An identity crisis is a critical state to be in. Countless Indians have found themselves in such an unenviable position after an official of the ministry of external affairs stated that the passport cannot be treated as proof of citizenship: it is merely a travel document. In the lay perspective, this logic could appear confounding. After all, this very document establishes a holder’s nationality as Indian on foreign soil. Yet, the same document does not satisfy the home nation’s minders as an attestation of citizenship domestically. That is not all. A passport is granted after considerable checks: these include scrutiny of government records as well as police verification. Why should it then fail the citizenship test? Yet, the official was merely parroting the State’s complex — confusing — position on citizenship. Unlike many other nations, India remains loath to recognise a universally recognised certificate of citizenship. A person’s citizenship is arrived at under the provisions of the Constitution and the Citizenship Act of 1955 that take into account such parameters as birth, descent, registration, naturalisation or incorporation of territory. The legal position concurs, with courts preferring to consider a wide array of evidence instead of a solitary document while pronouncing citizenship. Little wonder then that in 2020, the Union home ministry declined to include passport, Aadhaar card, voter’s card, PAN card or even birth certificate as foolproof evidence of citizenship.
The debate — collective anxiety — prompted by the official’s remark is understandable. The contentious Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, now unfolding in various states, has been criticised for being exclusionary, especially in Bihar and Bengal: the citizenship status of those excluded has been brought under a cloud. But public attention must not be diverted from what appears to be a structural element — anomaly — in the design of the Indian citizenship apparatus that is vulnerable to weaponisation. So far, the philosophy of Indian citizenship, ratified by multiple documents, assumed most Indians to be citizens unless a dispute arose. Now, there appears to be pressure to pass the burden of proof on to the people in a country with a poor culture of record-keeping. Should a democracy, in this day and age, rely on a clutch of individual documents that do not serve as conclusive evidence of citizenship? There is a need to make the citizenship test simpler and inclusive.