1.6 Million Indians Renounced Citizenship Since 2011: Govt

Image courtesy The Wall Street Journal

New Delhi: More than 1.6 million Indians have renounced their citizenship since 2011, Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan told Lok Sabha on Friday.

This year, a 12-year high of 183,741 persons have so far given up Indian citizenship, the minister stated in a written reply to a question from Congress’ Abdul Khaleque seeking figures starting from 2015.

Providing a yearly break-up, Muraleedharan said 131,489 people renounced Indian citizenship in 2015; 141,603 in 2016; 133,049 in 2017; 134,561 in 2018; 144,017 in 2019; 85,256 in 2020; 163,370 in 2021; and 1,83,741 till October 31 this year.

For reference purposes, the minister said the figure was 122,819 in 2011; 120,923 in 2012; 131,405 in 2013; 129,328 in 2014.

Muraleedharan, however, couldn’t provide data estimating the wealth taken away from India by those who have renounce citizenship.

As for the number of foreign nationals — except citizens of Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan — who have taken Indian citizenship was 93 in 2015; 153 in 2016; 175 in 2017; 129 in 2018; 113 in 2019; 27 in 2020; 42 in 2021; and 60 so far in 2022.

In a response to a separate question from BJP’s Rahul Kaswan, Muraleedharan informed that a total of 8,441 Indians are currently lodged in foreign jails, including under-trials. Of this, 4,389 are in jails in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman.