Over 9 lakh Indians relinquished citizenship since 2014: Govt data

Remember that famous speech Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered in Seoul back in 2015 when he claimed people once lamented being born in India?

“Pata nahin pichle janam mei kya paap kiya tha ki Bharat mei janam hua (what sin had I committed to be born in India)”, Modi had said, while addressing the Indian diaspora in Seoul. Over the past eight years, Modi’s assertion during his numerous visits abroad has been that his premiership and the BJP’s rise to power has instilled his countrymen with a newfound pride in their Indian identity and reinvigorated their faith in the country.

Few takers for Modi’s pitch

Yet, data released by his own government shows that more and more Indians are actually relinquishing their Indian citizenship with each passing year. While Modi may hard-sell himself as the bringer of hope to Indians, who once thought being born in India was a punishment for sins committed in a previous life, his strong pitch to Indians settled abroad to return to their country is clearly finding no takers.

Ever since Modi’s BJP returned to power with an increased mandate in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, over 3.92 lakh Indians settled in various countries abroad have relinquished their Indian citizenship. And before someone dubs this as fake news spread by anti-national forces, it needs to be said this is official data, presented in parliament by Nityanand Rai, Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s deputy.

The information was shared by Rai in response to questions put forth by Haji Fazlur Rehman, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) MP from Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh. Rehman had sought details from the Union home ministry of “the number of persons who have renounced Indian citizenship till the current year since 2019”.

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In his response, tabled in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday (July 19), Rai said as many as 1,44,017 people had renounced their Indian citizenship in 2019, while the number dropped to 85,256 in 2020 before seeing a marked jump in 2021, when 1,63,370 citizens gave up their Indian passports.

Eight-year rise

Parliament records also show that the trend of people giving up their Indian citizenship has, in fact, generally been on the ascendant for a better part of the eight years that Modi has been PM. Official data shows that 1,31,489 people gave up their Indian citizenship in 2015, while the corresponding figures for 2016, 2017 and 2018 stood at 1,41,603, 1,33,049 and 1,34,561 respectively.

As such, as many as 9,33,345 people have given up their Indian citizenship since the Modi government came to power; the highest number thus far – 1,63,370 people – being recorded in the past year.

Rai’s reply on Tuesday shows that the highest number of Indians who gave up their citizenship lived in the United States of America. While 61,683 people living in the USA gave up their Indian passports in 2019, the corresponding figure for 2020 and 2021 stood at 30,828 and 78,284 respectively. Indians living in Australia came next in this rush to relinquish their Indian citizenship.

In 2019, 21,340 Indians living in Australia surrendered their Indian passports, while in 2020 and 2021 the figure stood at 13,518 and 23,533, respectively. Another country that witnessed a substantial infusion of Indian citizenry was Canada where 25381, 17093 and 21597 people renounced their Indian passports in 2019, 2020 and 2021, respectively.

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Interestingly, the years gone by have also been witness to a large-scale migration of Indians with a high net worth fleeing the country – though not necessarily after relinquishing their citizenship – despite the Modi government’s claims of taking great strides in ease of doing business in the country – or for that matter, for being accused of promoting crony capitalism.

Last month, the Henley Global Citizens Report, 2022 had claimed that nearly 8,000 HNI Indians could leave the country for foreign shores this year. The Global Wealth Migration Review report had, in 2019, claimed that India ranked second only to China when it came to HNIs (high net worth individuals) leaving their home country. The report had said some 7,000 HNIs had left India in 2019. Even more alarming was the claim made in a Morgan Stanley report that had claimed over 35,000 HNI entrepreneurs had left India between 2014 and 2020.

Clearly, while people of Indian origin may storm the venues Modi visits during his frequent travels abroad and offer platitudes on patriotism, they aren’t actually enthused enough to return to Maa Bharati.