In the past five years, more than six lakh Indians have given up their citizenship, as per the Union Minister of State for Home, Nityanand Rai statement in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
Indians Given Up Their Citizenship
This was informed while responding to a question, he submitted a written reply as well.
Below is data that represents the number of people who gave up their citizenship each year since 2017.
| Year | Number of people who gave up Indian citizenship |
| 2017 | 1,33,049 |
| 2018 | 1,34,561 |
| 2019 | 1,44,017 |
| 2020 | 85,248 |
| 2021(Up till Sept 10) | 1,11,287 |
The data shows that the highest number of people gave up their Indian citizenship in 2019, whereas the lowest did in 2020.
While, 2021 witnessed the steepest spike in Indians giving up their citizenship as worldwide travel and outdoor restrictions started to ease.
During this time, 40% of the citizenship renunciation requests come from the United States, followed by Australia and Canada, which amount to a chunk of around 30% of such requests.
How Did This Happen?
Basically,the persons of Indian Origin are not allowed citizenship of two countries according to the Indian Citizenship Act, 1955 .
Under this act, if a person has ever held an Indian Passport and then obtains the passport of some other country then they will be required to surrender their Indian Passport immediately after they gain nationality of the other country.
This simply means that Indians who renounce their citizenship will need to apply for surrender or a renunciation certificate.
These passports are stamped, saying “cancelled due to acquiring foreign nationality”.
It is noteworthy here that Indian passports that carry only a “cancelled stamp” are not considered renounced of their Indian citizenship.
Why Would This Happen?
Indians, renounce their citizenship because of the privileges they get using the passports of other countries.
According to the world passport index, India stands at the 69th number on the passport power rank.
Compared with other countries, the rank of Australia is 3rd, USA is 5th, Singapore is 6th and Canada is 7th.
While UAE stands at number 1 and New Zealand at number 2.
In simple words, the higher the passport index ranking, the better access they get to travel visa-free to many countries.
Apart from this they are also exempted from bureaucratic delays in the immigration process which is beneficial for traders and businessmen.
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