Citizenship Dilemma

 

 The other day somebody asked me whether I am a citizen of India. My answer was yes but I kept thinking that  how am I going to prove that I am citizen on India as I do not have a certificate of citizenship of India but I do have a variety of documents which give my date and place of birth in India and in some my nationality is listed as Indian.

I have a valid passport, Aadhar card, PAN card, voter I -card, retired Air Force I- card, my Ex-servicemen I-card, revenue receipts and land/house documents and a pension account in a PSU bank but these are not proof of my citizen ship. Various Supreme Court judgements and High Court judgement have ruled that passport, voter I card, PAN Card, Aadhar card, revenue receipts and even a bank account including the retired Air Force identity card are not proof of my citizenship. Well I could not think of anything beyond them and here lies my dilemma.

Looking at article 5 of the Constitution of India which says that a person is citizen of India if at the time of commencement of Constitution had his domicile in India and was born in the territory of  India  or  at the time of commencement of Constitution of India had his domicile in the territory of India  and  either of his parents were born in the territory of India or at the commencement of constitution f India the person had his domicile  within the territory of India for not less than 5 years immediately preceding  the commencement, , shall be citizen of India. No citizenship certificate is issued to a person born in India.

The Citizenship Act 1955 in section 3 lays down condition for claiming citizen by birth after the commencement of Constitution. It says that every person born in India  on or after 26 Jan 1950, that is the commencement of Constitution,  but before 1 Jul 1987 shall be citizen of India, if born after 1 Jul1987 but before the commencement of citizenship  (amendment )act 2003 and either of whose parents is a citizen of India at the time of his birth , if born after the commencement of citizenship(Amendment) act 2003 then either  both of his parents are citizen of India  or one of the parent is citizen of India and the other is not an illegal immigrant at the time of birth, shall be citizen of India.

It looks simple but the proof of being born in India as accepted is the birth certificate issued by the government under Registration of Birth and death Act 1969 or a birth certificate issued by the municipal authorities. Now most of senior citizen born before 1 Jul 87 may not have such a birth certificate and this will create a problem. Getting birth certificate for parents will be more troublesome as most of births used to take place at home or not registered. Even I cannot produce my birth certificate or of my parents issued by the state or municipal authorities. Most of us have used the date of birth as given in high school certificates or equivalent examination and this is what has been used in all other document including entry to Air Force or passport.

Even now as per official records in 2015-2016 only about 63% of children under the age of 5 had their birth registered. This figure now has improved considerably but a large number of births in rural area which do not take place in a hospital, health center or by Asha workers do not get reported. Of course in later stage some date of birth is entered in some document but still the birth remains unregistered thus complicating the citizenship dilemma.

In USA and most of the countries the valid passport is accepted as a proof of citizenship and in other countries India passport is accepted as a proof of Indian citizenship except in India itself.

Does it mean that I cannot prove to the satisfaction of court or authorities that I am a citizen of India. It would appear so. That is the reason India need to have a certificate or a document issued to Indian citizen that they are citizen of this country.  National Register of Citizenship could be a step in this direction but the problem will become acute if other documents where date of birth is mentioned is not accepted and only birth certificate is insisted upon.