More than 800,000 Indians have renounced their citizenship to become citizens of other countries, while India granted citizenship to nearly 5,000 foreigners in the last five years.
According to the Indian government’s data, nearly 610,000 Indians became foreign citizens in the five years to December 2021.
The data shows that 42% of the more than six lakh Indians who renounced their citizenship did it to become US citizens, according to a report by The Times of India.
In the first nine months of 2021, more than 50,000 Indians acquired US citizenship.
After the US. Canada was the most favoured country of Indians who renounced their Indian citizenship. As a result, 91,000 Indians became Canadian citizens between 2017 and 2021.
86,933 Indians gave up their Indian citizenship to become Australian citizens, followed by England (66,193) and Italy (23,490). 83,191 Indians have acquired citizenship in one of the 86 other countries worldwide.
Over 4,800 foreigners became Indian citizens.
The Indian government says 4,844 foreigners were granted Indian citizenship in the last five years.
On Tuesday, India’s Minister of State, Home Affairs, Nityanand Rai, told Lok Sabha that as many as 4,844 foreigners had been granted Indian citizenship under the Citizenship Act 1955 since 2016.
The minister informed that most foreigners (1,773) received Indian citizenship in 2021. As many as 639 foreigners became Indian citizens in 2020, 987 in 2019, 628 in 2018 and 817 in 2017.
People from Pakistan (2,405) were at the top of the table acquiring Indian citizenship between 2016 and 2019, followed by Afghans (431), Bangladeshi (132), Sri Lankans (92) and the US (80).
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Union Home Minister of State Rai responded to a question about the total number of foreigners granted Indian citizenship by the Central government during the last five years to clarify reasons for taking it.
“The citizenship to eligible foreigners is granted by registration under section 5, by naturalisation under section 6 or by incorporation of territory under section 7 of the Citizenship Act, 1955,” he said in a written reply.
Also, 10,635 applications were pending with the Ministry of Home Affairs as of December 2021. Most of these applications are from Pakistan (7,306), followed by Afghanistan (1,152).
428 applicants are stateless people.
