“It feels like a personal rejection. India is a country I grew up in and so fondly call home. And I cannot travel to India now,” said 55-year-old Brad (name changed) as he received an email from the visa service on 4 October informing him that his application cannot be processed.
Brad is one of the many residents of Canada who will have to reschedule or cancel their travel plans to India after New Delhi suspended new visas for Canadians on 21 September.
The move came three days after Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau linked the assassination of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar with agents of the Indian government. Nijjar – chief of Khalistan Tiger Force (KTF) and a citizen of Canada – was shot dead outside a gurudwara in Vancouver on 18 June this year.
“When our prime minister raked the issue in the Parliament, I knew it would flare up,” Brad told The Quint over a phone call.
As India-Canada relations continue to spiral unabated, many Canadian tourists to India are distressed over the blanket suspension of new visas. According to a report in Mint, over 2,77,000 foreign tourists landed from Canada to India in 2022 – making it the fifth largest source nations of tourists to India.
This is the story of Brad, who has been planning his “homecoming” to India in November for over a year, and who is now “heartbroken” and finds himself involved in a one-sided email communication with the visa services in a hope to go meet his sister back in Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu.
‘Sister a Music Teacher in Kodaikanal, Wanted to Attend Her Concert’
“I am feeling really disappointed and powerless. There is nothing I can do sitting here in Halifax,” Brad said the day he received news that his visa application cannot be processed.
He said that he had purchased his air tickets to Bengaluru in April and had applied for his visa in July itself. However, Brad was informed that his application could not be processed until October.
He told The Quint that it was because of a rule that states that visa applications will be processed within 30 days of departure.
“I was planning on visiting my sister, who has been teaching music at the Kodaikanal International School for a year now. She has a concert and a play planned in November and I wanted to help her with that,” lamented Brad. For him, the visit was a homecoming.
Brad’s parents had come to India in 1978, when his sister was only four years old. Since both of them were teachers, they had come to the Kodaikanal International School in Tamil Nadu for two years to teach. “But we all fell so much in love with India, that we stayed here for longer.”
Brad said that he grew up in India and did not return to Canada until his graduation from the same school in 1968. He added that since then, he has managed to visit India only twice, and thus was longing to visit this year in November.
‘Not Being Allowed to Visit a Place That Was Once Home '
Brad said that though he understands “the politics” behind such moves, it is people like him who are unfortunately caught in the throes of souring diplomatic relations between India and Canada.
“I am not a Sikh. I am not travelling to North India. I am not going to Punjab. I am going to Bengaluru and then to a place which has been my home during my adolescence. This feels like a personal rejection,” said Brad, who is a retired military officer.
He said that though the visa services offered to refund his money for not processing his application, he had already purchased his tickets and made his reservations.
“It’s a bit of a Catch-22 situation. This homecoming was special. And rescheduling everything will cost me dearly,” said Brad, welling up.
Heartbroken at the state of affairs, Brad said that he could only hope that the blanket suspension of visa services is temporary, and the Indian consulate will lift the ban once the situation de-escalates. In the interim, he said he has been writing emails to the visa services expecting things to change.
“I can’t speak to someone on this matter or ask for help – no call centres, no helplines. But I am hopeful that life will come full circle and I will be able to visit my home in a country that I love,” Brad said. He wished a solution to this situation shows up and “preferably before November,” when he is scheduled to travel to Kodaikanal.
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