Endless Interrogations

P.S: A beautiful art I found in a museum in Jerusalem

I read an article in The Hindu about an intimidating experience a journalist had with security forces in Israel-Palestine. He was a part of the Prime Minister of India’s team who was in the Middle East on a state visit. His article took me down the memory lane. I wrote a lot about my experiences in Israel-Palestine but I realised I never wrote about my encounters with the security personnel. 

Back in 2019, as part of my postgraduate research at the University of Pennsylvania, we travelled as a team to Israel-Palestine to study the conflict from different perspectives and the role of civil society in promoting peace. Our professor was Jewish and I was the only non-American in the team. Unlike Americans, I needed a visa and my visit to the Israeli embassy in New York got me a visa in less than an hour. I thought it was pretty quick and easy given the stories we hear about the tight security in the country. 

Even when I landed in Tel Aviv, I barely faced any questions on my purpose of the visit. But all my adventurous experiences started after I left Tel Aviv for Jerusalem. We had a change of driver every time we visited a Palestinian neighbourhood. I permanently placed my passport in my pocket given the sheer number of times I had to pull it out for verification. I even took it with me on my morning runs. Perhaps the only time it was away was when I was floating on the dead sea. We were escorted by security personnel every time we visited a sensitive neighbourhood which made it tough to conduct a candid research. But Hebrew University of Jerusalem did give us a conducive environment to listen to unfiltered stories and opinions. 

At the end of our study, I was ready to say goodbye to the land. I arrived at the Ben Gurion airport around 4 hours early just in case we get caught up in something. I thought my check-out would be quick like my check-in, but I was wrong. An officer asked me for my passport and took it with him. He came back after 15-20 minutes with another female officer, who asked me around 20 questions on where I am from, my purpose in Israel, and why I am going to the United States. I patiently answered all the questions. Then she asked if I had ever been to Malaysia. That was out of blue. I haven’t been to Malaysia so I answered No. She pulled up the Malaysian visa stuck in my passport and asked me why I had their visa. The lightbulb flashed in my head! I remembered procuring a Malaysian visa a couple of years ago for an alumni conference IIT Madras was organising in the country. I was the elected student secretary who had to represent IIT Madras in Malaysia. But due to severe rainfall, the airport in Kuala Lumpur was shut down and the meeting got postponed. So, I never actually went to Malaysia. I had a tough time explaining this to the officials. The moment I uttered the word “conference”, the female officer bombarded me with questions, “what conference”, “Is it islamic conference”, “what are your links to this conference”, “are you the organizer”… Well, I started to panic. Given what all I saw in this region, I knew the last thing that would help me is panic. I gained my cool and explained to her the whole story. I even pointed out how my passport never had an entry-exit stamp in Malaysia though I had a visa. The officers then escorted me to a room where they used Explosive Trace Detector (ETD) to scan each and every item in my bag, the clothes I was wearing, my hands, almost everything that was on me and with me. After what was like an eternity of waiting, the officer came and handed me my belongings. When I looked at the watch, I realised I spent the last 3 hours being grilled by the officers. I quickly packed my belongings and rushed towards my gate trying to process everything that unfolded. All this for having a Malaysian visa? I don’t remember Malaysia being North Korea or Syria. Here I was an Indian studying legally in the United States with all research permits facing this. What would people living day-in day-out in this land face? I left with a lot of questions, still searching for answers. 

Interestingly, a few months later, my father went to the Middle East as part of the Indian research team studying advanced agricultural practices. He landed in Dubai and planned to enter Israel-Palestine via Jordan. He was grilled at the Jordan border for possessing a US visa and was bombarded with a zillion questions on his previous travels to the United States. He shared his experience of how the entire team was held up at a few places just to enquire about his US visa. It made me wonder how merely possessing visas from one part of the world raises suspicion in the other part. We are far from Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam!