Hell hath no fury like a Nobel Laureate scorned and Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul is no exception.

The world-famous and Trinidad-born 78-year-old writer, considered one of the masters of English writing, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001. He was feted and applauded across the globe, especially in India -- his ancestral home -- where there was considerable satisfaction that another exceptional Indian after Rabindranath Tagore had finally won the coveted award.

Despite the acclaim and praise that continue to be showered upon him, Sir Vidia is not a happy man. For the last few months, he has been quietly fuming in the privacy of his Wiltshire home in the heart of the English countryside. The object of his fury and the reason for his despair is the lack of civility with which the Indian High Commission in London has treated him and his wife.

Three months ago, Naipaul’s wife Lady Nadira travelled from Wiltshire to London to ask the Indian High Commission -- India House - as to how her elderly husband could apply for a Person of Indian Origin card that would entitle him to travel visa-free to India and, perhaps, even settle down there in his last years. Previous High Commissioners had all encouraged him to think along these lines.

But when Lady Nadira made relevant inquires at India House here, she was told that her husband should travel to Gorakhpur in Eastern Uttar Pradesh to find a tehsildar or magistrate willing to certify that Naipaul is indeed a person of Indian origin.

Lady Nadira, a former Pakistani journalist, told The Tribune, “My husband has given four books to India; he has opened conferences. What was he then? Why was his status not challenged then? Now you want him to prove he’s a person of Indian origin? What is this? ‘Badtameezi’ or arrogance?”

Explaining how she was made to feel like a terrorist, she describes the humiliating experience of the manner in which she was first made to wait in the “pits” of the embassy before being allowed to see an officer to whom she explained what she wanted. The entire experience was sufficiently unpleasant to leave her “shaking with rage” and “weeping”.

When she inquired if it might be simpler to apply instead for a long-term visa, she was directed to a separate office in the Victoria area, at least half a mile away from India House, where their application would be considered. “Apply in the normal way and we’ll see,” she was told.

Friends of the Naipauls have speculated that she and her husband are being penalised because they are seen as being over-friendly to senior BJP politicians like LK Advani, who were in power when Naipaul won the Nobel.

But, as Lady Nadira explains, she and her husband originally made contact with the BJP to help their journalist-friend Tarun Tejpal, owner and editor of Tehelka magazine, who was under attack at the time from the administration. “My husband is a very liberal and secular man,” Lady Nadira explains. “If he’s at all interested in the BJP, it’s because it is a grassroots movement.”

Lady Nadira stresses how previous High Commissioners before current incumbent Nalin Surie have been generous with their time and support, especially when it came to visa issues.

Tellingly, the Pakistani High Commission in London by contrast has been always extremely polite and helpful. “My husband has been so rude to Pakistan, but the embassy always bends over backwards to give him a gratis visa,” Lady Nadira explains. “The Ambassador comes to the door for us.”

Asked to comment on the Naipauls’ experience, a spokeswoman for the High Commission said she would try and find out what had happened. But the spokeswoman would not comment on what critics describe as structural weaknesses at the Indian High Commission in London. These include the outsourcing of vital services like visas to outside agencies.

Much of the Press and cultural work is also now outsourced to the recently-revived Indian Journalists Association that has taken it upon itself to hold press conferences and other meetings for London-based journalists. High Commission insiders say this is because current Press Adviser M. Subhashini is suffering from cancer and unable to carry out her full-time duties.

Matters have not been helped by petty rivalries and jostling for position at the top of the High Commission pyramid. Deputy High Commissioner Asoke Mukerji has so far refused to leave his post and make way for his appointed successor, Rajesh Prasad, because he, too, is said to be suffering from a serious illness. And, it is an open secret that new High Commissioner Nalin Surie resents being sent to London because he believes he should be Foreign Secretary instead of Nirupama Rao.

Indeed, it is a measure of the Indian High Commission’s many limitations that members of the Indian media have yet to be briefed on British Prime Minister David Cameron’s July 28 New Delhi visit. It will be left to the Indian Journalists Association to communicate details of the PM’s visit to the rest of the Indian Press corps. M. Subhashini and her senior colleagues at the High Commission will, no doubt, be ‘otherwise engaged’.

Naipaul is also the recipient of the John Llewllyn Rhys Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award, the Hawthornden Prize, the WH Smith Literary Award, the Booker Prize and the David Cohen Prize for a lifetime’s achievement in British literature.