We expect other countries to welcome Indians, provide them permanent residence and eventually citizenship. But we rarely question whether India’s own citizenship laws have the same openness? Our concern over the rights of immigrants often stops at our own borders. This contradiction was clearly visible when Trump issued an executive order at the beginning of his second term. In this order, the provision of automatic birthright citizenship for children born to illegal immigrants and people living temporarily was abolished. A section of the Indian media criticized this order and called it contrary to America’s immigration tradition. Then on June 30, 2026, when the US Supreme Court declared Trump’s order illegal, most Indians welcomed the decision, calling it a victory for fairness and rule of law. But this celebration ignores an inconvenient fact. That is, India itself has abandoned the system of birthright citizenship years ago. At the time of the making of the Constitution, India also provided automatic birthright citizenship. Under the original Citizenship Act of 1955, anyone born in India on or after 26 January 1950 was considered an Indian citizen by birth, regardless of the nationality of his or her parents. However, there were some limited exceptions, such as children of diplomats or citizens of enemy countries. Over time, the scope of the citizenship law was limited, first through amendments in 1986, and then in 2003. We vociferously protested against Trump’s order, but remained silent about our law. Through the 1986 amendment, the Indian Parliament abolished the system of birthright citizenship. According to this, a person born in India on or after July 1, 1987, could get citizenship only if one of his parents was an Indian citizen. In 2003, this law was again amended and provision was made that persons born in India on or after December 3, 2004, even if one of their parents is an Indian citizen, still does not get the automatic right to citizenship. For this it also became necessary that the second parent should not be an illegal immigrant. That is, even if one of your parents is Indian and even if your grandparents were born in India, you will not automatically get citizenship. In the background of these amendments, there have been concerns about the presence of illegal Bangladeshis in India. But it is worth noting that all the estimates made regarding the number of illegal Bangladeshis in India are very modest compared to the people living illegally in America. Apart from this, the legal process of obtaining citizenship in India is also not easy. India is one of the countries in the world that imposes the toughest conditions for obtaining citizenship. Generally a foreign national has to reside in India for seven years before becoming eligible to apply and even then the granting of citizenship is entirely at the discretion of the government. Marrying an Indian citizen does not automatically confer citizenship. Foreign-born spouses also have to meet long-term residence requirements before registering as citizens. The thousands of Tibetan families living in India for generations exemplify this discrepancy. Many of them were born in India, studied in Indian schools, speak Indian languages and do not consider any country other than India as their home. Yet the law does not automatically grant them citizenship. We reserve seats for Tibetan refugees and their descendants in educational institutions, but they have to go through a long bureaucratic process if they want to become Indian citizens. Ultimately every country has the right to decide who will become its citizen. But the requirement of intellectual honesty is that we should judge ourselves on the same standards that we want to apply to others. (These are the author’s own views)
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Neeraj Kaushal’s column: The question of birthright citizenship should be seriously discussed
