The lead editorial “Citizen’s Burden” (28 June 2026) aptly sums up the illogicality of demanding multiple proofs from ordinary citizens for establishing their citizenship. According to the Government, even a passport, which is internationally regarded as proof of nationality, is only a travel document – not good enough to establish citizenship. Apparently, no other document – Aadhar, Voter ID, PAN – comes close to being a conclusive proof of citizenship, and with the Government not having an updated list of its citizens, a citizen would find it impossible to prove that he was indeed a bona fide citizen.
Recently, a former editor of the Telegraph was denied renewal of his passport, because his name had been deleted from the voter’s list during the SIR exercise, since Election Commission officials were not able to trace his or his late father’s name in the 2002 list. This is not one man’s sob story; ‘logical discrepancies’ were detected in 27 lakh cases in West Bengal, depriving the affected people of their voting right. With appellate tribunals yet to decide 99 per cent of exclusion cases, one can well imagine the difficulties these unfortunate people will face in routine matters.
Courts and legal eagles have supported the Government’s stance; opining that you are a citizen if you are born in India to parents who are citizens of India – hard to prove because people above forty generally, do not have birth certificates, and a person who is not able to prove his own citizenship will be hard put to prove his parent’s citizenship. The tragedy is made even worse because the Government itself has not updated the National Register of Citizens (NRC) since 2011 (except for Assam),so logically speaking, there can be no conclusive proof of citizenship.
Even in Assam, a person listed earlier on NRC was not able to prove his citizenship, with the Gauhati High Court holding that the PAN Card and Voter ID were not proof of citizenship, and even NRC legacy data, without a certificate under section 65B of the Evidence Act, had no evidentiary value. Thus, proving citizenship, which should be really easy, is being made arduous, by the impossibly complex documentary requirements demanded by the Government and judiciary. With certain sections of society bent on stoking the fires of ultra-nationalism, and the Government not disciplining them strictly enough, a view is sought to be canvassed – that people not meeting some mythical standards of descent and behaviour are not true citizens of India.
This flawed premise often reveals itself in public discourse, and sometimes even in public dealings. The way the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise is being conducted PAN-India has spawned misgivings not only in the minds of opposition parties, but even in the minds of many right-thinking individuals. For example, ‘logical discrepancy’ in a voter’s particulars, as a ground to deprive him of his voting right, was invented by the Election Commission, specifically for the SIR exercise in West Bengal. There was no mention of ‘logical discrepancy’ in the SIR process conducted earlier or simultaneously in Bihar, Gujarat or Uttar Pradesh, or ever before in the history of Indian elections.
Initially, the term ‘logical discrepancy’ was not defined; its meaning gradually emerged through a series of instructions issued by the Election Commission to Booth Level Officers (BLOs). Inter alia, a particularly illogical rule mandated that all cases where more than five voters had the same father were to be included in ‘logical discrepancies,’ disregarding the fact that larger families were the norm in the last century. Similarly, variations in spellings of names resulted in many persons losing their voting rights.
Sadly, software which did not factor in cultural nuances was used to identify logical discrepancies, and due to shortage of time, election officials rarely exercised their own judgement – leading to ludicrous consequences such as a retired High Court Judge and several BLOs not making it to the voter’s list. To rub salt into the disenfranchised voters’ wounds, the Supreme Court told a petitioner that he could vote in the next election. And to add to the woes of those not making the cut in the SIR exercise, the Home Minister declared in the Lok Sabha that the SIR test would be used to ‘detect, delete and deport’ aliens.
This would be in addition to such persons losing their welfare benefits till their cases were decided by appellate tribunals. A credible counter-view exists. According to Faizan Mustafa, a noted law expert, and presently Vice-Chancellor of Chanakya National Law University: “If the state has issued someone a passport or enrolled them as a voter after official verification, these documents should be treated as conclusive proof of citizenship…The burden should shift to the government to prove otherwise, except in cases of fraud.” However, neither the Government nor the Courts are inclined towards this view.
Earlier an Indian passport identified the carrier as an Indian citizen, now it certifies only nationality – with legal eagles pointing out that citizenship and nationality are quite different things. It would be interesting to know the view of the Government on the citizenship of people who have held the earlier passport. With a passport no longer a proof of citizenship, one wonders what document should people produce in the next SIR exercise to continue enjoying voting rights. The human cost of stripping someone of residential rights, much less than citizenship, manifests itself daily in the sad plight of young men and women returning from Donald Trump’s America.
According to news reports, a citizenship verification drive is afoot in Kuwait; an apartheid-like structure has been brought into existence by an amendment to the citizenship law. Kuwaiti nationals are now classified as Kuwaitis either by origin, or as naturalized citizens. Only Kuwaitis by origin are eligible to vote and run for parliamentary office. The descendants of naturalized citizens are classified as naturalized in perpetuity. Myriad heart-rending stories of those barred from citizenship are circulating in the Arab world. We had a decade of turbulence with Demonetisation in 2016, Covid-19 from 2020 to 2022, the India-Pakistan War in 2025, and the SIR and passport row in 2026.
The last one was wholly avoidable: it may be interesting to note that External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, while addressing the Annual Regional Passport Officers Conference on 19 June 2026 said “…a passport is not merely a booklet of pages. It is a powerful tool, a vital tool, of economic mobility, of international trade, I would even say of national identity.”
This is the commonly held view, and it would be better if the Government and Courts also adopt this interpretation, avoiding a narrow legalistic definition, which would only cause disruption for lakhs of people. Justin Trudeau, the former Prime Minister of Canada said: “A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. And you devalue the citizenship of every Canadian in this place and in this country when you break down and make it conditional for anyone.” Replace Canadian by Indian, and you will grasp the enormity of the problem looming on the horizon.
(THE WRITER IS A RETIRED PRINCIPAL CHIEF COMMISSIONER OF INCOME-TAX.)