Indians in Gulf oppose New Delhi's
dual citizenship proposal

Dubai, Jan 10 (IANS) Indians living in the Gulf countries have opposed the government's proposal to grant dual citizenship to Indians abroad, saying it would jeopardise the nation's security interest in the long run.
"There is no rationale behind extending dual citizenship to non-resident Indians (NRIs) at this stage," said Bharatkumar Shah, founder member of the Dubai chapter of the Overseas Indians Economic Forum.
"When the PIOs (people of Indian origin) are already getting all the facilities extended to a non-resident Indian, there is no need to grant dual citizenship," Shah told IANS in an interview.
Shah, an NRI for 53 years who has been living in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, is also chairman of the NRI Forum of Indian Business Council, Dubai.
"By giving dual citizenship the government will compromise its security interests. The government should carefully analyse all the consequences before rushing ahead with the proposal."
Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee Tuesday indicated that his government could favourably consider dual citizenship for persons of Indian origin (PIOs), which is one of the recommendations of a high-level diaspora committee.
"There has been a lot of demand (from non-resident Indians and PIOs). We could accept dual citizenship, but not dual nationality," the prime minister said.
The committee has, in the first phase, recommended dual citizenship for PIOs residing in the U.S., Canada, European Union member nations, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.
"The government of India has offered on a golden platter the PIO cards to the Indians holding other countries' passports.
"However, we are disappointed that while offering such privilege to Indians who adopted citizenship of other countries, the request of Gulf Indians for considering such arrangement is not considered," Shah said.
According to Shah, the Indian government is totally apathetic to the problems faced by Indians living in the Gulf countries. "Whenever the acronym NRI is mentioned, people immediately think of overseas Indian living in Europe, America or in other countries without even giving a thought to NRIs of the Gulf and the Middle East.
"We all are holding Indian passports and even if an opportunity is given to us to get nationality of the country where we reside, most of us will not change our loyalty to India.
"Whereas in the case of NRIs of the rest of the world, most of them are holding passports of the countries of domicile and their future generation may lose even this identity with the motherland," Shah said.
He said there are about 3.2 million overseas Indians in the Gulf and over 70 percent of the Gulf Indians remit a large part of their total income to India after keeping "a barest minimum of amount" for their expenses.
"And yet such workers and businessmen are prone to exploitation both in the Gulf countries and at home."
According to Shah, bank frauds against Indian depositors, absence of identity for NRI status to Gulf NRIs and self-employment scheme, and return of the stranded and destitute NRIs were the main problems faced by the Indians living in the Gulf countries.

Source: Indo-Asian News Service