A senior official at the Ministry of External Affairs recently ‘clarified’ that the Indian passport is just a ‘travel document’ and not a “citizenship document”. On Friday, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor took to X to call invalidating the passport as a citizenship document an “absurd legal Paradox”
The centre’s clarification sparked widespread debate on what document actually indicates that a person is a citizen of India.
The opposition widely questioned the intention of the centre, which has now declared both the Aadhaar and the passport as being invalid to indicate citizenship in India.
The Supreme Court had ruled that the Aadhaar card is proof of residence and identity and does not indicate that one is a citizen. An Aadhaar is issued based on 182 days of local residence and is also issued to non-citizen residents.
The Indian passport, however, is issued primarily to Indian citizens with rare exceptions.
In his post, Tharoor said that the passport has been considered the gold standard of identity for decades.
“We navigate the gruelling bureaucratic maze of police verifications and document checks required to obtain one, precisely because the state demands concrete proof of citizenship before granting it. To turn around and declare that the very document born from this rigorous vetting does not actually prove citizenship creates an absurd legal paradox. If a passport does not establish domestic citizenship, then what does?” he said.
He also said that the Indians are in a “bizarre administrative limbo where they possess world-class biometric and state-issued documents, yet none are legally deemed ‘conclusive’ proof of their nationality within their own borders.”
As a solution to the issue, Tharoor proposed that the Aadhaar be used as an indicator of citizenship by distinguishing between citizens and non-citizens.
He suggested that the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) should introduce a visually distinct Aadhaar card (featuring, say, a visible diagonal red stripe across the front), specifically designated for non-citizens living in India.
He said that by demarcating the two, the state can make both the Aadhar and the passport valid proofs for citizenship.
“This dual-document policy would immediately streamline domestic verification, eliminate arbitrary bureaucratic challenges during electoral revisions, and provide every Indian with absolute, unquestionable legal certainty regarding their identity. End of story!” he said.
Tharoor’s comments come a day after the Ministry of External Affairs states that, according to the Passport Act of 1967, the passport cannot be the final proof of citizenship.
Under section 20 of the act, the state can issue passports to non-citizens in exceptional cases of public interest.
Government officials cited previous court decisions to justify the clarification.
