Re: Reply to Prabhu Guptara on Dual Citizenship

["Vinay Chandekar" <vinay@asiaaccess.net.th>]

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Administrative Note:
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Week's Agenda: Political & administrative reforms
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-----Original Message-----
From: Vinay Chandekar <vinay@asiaaccess.net.th>
To: India Policy <debate@indiapolicy.org>
Date: 03 November, 1998 5:27 PM
Subject: Reply to Prabhu Guptara on Dual Citizenship


On 03 Nov. Prabhu Guptara wrote:


     "But I will be pleased to have my ignorance of the practical
      disadvantages of such a policy (granting  dual citizenship)
      revealed to me by other IP members."
*****************************************
You are not alone in harbouring such feelings of injured innocence.
Let me try to clarify to you why Dual Citizenship can not and should
not be granted.

First of all, implementing the dual-citizenship provision
selectively
will be nearly impossible - it is either for all or for none.

The problem lies with good-hearted people who lead a sheltered
life and do not know the real nature of  street-fighting. Street-
fighting is Referee-less fight where you hit below the belt and
take every advantage you can command. This is what the
developed world is engaged in today in ways that are
seemingly fair but are stacked against the developing world. One
arm of it is dangling carrots of undeniable advantage and beauty
in front of the "brains" that are nurtured by the Third world but
who, drawn by the attractiveness of these carrots, choose to make
their homes in the vicinity of "fields" where these carrots grow and
thus deprive their own Mother-country of the benefits of their
superior
skills. The mother-country seeks to limit such flight of talent and
impose restrictions which are sought to be portrayed as unfair by
those who benefit from it.

NOTE:  This is achieved indirectly by creating Unreal differences
in the returns to these talented people by what is available in
their
countries as compared to the retuns offerred in the developed world.
Which country can compete with Columbia University in offerring
an Economics professor US$ 25000 PER MONTH - $ 300,000 per
annum ?

People who have not known evil, can never imagine that  there are
others who would stoop to any depth and commit any crime to
achieve their nefarious ends. In fact, it is the innocuous ignorance
(of these realities) of these people that is behind many "wet" ideas
such as human rights etc which seek to give the guilty the full
protection of law while ignoring the sufferings of the injured.


Demand for Dual - Citizenship arises mostly from these people.The
other group, less vocal and lying low, hoping to benefit from the
provision of  D-C is of the "nefarious" variety who seek protection
for their ill-gotten gains.

Lack of provision for dual-citizenship hampers a few people whose
jobs demand mobility but if Dual-citizenship was offerred to ease
their problem, to evey one such person,there are thousands who will
seek to hide behind the dual-protection offerred by such provision.

The problem is if a person holding dual-citizenship, happens to
breach
the law of one country, how do you tackle it ? You can Not kick out
such a person, you can only "sentence" him. Sentencing to death is
always a messy affair, so you sentence him to a certain prison term
and then have to release him to live among your "un-offending"
people
to "spread" the cancer of his criminal mind among them. By
comparison,
it is simple to handle a non-citizen who commits a crime in your
country :
kick him out after he has completed his prison-term !

No, Prabhu, you can not have Dual-citizenship for the simple reason
that no one can owe allegiance to two countries. US citizenship
requires you to take an oath to this effect, so who will you fight
for in case there is a war between the two and you get commissioned
to train the military officers to "make effective use of  resources"
by both the warring countries ? Or have you assumed that since a
majority of Indian students studying Economics in USA are
capitalistic minded, US will never wage a war against India. Don't
forget, Tricky Dick Nixon did send his Seventh Fleet in the Bay of
Bengal during the liberation of East Bengal ? Also, keep in mind,
Harry Truman dropped atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
two cities in "yellow-people-counrty" Japan at a time when it
was already preparing to offer surrender terms (these facts have
just begun to emerge after the opening of archives of that time).
He did not use atomic weapons in the European theatre because
he simply wished to avoid using it against Anglo-Saxons - his
own stock.  So, do you think, if the occasion arises, Americans
would desist from using these means of mass destruction against us ?
India and most of South East Asia is just "brown-skin-country" for
them.

They say,
" A life with illusions is Unpardonable: A life without
illusions is Unbearable."

Let us get rid of our illusins. Life for Indians has been almost
unbearable with foreign domination for the last one thousand
years but we have Survived. Now if we can only hold on to our
gains and Strive Together without fighting among ourselves,
we shall Also Conquer. The need is to Stay Together and feel
like One Indian, not half Indian and half some other whereever
we happen to be.

Lack of D-C does present inconveniences, but that is the price
of Self-Respect.

Let individuals change heir Citizen-ship, if it can not be avoided :
let us make "regranting" citizenship easier but two citizenship at
one time is not a good idea.

The other reason is of course, biological - one does not have two
Fathers or two mothers, so what moral grounds one has to ask for
two citizenships ? Matters of convenience ought not dictate the
national policy.  Let us be lenient in "re-granting" citizen-ship to
ex-citizens who have had to give it up for whatsoever reasons but,
two citizenships at one time is invitation to bad governance".

I wonder why everybody keeps saying, such and such thing is allowed
in so and so country and so on. Do we  want to make India No.1 or a
idiotic imitator of others ? What suits others may not suit India.
If you sense the potential greatness of India, then this argument
is merely self-service and wishful thinking since so many
members are all living abroad.

Good Wishes to All.

Vinay.



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