The Indian Weekender, Friday 17 April 2020

4 INDIA COVID-19 Special Coverage
Friday, April 17, 2020 The Indian Weekender
Govt’s decision on charter flights
for Kiwis stranded in India brings
hope for Indians stranded in NZ
SANDEEP SINGH
Government’s decision on
planning charter flights for
Kiwis stranded in India
has brought hope in altogether
unexpected quarters - the Indians
stranded in New Zealand.
The Indian Weekender has spoken
to many such Indians stranded in
NZ who are hoping that charter
flights potentially going to Mumbai
or New Delhi could also ferry them
back home - an overly ambitious
expectation - however not completely
unreasonable though.
To be clear, evacuating stranded
Indian citizens from NZ back to
India is by no means a responsibility,
or a priority, of the Kiwi government,
which is rightly focussed on working
on solutions that can get their own
citizens back home.
The responsibility of evacuating
stranded Indian citizens from NZ lies
explicitly with their government back
in New Delhi, and it’s clear that jaded
travellers are mixing two different
political issues and oversimplifying
things in their imaginations.
To be also clear, there is no
comparison between the complexity
and the scale of challenges facing
India and New Zealand in evacuating
their respective stranded citizens
from different parts of the world
amidst Covid-19 related global
lockdown.
However, that harsh political
reality is not stopping stranded
travellers from being hopeful of an
early return back home.
Evacuation of Kiwis stranded
in India and Indians in NZ are two
different issues
The two governments - NZ &
India - have expectedly different
perspectives and different logistical
challenges to worry about, before
committing to a clearly complex plan
of evacuation of its citizens.
NZ government’s endeavours to
get Kiwis stranded in India back
home was largely operational, with
logistical challenges, which includes
GOVERNMENT TO REPATRIATE NEW ZEALANDERS STRANDED IN INDIA
IWK BUREAU
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston
Peters has announced Monday April
13, that the Government will be
bringing New Zealanders home from India .
“New Zealanders in India have faced
challenging circumstances and the very difficult
task of getting home from a country under full
lockdown,” said Mr Peters.
“The Government is in discussion with
airlines and international partners to help those
New Zealanders stranded in India return home.
"This is a seriously complex endeavour due
to the current lockdown and a large number of
New Zealanders in various locations around
India. However, we are making very good
progress,” said Mr Peters.
“We are asking all New Zealanders in India
to seriously consider taking our governmentassisted
flights home. There are no guarantees
when international commercial flights will
negotiating through different closed
international air-routes, permission
for refuelling facilities, bearing
and distributing the costs of charter
flights, on top of getting permission
from New Delhi for the entry of
aircraft in the Indian ports.
On the other hand, the Indian
government is constrained by a
policy challenge - of enunciating an
evacuation plan for all Indian citizens
stranded in different countries around
the world, which could easily be in
hundreds of thousands posing an
unprecedented logistical challenge
not only in arranging for flights but
more importantly for organising
post-arrival quarantine facilities, and
any lapse there could easily defeat
the entire purpose of the nation-wide
lockdown.
Any one-off concession to allow
stranded Indians from NZ would have
to fit-in their wider policy response to
the crisis affecting Indians stranded
in other countries around the world.
Indeed these are not easy decisions
to make, even without the normal
diplomatic complexities involved.
Why can't Indian govt make
a one-off concession for
travellers from NZ?
Despite the seemingly
return to India and New Zealanders shouldn’t
be relying on that happening in the short-term.”
insurmountable logistical challenges,
there is a clear case for the Indian
government to consider a one-off
concession for its citizens stranded
in NZ.
As of today, NZ, by all means,
is one of the safest places on the
earth to not only have flattened the
curve of the spread of coronavirus
infection, but the rate of infections is
fast dwindling and rate of recovery is
slowly increasing.
Indeed, NZ’s daily statistics of
coronavirus infections is one of the
most soothing, and without any sense
of exaggeration, much assuaging, for
the rest of the world.
So any evacuation of Indian
citizens who were stranded in
New Zealand will give the Indian
authorities much-needed assurance
and the confidence in handling their
on-arrival health check-up and even
self-isolation if needed. This is apart
from the immense goodwill that
the Indian government will earn for
bringing its people back home,
who are not only jaded by
the long, uncertain wait in
a foreign country but also
experiencing pain and anxiety
of being separated from their
near and dear ones who are
India announced a ban on
international flights on 22 March,
negotiating through the lockdown
alone by themselves.
In many cases that the Indian
Weekender has been made aware
about the personal situation of the
stranded Indian travellers in NZ, the
concern for the safety of either minor
children or adult family members
back home during the lockdown is a
paramount concern behind their calls
for early evacuation home.
and the country has been in lockdown since 25
March, leaving New Zealanders with no flight
options. Stranded New Zealanders will need
to contribute to the cost of any governmentfacilitated
flights from India, and the cost will
be comparable to recent government-assisted
departures from other locations, such as Peru.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has seen the
largest consular response ever undertaken by
New Zealand, and finding solutions that will
work is the focus of significant ongoing efforts
and government support.
"There
are no
guarantees when
international commercial
flights will return to India
and New Zealanders shouldn’t
be relying on that happening
in the short-term"
What’s in it for the NZ
government?
Clearly, there is no additional
responsibility of the NZ govt
towards Indian travellers stranded
here, except what it has already been
kindly extended, in the form of an
assurance of unconditional medical
care in the unfortunate event of being
infected from coronavirus.
However,
if some kind of
quidpro
travel arrangement be
materialised, courtesy to some
diplomatic ingenuity from both New
Delhi and Wellington, the burden of
some of the operational challenges
could be reduced and mutuallyshared,
plus the biggest incentive of
reducing the per-passenger costs of
the otherwise expensive travel for
stranded Kiwis.
The government has suggested
that the charter flights to India will
operate on the model of similar-such
operation to Peru where stranded
Kiwi-travellers will be expected to
bear some or the entire costs.
Expectedly, this news has been
received by many stranded Kiwis in
India with subdued-caution rather
than unbridled-enthusiasm, for the
simple reason that for many working
families the cumulative costs will be
prohibitive.
It was reported in several media
stories that returning Kiwis from
Peru had to bear a whopping cost of
$5,300 per ticket to get on the plane
to home.
A quid-pro travel arrangement
could easily bring down the
prohibitive costs on many stranded
Kiwis in India.
Is some creative diplomacy in
order here?
Against this backdrop, it is for
the diplomats of the two countries
to do some groundwork and present
a workable plan to their respective
governments which can not help get
their respective citizens home but
also generate a never-seen-before
bonhomie for each other countries in
their respective capitals.
It is truly an ambitious project
never ever anticipated before in
the bilateral relations of the two
countries.
But so is the world of complete
lockdown that we all have
suddenly found ourselves
living in recent times.
Unprecedented challenges
often
precipitate
unprecedented solutions.
“We know that New Zealanders
in a range of locations are facing
challenging conditions.
"We continue to monitor
the global situation and
its impacts on New
Zealanders abroad,
wherever they may be,”
Mr Peters said.