy parameters for a positive outcome, as was the demeaning provenance of property and cash. The tension was palpable as the pipe-wielding officer examined documents with impatient zeal clearly under the spiritual tutelage of General Dyer, noted alumnus of Jalianwala Bagh.

The suspense post the encounter was unabashedly Hitchcockian, as the result would be declared in the closing hours of the edgy day. Usually, the travel agent collected the passport and had to hastily scan the pages to determine the verdict, as the provider was brusque and curt. Failure meant a deviation to Shimla, Kathmandu, or amenable Thailand while success merited pre-boarding celebrations and primordial gratitude.

Even as recently as 2013, my wife's Schengen Visa was rejected by the German Embassy in Chanakyapuri, for daring to apply with her maiden title sans autonomous earnings, in spite of multiple past visits. The Indian lady at the counter was gingerly doing her duty while the European gentlemen who handled the escalation, was obviously licensed to venture beyond the acceptable brief. By insisting in a copybook Gestapo-like tonality that persistent repartee could lead to crippling strictures as per designed policy, naughty applicants must be suitably warned.

What makes such anomalies so bewildering, especially in 2022, is the deeply acknowledged contribution of Indian tourists to those defunct economies. In Europe, to be fair, the appreciation is apparent as local establishments grudgingly realise that Asians are paying for their daily schnitzel, and I have noted this reverse racism in German stores shunning sightseeing Continentals very firmly. Indians surely spend way more than average Westerners for the board, lodge, and shopping and this is a respected truth, across global tourism ecosystems.

Yet, courtesy of archaic roadblocks, the visa issuance regime is medieval and insulting,  the terminal vestige of a long aborted era of subservience when we needed them more than they needed us. Educated Indians are no longer in the business of Houdini-like disappearances on foreign shores, unlike Sri Lankans, Pakistanis, and other such failed citizenry and this message must be driven home, or rather abroad. When deciding to live on other shores, like many in the present era, we integrate valuably into the mainstream to become a business and thought leaders, and the evidence is starkly able.

As a recently promoted pentagenarian, it is a robust wish to witness in my cognitive lifespan the correction of visa granting protocols, coated in long-expired racial bravado. It is not a minor or insignificant matter being fundamentally connected to national prestige, as India races towards a glorious century. An effective, albeit rude, way to begin would be ruthless reciprocity, inconveniencing the wide-eyed arrivals of eager Westerners with idiosyncratic barriers. And we need not worry about repercussions for both business and pleasure as we do have an edge in the seesaw equilibrium, well proven by our fertile consumer markets and tourism differentiation.

On the 500-day waiting period, perhaps the suitable powers in Delhi should have a word with the US corporates thriving in India or seeking the lucre of our demographic payrolls. Politely connecting a crucial operating license, or two, to the creation of a much-needed visa equilibrium, ironically for the right to bolster their depressing economy. Not quite Cricket you may say, as per gentlemanly protocols, but the India of today is surely a brand new ball game.