UK may deport professor, a child of the Raj
British academic John Tulloch, who was born in India when it was a British colony and who survived the July 7, 2005, bomb blasts, is being threatened with expulsion from the UK over his immigration status and this has reignited the public debate over immigration.
Prof. Tulloch, 70, who teaches at Lincoln University, was born to a British Army officer in India before it became independent. His father, a major in the Gurkha Rifles, fought in the British Army against the Japanese in Burma. His grandfather was one of the British Empire’s first foresters and his great-grandfather served in the Indian Civil Service. “I look back now, on the verge of being thrown out of residence in the UK, at something like 120 years of my family’s distinguished service to Britain in India,” Prof. Tulloch told the Sunday Telegraph.
The debate over controversial immigration rules has become contentious as Britain has started a tough clampdown on student visas and some 2,000 foreign students face deportation after their university’s visa licence was revoked.
Prof. Tulloch’s case has attracted criticism of immigration rules which allow terrorists who used human rights to stay in the UK whereas people like the Indian-born academic face expulsion. The uncertainty over his immigration status stems from the fact that his birth in India had conferred a lesser form of British nationality on him — a “British subject without citizenship”. This was cancelled after the Cambridge University-educated academic took a job in Australia and acquired Australian citizenship. His British passport was automatically cancelled, unlike the case of full British citizens, and he now faces expulsion from Britain.
“I am totally gobsmacked by this. I’ve got a huge attachment to Britain. My family has served Britain for three generations. I’ve been banging my head against a wall trying to get this sorted out, but I’ve never before encountered so much frustration. It’s like Kafka,” said Prof. Tulloch, who was raised in the UK since he was three years old.
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