Over 1.63 lakh Indians relinquished citizenship last year

Over 1.63 lakh Indians gave up their Indian citizenship last year and received citizenship of other counties.

The data was shared by Indian State Minister for Home Nityanand Rai while responding to a query by Bahujan Samaj Party lawmaker Haji Fazlur Rehman in Lok Sabha.

He said a total of 163,370 Indians gave up their Indian passports in 2021.

But this number was 144,017 and 85,256 in 2019 and 2020, respectively. Previously, the highest number of people, 144,942, had given up Indian citizenship in 2016, local media reported citing official data.

Asked about the reasons given by these persons for renouncing Indian citizenship, the union state minister said, "Individuals renounced Indian citizenship for reasons personal to them".

Relinquishing citizenship means they have to surrender their Indian passports as the Indian Constitution and citizenship laws don‍‍`t allow dual citizenship.

The data revealed that a maximum of 78,284 Indians relinquished Indian citizenship and received citizenship of the USA, followed by 23,533, who took citizenship of Australia while 21597 in Canada and 14,637 in the UK in 2021.

However, forty-one Indian nationals based in Pakistan gave up their Indian citizenship last year, compared to only seven in 2020. A total of 7,782 Pakistani citizens also applied for Indian citizenship between 2016 and 2020, the data showed.

Around 326 Indians renounced their citizenship while being in the United Arab Emirates last year and applied for citizenship in countries such as Albania, France, Malta, Pakistan, the Philippines, Portugal, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahrain, Belgium, Cyprus, Ireland, Grenada, Jordan, Mauritius, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Sri Lanka and Vanuatu, among others, according to media reports.

A total of 932,276 Indians renounced their citizenships in favour of other countries between 2015 and 2021, reports said citing data shared with Parliament in February last year and on Tuesday.

Besides, data shared by the home ministry in November 2021 stated that 10,645 foreign nationals applied for Indian citizenship between 2016 and 2020, with the maximum (7,782) from Pakistan and 795 from Afghanistan. Of these, 4,177 persons were granted Indian citizenship.

Meanwhile, a total of 452 "stateless" persons also applied for Indian citizenship between 2016 and 2020, according to the official data.