00:00We will not tolerate this atrocity.
00:04We will not tolerate this atrocity.
00:08Answer the third government.
00:11You will have to answer.
00:15Well, look, it's not the first time we've had people deported.
00:18It's just that the media has suddenly woken up to the story
00:20because Mr. Trump has done it perhaps a bit quicker than people expected.
00:24But already last year, under the Biden administration,
00:27we had over 1,100 Indians being deported back.
00:30If you're illegally in the U.S., the U.S. has a right to deport you.
00:33And if your identity as an Indian is confirmed,
00:37then India has an obligation to accept you.
00:40So in both cases, there really isn't very much debate.
00:43However, it wasn't good to hear that they were brought back forcibly
00:46in a military plane and handcuffed and so on.
00:49That was quite unnecessary.
00:51It should have been enough to either put them on a commercial aircraft
00:53or a civilian plane and send them back.
00:55You can, if you want to do a mass deportation, do civilian charters.
00:59That would have been the more humane thing to do.
01:02They may, strictly speaking, have broken your laws by coming into your country.
01:06But by and large, they have no bad intentions.
01:08They're not criminals.
01:09They're not convicted of anything else.
01:11They're there to make a better life for themselves,
01:14which they have done by violating your laws.
01:16So you can send them out, no problem.
01:18But handcuffing them and putting them in a military aircraft
01:21and sending them in this way, I think India should say
01:24this is not entirely advisable.
01:26Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs, you are heading that,
01:29and is there a response from MEA to the panel
01:32that they are working on a law for safe immigration?
01:35Your thoughts regarding that, is that true?
01:37First of all, you know, what goes on in the committee
01:41is not supposed to be discussed publicly.
01:43But I should say that the question of an immigration bill
01:46has been public knowledge for several years.
01:48When I chaired the committee from 2014 to 2019,
01:51I had asked for an immigration bill
01:53because the existing immigration bill in India is 1983
01:56and is grossly out of date.
01:58It has not done anything to take into account
02:00the realities of immigration in the last 40 years.
02:03And therefore, an updated bill was necessary.
02:05It needs to take into account the various challenges
02:08that have arisen in recent years that we have seen.
02:11Deportations of illegal migrants is only one part of it,
02:14but safe and orderly and legal migration,
02:17migration of guest workers with the right to come back,
02:20migration of people for permanent settlement,
02:22migration of those going, for example,
02:25to countries like the Gulf where they're taken in bulk
02:27by contract laborers.
02:29What are their rights? What are their privileges?
02:31What are the duties of the embassies in all these places?
02:33There are a number of issues. It's not a small matter.
02:36And the government has been promising us a bill since 2016.
02:402015 or 16 when Sushmaji had written to me
02:43confirming that they were working on a bill.
02:45It is now almost nine years and there is still no bill in sight,
02:48so it is widely known that the committee and members of the committee
02:51have been demanding that this be expedited.
02:53They have promised that within a fairly short period of time,
02:56there will be a bill that will be presented for public consultations
02:59after inter-ministerial consultation.
03:01And I have urged that we should all be taken into confidence
03:04on how this is being discussed.
03:06But it's not specifically linked to the current problem of deportation alone.
03:10It's an old issue.
03:11Some of the leaders have said that the Indian military campaign
03:14were handcuffed. Do you have any confirmation regarding that?
03:17Well, people say they've seen pictures. I personally have not.
03:19I had a busy day yesterday. I didn't see any of the footage.
03:22But if it is true, and I've certainly read interviews with a couple of people
03:25who claim they were handcuffed, then it is really unacceptable.
03:28There is no need to treat Indians like this.
03:30They are citizens.
03:31They have a right to be living in their own country with dignity.
03:35Yes, they should not have broken the law.
03:37But handcuffing them on the way back, I think, is totally unnecessary.
03:40And this kind of thing, to be honest, is what gives, I think,
03:44the whole process of deportation such a bad name.
03:46Some Latin American countries have made it very clear
03:48they will not accept military aircraft and they will not accept handcuffing.
03:51And India should, I think, take a similar stand.
04:16India should take a stand. The PM should take a stand.
04:18Is this a way to do it?
04:46We will not tolerate this!
04:47We will not tolerate this!
04:49We will not tolerate this!
04:51We will not tolerate this!
04:53We will not tolerate this!
04:55We will not tolerate this!
04:57We will not tolerate this!
04:59We will not tolerate this!
05:01We will not tolerate this!
05:03We will not tolerate this!
05:05We will not tolerate this!
05:07We will not tolerate this!
05:09We will not tolerate this!
05:11We will not tolerate this!
05:13We will not tolerate this!
05:15We will not tolerate this!
05:20We will not tolerate this!
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