How I became a stateless person

From: Rev John Robert Thwaytes

Thwaytes House,

Boys Town, Mal

P.O.Mal, Dt.Jalpaiguri,

West Bengal 735221

India.

Cell phone: 9932982001

Email: johnthwaytes@gmail.com July 1^st 2010

To: The British Deputy High Commissioner

1, Ho Chi Min Sarani

Kolkata 700 071

By email to Kolkata@fco.gov.uk

Sir, Sub. My application for Indian citizenship refused

I beg leave to inform you that I applied for Indian citizenship on 30^th April 2002, and my application in the prescribed form, with all mandatory enclosures, was accepted by the District Magistrate’s Office in Jalpaiguri on 6^th May 2002.

However, in February 2003 I was arrested and remanded to judicial custody at Jalpaiguri Correctional Home for purposes of deportation.to U.K. I was also refused bail, and remained in custody there for four months and one week, that is up to the first week of July 2003.

Meantime, my lawyer was able to satisfy the District Magistrate, Jalpaiguri, about my credentials, and the D.M., Dr.Subrata Gupta, I.A.S. kindly forwarded my citizenship application to the Government of India on 2^nd April 2003 with his recommendation (vide Memo No.1213(A)/G dated 02/04/2003 addressed to the Secretary to the Government of West Bengal, Home (Political Citizenship) Department).

But I remained in custody, and no stay of deportation was ordered by the Government. Rather I received information from a reliable source that the Government was trying to expedite my deportation.

Therefore, in order to avoid immediate deportation, my lawyer advised me that the only option available was to renounce my British citizenship and then make a Special Leave Petition to the High Court of Kolkata to try to get a stay order against my deportation. He brought two copies of form RN1 to me in the jail office on 16^th April 2003 and, after careful consideration I signed the two copies on that date.

The lawyer then submitted the two signed forms RN1 to your office in Kolkata and one receipted copy was retained for me by my lawyer. This shows your reference number T107689sF F9 28.05.03 108065, so it must have been submitted on 28^th May 2003.

According to my lawyer, this renunciation had become necessary because if I were to be deported to U.K. my application for Indian naturalization would have become sterile and infructuous. He also felt that, according to other decisions of the Indian Supreme Court, arrest for purposes of deportation should not be done while an application for naturalization remained pending. I renounced my British citizenship in good faith because my application for naturalization had already been recommended by the District Magistrate, who is the constitutional authority, and I, therefore, had no reason to think that it might be refused. Also, since I was confined to jail custody and had no access to any documents and no means to correspond with the outside world, I particularly asked my lawyer to act for me in fulfilling my obligation to report my change of status in writing to the Secretary to the Government of India in the Ministry of Home Affairs as I was obliged to do so under the terms of the affidavit I had submitted with Form Xll (Application for Naturalization) and he assured me that he would do so. I believe that he did, in fact, carry out my request.

The Special Leave Petition to the High Court of Kolkata was successful, and dual stay orders against my deportation were issued by Hon’ble Justice Mr.Pinaki Chandra Ghosh on 22^nd May 2003 and 20^th June 2003, (the second order being made to clarify the fuller implications of the first, which had not been implemented as regards my release from jail custody). Not until after the second order came was I released from jail and allowed to remain resident in India provided I did not leave Jalpaiguri District. I am legally residing in India on the strength of these High Court orders.

Now, after waiting more than seven years for a decision from the Indian Government, today itself I have received two letters from the Government, which I have scanned and attach herewith in jpeg format so that I can send them with this email (Govt070610.jpg and Govt040510.jpg). These letters categorically refuse my application for naturalization without assigning any reasons or giving any explanations.

My position now is that of a stateless person apparently without hope of getting Indian citizenship. So I have renounced my British citizenship for nothing, except that I got seven more years to work here and make arrangements for my successors in running this project (which is a definite gain). So now, Sir, to make a long story short, I have no idea about what is the right and proper thing for me to do in this situation, and I would greatly welcome a word of guidance or advice from you as representing the British Government.

Please note that in both the attached letters from the Indian Government I am defined as a “British National” and there is no acknowledgement of the fact that I renounced my British citizenship and am, therefore, a stateless person. I have researched these matters on Internet, and I know that these are very technical and complicated terms which I can’t easily understand. But I would like to ask you if you think it is possible for me to get any kind of assistance from the British Government or from UNHCR to solve my problem.

I noticed that UNHCR pays special attention to disabled and aged stateless persons. I am 79 years old and severely disabled. Last Saturday I went for a medical checkup by a famous orthopaedic surgeon. He is Dr.R. Gopal Krishnan, Chief Orthopaedic Surgeon of Apollo Hospitals, Chennai. After checking my xrays he told me bluntly that the bones in my right hip have almost completely disintegrated, and I should go to Chennai and have correction surgery for the prosthesis that was inserted in 1993. It should be taken out, then a bone graft done from the bone bank, and, after that is successful, a new prosthesis inserted. I told him I can’t go to Chernnai because of legal problems, so he told me to contact him after solving those problems. Actually, at my age I would rather not spend a fortune on medical work of this sort. I still get around quite well with an elbow crutch and I can do my work, which is all mental and sedentary, and I do not want to be a financial burden to the people I came here to help. I am willing to take the risk that if gangrene happens to develop within the crumbling bones of my hip I will die within a week, so that at least will not be a lingering death like cancer, for example. And it would probably be accelerated by heart failure. Besides all those operations are themselves highly risky for a person of my age. I do not believe anyone can guarantee that a bone graft would work on a person of my age, who is probably a borderline case for osteoporeosis anyway.

In order to clarify my position and anticipate questions that might reasonably be asked, I would now like to go back to my personal history prior to the events so far mentioned. For this purpose I will start with a synopsis of the list dates prepared by my lawyer for submission to the High Court of Kolkata in the matter of C.R.M. 823 of 2001

“ In the matter of :

C. R. M. 823 of 2001 :

Rev John Robert Thwaytes

…Petitioner

Versus -

State of West Bengal

…Respondent : ---

SYNOPSIS OF THE LIST OF DATES

1. 11.01.31 AT Aldershot, England. Date of Birth.

2. As a baby with his parents in Date of 1^st coming to India.

The year 1931 stayed upto 1935.

3. Again arrived on 15.9.54 and Date upto which he stayed

Stayed upto 02.12.57. in India.

4. 03.12.1957 Date of leaving India.

5. 02.06.1966 Date of re-entry in India.

6. 7^th March 1952 and renewed Date on which his passport

From time to time. was issued.

7. 21^st March, 2005. Date upto which his passport

Is valid.

8. 21^st July, 2000 Date upto which visa was valid.

9. 08.02.2000 Date of making application

to the authority for

extending his Visa.

10. 11.01.2001 Date of issue of ‘Quit India’

Notice by the S.P. Jalpaiguri.

11. 25.02.2001` Date of making representation to the Dy.Secretary to Govt. of W.B.

12. 25.01.2001 Date on which his application was forwarded to the Home Dept.,Govt. of W.B. by the British Deputy High Comm.r

13. 27.02.2001 Date of F.I.R.

14. 28.02.2001 Date of his arrest.

15. 28.02.2001 Date of the order passed by the S.D.J.M. rejecting his ‘bail prayer’. “

For your ready reference, I also attach a letter dated 30-05-2002 giving full details about my passport and visa history upto that date: (vide 1 – 4.JRT30052002.jpg attached hereto).

If required I can also produce Xerox copies of all the six British passports which were surrendered to your office by my lawyer on 28.05.2003 . These are genuine, made before I went to jail, but I had no opportunity to get them attested, because my lawyer did not get attested copies made at the time he surrendered them to you. I can also produce Xerox copies of my residential permit. These are genuine, but I had no opportunity to get them attested.

From all the above it can be shown that I have spent not less than fifty years of my life legally resident in India. Before my five year visa expired I applied for renewal in good time, and my application was accepted by the concerned authority. I then waited for the renewal, knowing full well from previous long experience that there would be at least several months delay before the Government sanctioned the renewal of my five-year visa for a further five years.

Then, like a bolt from the blue, I got a letter from the Superintendent of Police ordering me to quit India within 15 days. No reasons for this have been disclosed then or since. At that time I was, as Founder/ Director of a large organization including Boys Town and Caesar School, running this huge project with thousands of Indians depending on the continuity of my work. It was impossible for me to change the management and cheque-signing powers etc and leave within 15 days, and it would have caused chaos in the institution for thousands of people whose livelihood and educational fate and welfare depended on it. Although I then, and continuously since then, have tried my level best to hand over to competent persons, and I have now largely succeeded in doing so, it was a work of years, not days.

Furthermore, since I had no valid visa and no valid residential permit, no travel agent would be allowed, according to government rules, to issue an air ticket to me, and I would also be stopped by the emigration authorities and not allowed to leave India. Only a deportation officer would be able to arrange my exit, and none had been made available.

Thirdly, at that time, I did not have enough personal money left to buy an air ticket and pay other travel expenses, since I had spent all my money for my social work projects.

Soon afterwards I was arrested for contravening the Indian Foreigners Act and jailed on 28^th February 2001. I remained in jail for eight months, first as an under-trial prisoner and later as a convict, and I served my full sentence according to law. After my release I applied for Indian citizenship by naturalization process in Form Xll on 30.04.2002 but actually submitted the application with all mandatory enclosures on 06.05.2002 to the office of the District Magistrate, Jalpaiguri.

My lawyer assured me that I would not be arrested again once I had applied for naturalization, but in late February 2003 I was again arrested and consigned to Jalpaiguri Correctional Home. It took four months plus one week to get released, as already described. This time I was arrested solely for the purpose of deportation to U.K., but before a deportation officer became available I had already got released under the two orders of Hon’ble Justice Mr. Pinaki Chandra Ghosh, as already mentioned.

I also wish to make clear that I had established a domicile in India over many years, and had given up all claims to domicile status in any other country. I had my own residence in India, a burial place ready in the chapel garden, and some financial resources that could not be transferred out of the country. I had no residence or property in any other country of the world, not even in U.K. If I were deported to U.K. I would become cut off permanently from any utilization of my personal possessions, and would become immediately destitute. Is this a fit reward after spending fifty years in India, most of it engaged in charitable, educational and humanitarian work? I had tried to apply for naturalization in India as early as 1974, but the Government refused to give me the requisite form of application. In 2002 I got it from Internet.

Now my situation is changing. The All India Achievers Foundation has decided to grant an award to me and my project, Boys Town and Caesar School. Also my new book Screwfang and Crumblecrutch has been accepted for publication and will be coming out soon in London. This book is a broad analysis of the long term course of salvation history, and shows how some of the great religions of the world fit into its plan. It is designed to engender greater tolerance and mutual understanding and the broadest possible ecumenism among all religions. I hope that such developments will earn me slightly more consideration from the government than I have had so far as a fameless nonentity.

During my life I have heard of many Indian immigrants to U.K. becoming policemen, government officials, Members of Parliament, Members of the House of Lords, and so on; but we few British people who would like to emigrate to India seem to be treated as riff-raff no matter what good work we try to do. Where is the reciprocity in that ? Surely the British Government should strive for a proper and reasonable reciprocity in the treatment of its citizens by other nations. If I were to leave India now as a ruined, crippled pauper at the age of 79, I would lose everything I have, and no one can give me back the 50 years of my life spent here, which I might have spent more profitably elsewhere. I should be grateful that India allowed me to spend 50 happy years here, but I can hardly be grateful for what is virtually a death sentence. What have I done to merit such treatment? I have not been charged or tried for any felony, and even a felon would get a chance to defend himself and might not have to suffer such a heavy penalty as I now face. Because of my religious convictions I will not commit suicide, but many times a day I pray to God to let me die as soon as possible.

There is more. I can prove that I am a person of Indian origin. My great grandfather, Robert Thwaytes, M.A.Cantab, was Principal of Hooghly Mohsin College, Chinsurah, and his portrait is still there in oils. In 1824 he married Mary Rylands in Kolkata. She was an Anglo-Indian. My grandfather Harry Thwaytes was born at Chinsurah. I have these and many other strong links with India. I have strong spiritual and sentimental ties with India. By comparison any other country, even U.K., now seems like a foreign country to me whenever I go there, and I feel truly at home only when I return to India. Is man only there for the nation, or is the nation there for man? Nowadays the former seems to be the norm, but in the days of Lord Byron it was the latter. Also, man is a living soul, not a robot.

Basically, I ask from India only six feet of earth. I ask to be allowed to live out the few remaining months of my flickering life peacefully, surrounded by my grown-up orphan children, and their children, who call me their grandfather. I ask the privilege of being allowed to rest my weary bones in a grave in the chapel garden at Boys Town. If the Indian government do not wish to grant me naturalization, I would request them at least to allow me to live here in Jalpaiguri District as a stateless person until I die. I have no inclination to go anywhere else.

Finally, I am copying this correspondence by email to Mr.Jai Prakash Mishra, who lives in Kolkata, and I am requesting him to meet with you as my agent and representative if you so permit. He is at present Assistant General Manager in charge of the Howrah Branch of the State Bank of India, with a residence at Salt Lake. He is also one of my grown-up orphans. He is also a member of both the managing Trusts which run Boys Town and Caesar School. His email address is jpmishra.jai@gmail.com …

With best regards,

Yours faithfully,

John Robert Thwaytes.

Typed on my computer at 8:03 PM at Mal on 1^st July 2010.