Just go to London and show the immigration officer that you were born there, and they will let you in. ‘We can’t issue you an entry permit, but they cannot deny you entry into London when you have the absolute right to live there. ‘No, I’m not saying that,’ he hastened to assure me. ‘Are you saying to me that I can’t visit London? Unless I take a British passport?’ I was stumped by this unexpected development. ‘But, you see, we can’t give an entry permit to someone who is entitled to a passport. ‘I understand that,’ said the deputy high commissioner. ‘But I don’t want a British passport!’ I expostulated. ‘You see, your birth certificate means that you are entitled to a British passport.’ ‘Was there any mistake on my application form?’ ‘I’m afraid we can’t give you an entry permit.’ Wondering what I had done to merit this, I nervously entered the dignitary’s enormous office, only to be told, Instead, to my surprise and consternation, I was singled out and summoned to the office of the deputy high commissioner. I duly applied for what, in those days, was known as an ‘entry permit’, and settled down in the waiting room of the British deputy high commission in Calcutta (as it then was) for my turn to pay the requisite fee and collect it.
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When I won a scholarship to go to graduate school in the United States, at the age of 19, in 1975, I planned to stop in London to visit relatives and friends on the way over. The issue has arisen at various stages of my life. The choice remains available: not to make that choice is, therefore, a decision I have consciously taken.
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Thanks to the laws prevalent in the United Kingdom, I was eligible from birth for a British passport, an option I have never exercised. I was born in London, in 1956, to Indian parents who carried the passports of their newly independent country, just six years after the establishment of the Republic of India. The question of nationality and nationhood is not, for me, a purely theoretical issue, the stuff of political philosophy or intellectual argument. From articles on diplomacy and international relations to personal essays and a selection of his most famous speeches, Tharoor covers a vast array of subjects in the book.Īn excerpt from the chapter, ‘A Congenital Indian Nationalist’: His latest, Pride, Prejudice & Punditry, is a compilation of his best published works as well as fresh pieces written specifically for this volume. Author, MP and THE WEEK’s columnist, Shashi Tharoor has published more than 20 books, both fiction and non-fiction.