It had been only two months since Akshra Singh had taken admission for an MBBS degree at a university in China when she came back home to Rajasthan's Bharatpur for a vacation in January 2020. By then, the spread of a new 'SARs-like' virus in China had started to make headlines. The World Health Organisation (WHO) was monitoring the situation of a "cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China" at that time.
Srinagar resident Anayat Ali Allaie had started his PhD in civil engineering at Shanghai's Tongji University only months before when Covid-19 started spreading. "I remember reading about Covid-19 cases in Shanghai. There were about 15-20 cases and we decided to return home if the cases crossed 30," Anayat told BOOM. He, along with his other friends, decided to return to India for a "couple of months". Little did they know their trip back home would get extended to over two years, without certainty on when they would actually be able to return.
In November 2020, China banned Indian travellers, including students enrolled there, citing the pandemic situation. This was a time when other countries had begun slowly easing travel restrictions. Two years later, in 2022, these Indian students enrolled in universities in China are still waiting to return to campus, even though their counterparts studying in India and other countries have gradually gone back to offline classes.
China announced on Monday that it will ease visa restrictions for Indian students like Akshra and Anayat who are still stuck in India. But the uncertainty about returning to campus still remains. Akshra feels there is still a "long way" ahead. "This whole period of 30 months has made us apprehensive of short-term joys because we know we have hurdles to cross," she said.
What has the Chinese embassy announced?
The Chinese embassy has said that Indian students can begin applying for visas from August 24. After two years, it has updated the visa application process to include newly enrolled students and those who are already enrolled there. China also announced that it will start issuing visas for other countries.
Ji Rong, who is the counsellor at the Department of Asian Affairs in China's foreign ministry, said on Twitter, "Warmest congrats to Indian students! Your patience proves worthwhile. I can really share your excitement and happiness. Welcome back to China."
A notice accompanying the tweet said that the students needed to take an appointment with the Chinese Visa Application Service Center in New Delhi and submit relevant documents. Some of these documents would also need to come from the colleges they study in.
Two years in limbo
The past two years have been difficult for these students. "We never thought we would be locked out of China for so long," Anayat said. Thousands of Indian students study in China, and the wait for visa relaxation has made them anxious and impatient.
"We were scared. But at that time we were under the impression that this will last for maybe six months," said Rachita Kurmi, an MBBS student at China's Shandong University. Never in her wildest dreams had she thought the wait to be back on campus would be so long. "Only if we could have seen the future at that point. We would have maybe taken different decisions," Rachita said.
The pandemic coupled with flare-ups on the India-China border in Ladakh's Galwan Valley and Arunachal Pradesh only made things worse.
To see their friends and batchmates return to offline classes often made students like Akshra anxious about their careers since they had no clarity from the authorities. At one point, the students felt that being able to return to classes at the university was never going to happen.
Banned apps, time difference added to woes
While most classes shifted online, for people like Akshra who were pursuing courses like MBBS, online classes were not easy. The coursework since 2020 had been online only, making laboratory-based practical work, essential for medical studies, impossible. "We have now requested the university to hold extra classes for practicals during holidays," Akshra said.
Even PhD students found it challenging. "For most of the research scholars who need laboratories to do experiments, it was a challenging time. We were also feeling left out because no one was actually talking about it," Anayat said. The lack of clarity from authorities in India as well as China added to their worries.
Border tensions between India and China prompted India to ban several Chinese apps that universities would use for online classes. Rachita Kurmi, who is a Mumbai resident pursuing an MBBS from Shandong University, told BOOM, "The ban on Chinese apps which were actually quite useful for our studies was another problem for us. Ban on apps like WeChat, DingTalk and several other VPNs led to a huge communication gap."
For Rachita, the news of the visas feels like a boon. "We had to use emails to communicate with the university officials. We were anxious and depressed and it further increased when the rest of the world opened up and China kept its borders shut," Rachita said.
What next?
While the students said the latest announcement is the first step, there are more hurdles ahead. Before they can apply for visas, the students need a "certificate of return" from their respective universities, a process not yet initiated by all institutes. The certificate of return is an NoC where the university declares that the person is allowed to return to the campus.
"My university is quiet until now. Even after the embassy's announcement, they are saying they don't have any news yet," Akshara told BOOM.
Rachita's university is also yet to begin the process as well. "Some universities have provided NoCs to the students, while others are still collecting information of students regarding their willingness to return. There are some universities which are yet to begin the process. But we have faith in our universities and we will soon be able to resume offline studies in China," she said.
The students' return to campus remains uncertain as they said they haven't been informed when these NoCs will actually come through.
Expensive flight rates are also a cause of concern for these students. "Once we get the visa, we have to deal with the high flight costs," Rachita said, adding that there are no direct flights from India to China. "Since we will be passing through another country to go to China, we will have to follow the quarantine rules of that country as well as China," she said. "One step at a time, we will tackle all these hurdles," Rachita said, sounding hopeful.
As of 2019, there were over 23,000 Indian students studying in various Chinese universities. The rush of students applying for visas is also likely to delay the process, a situation which has already unfolded for students applying for the US visa. The wait time for Indian travellers and students going to the US is as long as 18 months.
Akshra said, "We don't know now if the open visa policy is a relief until we return."