hù zhào护照zhī wài之外：yìn dù印度gōng mín公民shēn fèn身份de的fǎ lǜ法律mó hú模糊xìng性
In 2026, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said, “A passport cannot prove citizenship.”
Many Indians found this hard to understand.
In fact, a passport is mainly a travel document; it only shows which country a person is from.
Citizenship is determined by law. It gives a person the right to vote, hold public office, and live freely in the country.
India’s 1955 law says that people born in India after 1950 are generally citizens.
After 1987, at least one parent had to be an Indian citizen; after 2003, the rules became even stricter.
Today, a birth certificate is often an important document for confirming identity, but many people do not have one.
Bengali-speaking Muslims are especially likely to be suspected of being “foreigners,” and some of their government documents are not accepted by the courts.
Checks of voter lists have also caused some people to lose the chance to vote.
So, it is not only passports; other documents may also fail to prove identity.
For many Indians, whether they can keep their citizenship rights sometimes depends on how the government checks and accepts their documents.