More than 0.6m Indians gave up citizenship in 5 years

MORE than six lakh (0.6 million) Indians have given up their citizenship in the last five years, the country’s minister of state for home Nityanand Rai told the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the parliament, on Tuesday (30), the second day of the winter session which kicked off on Monday (29).

On the other hand, 4,177 people were granted Indian citizenship in the same period.

Rai was responding to a question related to the matter and submitted a written reply. According to data information available with the Indian ministry of external affairs, 111,287 people gave up their Indian citizenship till September 10 this year.

In 2017, 133,049 Indians gave up their citizenship while in 2018, the number was 134,561. In 2019, it was 144,017. In 2020, the number came down to 85,248 before going beyond 100,000 again in the current year.

According to government data, one reason why fewer number of people gave up their Indian citizenship in 2020 is Covid-19 pandemic. The year 2021 again saw a steep rise in the number of Indians giving up their citizenship as worldwide travel and outdoor restrictions started to ease.

According to a report in Outlook, about 40 per cent of requests for citizenship renunciation come from the United States, followed by Australia and Canada, which amount to around 30 per cent of such requests.

Under The Indian Citizenship Act 1955, Persons of Indian Origin are not allowed to hold citizenship of two nations. If a person has ever held an Indian passport and then gets the passport of some other country, he/she will be needed to surrender the Indian passport immediately after they acquire the nationality of the second country.

Once an Indian renounces his/her citizenship, it is necessary for him/her to apply for surrender or a renunciation certificate.

After that, their passports are stamped, saying “cancelled due to acquiring foreign nationality”. However, Indian passports that carry only a “cancelled stamp” are not considered renounced of their Indian citizenship, the Outlook report added.

The report also said that most Indians give up their passports because of the privileges they get by using passports of other nations. India ranks 69th on the passport power list as per the World Passport Index. Countries like Australia, the US, Singapore, Canada, the UAE and New Zealand are much ahead.

The higher a country ranks in the passport index, the better the access the holders of the passport get to visa-free travel to many nations. They also get exemptions from bureaucratic delays in the immigration process, something which benefits traders and businessmen.

(With ANI inputs)