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SWEDEN IN FOCUS

The Ambassadors: ‘There’s a vibrant cultural calendar for Indians in Sweden’

In the fourth of our interviews with ambassadors to Sweden, India's Tanmaya Lal speaks of the growing Indian diaspora in Sweden and why the two countries' relationship goes back further than you think.

Published: 12 January 2023 14:08 CET
Updated: 18 January 2023 05:28 CET
The Ambassadors: 'There's a vibrant cultural calendar for Indians in Sweden'
Indian Ambassador Tanmaya Lal at an audience with King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden. Photo: Sanna Argus Tirén/The Royal Court of Sweden

Ten years ago, no more than 20,000 people born in India lived in Sweden, according to national Swedish number crunchers Statistics Sweden.

The number is now close to 50,000, with Sweden’s research scene and IT industry attracting young professionals from far and wide.

Not only do Indians make an impact on Sweden’s largest companies such as Ikea, Ericsson and Spotify – their influence is noticeable in other ways, too.

“Maybe one of the one or two interesting things is how you can now see cricket being played in Sweden. And I’m told it’s catching on very fast,” Indian ambassador Tanmaya Lal told The Local when we interviewed him for our Sweden in Focus podcast.

He also mentioned cultural groups such as dance group IndiskFika – made famous as finalists on Swedish TV talent show Talang – who spoke to The Local last year.

“They are IT professionals or researchers and in their spare time they dance. (…) It’s very interesting how some of these young Indian people are diversifying into their other hobbies and so on,” he said about his compatriots’ impact on Sweden’s cultural scene.

The flagship event of the Indian Embassy is Namaste Stockholm, an open-air, whole-day event with cultural performances carried out by the Indian diaspora in Sweden. An estimated 15-20,000 people came last year, when it was held for the first time since the start of the Covid pandemic.

“But in many smaller towns where Indians are based, they do their own sort of festivities. So it’s a very vibrant cultural calendar for the Indians here in Sweden,” said Lal.

Lal himself came to Sweden two years ago during the pandemic. A trained chemical engineer but a career diplomat for the past 30 years, it’s his eighth foreign assignment, with some of his previous work focusing on India’s engagement with its greater neighbourhood, Europe, the United Nations and Africa.

Today, almost 250 Swedish companies have a presence in India and almost 75 the other way around, he said.

“The trade between Sweden and India is four billion dollars annually and it’s growing fast. Innovation, clean technologies, investment, these are very big areas.

“We are also doing a lot of jointly funded research projects. (…) Swedish startups and big firms are interested in how they can scale up their solutions in the Indian context. Given our digital transformation right now, there’s huge interest there, from both sides.”

The ties go back a long way. Though neither of the two countries existed in their present-day forms at the time, people from the areas now known as India and Sweden may have been interacting since at least the year 700. 

“Obviously today we talk about trade and globalisation. But if you go to the historical museum here [in Stockholm], in the Viking section, there is a small, brown statuette of Buddha, which was found in a Viking settlement not far from here, on Helgö island,” said Lal.

“It really dates back to 1,400 years, it is estimated, coming from the part of Kashmir. It reveals how the Viking trade networks were there – vast networks going all the way to India.

“We also find, for example, if you go to Birka, the museum there has a lot of Indian beads. So again, around 1,000 years back these trading links were there.”

You might think that a diplomat with a career spanning three decades and multiple countries would at some point grow blasé with new places, but that is not the case for Lal.

“Immediately what comes to mind is that I was fortunate to attend the Nobel Prize ceremony. It was quite moving to just be there, and you can’t do that in any other place than in Sweden,” he said when asked what he likes the most about life in Sweden.

“I also remember that last year we were fortunate to watch some Northern Lights here in Stockholm. It’s absolutely amazing that you can do that. Things like this, which are completely unexpected and quite unique to this place.”

Listen to the interview with Indian ambassador Tanmaya Lal in the latest episode of Sweden in Focus

Listen & Follow: Apple | Spotify | Google

Interview by Paul O’Mahony, article written by Emma Löfgren.

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INDIANS IN SWEDEN

Indian parents fear Swedish citizenship application will leave children stateless

Gouri Natrajan and her husband will be eligible for Swedish citizenship next year. They would apply, if it weren't for the fact that they fear a seven-decade old Indian law would then render their five-month-old son stateless. And they're not alone.

Published: 23 May 2024 12:12 CEST
Updated: 23 May 2024 16:11 CEST
Indian parents fear Swedish citizenship application will leave children stateless

Several Indian parents or parents-to-be in Sweden told The Local that they are putting their long-term plans on hold out of uncertainty about their children’s legal status if they apply for citizenship.

India does not allow dual citizenship, so anyone wishing to become a Swedish citizen must also renounce their Indian nationality and surrender their Indian passport. And according to India’s Citizenship Act from 1955, if a parent gives up citizenship, their children automatically lose it too.

That would not be an issue if the children were to receive Swedish citizenship instead. However, long delays as well as tougher migration rules make many Indians worry that their children will be left stateless for an extended period in-between losing their old nationality and gaining a new one.

To be eligible for Swedish citizenship, non-EU citizens first have to have permanent residency. As of July 2021, each applicant for permanent residency needs to meet the permanent residency requirements individually, which means that children can no longer get it through their parents.

Previously, children could in theory become permanent residents almost as soon as they were born, and then be able to apply for citizenship three years later (children have to live in Sweden for three years before becoming citizens, whereas it’s currently five years for most non-EU adults).

Now, however, children need to have lived in Sweden with a valid residence permit for four years before they qualify for a permanent permit (you have to have lived in Sweden for three years to get permanent residency, but as permits are granted for two years at a time, it’s four years in practice).

“I just had a son in Sweden – he is five months old today,” Natrajan told The Local. “Me and my husband got permanent residency recently, so we are eligible for citizenship next year, but now as my son needs his own permanent residency we need to wait at least four years to apply for citizenship.”

Once processing time is added, a child could reasonably expect to be granted permanent residency – finally becoming eligible for citizenship – after around five years living in Sweden.

If waiting times for Swedish citizenship are also taken into account, an Indian child born in Sweden can expect to receive Swedish citizenship somewhere between their seventh and eighth birthday.

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“During this time we can’t travel to India if my son’s residence permit is up for renewal,” said Natrajan. “With aging parents back in India, this is an emotional situation to be in.”

Another reader told The Local his child was born after he applied for citizenship, but shortly before he was granted it. He said he didn’t know at the time that India’s rules would lead to his child potentially being left stateless. He wasn’t alone in not being aware of this rule.

“I can’t apply for her citizenship yet as she has not lived here more than three years,” the reader said about his daughter. “But she won’t be able to get her passport renewed, and without a passport, the Migration Agency won’t approve her residency permit, so I’m stuck in an infinite loop.”

He hopes that Sweden and India will come to an arrangement to solve this issue before his daughter qualifies for permanent residency in 2026, otherwise he will try to apply for an alien’s passport from Sweden on his daughter’s behalf, which may allow her to apply for permanent residency. In the meantime the family are avoiding travelling so she does not get stuck.

The issue has put life on hold for a lot of people. A number of Indian parents got in touch with us to confirm that they were putting off applying for Swedish citizenship despite qualifying for it, or even putting off having another child in order to make sure their children do not become stateless.

“If we decide to have another baby, I need to wait another four years from then for my citizenship,” Natrajan said. “So we need to decide between expanding our family or getting citizenship.”

Some readers said that they had managed to secure Swedish citizenship for their children despite them not having lived in Sweden long enough – but not everyone was comfortable taking that risk.

“It’s messy, because they have approved some of my friends in the same situation, so every case officer is doing whatever they want to do,” another reader complained, claiming his citizenship application had been put on hold as his Migration Agency case officer was unsure of what to do. “Some people are still giving citizenship to kids who are less than two or three years old.”

Migration Agency spokesperson Vera Björk told The Local they did not have any applications on hold due to a decision over whether to include a child in their parents’ citizenship application.

But she did confirm that the permanent residency requirement for children can be overlooked in some cases, so it’s not a certainty that Indian children get left behind when their parents receive Swedish citizenship, even if they technically do not yet qualify for citizenship themselves.

“That requirement is not absolute, and the best outcome for the child will also be assessed. The first stage of that assessment is establishing what the best outcome for the child is. In the next stage, the best outcome for the child will be weighed up against other legally relevant interests, through what is called a ‘proportionality assessment’,” Björk said.

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She said the permanent residency requirement still weighed heavily as a general rule above all else, but added: “A situation where a child risks becoming stateless if the parent is awarded citizenship and the child is not would carry enough weight that a child could be granted citizenship together with their parent even if he or she does not have permanent residency.”

“That applies to all children who risk becoming stateless, although an individual assessment will always be made.”

According to the reader whose application is still being processed, the Indian embassy until recently was turning a blind eye to applicants, in some cases allowing Indian children to hold onto their citizenship until they qualified for Swedish citizenship.

“But now it has blown up in their faces, because they weren’t following the rules strictly. So now they’ve updated the website saying ‘your kids will become stateless if you give up your citizenship’, in a very obvious way, which they were not doing before,” he claimed.

The Local has contacted the Indian embassy for comment but has not received a response, but when we checked the Wayback Machine for cached web pages, it appeared the embassy only recently updated its website to warn parents that their minor children could lose citizenship.

The reader, who preferred to remain anonymous in this article, said he had tried contacting Swedish embassies in India and the Indian embassy in Sweden to no avail. The couple plans to stay in Sweden permanently and want to raise a family here, but this could make them reconsider.

“I really want my son to grow up in Sweden, even if we go back to India at some point to take care of my parents. I want him to come back and study here, have a Swedish partner, I want him to grow up in this country. But it’s been quite challenging in the last six months to love the country so much.”

Article by Becky Waterton and Emma Löfgren.

Are you in this situation or know more? You’re welcome to reach out to our editorial team at [email protected]. We might not be able to reply to every email, but your experience helps us cover this issue and other stories that matter to Indians in Sweden.

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