When Immigration Officials Hound Foreign Tourists

‘Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility’

— Peter Drucker

Sentinel viewpoint

While the Narendra Modi government has been zealously embarking on the ‘Incredible India’ roadmap to woo foreign tourists, the Sarbananda Sonowal government in Assam has come up with the idea of ‘Advantage Assam’ to entice both tourists and investors from within the country as well as abroad. Of late, the Sonowal government has been emphasizing the prospects of tourism in Assam, with a concept like tea tourism under Uttaran Scheme where Rs 1,200 crore has been allocated. These ideas are grand, but a reality check brings forth some disconcerting facts of life too. One such pertains to the harassment of the worst kind that foreign tourists face as they encounter hostile Immigration officials at the Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport in Guwahati.

Assume for a moment you are a foreign tourist visiting Assam with the rest of the Northeast too in your mind. You have landed in the airport solely as a tourist; you are not here for any other reason but to explore the beauty of this clime, to know its diverse people and culture, to enhance your knowledge that way. However, at the airport, Immigration officials throw at you a volley of such bizarre and unwanted, undesirable queries that you are left wondering whether they have discovered a criminal or lawbreaker in you and so you must be hounded that way. The questions you generally face are of the strangest kind and in no way connected with the purpose for which you are here as a tourist.

“Why are you here?”, “What are your contacts here?”, “Why should you visit the same place so many times?”, “Give us the contact numbers of people you know here”, and so on and so forth – these are the posers of the most unnecessary and discomfiting kind you face even if you have all the valid documents with you (and in some cases when you are armed with a multiple visa too). Even if you have some contacts here and they end up at the airport to come to your aid, these people too face harassment at the hands of Immigration officials by way of being questioned endlessly as if these contacts you know too have some sinister designs. It is all as if you are here to fulfil some vested interest in cahoots with some local people, if any, who know as your Indian contacts. It is as if some conspiracy theory is at secretive work from your side and as if the paranoia of Immigration officials is justified, while the reality is that you are merely a tourist looking for some adventure and knowledge in life by way of travelling to different places and meeting different people. This immigration regime is not just atrocious and outrageous, it also directly runs counter to the very tourism thesis of the government centred on such flowery phrases like ‘Advantage Assam”. No wonder, you are left at the height of your surprise, bewilderment and embarrassment as you ponder what kind of ‘advantage’ the government is talking about – or has in mind – when it comes to Assam vis-à-vis its tourism potential. You just don’t believe this.

But, then, your harassment is real. You are subjected to extreme humiliation without rhyme or reason. You are made to feel that you have no business to be in this area while what you have done is simply visit this place as a tourist – and just as a tourist. That way you are discouraged at your very first step in a journey of thrill that you have had in your mind only to face extreme intimidation and hostility in the name of ‘immigration formality’. This surely is not any way the government would have any tourism industry roar here as it seems to say all the while.

The simple crux of the matter is that when foreign tourists are subjected to such sheer torture in the name of ‘officialdom’ – so much so that some, especially ladies, are forced to cry in their hour of extreme and acute ignominy and helplessness – the tall talk of tourism happening as an industry here and the flamboyance of slogans such as ‘Advantage Assam’ remain a mere myth or fanciful political imagination quite detached from the ugly reality of the time. Can any amends be affected?