The government is cancelling OCI cards at will—even blocking entry of card-holders into the country. People who were “overseas citizens” yesterday are now “foreign nationals.”
This OCI is like a green card, yes?
Sort of. The Indian Constitution does not allow Indians to hold dual citizenship. As a result, most citizens who settled abroad were forced to give up their Indian passport—and apply for visas like any other foreigner. In response to pressure from the diaspora, the government first introduced the Person of Indian Origin card in 1999—offered to anyone with Indian ancestry.
From PIO to OCI: In 2005, the government expanded the privileges available to overseas people of Indian origin—treating them on par with Indian citizens in most matters. These new perks included the following:
- OCIs can get a multi-purpose, multiple entry, lifelong visa to visit India.
- Unlike foreigners, they will not have to register with the local police during their stay in India.
- They can work, earn, enrol in college, buy property etc just as any other Indian citizen living abroad—other than acquiring agricultural property.
An OCI holder, however, cannot vote or hold a constitutional office. They cannot hold a government job—except when given special permission.
The eligibility criteria: Unlike green cards or other permanent residency programs in the West, Indian ancestry—or family connection—is a core requirement. You can apply for an OCI if you:
- have ever possessed an Indian passport;
- have a parent, grandmother, or great grandparent who was born in India and lived there permanently. Note, this does not apply to citizens of Pakistan or Bangladesh.
- were born in India or your parents or grandparents were born in India as defined in the Government of India Act, 1935.
- You or your parents, grandparents were eligible for citizenship on January 26, 1950—when India became a republic—even if they were living overseas.
- are a minor whose both parents are Indian citizens or one of the parents is an Indian citizen.
- Are a foreign national married to an Indian citizen/OCI cardholder—and whose marriage has been registered and lasted for at least two years.
The numbers: There are currently an estimated 4.5 million OCI card holders. The government issued 320,000 OCI cards every year between 2015 and 2021—an increase from an average of 170,000 OCI cards issued between 2005 and 2014.
Key trend to note: The number of Indians giving up their passport has jumped from 144,017 in 2019 to 225,620 in 2022—climbing upward except for an anomalous lull during 2020 due to the pandemic. The average number per year has increased by 20% since the end of the pandemic. The rise is fueled by the desire for greater global mobility—since the Indian passport makes most visas difficult to acquire. But this also means that the number of people applying for OCI will continue to accelerate.
Sounds pretty cheery… what’s the problem?
Since 2020, the government has been tightening the screws on OCI holders—making it easy to revoke the card at whim. The OCI has now become a privilege that requires a certain level of compliance.
The Citizenship Act 1950: Before the amendment, the law already laid out clear grounds for cancellation. Some are obvious—as when the card was obtained by means of fraud or false representation—or the person has been jailed for more than two years. The other three criteria are all about “anti-national” activities—however the government may choose to define them:
These provisos penalise people who show disaffection towards Constitution of India, trade with the enemy “during any war in which India may be engaged” and also allow the authorities to cancel the status “when it is necessary to do so in the interest of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of India, friendly relations of India with any foreign country, or in the interests of the general public”.
The key amendment: Most of the protests around the 2019 amendment to the Citizenship Act have focused on how it discriminates against Muslim immigrants (explained in this Big Story). But the new law also includes clauses that change the rules for OCI card holders. It states that an individual can lose their OCI if they violate any provision of the CAA—or any other law specified by the central government. The government now has unlimited power to define or revise the legal violations that can trigger a cancellation.
In a prescient column, Rangin Pallav Tripathy in 2021 wrote of the amendment:
The significance of this amendment will depend entirely on the specific laws that the government selects and it may pose peculiar problems for OCI card holders. There is no clarity on whether the government will select criminal laws or civil laws. Thus, an American citizen may lose his OCI status for an act that might not be criminal in the US but is considered criminal in India. This may also have particular implications in relation to free speech issues for OCI card holders from western countries that offer greater constitutional and statutory protection for free speech.
The privileges of the card were now directly linked to compliance.
Rule change #2: In 2021, the government turned the screws even further—with a simple notification issued by the Home Ministry. Issued under one of the clauses of the CAA, it requires OCIs to secure a special permit to undertake “any research”, to undertake any “missionary” or “Tablighi” or “journalistic activities”. They will also need a permit to visit any area in India notified as “protected”, “restricted” or “prohibited.”
The biggest change: The notification equates OCIs with “foreign nationals” in respect of “all other economic, financial and educational fields.” The OCI program as instituted in 2005 specifically gave OCI card holders “parity” with Indian citizens living abroad—with some exceptions. In other words, the government took the ‘Indian’ out of OCI in one fell swoop.
The motivation: Writing in Scroll, Prashant Reddy lists a number of reasons why the government made a radical shift. It blocked any lawsuit that claimed “fundamental rights” for OCIs—since they’re now “foreign nationals.” The notification was also aimed at very specific political peeves—missionary activity, applying for reserved seats in colleges etc. Above all, it allows the government to target its harshest critics—liberal journalists and researchers.
Is that what it’s doing now?
Yes. The number is small but significant—in terms of who is targeted.
By the numbers: According to a response to RTIs filed by Article 14, the government cancelled 284,574 OCI cards as of May 2023. The vast majority of these were revoked for innocuous reasons—”259,554 OCI cards were cancelled so they could be reissued, while other cards were cancelled for being lost, damaged, deceased and wrong printing.” But 102 were taken away for reasons linked to some form of dissent. In 2014, 37 OCI cards were cancelled—followed by 24 in 2021, 31 in 2022 and 10 till May 2023.
In the first flurry of cases, the government did not explicitly cite anyone’s writings or research as grounds for cancellation.
Aatish Taseer: lost his card soon after he wrote a scathing cover story for TIME in 2019. But the reason given: he allegedly concealed his father’s Pakistani origin. A bit puzzling as to why the government suddenly woke up to this fact—given that his father Salman Taseer was a powerful and well-known governor.
Christine Mehta: lost her card in 2014 for preparing an Amnesty International report on Jammu & Kashmir. In this case, she and Amnesty knowingly broke the rule banning research “without the prior permission of the Government of India”:
The AII management was confident that the United Progressive Alliance government wouldn’t use the little-known and apparently rarely used provision against me. It decided that attempting to apply for permission would only draw unnecessary attention to my work, and invite the government to deny permission outright.
Christo Phillip: was accused of trying to conduct conversions—and preach Christianity—and his card was stripped in 2016. The Delhi High Court restored his OCI status in 2019—saying Philip had the same fundamental rights as Indian citizens to “practise his faith.”
Key point to note: The government issued the notification in 2021—to define OCIs as “foreign nationals”—precisely because of Christo’s legal victory.
A new escalation: In recent years, the government appears to be on a political crusade. The bar for cancellation has become far lower—and the rhetoric is more extreme.
Example: In 2022, the Indian embassy in Sweden revoked Professor Ashok Swain’s card for “indulging in activities which are prejudicial to the interest of the sovereignty and integrity of India.” When challenged by the Delhi High Court to be specific in its allegations, the government said this:
The order accused Swain of “posting tweets regularly on his twitter account” and allegedly spreading propaganda “through his writing and speeches in various public forums (sic)”. The government accused him of damaging “India’s image and institutions at international level”. The order stated that “foreign nationals” like Swain, who is a citizen of Sweden, were not entitled to fundamental rights of free speech and expression.
This is the direct fallout of the change introduced by the 2021 notification.
Visa, what visa? Now that OCIs are considered “foreign nationals” even that lifelong right of entry appears to be in doubt. UK professor Nitasha Kaul was held at the Bangalore airport for 24 hours—and then deported. Media reports suggest she was being punished for her testimony on Kashmir in front of the US Congress. But what’s telling is that airport authorities did not give her a reason. They didn’t even have to.
As for the escalating rhetoric we flagged, the state BJP accused the Congress government—which had invited Kaul to speak at a conference—of bringing in “'terrorist-sympathisers', 'urban naxals', 'anti-nationals', and 'riots-accused' to destabilise the country ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.”
The permit blockade: Having made a permit mandatory for research or journalism, the government is simply refusing to give it. Many OCI journalists have been turned down—or not received any answer since 2022. And most of them don’t know why:
“No one knows on what basis the government of India denied or approved work permission to OCI journalists,” a journalist told Newslaundry. Another asked, “How are we supposed to know where we have gone wrong unless we are told the reason?” A third termed the process “arbitrary” and “precarious”, while one said, “Nobody asks us for additional documents even after the application is denied or held.”
The main takeaway: OCIs were created as a substitute for dual citizenship—which is why the word ‘citizen’ is in the descriptor. But the government has now decided to downgrade the OCI to just another visa—which can be given or denied at will:
On the government’s refusal to share reasons for the denial of permission, Gupta underlined that visas and work permits are a privilege and not a right for foreign nationals across the world. “No country offers an explanation as to why visas or work permits have been denied,” he said.
The bottomline: In a landmark case in 1898—U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark—the Supreme Court ruled that the term “person” under the Fifth Amendment applied to aliens living in the country. You don’t have to be a citizen to have fundamental rights. This is not true in India. Our Constitution limits many of these rights to its citizens. The question here is whether the government can arbitrarily move people from one category to another—by simply issuing a notification.
Reading list
Article 14 did the best investigative piece on the cancellations. Scroll has two older but good op-eds on the CAA amendment and the notification issued in 2021. Outlook and Scroll have the most details on Kaul’s detention at Bangalore airport. For more on specific cases of cancelation, read The News Minute on actor Chetan Kumar and Aatish Taseer on his experience in TIME. The Wire has more on the case of Ashok Swain. Hindustan Times looks at the rising number of Indians giving up their citizenship.
