Illegally Coerced Surrender

The Indian government introduced new rules on May 7 requiring Indians who acquire the citizenship of another country to surrender their Indian passport and secure a surrender certificate at a cost of $175.

The abruptness with which the rules were implemented without any advance warning, the heavy application costs and the even steeper penalties, have prompted widespread outrage among overseas Indians. An online petition protesting that the new rules impose an “undue and unnecessary burden” had garnered 21,387 signatures by May 28. Irate overseas Indians have even demonstrated outside the Indian consulate in New York.

The rules impose stiff financial penalties for failure to secure a surrender certificate within three months of acquiring foreign citizenship: $250 for retaining a passport beyond three years; $625 for retaining it beyond five years; $175 for a lost or damaged passport; $1,250 for using the Indian passport for travel after acquiring foreign citizenship, etc. Even more significantly, counselor services will be denied to those failing to comply.

Perhaps the most outrageous aspect of the new rules is their ex post facto application to millions of overseas Indians who acquired foreign citizenship over the past several decades, years before the changes were introduced. In many instances, they have long lost, misplaced or otherwise disposed of their Indian passports. Many will likely not even become aware of these new rules until they contact an Indian consulate for a visa or some other consular service. Absurdly, even those who, of their own volition, went through the trouble of having their Indian passports canceled at an Indian mission in the past are required to secure a surrender certificate and pay a $20 fee.

The new rules are presumably motivated by security concerns. But there can be no justification for the onerous fees, nor for the retroactive application of the rules.

The Indian government, including the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, which is tasked with advocating the interests of overseas Indians, has been conspicuously silent in the face of widespread public protests. Off-the-record, Indian consulates have contended that the rules only represent a more “vigorous enforcement” of existing law.

The argument is disingenuous. Section 8 of the Citizenship Act, provides for the voluntary renunciation of citizenship: “If any citizen of India of full age and capacity, who is also a citizen or national of another country, makes in the prescribed manner a declaration renouncing his Indian citizenship, the declaration shall be registered by the prescribed authority; and, upon such registration, that person shall cease to be a citizen of India….”

The new rules, in effect, are making a hitherto voluntary act compulsory through executive fiat, in violation of the Indian Citizenship Act — and using the threat of stiff fines and denial of consular services to compel compliance.