Proud To Be Indian, But Not To Hold An Indian Passport. Here’s Why

India Allows Visa-Free Access To Only 58 Countries

As an immigrant, immigration is not just a topic of interest, in fact, it precedes the basis of employment itself. Without the right immigration (the ability to secure an employment visa), you’re precluded from several jobs. As a millennial, our generation could say that back in the day, our grandparents’ basic priorities on Maslow’s Hierarchical scale were simply ‘Roti Kapda, Makaan’ (food, clothing and shelter). Our parents’ ‘boomer’ generation had a bit more — ‘Roti Kapda Makaan’ + savings and investments + education for kids — as the main weapon in the upward social mobility challenge. My generation, the millennials, have all of the above AND immigration concerns in the quest for better economic opportunity.

And of course, a lot of the ability to live, work and travel depends on a tiny 125 × 88 mm booklet called the passport. Globalisation may make it easier for data to travel across archaic borders in nanoseconds, yet the passport may preclude a lot of that travel. In fact, the hierarchy of passport classifications is definitely a new ‘class’ system of sorts.

India, of course, staunchly disallows its citizens from obtaining dual citizenship. Even the United States, which has long seen itself, and to quote many, “as the…