On the day India and Pakistan signed a new visa agreement, my Indian friend and his Pakistani wife staying in a third country called excitedly to say they were raising a toast to sanity, an element often missing in the conduct of relationship between the two countries. Their impromptu celebrations were because she could now avail a two-year Indian visa, visit her sasural (in-laws) as many times as she wished in those 24 months, and add two extra cities to her annual itinerary that was otherwise restricted to three. Yes, these small joys matter immensely. And yes, had she been Indian and he Pakistani, toasts would have still been raised, for the relationship between the two countries are based on reciprocity, a euphemism for quid pro quo or, better still, tit for tat. In other words, India imposes the same restrictions on the Pakistani spouse of an Indian citizen as Pakistan does on the Indian spouse of its citizen. Their jubilation over the new visa regime had me calling a few Pakistani citizens who reside in India. Those whom I contacted were women and married to non-Muslim Indians. Typically, they had met on university campuses or on their peregrinations abroad, fell in love, tied the nuptial knot, and decided to settle down in India. But what they had not envisaged was the cussedness of bureaucracy, its perennial suspicion of the Pakistani, and the complicated rules governing their stay. In voices quivering with rage and weariness, they were almost unanimous in their opinion — their cup of woes would continue to brim and overflow under the new visa agreement signed between India and Pakistan last week. Their marriage to Indians does not give them automatic residential rights. They reside in India on what is called the Long Term Visa (LTV), granted to them as they are the Pakistani spouses of Indians. It requires renewal every year; technically, it allows them to travel outside India only once a year, though this requirement is occasionally waived. But a Pakistani spouse must take permission from the police before leaving India, and must on her or his return report to the police. Severe restrictions are imposed on internal travel. For even a weekend getaway, they must secure the consent of the police and report to them on their return. The LTV is city-specific: should the Pakistani’s husband be transferred to another city, she cannot follow him there; her shift will have to wait until the LTV had been reissued naming the new city of her residence. The LTV does not entitle them to work. They cannot open a bank account or own property, facilities non-Indian wives are entitled in case they happen to possess the Person of Indian Origin card or the Overseas Indian Card. In fact, these two cards are denied to Pakistani and Bangladeshi citizens, even those who have Indian husbands and reside in India. These complicated rules seem designed to punish Pakistani and Indian spouses for daring to breach the line that the cartographer drew on the map to separate Pakistan from India, but which officials believe must also run through the hearts and minds of their citizens. Their imperious conduct and fatuous pettiness bear this out. For instance, extending the LTV is always a harrowing experience — applications for renewal, the Pakistani women whom I talked to say, have to be submitted at least three months in advance of the expiry date. The file has to be pursued from table to table, office to office, and officials have to be sweet-talked into initialling the request. Such is energy and time demanded that most Pakistanis feel their LTV is effectively reduced to nine months of stay. The exercise has a Kafkaesque touch to it; the mandatory security checks, which some have undergone for as long as nine years must be undertaken in the tenth as well. Year after year, the same questions are asked, same replies furnished, and same notes taken. There are always boorish officials threatening to reject the LTV renewal application in the following year should the applicant insist on retaining her Pakistani national identity and not applying for Indian citizenship. It would seem these hyper-nationalist officials have taken as their model zealous religious fundamentalists, who believe it is virtuous to convert a person to their religion through blandishments or threats. Indeed, life for Pakistani citizens in India would become simpler if they were to become Indian citizens. There are several factors why they do not. For one, under the Indian citizenship law, a foreigner must be married to an Indian for seven years before he or she can qualify to become an Indian citizen. Until then, they must renew their LTVs every year, the experience of simmering hostility towards the Pakistani quite likely to diminish their ardour for India. Pragmatism is the other reason for their insistence on retaining their Pakistani identity. It is their insurance against the marriage not working or their spouse dying prematurely. In such dreadful scenarios, they would find themselves stranded in their adopted country without family support, as the links between a woman and her husband’s family inevitably snap on divorce, too often even at his death. Considering the process of becoming Indian entails relinquishing the Pakistani citizenship, it renders nearly impossible to reclaim it again, particularly as heartless officials stringently enforce rules not designed to take into account the exigencies of exceptional circumstances. The history of the subcontinent is too complicated for it to be subjugated to citizenship laws. Not everyone has consciously taken the decision to choose between India and Pakistan. Take my friend’s wife. Her father’s five brothers and two sisters decided to migrate to Pakistan at the time of Partition. He did not leave India because of ideological reasons. Through a twist of fate my friend’s wife became a Pakistani citizen as late as in high school; her mother had died, and the extended family, spread over two countries, decided it was perilous for her to grow up in India as she had no female sibling and her elder brother had found employment in Southeast Asia. Her aunt consequently took her to Pakistan, of which she eventually became a citizen. Yet her personal history did not lead to relaxation of visa rules at the time her father was admitted to hospital in Kolkata. In the third country where she still resides, much time was wasted in preparing extensive documentation for her visa application. Worse, she could not fly directly to Kolkata as Pakistani citizens could then enter India only through Delhi and Mumbai. Through a circuitous route, she landed in Kolkata to discover her father had already passed away. Under the new visa agreement, a Pakistani citizen living in a third country is less likely to encounter bureaucratic delays of the nature my friend’s wife had to tragically countenance. But as we applaud the relaxing of visa rules, spare a thought for those Pakistanis and Indians living in the country of their spouses. The tales of their tortuous experiences to live with their husbands and wives makes you marvel at the tenacity of their love that still glows despite laws seemingly designed to diminish it. The author is a Delhi-based journalist and can be reached at ashrafajaz3@gmail.com