When a foreigner resident in India leaves for a holiday abroad there are some formalities to be observed. First a return visa has to be obtained. This is normally valid for return within three months from the date of issue and is thereafter valid for a stay of a period of three months from the date of expiry of the return visa or in some cases, even until the normal expiry date of the original residential permit. It is required of the foreigner who has been resident in India to leave behind, at the point of departure from India, the original residential permit document along with an income tax clearance document, even if one has had no income. Otherwise one is not permitted to board the vessel.

It is the responsibility of the Immigration Control Authorities at the point of departure to send the residential permit back to the Foreigners Registration Office where the foreigner last resided. For some reason, not known to us at that time, my residential permit had not been sent back from the Bombay Airport by the time I returned to India on 19 November 1979, the very last date of validity of my return visa.

This was obviously due to an event that occurred on the night of 21 September 1979. This we did not connect till much later. Just as the Swissair flight from Geneva, in which Jacob was returning to India from his holiday in Finland, approached Bombay Airport, a fire had engulfed some parts of the airport. His plane had not been allowed to land as all Indian airports were congested due to the immediate rescheduling of numerous local flights. International flights, as the one Jacob was on, were directed to find alternate airports. His plane was redirected to Karachi in Pakistan. Those passengers of non-Indian origin for Indian destinations were allowed to disembark to find a connecting flight to the closest Indian airport to their final destination. Indians could not disembark in Pakistan without a valid visa, a long-winded procedure because of the antagonism between these two countries. The Swissair plane was directed to proceed to its next normal port-of-call even though there were Indians who had intended to leave the flight at Bombay. Hence Jacob, along with another 20 or more Indians on that flight, had headed towards Bangkok, the final destination of the plane being Manila in the Philippines.

This episode was significant in that we later discovered that my registration papers which I had deposited at the Bombay Airport on my departure in August had vanished in the mass of files moved in the hustle and bustle during that fateful fire. It was only long after that we connected this incident with the delay in returning of my documents to Bangalore.

Two technical reasons were responsible for the delay in my registration at the Foreigners Regional Registration Office on my return to India in November 1979. My return visa which was issued on 20 August 1979, valid till 19 November 1979 permitted my further stay in India till 30 November 1979, the date of expiry of my residential permit. Normally three months are permitted on a return visa, but in this case only 11 days had been allowed. My return visa, therefore, had to be reissued as the regular residential permit soon after my arrival. My passport was due to expire on 26 of January 1980 and when I approached the Foreigners Regional Registration Office for conversion of my return visa into a residential permit, I was advised by Police Sub-Inspector Ramalingam, the officer handling my files, to send my passport for renewal and to subsequently submit my application for revalidation of my residential permit.

Jacob asked Police Sub-Inspector Ramalingam whether it was not illegal for me to stay in India without a valid visa or residential permit. He was categorically told by Police Sub-Inspector Ramalingam that as Finland had a reciprocal agreement with India, Finns who were tourists could stay in India without a visa for three months. I could be considered temporarily as a tourist and my stay till the end of February would be quite legal. He asked me to ensure that the revalidation of my residential permit was applied for before that time. Police Sub-Inspector Ramalingam, who had handled my files for the two years ever since I had moved from Madras to Bangalore, also told me that my original residential permit had not yet been received from Bombay. It was not possible, in any case, for him to do the reregistration till he got it back.

I rushed my passport at the end of November 1979 to the Finnish Embassy in New Delhi for renewal. I explained to the Embassy the reasons why I would definitely require it back before the end of February, the time limit indicated by Ramalingam. The Embassy, with its usual efficiency, issued me a new passport on 6 February 1980 and ensured that it reached me well before the end of the month. On Monday 18 February 1980, armed with the new passport, I approached the Foreigners Regional Registration Office to regularise my residential permit. This time Ramalingam was not there. I was confronted by a different officer, a woman Police Sub-Inspector by the name of P. Manjula. She was quite brisk in her dealings. She looked into my file and did not find the original documents there. She noted that my stay was valid, as per my old passport, only until the end of November 1979. She curtly pointed out that I was overstaying in India without a valid permit.

Jacob gave her the new passport and explained the situation to her and the discussions he had had with her predecessor, Police Sub-Inspector Ramalingam. She did not appear to listen. She seemed intent on causing me trouble. She demanded that I submit a letter on the spot asking that the delay in applying for extension of my stay be condoned. She made me fill out a new application to regularise my stay.

She then told us that as my original documents had not yet been obtained there was no possibility to issue the residential permit just then. She said she would let us know when the registration papers were received and were ready for me to collect. At that stage she made no entry whatsoever in my new passport, which I had given to her for perusal, to indicate what the validity of my stay in India was. Neither did she give me any paper indicating whether I had been registered or not, and if so on what day.

Jacob, being fastidious, within a few days of this event, just to keep the records in order, wrote an objection to the demand for the apology letter by Police Sub-Inspector Manjula in which I had asked her to condone the delay in applying for reregistration. He sent this off in the post to the Registration Office. In it he recorded the facts as they were about our visit to the office in November 1979 before the expiry of my old passport, the advice given by the Police Sub-Inspector Ramalingam who was handling my papers, the fact of the revalidation of my passport, and the fact that we had come there and met her within a few days of receipt of my new passport.

We heard nothing from the Registration Office for a year. In February 1981, before a year passed since my last visit, Jacob and I went to the Registration Office and enquired about the registration. We were told by Police Sub-Inspector Manjula that nothing could be done till the original papers reached her from Bombay. She again sent us away empty-handed.

On 3 April 1981, Jacob's birthday, we decided to go to the Registration Office to see what the situation was. We were met by Police Sub-Inspector Manjula. She took up a very aggressive stance. She informed me that I had overstayed in India and that she had already sent me a letter dated 28 March 1981 about this matter. I told her that I had received no letter from her. Jacob informed her of a change in my official address. We were moving from our multistoreyed building in the centre of Bangalore to the small detached house in the suburb of Koramangala, but for the intervening period till the end of the school term, we intended to stay at Jacob's parents' residence in Basavangudi which would continue as my official address in Bangalore.

At this point she took out my former certificate of registration from the file and gave it to me. She asked to see my passport and she hurriedly scribbled the original registration certificate number, RC 13677/Madras/75 at the top of the first free page. She did not indicate in her scribble as to who had made the entry or even the date of the entry. After doing this she gave back my passport. As soon as I had accepted it back she again became totally uncooperative.

She then had the audacity to make a statement that she would have to prosecute me for overstaying. She added in the next breath that she was prosecuting me because of the way Indians were treated abroad. Having never had any brush with the law before this, I did not actually know what the whole thing meant. I dared in a way to challenge the officer, not believing that she could carry out her threat. I casually remarked that if that was the case, then she would have to do just that.

This obviously riled her further, although it was clear from later events that even before this incident she had been taking steps to take me to court. Jacob realising that there was something serious afoot tried to reason with her. Police Sub-Inspector Manjula was in no mood for rationality. Jacob tried his persuasive powers on some of the other male police officers present. All were sympathetic, but obviously had been told to stay out of the path of this tigress. We had no option but to go away wondering what was in the letter that she had sent me and what she was proposing to do. The letter, incidentally, never reached me. However, before we left I ensured that I filled in another application for the renewal of my residential permit and handed this over to her. She was reluctant to take it, but she had to, as this was done in the presence of several other officers who had been witnessing this drama in the large hall. After accepting the application she told us to contact her on 15 April 1981, 12 days later.

It was later to become blatantly obvious that she had planned to prosecute me well before all this drama, probably even a year earlier. We also discovered the real reason why she decided to prosecute me and several others.

She was obviously an officer wanting to climb the long road to the top of the Police hierarchy. As per my knowledge, the then Police Commissioner had apparently told his force that the chances of promotions for those officers who launched more prosecutions would be better - and Police Sub-Inspector P Manjula probably was following this unwritten policy of "prosecute for promotion".

The intriguing feature is that although she took a letter from me on 18 February 1980 to condone the delay in applying for revalidation of my residential permit, she did not inform me in any manner of the fact that she was revalidating my stay till 30 November 1980. She neither made any entry in my passport to this effect nor gave me any slip of paper with this fact recorded on it. It was her duty to have either made a revalidation entry in my passport or given me some paper which signalled the period of my registration.

Further, on April 3 1981 when she handed back by registration certificate, she should also have made a note in the passport of the date on which she gave me back this document. When she returned my registration certificate, she could not take the risk of back-dating the entry in my passport as she had obviously received it from Bombay well after my appointment with her in February 1980, in fact probably only a few days before my visit in April 1981. She obviously did not have it even in February 1981 when we had called on her.

Jacob, who is careful about such details, knew at that moment that this woman was up to no good. As no false entries had been made in the passport he knew that whatever she did, the facts were in our favour.

It is necessary to add a few lines about my position as a foreigner with regard to the law of the land.

First, under the Foreigners Act, 1946 (Act No. 36 of 1946), although constitutional rights are and can only be guaranteed to Indian citizens, a foreign national is entitled to equality before the law and the equal protection from the laws guaranteed by the Constitution. Any decision made about a foreigner has to be done in fairness. This dictates that the authorities can proceed against a person only after giving him notice and the opportunity of being heard. Authorities who have to act in fairness in decisional processes have to therefore observe the basic principles of natural justice. It gave me the right to defend myself in any case, even though my prosecutor was the State.

Second, the Indian legal system is such that the judiciary is independent of the government, including the police, which is the arm of the government to preserve law and order. It is many a time when the government and the police are prosecuted for misinterpretation of the law. In more cases than not, the government and the police have been found to be in the wrong and severely reprimanded from the bench. Hence every individual has the right to defend himself before the independent judiciary. This is something to be admired as the judiciary refuse to bend to the whims of those in power. This is a situation which is quite different from that in my home country, Finland, a western democracy which, even today, follows the Czarist traditions that the "authorities" are always right.

Third, in India there are hundreds of lawyers available even to ordinary people. Their services are quite inexpensive, although the more experienced ones increase their charges in proportion to the number of clientele they have. It is also possible for those without any means to get free legal support from the court. Several young lawyers are available as they are anxious to handle cases of all types to gain experience and build a viable practice. Most lawyers are sincere and take their clients interests seriously as they prepare appropriate strategies to win their cases. Hence with a strong Lawyers Association and a strong judiciary, the administration cannot handle any individual arbitrarily. All this coupled with a free press ensures that a person is innocent until proven guilty and that justice for the weakest in society is valued in India.

Although at that time I was not fully aware of the total meaning of all this, after my brush with the law I have especially appreciated these provisions and values. At that time, however, I did not think of it very much. I was in a totally superior position as a foreigner compared with the situation of a foreigner in my own country, Finland, where he or she has no rights at all. Even today there are foreigners languishing in Finnish country's jails having committed no criminal act, having no fair means of being heard and having no solution available for their problems. This has been pointed out in a recent European Commission Report on the conditions in Finnish jails.

Even the guarantee of human rights is of very recent origin (1992) and a foreigner had no chance to defend himself within this western democracy. In Finland, a foreigner in a similar situation to mine, would have been taken into police custody under investigative arrest for an indefinite period of time or simply deported from the country as an unwanted individual.

This kind of situation would not arise in India. I, as a foreigner, had every means of legal recourse available for my defence. There was no scope for arbitrariness and bad faith which are the antithesis of equality before the law and the equal protection of the laws. Hence, even if the constitutional rights are reserved for citizens of India, as no doubt that is the extent of any National Constitution, there was, for me, full legal recourse. It was quite easy for any knowledgeable Indian to see that the case against me was mal fide by a warped individual and not one which would stand up in a court of law.

The legal aspects were not discussed with me in great detail at that time. Jacob and the lawyers had several levels of remedy available to them. The final act to ensure an end to this persecution, even if the remedy before the law was likely to fail, was a relatively simple step. I had been resident in India continuously since 1969, a period of more than ten years. I was entitled to apply for Indian citizenship on several solid grounds including marriage to an Indian, motherhood of two children who were Indian citizens by birth and finally by virtue of my undisturbed residence in India for a period longer than five years. Just as Mother Theresa took up citizenship of India in 1947 at the time of Indian Independence, this remedy was available to me in case the persecutors or the persecution became too oppressive. However, for reasons of convenience for the family, Jacob did not wish at this stage to contemplate or explore this possibility as it would have meant the relinquishing of my Finnish citizenship. That could have affected the rights and benefits of the children should they ever wish to go to Finland for any reason whatsoever, such as studies, higher education, jobs or just to live in their mother's land.

I did not have much strength or the motivation to fight for my legal rights. Jacob said the principle in India was that I was innocent till proven guilty, which is the opposite in my country, Finland, where a person is guilty till proven innocent. It was a totally different position to be in.

When I appeared in court the first time I could have ended the agony of this whole case by simply admitting to being guilty, though I was in the right. I would only have needed to pay the relatively small, small by our standard of living, fine laid down by the court and the case would have been over with an endorsement in my passport. It would have been just a short, nasty experience in my life.

Jacob had the motivation and the strength to help me fight and use my human rights, even as a foreigner. He used to encourage me by saying that it was worth fighting a case only when one knew one was in the right and in pursuit of justice. This line of thought helped me to go along the chosen course. We did not get encouragement from our family or close friends in India. They said that it was much too difficult to fight against the government and they, without exception, thought that it was not wise at all. That did not dissuade Jacob. He knew what we were doing.

What motivated Jacob was not just the principle involved. If I had pleaded guilty, there would have been an endorsement made in my passport that I had been convicted of an offence under the Foreigners Act. This fact would have had to be mentioned by me subsequently in every official application and document that I submitted. It could cause innumerable difficulties over several years and could have considerable effect on decisions involving my future status in India. It could be used against Jacob and me, and in fact against members of our family, by any of our adversaries in any context of business or politics.

Jacob was not prepared, just for the convenience of getting something over and done with for a few rupees, to sacrifice my innocence to anyone. He knew from the very first minute that the path ahead of us was a very long and difficult one. He knew that I would be subjected to many indignities. However, he knew above all that I was innocent of any crime. He also knew that he had the where-with-all to be able to prove it in a court of law.

We had always lived within the law. We strove to teach our children the same principle. It would have been a shattering blow for us to tell our children that their mother had accepted that she had broken the law and had been convicted, even when she was innocent. All that we stood for in life would have been erased and our self-respect would have been lost. It was not false pride that motivated our actions to put me through the difficult path but the desire to live truthfully.

Jacob knew that we would have conflict with his family who would have preferred the matter to be closed as they had advised. He knew, however, that if I had pleaded guilty and had been convicted, that they would have always made reference to it later, not taking the truths of the events into consideration. He knew that I would have been considered by them as a person who had broken the law and who had been duly convicted, not as a person who pleaded guilty just to save myself the agony of a long-winded court battle, and that too on their advice. He also knew that finally the blame for my 'guilt' would be placed on his shoulders as he was the one who was responsible for my well-being in all official matters in India.