AA Edit | Passports, Identity: Ensure Clarity

It now appears that the controversy over the status of the passport as proof of citizenship is an unseemly one, with the Ministry of External Affairs clarifying that “an Indian passport is a document that, as per the Passports Act, 1967, is issued by the Government of India to regulate the departure from India of citizens of India”.

While neither the Passports Act nor the passport itself states that the document is proof of citizenship, the law refers to the status of the person who is issued the passport as a citizen of India. And too, aside from the description of the law as stated by the MEA spokesperson, there are references in it which clearly state the same as well. The law “extends to the whole of India and applies also to citizens of India who are outside India” and it states that one of the reasons for refusing a passport to somebody is that the applicant is not a citizen of India. It also contains penal provisions for a non-citizen should they procure a passport by suppressing information on nationality. Taking these sections together, one can come to no conclusion other than that the holder of an Indian passport is an Indian citizen.

It has become a common practice for the NDA government at the Centre to kick up some controversy or the other related to the citizenship status of the people living in the country. This began with its calibrated statements on the formation of a national register of citizenship and the amendment to the Citizenship Act, 1955. The Election Commission has chosen to join this project by turning the routine special intensive revision of the electoral rolls into a process to verify citizenship. In all these exercises, the government and its agencies have sent out the message that the onus of proving one’s status rests on the person and not the government. This is convoluted logic, not to mention an undemocratic stand. The government should stop creating confusion among the people around their right to reside in the republic unless it can prove why they should not.