The Journal Entry #023 : India Still Has No Single Document That Proves You’re a Citizen — Here’s Why That Matters Now

A short sentence from a retired judge has started a big argument. Former Supreme Court judge Justice Madan B. Lokur said that if a passport is treated as nothing more than a travel paper, it becomes no better than a bus ticket. That line has spread across news channels and social media this past week. But behind the sharp words is a real legal gap that touches every Indian who has ever shown a passport at an airport, a bank, or an embassy counter.

What Actually Happened

The trouble started when the Ministry of External Affairs said in public that a passport is only a travel document, not final proof that the holder is an Indian citizen.

Justice Lokur pushed back hard. Speaking at a conclave in Delhi on federalism and citizenship, he pointed to the Passports Act of 1967. The law’s own opening lines talk about issuing “passports and travel documents” to “citizens of India and other persons.” Lokur argued that if Parliament used two different words, it meant two different things. A passport and a travel document are not the same paper under Indian law, he said, and treating them as one and the same is a wrong reading of the Act.

He also raised a simple, practical question: how many people who are not Indian citizens have ever actually been given an Indian passport? Section 20 of the Act does allow the government to issue a passport to a non-citizen in rare cases. But Lokur said this exception should not be used to describe what a passport means for the other 1.4 billion people in the country.

The government, for its part, clarified that this is not a new position. It said passports have never been treated as final proof of citizenship, and no change was made recently or in the last many years.

Why the Argument Matters Beyond the Headlines

This is not just a fight over words. It touches a bigger and older problem in India: there is no single document that, by itself, proves someone is an Indian citizen. Unlike countries where a national ID card settles the question, India has never had one uniform citizenship document for everyone born here. People rely on a mix of papers — birth certificates, voter cards, Aadhaar, ration cards, school records — and now the passport is being pulled into that same uncertain space.

This question has also come up while the Election Commission runs its Special Intensive Revision of voter lists in some states, where people are being asked to prove who they are and where they belong. Lokur linked the two issues, warning that if the burden of proof on citizens keeps growing without clear rules, ordinary people carry the risk, not the state.

What This Means for Indians Studying or Working Abroad

For Indians living outside the country, this is more than a legal debate on TV. Here is where it can actually reach daily life.

Visa and immigration checks. Foreign missions issue visas to Indians based on the trust that a passport proves both identity and nationality. If India’s own government publicly separates the two, foreign immigration officers may start asking harder questions or demanding extra proof of citizenship alongside the passport.

Renewing passports at Indian missions abroad. Students and workers already deal with slow embassy processes. Any confusion about what a passport legally proves could lead to more paperwork, not less.

Property, banking, and legal matters back home. Many NRIs use their passport as the main identity proof for property deals, bank KYC, or inheritance matters in India. If the passport is treated as weaker proof of citizenship, NRIs may be asked for extra documents from abroad, which is far harder than doing it in person.

Dual citizenship and OCI cases. People who gave up Indian citizenship after taking another country’s passport, and now hold an OCI card, could face fresh questions about their past citizenship status if the passport’s legal weight stays unsettled.

Confidence in the document itself. An Indian passport is often the only official proof an NRI carries daily. If its legal status is unclear even inside India, it weakens the trust foreign governments place in it too.

The Larger Point

Justice Lokur’s “bus ticket” line is a strong image, but the real issue is simpler and more serious: Indian law should tell citizens clearly what each document they hold actually proves. Both sides agree the law needs careful reading — they just disagree on what it says.

This is not about which political side is right. It is about legal certainty for over a billion people who carry this small blue booklet as their main link to their home country. A clear, official statement from the government, backed by the actual text of the Passports Act, would settle the confusion far better than statements traded back and forth in public events and news reports.

Until that clarity comes, every Indian abroad would do well to keep other identity documents — birth certificates, old voter records, parents’ documents — safely backed up, rather than depending on the passport alone as proof of who they are.

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