Traveling anywhere today on an Indian passport is guaranteed to be exciting - navigating visa appointments, embassy interviews, credit worthiness tests and other required hurdles will keep anyone from boredom. The reluctance of countries rich and poor, large and small to open their doors to Indians is quite understandable. The numbers are simply against India; with 1.2 billion people when an Indian is let into one's country it's hard to be sure who exactly is being let in. Is it someone with a college education and a stable income living in the cities, or is it one of the vast majority of the wretchedly poor.
The population of Uttar Pradesh, sadly one of the least literate and poorer Indian states is larger than Brazil; making it the fifth most populous country in the world if it were an independent nation. Or for that matter Bihar would be in the poorest 10% of countries if it were an independent nation and there's more such examples to add to what will surely be an unflattering list. [0] Nevertheless take Turkey, it lets in anyone on an Indian passport without a pre-issued visa as long as the passport carries a valid Schengen or US visa. As an aside, while this sounds great, it is not so simple in practice. I did get my visa on arrival at the airport but only after standing in 4 different lines and being interrogated by a bored teenage police officer fingering his gun all the time. The list of countries that Turkey will grant visas on arrival is rather large - it produces quick money at $20 per head and no doubt helps the economy immensely. Economics is at one level about the optimal allocation of capital, resources and people for the maximization of productivity. Global capital markets and free trade agreements have made the free movement of the first two possible at the snap of a finger, but people remain the least fluid component in global economics. Moving an entire factory floor to China is still reasonably efficient since people themselves aren't being moved, but when it comes to qualified professionals global corporations and talented individuals need to spend lots of time on complicated visa regulations and procedures before a large corporate head quarters with a global workforce can be assembled. For a country which counts people as its largest bankable asset India should see a lot of economic merit in enabling the free global movement of its talented people. Assuming there is a special class of Indian passport [1], one where the recipient is vetted to be of first or second world standards in education, income, and other desirables, and comes with pre-negotiated visa waivers with most countries - it would enable a more mobile class of Indian who can travel and be employed in other countries, but be off the host country's books in terms of visas and permanent residencies. Given the incentive to convert nationality or residency is greatly reduced for this new mobile Indian it helps India retain its talent too. In a country facing a lot of criticism for being unable to allow global trade in as rapidly as the world would like (c.f. Walmart's entry into India) and generally facing economic stagnation (http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/india-s-year-of-living-stagnantly) (http://blogs.reuters.com/india/2012/03/15/india-democratic-tempest-shashi-tharoor/) it wouldn't be such a bad idea to advance in the global economic race with what is merely a regulatory and diplomatic undertaking. Thoughts? [0] Interestingly Brazil has some of the same baggage of a vast poor underbelly as India; but it fares vastly better on the visa waiver thing. There's greater segregation of the population there of course, and some racism, but still an interesting data point. [1] The ECNR/ECR stamp regime did something similar but to no productive end
