because i am British and with its colonial history, the way i qualified for OCI was complicated. I had to go back 2 generations and show that my grandad was British Indian and then establish a direct link.

It could have been so simple through my mum, who was Indian citizen, but in 1982 when she naturalized the British policy was to impound the Indian passport and send it back to the Indians so she has no evidence that she was an Indian. On top of that, her birth certificate does not mention her name (those days kids were not named straight away) and the BMC do not put one on retrospectively.

It took me 4 trips to the High Commission for them to accept my application.

whereas if your american, its easy, you emigrated on an Indian passport, you naturalized and you became American. Its fairly simple whereas many British Indians have never held an Indian passport.