The Chinese built the Great Wall to keep the marauding Mongols out. The West invented the Visa, for the same purpose. The latter has taken some weird forms over the years.
Times were when you could jump on to a ship - or stowaway, depending on your spirit of adventure and financial condition - and got off the ship at some port with nary a glance thrown in your direction. You were just another coolie come to serve the great empire, and good luck to you. Given the class divide in the UK, it was a assumed that you couldnt compete with those that really mattered, and you looked different anyway and spoke funny like Peter Sellers on heroin. America needed vast numbers of immigrants and one more meant a further pair of hands to build dams, railroads and NY skyscrapers; the language skills didn't matter for the Americans spoke funny in any case.
Then the West went and invented the visa system. To keep "the other" out. They realized that vast hordes were willing - itching, actually - to come over; to escape poor governance, lack of basic daily necessities, plain and simple tyranny and sometimes even persecution; above all, in order to realize one's dreams which suddenly did not seem so distant any more given the West's economic expansion mode. Indian cotton crops and vast throngs of the great unwashed and unclothed kept the mills of Manchester humming overtime. The Americans were feeding and clothing themselves and the masses newly arrived from an unfriendly Europe.
Then wars happened, communism was on the march, America and Japan looked outwards, British empire was imploding, Germans wanted to wipe out everyone except themselves, and in the middle of all this someone went and crashed economies everywhere. A flu' pandemic also killed millions across the globe. When the shooting match ended America was victorious, Russia was bloodied but victorious, Europe was rubble, Japan was glowing with radiation, and British empire had lost its appetite for an empire. Suddenly there were bad guys and needy ones everywhere who needed keeping out. One could no longer jump into a ship,or a plane for that matter, land somewhere and start living there. Us Vs Them lines were drawn all over the place: East Vs the West, North Vs the South and Russians Vs all the rest. Russians built walls to keep their people in while the West was building invisible ones to keep others out.
The queues outside the American consulates in India were long and started forming in the wee hours of the morning. They sought your financial details, tax returns and details of property ownership. Now they ask for your views on the Drone strikes. They used to ask you to prove that you were not trying to emigrate; now they ask you to prove that you support regime changes and the war on terror. The British examine you ability to finance the trip and intent to leave Britain on expiry of the visa. If you want to migrate though, it gets a lot harder: it will require deep knowledge of British history and FA cup results not to mention what Magna Carta means in English. Not expressing liberal views in your social network pages and wholehearted support for regime changes and war on terror help.
Then someone went and crashed the world economy all over again (you'd think that the smart people of the West would learn from the past), leaving the West struggling, China powering forward, and India muddling along. Suddenly India became an attractive destination for Ambitious Americans, hapless Brits and clueless French, all looking to make a quick billion or two. Germans, like their wines, do not travel well and send their Mercedes Audis and Porsches instead. The Chinese detest the "unclean" Indians and don't trust the tricky gwailos. So they don't come to India nor let the gwailos come in. The Chinese women continue to prefer aged and much married gwailos, especially the French.
Now it's time for India to erect barriers to this influx of fortune hunters.We failed to do that when Robert Clive arrived with his burning ambition and flashing sword and look what happened for the next 300 years! We need to be subtle, like the Brits, and ask questions about history and culture before granting visas. We should ask about the distinction between the pulao and the Biryani, and between a sambhar and a kulambu. We must question them on the poetry and political philosophies of Baharathiyar and Bharathidasan and as a trick, include Sunil Baharti (Mittal) in the equation (answer: the last one only believes in money). The fact that most Indians would fail this test does not matter - we are all already in. That Sonia Gandhi might fail also does not matter, for David Cameron doesn't know what Magna Carta means in English. She might hardly fare better with Dante and Machiavelli, for I am not sure if Italian waitresses were required to read them.
Those seeking long-stay visas could be tested on the life and achievements of Sachin Tendulkar.
Times were when you could jump on to a ship - or stowaway, depending on your spirit of adventure and financial condition - and got off the ship at some port with nary a glance thrown in your direction. You were just another coolie come to serve the great empire, and good luck to you. Given the class divide in the UK, it was a assumed that you couldnt compete with those that really mattered, and you looked different anyway and spoke funny like Peter Sellers on heroin. America needed vast numbers of immigrants and one more meant a further pair of hands to build dams, railroads and NY skyscrapers; the language skills didn't matter for the Americans spoke funny in any case.
Then the West went and invented the visa system. To keep "the other" out. They realized that vast hordes were willing - itching, actually - to come over; to escape poor governance, lack of basic daily necessities, plain and simple tyranny and sometimes even persecution; above all, in order to realize one's dreams which suddenly did not seem so distant any more given the West's economic expansion mode. Indian cotton crops and vast throngs of the great unwashed and unclothed kept the mills of Manchester humming overtime. The Americans were feeding and clothing themselves and the masses newly arrived from an unfriendly Europe.
Then wars happened, communism was on the march, America and Japan looked outwards, British empire was imploding, Germans wanted to wipe out everyone except themselves, and in the middle of all this someone went and crashed economies everywhere. A flu' pandemic also killed millions across the globe. When the shooting match ended America was victorious, Russia was bloodied but victorious, Europe was rubble, Japan was glowing with radiation, and British empire had lost its appetite for an empire. Suddenly there were bad guys and needy ones everywhere who needed keeping out. One could no longer jump into a ship,or a plane for that matter, land somewhere and start living there. Us Vs Them lines were drawn all over the place: East Vs the West, North Vs the South and Russians Vs all the rest. Russians built walls to keep their people in while the West was building invisible ones to keep others out.
The queues outside the American consulates in India were long and started forming in the wee hours of the morning. They sought your financial details, tax returns and details of property ownership. Now they ask for your views on the Drone strikes. They used to ask you to prove that you were not trying to emigrate; now they ask you to prove that you support regime changes and the war on terror. The British examine you ability to finance the trip and intent to leave Britain on expiry of the visa. If you want to migrate though, it gets a lot harder: it will require deep knowledge of British history and FA cup results not to mention what Magna Carta means in English. Not expressing liberal views in your social network pages and wholehearted support for regime changes and war on terror help.
Then someone went and crashed the world economy all over again (you'd think that the smart people of the West would learn from the past), leaving the West struggling, China powering forward, and India muddling along. Suddenly India became an attractive destination for Ambitious Americans, hapless Brits and clueless French, all looking to make a quick billion or two. Germans, like their wines, do not travel well and send their Mercedes Audis and Porsches instead. The Chinese detest the "unclean" Indians and don't trust the tricky gwailos. So they don't come to India nor let the gwailos come in. The Chinese women continue to prefer aged and much married gwailos, especially the French.
Now it's time for India to erect barriers to this influx of fortune hunters.We failed to do that when Robert Clive arrived with his burning ambition and flashing sword and look what happened for the next 300 years! We need to be subtle, like the Brits, and ask questions about history and culture before granting visas. We should ask about the distinction between the pulao and the Biryani, and between a sambhar and a kulambu. We must question them on the poetry and political philosophies of Baharathiyar and Bharathidasan and as a trick, include Sunil Baharti (Mittal) in the equation (answer: the last one only believes in money). The fact that most Indians would fail this test does not matter - we are all already in. That Sonia Gandhi might fail also does not matter, for David Cameron doesn't know what Magna Carta means in English. She might hardly fare better with Dante and Machiavelli, for I am not sure if Italian waitresses were required to read them.
Those seeking long-stay visas could be tested on the life and achievements of Sachin Tendulkar.
