By Prasun Sonwalkar, IANS
London : Campaigners protesting against changes to immigration rules that have affected thousands of highly skilled Indians in Britain hope that Prime Minister Gordon Brown will use his ongoing visit to India to clear the air on the issue.
According to the Highly Skilled Migrants Forum, the campaign group leading the protests, there are more than 30,000 Indians and their families who are in line for deportation due to the changes to immigration rules.
Speaking for the forum, Amit Kapadia said: “Many Indians and other non-EEA nationals took the crucial decision of migrating to UK based on the UK government’s sweet promises of fair treatment for visa extensions based on economic activity and settlement.
“They are now at the receiving end due to these unfair changes. Based on the representations of the UK government, many gave up their well-established careers, winded up their establishments and uprooted their families to move to UK only to realise that they have been deceived.”
Kapadia recalled Indian-origin industrialist Lord Swraj Paul, who is part of Brown’s tour to India, stating that the prime minister wanted to upgrade relations with India to a much higher level.
The forum said in a statement Sunday: “But it still remains a question mark if relations with a country can be improved while at the same time their citizens are ill treated.”
The changes to immigration rules in November 2006 have been criticised by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Commission for Racial Equality and the Human Rights Commission.
Noted Indian-origin academic, Lord Bhikhu Parekh said: “Retrospective changes in the HSMP (Highly Skilled Migrant Programme) are grossly unfair, cause considerable hardship to those who have come under the programme, and impugn the good name of Britain.
“They will also make it difficult to recruit talented people when Britain might need them in future. I strongly urge the government to rescind these changes, and act on the rules under which it initially invited skilled people.”
Elangovan Chandrasekar, a member of the forum, said: “The UK government wants Indian businesses and investments in the UK but they do not want Indians themselves.”