Follow TNM’s WhatsApp channel for news updates and story links.
Nearly 79 years after Independence, India continues to struggle with a basic question: Who is an Indian citizen?
The ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls has once again brought the issue of citizenship, illegal migration, and voter identity into public debate. The discussion is not new. For decades, governments of different political parties have spoken about illegal migration as a threat to national security, demographic balance, and electoral integrity.
Yet, after almost eight decades as an independent nation, India still does not have a single universally accepted document that conclusively establishes citizenship. This is perhaps one of the biggest failures of the Indian state.
Historical debate on illegal migration
In 2005, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader LK Advani, while speaking in Parliament on internal security, identified three major challenges facing the country: terrorism, Naxalism, and illegal infiltration. He argued that illegal migration was not merely a border issue but a matter of national security.
Long before that, concerns over migration from neighbouring countries, particularly Bangladesh, had shaped political discourse in Assam and other border states.
It was against this backdrop that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government introduced changes to the Citizenship Act. In 2003, rules were framed for the preparation of a National Register of Citizens (NRC), the issuance of national identity cards, and maintenance of citizen records.
In 2004, Section 14A was added to the Citizenship Act, making registration of citizens and issuance of national identity cards a legal obligation. The stated objective was clear: identify illegal migrants and distinguish citizens from non-citizens.
The citizenship test in Assam
The issue reached its peak in Assam, where decades of agitation against illegal migration resulted in the NRC update under the supervision of the Supreme Court.
When the final NRC list was published in August 2019, around 19 lakh people were left out. The exercise raised difficult questions about documentation, citizenship, and the possibility of genuine citizens being excluded.
CAA and questions over citizenship
Soon after the Assam NRC was published, Parliament passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA), creating a pathway to citizenship for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan who had entered India before December 31, 2014.
This immediately raised questions. If the NRC was designed to identify and remove illegal migrants, irrespective of religion, why should some categories of people be granted citizenship while others remain excluded?
Supporters of the CAA argued that it was a humanitarian measure for persecuted minorities. Critics saw a contradiction between the logic of the NRC and the provisions of the CAA.
SIR: A new form of NRC?
Today, with the SIR exercise underway, the same questions are returning in a different form.
The Election Commission of India says the purpose of SIR is to ensure that only eligible citizens remain on electoral rolls and that duplicate, shifted, or ineligible entries are removed. No democratic society can object to maintaining accurate voter lists.
The problem arises when the burden of proving citizenship falls repeatedly on ordinary citizens while the state itself remains uncertain about what constitutes final proof of citizenship. This brings us to a larger and more uncomfortable question.
What is the citizenship document of an Indian citizen?
It is unfortunate that the world's largest democracy still does not have a single document that can be accepted everywhere as conclusive proof of citizenship.
Over the years, governments have issued ration cards, voter identity cards, PAN cards, passports, Aadhaar cards, driving licences and numerous other documents. Yet, there remains confusion over which document conclusively establishes citizenship.
In practice, one document is used to obtain another. To get a ration card, a person has to establish identity and residence. To become a voter, one must submit documents and undergo verification. To obtain a passport, bank account, SIM card, or access government services, different forms of identification are required.
The Aadhaar project
When Aadhaar was introduced, it was projected as a unique identity platform that would simplify verification and reduce duplication.
Aadhaar gradually became linked to bank accounts, welfare schemes, mobile connections, income tax records, and numerous government services. At one stage, it became the primary document through which millions of Indians interacted with the state.
Until last year, passports were being issued primarily on the basis of Aadhaar numbers and Aadhaar cards. Yet, whenever questions of citizenship arise, the government quickly clarifies that Aadhaar is not proof of citizenship.
So, if Aadhaar is not proof of citizenship, and if voter cards, ration cards, passports, and PAN cards are also not considered conclusive proof, then what exactly is the citizenship document of an Indian citizen?
Even today, there is no clear answer.
Different authorities rely on different documents depending on the situation. The standards change. The documents change. The political arguments change. But one thing remains constant: the burden of proof is always placed on the citizen.
More accurately, it is placed on the poor and vulnerable people, especially those from Dalit and Muslim communities.
Is citizenship a class and caste issue in India?
Wealthy and largely dominant-caste people usually have property documents, tax records, bank accounts, educational certificates, and permanent addresses stretching back decades. For them, proving identity is rarely a challenge.
The situation is very different for migrant workers, daily wage labourers, street vendors, domestic workers, tenants and countless others who survive through informal employment and belong to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and minority communities.
Many do not own homes. Many shift from one place to another in search of work. Some change rented accommodation every few months. Others move across districts and states for seasonal employment.
For such people, a ration card may be the only document that helps them secure food. Aadhaar may be the only identity document they possess. Their lives do not fit neatly into government databases built around permanent addresses and stable documentation.
The assumptions behind large verification exercises often reflect the lives of people who own property, remain at one address for decades and possess extensive paperwork.
But India is also a country of migrants. It is a country where millions live in rented rooms, temporary settlements, and worksites. Their citizenship does not become weaker simply because their circumstances are difficult.
The debate around SIR, therefore, is not only about identifying illegal migrants. It is also about protecting vulnerable communities from exclusion and harassment.
Every government has spoken about illegal migration. Every government has promised solutions. Yet, after nearly eight decades of Independence, India is still unable to tell its citizens which single document finally establishes their citizenship beyond doubt.
That raises an important question of accountability.
If the state has failed to create a universally accepted citizenship framework despite decades of legislation, censuses, identity programmes, voter registration drives, and digital databases, should the entire burden continue to fall on ordinary and vulnerable citizens?
Why should a poor Dalit or Muslim labourer be expected to preserve documents across generations when governments themselves have repeatedly failed to maintain error-free records and have changed procedures and standards of verification from time to time?
After 79 years of Independence, the politics of citizenship should end
A democratic state has every right to identify illegal migrants and protect national security. But it also has a responsibility to protect the rights of its vulnerable people and ensure that their citizens are not trapped in endless cycles of documentation and verification.
Citizenship cannot become a never-ending test for ordinary people. National security cannot be strengthened by creating uncertainty within the country and making people lose faith in the system.
The continuing questions around citizenship and the controversies surrounding the NRC, CAA, and now SIR show that India has not yet resolved the citizenship question.
Nearly 80 years after Independence, the country is still debating who is a citizen, what constitutes a national security threat, what electoral integrity requires, and how the rights of ordinary citizens can be protected.
The tragedy is that while governments change, laws change, and political narratives change, millions of Indians continue to carry the same burden of fear and uncertainty about their existence.
One day they may again be asked to prove whether they belong to the country where they were born, lived, worked, and voted all their lives.
The 19 lakh people excluded from the Assam NRC, the 90 lakh people affected by the SIR exercise in West Bengal, the 89 lakh people identified in Telangana, and crores of people across the country — a majority of them from Dalit, Muslim, and backward communities — are asking the same question: What is the proof of Indian citizenship, and when will this cycle of being treated as doubtful citizens come to an end?
SQ Masood is a social activist based in Hyderabad.
Views expressed are the author’s own.