Britain’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman, in her interview with British weekly magazine ‘The Spectator’ called Indian migrants, “the largest group of people who overstay on their visa.”
Speaking on the Open borders migration policy with India, she said, “I have concerns about having an open borders migration policy with India because I don’t think that’s what people voted for with Brexit.”
Further, referring to the Migration and Mobility Partnership (MMP) with India to send overstaying migrants back home, she said, “We even reached an agreement with the Indian government last year to encourage and facilitate better cooperation in this regard. It has not necessarily worked very well.”
Remarks by Braverman and her public rhetoric against greater visa concessions to India could hurdle the upcoming FTA between India and UK. Also, it is not the language to use if Britain wants to foster closer ties with India.
The Indian government responded to Suella Braverman’s “Indian migrants are visa overstayers” remark and her comments on MMP diplomatically.
Indian High Commission in the UK said it is committed to working with the UK under the Migration and Mobility Partnership (MMP) to bring back Indians who are overstaying beyond their visa period.
However, it added that India is awaiting demonstrable progress on commitments the UK made under MMP and said comments on issues currently under discussion may not be appropriate.
Suella Braverman herself is not of British origin but Indian origin. Her mother, Uma Fernandes, a Hindu Tamil, migrated to the UK from Mauritius. Her father, Christie Fernandes, of Goan ancestry, emigrated to Britain from Kenya in the 1960s. She may be right in saying that her parents legally entered the UK, but the substance and tone of her language do not merit the position she holds.
Earlier in a fringe meeting at the Tory party conference, Braverman said, “I would love to have a front page of the Telegraph with a plane taking off to Rwanda.” She was referring to deporting asylum seekers to their home country or flying them off to Rwanda. Then she went on to call it her dream and obsession.
What is she trying to prove? Her loyalty to her British identity?
It may be in the economic interest of Britain to only look for investors and highly skilled migrants. But there could be more dignified ways you address the concern. Nurturing dreams of London, many gullible aspirants seek unsafe and illegal means to enter the country. They become victims of “Human trafficking.”
All are not criminals. Indeed, many are vulnerable and desperate people seeking a better life in a foreign land. If you do not want to provide them asylum, seal your borders, go after traffickers, and crush their networks. But who are you to pack them off to a third country where their security is not guaranteed? UK’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is contested by the UN Refugee Agency in the High Court.
Any politician or a person in public life should look at the issue empathetically. Suella Braverman, coming from a migrant background herself, should have a considerate outlook. Throwing below-the-belt punches to countries you want to tie up with and seeking to fulfill inconsiderate obsessions is not something you take pride in.
Last but not least, Suella Braverman should flip the pages of the past to know who illegally overstayed in India for over two centuries. The British came to India not seeking livelihood but to ‘plunder and loot’ and ‘colonize and enslave.’
Photograph: John Sibley/Reuters