Over 87,000 persons have renounced their Indian citizenship in the first half of 2023, Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar told the Lok Sabha on Friday, July 21. Responding to a question from Congress MP Karti Chidambaram on whether the number of Indians giving up their citizenship is currently the highest it has ever been in twelve years, the Union Minister also listed the number of people who gave up their citizenship in this period. While the numbers appear to have risen gradually since 2011, a major dip was seen in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by a huge upsurge with 2.25 lakh people giving up their citizenship in 2022.
On being asked whether Indians giving up their citizenship is in line with the country’s “rising global stature”, and whether the Union government plans to adopt any “course correction measures” to reduce the relinquishment of citizenship, Jaishankar said, “The number of Indian nationals exploring the global workplace has been significant in the last two decades. Many of them have chosen to take up foreign citizenship for reasons of personal convenience.” He said that the Union government was cognisant of this development and has adopted various initiatives centred around ‘Make in India’ to harness their talents at home.
“At the same time, to take full advantage of the contemporary knowledge economy, we have also promoted skills and startups... A successful, prosperous, and influential diaspora is an advantage for India, and our approach is to tap diaspora networks and utilise its reputation for national gain,” the Union Minister said.
Jaishankar also listed 135 countries whose citizenship was acquired by Indians since 2020. Earlier in July 2022, the Ministry of Home Affairs provided details of people who had renounced their Indian citizenship in 103 different countries, and also the countries where they then took up citizenship instead of India from 2019 to 2022. The United States was the highest on this list, with a total of 1,70,795 persons renouncing their Indian citizenship there to become US citizens.
However, there were also many others who renounced Indian citizenship while situated in countries such as Bahrain, Bulgaria, China, Finland and others, but went on to become US citizens. The Union government did not provide the exact number of such people, who renounced Indian citizenship in one country but went on to become citizens of other countries. From 2019 to 2022, a total of 48 Indians relinquished their Indian citizenship in Pakistan and went on to become Pakistani citizens — seven in 2020 and 41 in 2021 — according to the numbers shared by Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai in the Lok Sabha in July 2022.
On the other hand, a total of 4,844 foreigners were granted Indian citizenship between 2017 and 2021, Nityanand Rai told the Lok Sabha in February 2022. In another reply given in the Rajya Sabha in September 2020, Nityanand shared the number of foreign citizens of different nations who were granted Indian citizenship starting from 2017 till September 17, 2020. Pakistan topped this list — with 2120 formerly Pakistani nationals taking up Indian citizenship during this period — followed by Afghanistan, Bangladesh, US, and Sri Lanka.