Red vs green passports: The privilege and the discrimination

Bangladesh is currently sailing through uncharted waters and since August 8, 2024, the interim government has been tasked with captaining this ship towards the right direction. Reforms are the talk of the town right now. Our beloved country desperately needs political, economic, social, judicial and diplomatic reforms. Part of the diplomatic reforms also includes reforms to our passport because during the AL-led government's tenure, our passport consistently performed amongst the worst in the world.

A few weeks ago, the interim government of Bangladesh led by Dr Yunus declared the red passports held by the former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, as well as former MPs, null and void. The decision was taken rightfully so. For those who may be unaware, red passports are essentially diplomatic passports with red covers instead of our usual green one. This booklet is also more powerful and valuable compared to the regular green passports as it allows the holder to travel to more countries without a visa.

Personally, I have always thought that only diplomats and civil servants of the foreign ministry were issued red passports. I fail to understand why MPs were also issued this passport, despite the large majority of them having no diplomatic background.

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Firstly, MPs are elected by the people for the people, so why should they be able to enjoy visa-free travel to certain countries while ordinary citizens are restricted from the same privilege? They already receive many other perks which come with their title. Access to diplomatic passports for MPs encourages corruption and provides them with immunity, which may very well be misused for various illegal activities.

It is time to introduce laws that clearly state who may or may not receive the red passport. In my opinion, only the head of state, the head of government, diplomatic corps, and officials of the foreign ministry should be allowed diplomatic passports.

Secondly (and more importantly), our red diplomatic passport is seen as somehow discriminatory towards the ordinary citizens who possess a green booklet instead. Why? Simply because of the number of countries one can travel to without a visa with a red passport versus someone with a green one.

In world passport rankings, most of the powerful or valuable passports' covers don some shade of red, whereas passports with shades of green generally rank from the middle towards the bottom of the table. No thanks to the previous government, our passport ranked amongst the lowest 10 passports in the world for the past decade or so, despite the socioeconomic progress made. According to statistics obtained from Henley & Partners, the Bangladeshi passport ranked 68th in the world back in 2006. Since Sheikh Hasina assumed power in 2009, our passport's value continued to drop, with the lowest rank achieved in 2021 when our passport ranked 108th in the world.

The previous government signed bilateral agreements with many countries that facilitated visa-free travel for diplomatic and official passport holders, but not for ordinary citizens. This is exactly where the discrimination lies and it shows that the political elites never really cared about the ordinary Bangladeshi.

With a green Bangladeshi passport, only around 40 countries are accessible to Bangladeshis without a visa, most of which are remote island nations in the Pacific or Caribbean. On the other hand, a red Bangladeshi passport grants visa-free access to at least over 60 countries, including Thailand, Singapore, Japan, Russia, Türkiye, Oman, Brazil, China among others. It is absolutely shameful that in 2024, despite the availability of E-passports, the mobility and freedom of movement for Bangladeshis is still severely restricted.

Last but not least, the Bangladeshi passport unfortunately has some major design flaws.

With the introduction of E-passports in 2020, the previous government unfortunately did not change the overall design and layout of these new passports. Every passport in the world bears the coat of arms or the national emblem of their respective countries, except ours. Instead of our beautiful national emblem with the shapla flowers and rice sheaves, we have the seal of the government (Gonoprojatontri Bangladesh Shorkar) on the front cover our passports—which frankly doesn't look very good and put together with a lot of effort. I had hoped that with the introduction of E-passport, we might at least get a sophisticated-looking passport, but alas!

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The previous government's miserable diplomatic relations with most countries of the world, as well as the spread of fraudulent or forged passports and ID documents, rendered our passport one of the worst in the world. Therefore, I would like to bring these matters to the attention of our interim government as it is high time for passport reforms and this administration has the perfect chance to bring about these changes: abolishing the diplomatic passport facility for MPs; reforms and design changes to our E-passports; and to ensure that bilateral visa agreements are amended to include visa-free travel for Bangladeshi citizens as well.

Manazir Islam is an urban planner, traveller, and photographer living abroad since 2003.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own. 

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