British Need visa to India

K2004 · Post by **K2004** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 10:08 am

As some of you know , I became British recently(last month), since then i have been abroad 4 times for business and enjoying my visa free travel, now I need to visit india for business meeting, i was surprised to learn that British need visa for India, and what shoked me more, is that you have to clrafiy in your visa applciation if you hold other nationalities,,, (which means that the visa process may take longer , as they state)... now this is a nightmare, I have a feeling the all countries will start to adapt to the same process in the future, so it doesnt matter if you hold a British Passport, if you still have or had other nationalities in the past....

TintinHerge · Post by **TintinHerge** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 10:36 am

I dont see why you should be shocked and surprised. What is wrong with the policy of a country to screen applications for people from other countries wanting to visit their country for either business or tourism ? Did you not apply for a visa when you came to Britain from your original country? Why should it be any different when the roles are reversed ? Unless there is a firm 2-way pact in place(like EU or UK-US), I believe there is nothing wrong in this - Unless I have missed your point entirely.

abcd1 · Post by **abcd1** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 11:07 am

ha ha ... what a question!

Indians need a visa to visit Britain.
Naturally Brits will need a visa to visit India.

However, if you are people of Indian origin (PIO), you can get 5-year visa at once to visit India.

mhunjn · Post by **mhunjn** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 11:54 am

It's not a new thing that British citizens need visa for India.

Visa services are normally reciprocal in nature. If Britain requires Indian citizens to get a visa, so will it be vice versa.

K2004 · Post by **K2004** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 1:17 pm

I am sorry, i didnt make myself clear, i was actually shoked regarding a note on the indian visa application, which state that if you are British but hold other nationality (ies) then your application will take longer time to process... thats means not all british get equal treatment ....

mhunjn · Post by **mhunjn** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 1:46 pm

That does make sense... eg: If you were British but also hold Pakistani nationality, it can be quite difficult to get an Indian visa, regardless of the british nationality.
From the process point of view, they need to check on your records, so the more paperwork involved, the more time taken to decide on a visa.

K2004 · Post by **K2004** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 2:09 pm

excatly , thats my point, so in the future we are going to have separate treatment for those Naturalised when visiting any country, I can see that in couple of years time, lots of countries will adapt to the same procedure, no matter what passport you have, its what passport you had. so as British I wont be allowed to visit USA because my country of origin,,, and so on...

abcd1 · Post by **abcd1** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 2:12 pm

It is quite common.

Most countries will ask not only what nationality you posses but also what you had in the past.

This is for security reason.

mhunjn · Post by **mhunjn** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 2:27 pm

I can see your point... but you have to accept that being a British National does not get you above the law and rules. Can't see why you are complaining about it?... You cannot deny/forget your past just by changing your citizenship.

Naturalised citizens will always have more paperwork to fill in for visa purposes just because there might be some information that might be relevant to that country's policy. See my earlier post for an example.

And you can extend your imagination to as much as you want... but I can't see why you need to?... unless you just need something to complain about

K2004 wrote:excatly , thats my point, so in the future we are going to have separate treatment for those Naturalised when visiting any country, I can see that in couple of years time, lots of countries will adapt to the same procedure, no matter what passport you have, its what passport you had. so as British I wont be allowed to visit USA because my country of origin,,, and so on...

K2004 · Post by **K2004** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 3:21 pm

I am not complaining , in fact i am a happy, another question on similar subject:

considering the strong relations between Britain and India throught the history, dont you think its a bit strange that UK citizen need visa to India, while they can travel visa free to most of south Asia?? as for reciprocal most of these south east asia nationals need visa to enter UK...

mhunjn · Post by **mhunjn** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 4:19 pm

As I said earlier, visa and consular services depend on the government's policy. And more often than not it is reciprocal. There are exceptions, but generally the 'reciprocal' thing does work.

lemess · Post by **lemess** » Sun Apr 02, 2006 9:49 am

I don't think this is anything to be shocked about. India simply does not allow visa free entry and as far as I know, people need a visa to enter India regardless of their citizenship. The only exemptions may be citizens of Nepal etc. Those are the rules and they're the same for every country. This issue doesn't have much to do with reciprocity as such - India just doesn't 'do' visa free travel ( apart from PIO card holders and you could argue that the PIO card itself is a 15 year visa).

Incidentally, you would probably be even more shocked to learn that Australia also requires all British visitors to get a visa - although it is generally done automatically in the form of an electronic permit and taken care of by the airline when you book a ticket.

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British Need visa to India

British Need visa to India