Thiruvananthapuram Member of Parliament (MP) Shashi Tharoor has pulled out of a number of events he was to participate in the United Kingdom, after the UK government said that a person vaccinated in certain countries, including India, will be considered “unvaccinated” and will have to be under home quarantine for 10 days. The events that the MP has withdrawn from include a debate at the Cambridge Union, a debating and free speech society in Cambridge, and a number of events for his book The Battle of Belonging. 

“Because of this I have pulled out of a debate at the @cambridgeunion & out of launch events for the UK edition of my book #TheBattleOfBelonging (published there as #TheStruggleForIndiasSoul). It is offensive to ask fully vaccinated Indians to quarantine. The Brits are reviewing!” Tharoor tweeted after sharing a tweet about the UK’s move. 

Alex Macheras, aviation analyst and columnist in the UK, tweeted, “UK government confirm tonight that if a person has been vaccinated in Africa, or South America, or countries including UAE, India, Turkey, Jordan, Thailand, Russia… you are considered “unvaccinated” and must follow “unvaccinated” rules = 10 day home quarantine & tests.” 

Macheras further added that it is “quite something for the UK to take such a stance against so many countries vaccine rollout... especially those countries administering the *exact same* vaccine as UK (Pfizer/AZ/Moderna/etc).” 

Recently the UK government relaxed travel restrictions for vaccinated people from other countries. From October 4, travellers will not need to take RT-PCR tests before boarding planes to the UK. In August, India was put on the “amber list” by the UK, which meant that fully vaccinated people from India will not have to be in hotel-quarantined for 10 days on arrival there. However, even then, travellers vaccinated outside Europe were to follow home quarantine. The UK only approved the India-made version of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.