Over 10,500 applications for Indian citizenship pending

Over 10,500 applications by foreign nationals seeking Indian citizenship are pending at present and out of this around half of them could be Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Christians from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, according to responses placed by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in Parliament recently.

Among the applications pending, the highest was from Pakistani citizens at 7,306 followed by 1,152 from Afghanistan.

Between 2016 and 2020, according to data generated from the online citizenship module, India has granted citizenship to 4,177 foreigners. At least 3,117 Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Christians from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan were granted citizenship between 2018 and 2021.

Responding to questions raised by Muslim League MP Abdul Wahab in Rajya Sabha on December 22, the MHA has showed that the highest number of granting of citizenship happened in 2016 when 1,106 people were made citizens.

In 2017, it rose to 817 but saw a dip next year at 628 while in 2019, it again rose to 987. However in 2020, only 639 citizenships were granted.

As on December 14 this year, 10,635 applications for citizenship were pending with the Indian government and out of this 79.52% belonged to Pakistanis and Afghans.

Americans and Sri Lankans shared the third spot and accounted for 223 applications each while people Myanmar (189), Bangladesh (161) and Kenya (155) followed them. Ten applications from China are also pending while there are applications from 428 Stateless people.

Juxtaposing these figures with another set of data provided by the MHA to TRS MP K Keshava Rao showed that nearly half of the pending applications could be from Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Christians from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

According to the MHA statistics, they had received 8,224 applications for citizenship from the minority communities from the three neighbouring countries between 2018 and 2021. During this period, 3,117 such people were given citizenship, leaving 5,127 pending cases.

To a question raised by Congress MP Hibi Eden, the MHA said a total number of 1,33,83,718 Indian nationals are living in foreign countries.

As far as the number of Indians who gave up citizenship, the MHA said it was 6,08, 162 between 2017 and 2021. The highest was in 2019 when 1,44,017 people gave up Indian citizenship. In 2017, it was 1,33,089 and in 2018 it was 1,34,561.

Travel restrictions and Covid-19 pandemic appeared to have put a break in this trend as only 85,248 gave up citizenship. However, this year till September 30, there were 1,11,287 people who renounced Indian citizenship.

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