Indian Americans Unhappy with Passport Surrender Rules

A large number of Indian Americans were deeply unhappy over India's new rules for surrendering old Indian passports — rules that also caused delays in visa issuance for visits to India, and that became one of the most resented bureaucratic measures the diaspora had faced in years.

The decision came after it was pointed out that some people who became citizens of other countries had misused their old Indian passports — traveling to India on the Indian passport while showing their foreign passport on return. India's response, introduced in 2010, required all naturalized citizens to surrender their Indian passports and obtain a "surrender certificate" at a cost of $175.

The outrage had several sources. The fees and penalties were steep: $250 for retaining a passport beyond three years, $625 beyond five years, and up to $1,250 for having traveled on an Indian passport after acquiring foreign citizenship. The rules applied retroactively to millions of overseas Indians who had naturalized decades earlier — many of whom had long lost or discarded their old passports, and some of whom had voluntarily gotten their passports canceled at Indian missions years before and were now told to pay $20 for a certificate anyway. And consular services would be denied to those who failed to comply.

An online petition calling the rules an "undue and unnecessary burden" gathered over 21,000 signatures, and irate overseas Indians demonstrated outside the Indian consulate in New York.

The government cited security concerns. But as critics noted at the time, there could be no justification for the onerous fees or for retroactive application — and the episode became a case study in how not to treat a diaspora whose remittances and goodwill India had spent decades courting.

Reporting: The Times of India, Little India.