India's home ministry has amended citizenship rules requiring applicants from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh to disclose their previous passports when applying for Indian citizenship, in a move that officials describe as streamlining documentation but critics see as creating discriminatory barriers along religious and national lines.
The amendment is specific and technical: applicants must "declare whether they possess a valid or expired passport" from these three countries, and those holding such passports must provide passport number, date and place of issue, and date of expiry. Upon approval of their citizenship application, they must surrender these foreign passports to postal authorities within 15 days.
In India, as across the subcontinent, scale and diversity make simple narratives impossible—and fascinating. The selective targeting of these three specific countries—all Muslim-majority neighbors with complex histories of partition, migration, and ongoing disputes with India—makes the amendment impossible to view in isolation from broader citizenship debates that have roiled Indian politics for years.
Officials characterize the change as administrative necessity, designed to "streamline documentation and strengthen procedural clarity" in citizenship applications. The government's position is straightforward: every country requires verification of applicants' previous nationality and passport status, and India is simply formalizing what should already be standard procedure.
But the amendment arrives as part of the broader implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA)—perhaps the most controversial legislation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's tenure, which sparked nationwide protests when passed. The CAA provides expedited citizenship to persecuted religious minorities from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh who arrived in India before 2014—specifically Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians. Notably absent from that list: Muslims.

