Legalization
I happened to tread yet another unfamiliar territory. This beast, in all its innocence, is simply known as legalization. To appreciate the pain that this process delivers, one has to really experience it.
The process of legalization is a prelude to a visa application. Many countries practice it. India, unfortunately, is most often part of a list of countries where this is a must.
With global terrorism a stark reality today, I really don’t blame governments that enforce this. But for those of us that have to go through this process, it’s pure hell.
For the first time in my life, I felt I belonged to a third world country when legalization became applicable to me and my family.
Legalization process, as a procedure, is simply a series of verifications done on original documents, which are pre-requisites to your visa application. These documents could be all of the following, but not limited to:
- Birth certificates
- Educational certificates
- Marriage certificate
First, all documents that are to be legalized should not be older than six months from their date of issue.
With this rule, obviously, none of the originals, you hold, will, most likely, be usable. You’ll need to get fresh true-copies in all their originality, stamp and signatures, from the respective authorities.
Next, your respective State’s Home Department needs to attest on the thus issued originals. This is typically done by the Under Secretary of your respective State’s Home Department (Passports and Foreigners Division).
Before the Under Secretary can put his signature and seal on your original, Home Department makes you apply for verification of these original documents from their source of origin.
So, they request a police verification of each document and address it to the respective place/district’s Superintendent of Police, directing his special branch to conduct this verification.
In short, this is like police verification that you’d typically undergo when you apply for a new passport. Only worse. Because, Police has to further verify this from another government body’s (Municipal office, Registrar of Marriage, University/HRD) records about the originality of your documents.
Right then. You’re given an option to hand-carry those instructions in sealed envelopes, that you can hand-deliver to the concerned SP office from Home Department. This is a tiny blessing in disguise. At least then, you don’t have to hang on to your hair as you watch government machinery move at snail’s pace sending those letters to the concerned offices by postal mail.
Oh by the way, each verification at its pace could easily take a week. Let’s say you were born in one place, your spouse in another and your kids in yet another. I was also blessed with my spouse being from an entirely different state and, one of our kids born outside India.
This pain can only be felt, not expressed. Let me repeat this again: each document needs to be verified at its source. If this doesn’t knock you out, I have no idea what will. In my case, each document spelt a different place. Absolute insanity!
Once you get all documents attested from all the relevant State Home Departments done, post police verifications, you’ll need to take them to Ministry of External Affairs (MEA Consular, Passport and Visa Division), Patiala House, New Delhi for further attestations.
(Those with educational documents further require HRD Ministry’s attestation prior to MEA’s.)
Another long queue, because people from all over India have to come here. (People from Kolkata are lucky, they have an MEA office there.) The rest of us, however, are shafted.
Thankfully at MEA and at HRD Ministry, the process itself is a day’s job each. Not because it’s easy, but only because the staff of Ministry of External Affairs are a special breed. It’s a pity their hard work is hardly recognized. I wonder which Government department in the world would be processing at least 300 people, each with at least a 3-4 documents, on an average, and return them duly attested on the same day? I stand up and salute, in admiration and in respect, and take my hat off for those MEA personnel, who toil in those dim lit offices, unheard and unrewarded, every day of their lives, working at least 12 hours a day, doing this absolutely mind boggling job.
Once your documents are attested by the MEA, you’ll need to further take it to the embassy of the country you’ll be applying your work visa for and submit for further scrutiny and verification. (They’d in-turn check with MEA and Home State Department, if necessary.)
So there you have it. Three to four attestations per document, various places of issue. Various government bodies to deal with. And finally nirvana.
At the end of it all, you can barely stand-up to look at your documents with amazement and the amazing feat you just pulled-off. (I haven’t even mentioned the pain at each government office level that one has to undergo, the babudom, the corruption, the lost in translation, ill computer literacy of government officials, absentism, illiterate clerks, umpteen plead for mercy, the ever thinning wallet, the works.)
Epilogue: I debunk the myth for those who think that those who go abroad, in search of greener pastures, have their cake and eat it too. Hardly. But then, a lot of people live a life out of myths.