The tyranny lifts

In January 2010, at the US Consulate in Chennai, I was handed an extraordinarily discriminatory document that would determine the course of my life in ways I could not have prophesied. Two characters ‘H’ and ‘4’ stamped in neat succession on the US visa in my passport became a regressive badge of identity I have been trying to shake off ever since. Helped in part by my own naivety, lack of information, and misconception of just how hard it would be to find visa sponsorship, I willingly signed up for a programme which mandated that I would enter a new marriage and a new country with a terrible handicap. Over five difficult years, this would go on to dominate every aspect of my personal and professional life, reshaping my attitude to love, family, mental wellbeing, money, sex, home and belonging.

The H4 is a derivative visa, granted to dependents of law-abiding, tax-paying, skilled, temporary workers on the H1-B visa programme in the US. Over many decades, and in India especially, where a major chunk of H1-B holders come from, the H4 has gained notoriety for barring individuals who hold this status from working in the US. In many cases, an H4 spouse is reduced to doing domestic work, baby-making and providing sex and companionship for her/his working partner. A minuscule percentage that has supportive partners, families and, more importantly, robust finances can further academic pursuits and perhaps go on to secure H1B sponsorship independently, or pursue volunteer activities.

Last week, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) made a welcome but limited adjustment to this rule, which will grant some spouses on H4 visas unrestricted work authorisation. According to the DHS, 1,79,600 people will directly benefit from its implementation in the first year. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will begin accepting applications for work visas from H1-B spouses this May.

In her documentary Hearts Suspended ( heartssuspended.com ), filmmaker Meghna Damani turns the lens on herself as an H4 spouse and presents a brutally honest portrait of her marriage during this bleak period. “How bad could it be?” she wonders aloud about her impending life in America. “After all, I was going to the land of opportunity. I would take a break, and of course, I would get back and do something.” Damani’s story moves me to tears every time I watch it. Her story is my story. Like her, I had a certain cocksureness in my twenties that I could ride on my talent and into any professional position that I wanted. In my years in India, I made bold, independent decisions and, although there were mistakes, I had never really failed at anything. So the repeated rejection I faced in the US job market left me broken. Work became this forbidden fruit I lusted after. I hopscotched across different immigration statuses to buy temporary reprieves from the H4 tyranny. I was intensely jealous of anyone who had a job. Often, I used this as a weapon against my husband during our fights in those early years. “You don’t know what it is like for me, because you have a job,” became an all too frequent refrain.

Many people living in India don’t understand the cause of frustration for H4 spouses. They think: She lives in the US. Her husband earns in dollars. She has a dishwasher. No kids. Why, she doesn’t even have to go to work! How can she be so ungrateful? Others wonder, if this visa is so regressive, why do so many people choose to get on it? If they are so unhappy, why don’t they return to India?

“When you have held your spot in a queue for years, it is difficult to let it all go,” explains Rashi Bhatnagar, an H4 spouse since 2009, referring to the backlog and decade-long processing time for green card applications. In 2011, frustrated at the lack of information on the H4 visa, Bhatnagar started a blog and a Facebook page, ominously titled ‘H4 Visa, A Curse’. It has since become the leading resource for updates and information on changes to this rule with over 11,000 followers from all over the world. In recent months, the blog and Facebook page ran a sustained social media campaign and is widely credited as one of the forces behind the rule change. “Initially, I was surprised, but also very happy to see that my effort had such a positive effect on the community,” says Bhatnagar, who hopes to open an independent home-goods business in Wisconsin, where she is based.

A misconception prevails that the H4 visa problem is exclusively a women’s issue. Vigneshwaran Rajasekaran, 31, from Albany, NY, has been on the H4 visa since 2013. Rajasekaran who is currently completing his PhD in geosciences, says he has lost out on numerous job opportunities, for months, thanks to his immigration status. “People in India find it odd when they hear that a man is not working and that his wife is supporting him. They ask us many questions and we have to provide lengthy explanations,” he says. “I am glad the rule has changed, because now we will finally have something positive to report.”

Amidst all the hoopla, Shivali Shah, a Washington DC-based immigration attorney and long-time activist for H4 visa holders strikes a note of caution. “I welcome the new rule. But many of the beneficiaries have already suffered everything there is to suffer. It is still going to be a long, rocky road for many H4 spouses who do not come under this rule. The primary H1B’s sponsoring company may still take several years before they agree to initiate the green card process. So there should not be a false sense of complacency that wait-times will reduce for everyone,” she says. Shah highlights an alarmingly high correlation between the H4 visa and marital abuse. She cites horrifying instances of H1B holders inflicting cruelty on their spouses, including controlling their use of heat in winters, providing meagre cash allowances, and making belated dowry demands, citing their spouse’s inability to contribute to the family’s income.

Her stories give me a perspective on how relatively easy my journey as an H4 spouse has been. Two years ago, my husband and I made a mutual unconventional agreement to live in a long-distance marriage. We realised that our collective happiness was the sum total of our individual happiness(es). ‘You do what you need to do’ has been our motto to ourselves and each other. I spend six to eight months in the year getting my work fix in India as a photographer, and the rest watching Netflix at my home in Boston. Professionally, I have turned my adversity into an opportunity, and it allows me to live a nomadic, unfettered life on the road in India, which is every photographer’s dream. I don’t recommend this to everyone, but it worked for us.

Now that the H4 spectre has been lifted, will I continue to live and work in both countries? That is a question for another day.

(Nitya Rao is a documentary photographer who divides her time between Boston and Bengaluru)

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