New Delhi, July 6 -- The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls commenced on June 25, 2026, across Punjab, where an Assembly election is scheduled in 2027. Significantly, on the previous day of the commencement of SIR in Punjab, a senior official from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) remarked that an Indian passport is "primarily a travel document" and should not be construed as definitive, standalone proof of citizenship. The passport debate got added significance as the border state has the highest passport density in the country. Thus, the document assumes significance as a token of a voter's identity 'as a citizen' during the Election Commission's (ECI) SIR exercise. Out of roughly two crore voters spread across Punjab, one-third, or about eight million, have a passport. This is nearly three times higher than the countrywide average of Indians holding a valid passport.
Within one year of the ECI's SIR exercise, nearly six crore names have been deleted from the voters' lists of nine States and three Union Territories. In June 2026, twenty-three Opposition parties sent a joint memorandum to the Chief Justice of India, Justice Surya Kant, alleging "biased" conduct by the Election Commission, highlighting the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) carried out in States such as West Bengal and Bihar, as well as the ongoing exercise in other States.
The MEA's announcement that an Indian passport is "primarily a travel document" created a nationwide debate. The public reaction was immediate. Renowned screenwriter Javed Akhtar took to the internet to express the collective exasperation of millions, calling the statement flatly "absurd". His logic was simple and unassailable: are authorities really issuing these highly secure documents to people without being completely convinced that they are Indian citizens, he asked?
Political leaders Kapil Sibal and Asaduddin Owaisi quickly pointed out the terrifying practical fallout, warning that if the country's most vetted identity document cannot establish citizenship, ordinary Indians could face arbitrary challenges to their voting rights during routine electoral roll revisions. Terming this issue a 'manufactured crisis', Shashi Tharoor, a Member of Parliament, suggested that the government must undertake a pragmatic legislative update that aligns the law with the ground reality of its citizens.
The government quickly moved to defuse the panic, explaining that this wasn't a sudden policy shift but rather a long-standing legal reality. Officials pointed to Section 20 of the Passports Act, 1967, which gives the Central Government the rare power to issue a passport or travel document to a non-citizen if deemed necessary in the "public interest". Historically, Tibetan refugees and Sri Lankan Tamils in India have been issued special travel documents by Indian authorities when visiting foreign countries. In 2023, the Madras High Court asked the government to grant a passport to a Sri Lankan Tamil refugee under Section 20 of the Passports Act.
Uncertain future of the deleted/doubtful voters
On June 24, 2025, ahead of the Assembly polls in Bihar, the Election Commission of India (ECI) initiated a pilot exercise-the Special Intensive Revision (SIR)-for updating the voters' list. Following the Bihar SIR, the State's voters' list was pruned by nearly 65 lakh names amid allegations by the Opposition and activists that the poll authority was working at the behest of the BJP to disenfranchise citizens for want of documents.
After the successful completion of SIR in Bihar, Phase II, which began on November 4, covered over 51 crore electors across nine States-Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal-and three Union Territories-Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, and Puducherry-spanning 321 districts and 1,843 Assembly Constituencies (ACs). Phase II of SIR ended with over 7.2 crore deletions across 12 States and three Union Territories. The deletions accounted for roughly 10.2 per cent of the voter base. Uttar Pradesh led with the highest number of deletions at 2.89 crore, followed by Tamil Nadu with 97 lakh and West Bengal with 90.8 lakh voters removed. However, nearly two crore electors were added through fresh registrations and address updates, partially offsetting the deletions. After the revision, the total electorate across these regions stands at 45.8 crore.
Prior to SIR, the Assam Government created a National Register of Citizens (NRC) based on the Census of 1951. An updated NRC was published in 2019, for which links to the 1951 Register had to be established or legacy data with pre-1971 documents had to be provided by people to prove their Indian citizenship. The NRC was updated to 'weed out' illegal Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh. The Assam NRC excluded 19 lakh people, 14 lakh of whom were Bengali-speaking Hindus.
The system of marking people as "doubtful" by putting a "D" against their names in the electoral roll in Assam was devised in 1997, and it placed the "burden of proof" on the person concerned to establish whether they are an Indian citizen. Doubtful voters (D-voters), whose status as voters and as legal citizens of India is considered "doubtful" due to their inability to furnish proper documents substantiating their citizenship, constitute an exclusive category devised by the Election Commission of India (ECI) to single out those whose citizenship is under doubt. The ECI assigned the Border Police the role of referring these people to the Foreigners Tribunal (FT), where they are required to prove their citizenship before the cut-off date of March 25, 1971, as per the Assam Accord of 1985.
In a case study on the lives of D-voters of Haripur and Amguri villages of Bongaigaon district in Assam, Nath and Parashar (EPW, April 2026) observe that, caught between the status of citizen and non-citizen, many of the D-voters in Assam face deep social, economic, and political marginalisation. They are forced to fight two battles simultaneously: one for daily survival and another legal struggle to prove their Indian citizenship.
It is reported that millions in India risk losing welfare benefits, including subsidised food rations and other State-run welfare schemes, over voter deletion. Even though the Supreme Court of India observed on May 27, 2026, that "...an exclusion from a voter list does not mean that a person loses citizenship," West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, on Wednesday (July 1), said the State Government rejected around 26 lakh applications under the newly launched Annapurna Yojana after screening found the applicants' names were missing from the electoral rolls. Claiming that "government money cannot be received by any non-Indian," Adhikari alleged that the rejected applicants included non-Indians, deceased persons, individuals without voter ID cards, and those whose names appeared in multiple constituencies.
In addition to economic deprivation, deletion of names from the voter's list can put any citizen in a "state of limbo" if he or she is caught between a pending electoral appeal before the Appellate Tribunal and a stalled passport renewal.
Indian citizenship - a thorny issue
After nearly eight decades since the adoption of the Constitution in 1949, India continues to struggle with a basic question: Who is an Indian citizen? Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered a forceful warning against illegal immigration during the 79th Independence Day (August 15, 2025) address from the Red Fort, declaring that India would not allow outsiders to take the rightful place of the nation's youth and daughters. He also announced a high-power demography initiative to address population dynamics and protect the rights of Indian residents.
The Citizenship Act, 1955, outlines the rules and regulations for acquiring and terminating Indian citizenship. The Act specifies five ways to acquire Indian citizenship: by Birth, Descent, Registration, Naturalisation, and Incorporation of Territory. However, the 1986 amendment to the Citizenship Act, initiated by the Rajiv Gandhi Government, states that, effective from July 1, 1987 (the date of enforcement of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 1986), every person born in India on or after January 26, 1950, but before the commencement of the amendment, and either of whose parents was a citizen of India at the time of his or her birth, shall be a citizen of India by Birth. This meant that if a child was born in India to parents who were not citizens of India at the time of birth, the child would not get Indian citizenship by Birth. Thus, the era of 'stateless people' began in India.
The 2003 amendment, introduced during the government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, further restricted citizenship by Birth to a person born in India on or after the commencement of the Act, both of whose parents are citizens of India, or one of whose parents is a citizen of India and the other is not an illegal migrant at the time of his or her birth. The 2003 amendment introduced and defined the notion of an "illegal immigrant", making illegal immigrants ineligible for citizenship by Registration or by Naturalisation. In 2003, rules were framed for the preparation of a National Register of Citizens (NRC), the issuance of national identity cards, and the maintenance of citizen records. In 2004, Section 14A was added to the Citizenship Act, making the registration of citizens and the issuance of national identity cards a legal obligation.
Soon after the Assam NRC was published, Parliament passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA), creating a pathway to citizenship for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan who had entered India before December 31, 2014.
The world's largest democracy still does not have a single document that can be accepted everywhere as conclusive proof of citizenship. Over the years, governments have issued ration cards, voter identity cards, PAN cards, passports, Aadhaar cards, driving licences, and numerous other documents. Yet there remains confusion over which document conclusively establishes citizenship. On June 30, the Gauhati High Court upheld a Foreigners Tribunal order declaring an Assam daily-wage labourer an illegal immigrant. Despite providing 15 documents, the court rejected the papers, highlighting the rigid evidentiary standards under Section 9 of the Foreigners Act, 1946. The petitioner's documentation included copies of the 1951 National Register of Citizens (NRC) listing his father and grandparents, multiple voter lists dating back to 1966, a 2017 school certificate, a PAN card, and an Elector's Photo Identity Card (EPIC). He also submitted oral testimony from his father to establish his lineage.
Way out
After the first two phases of SIR, deletions accounted for roughly 10.2 per cent of the voter base. If the same trend continues, then over 100 million voters (out of around 970 million registered voters in the 2024 General Election) may be deleted across India. In 2026, only 16 countries, including India, have populations exceeding 100 million. The question is: how will these huge numbers of deleted/doubtful voters prove their Indian citizenship?
Former Chief Election Commissioner S. Y. Quraishi suggested granting citizenship based on a birth certificate, as currently it is available to roughly 60 per cent to 65 per cent of the Indian population. The Registration of Births and Deaths Act was passed in 1969, making the birth certificate the foundation for all subsequent identity documents. In 2003, the NDA Government made birth registration explicitly compulsory and proposed a population register.
Article 15 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: "Everyone has the right to a nationality. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality." The World Population Review says that in 2025 there were 75 countries with birthright citizenship, or jus soli, where the place of birth is the primary basis of citizenship. Recently, the US Supreme Court ruled that babies born in the United States have a constitutional right to citizenship, rejecting Donald Trump's bid to end the 150-year-old policy. The United States has granted citizenship to everyone born in the country since 1868, with the right enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution and bolstered by subsequent US Supreme Court rulings. India should also follow this globally accepted norm.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.