Giving up citizenship

[Sudden]

I doubt that most of the people on here will be able to help with this, but worth a shot!

I'm Indian but have been living in London for over 11 years now. I could, if I wanted, apply for British citizenship in the next few months. India doesn't allow proper dual citizenship, so this would mean giving that up. I could get an OCI card (Overseas citizen of India) which allows travel without visas, staying/working there etc. Essentially all the same rights as a citizen apart from being able to vote, buy agricultural property or stand for public office. There may be a couple of other rights as well which aren't coming to mind at the moment.

I've been in two minds about this for a while. I love travelling and a British passport would make that significantly easier. I also intend to work here for the short term and though I have indefinite leave to remain at the moment, the political culture seems to be going against things like that so who knows when the rules will change. That being said, I was born and brought up in India; all my family is there and eventually I would like to go back (like 20-30 years or so...to eventually settle down in). It's probably a sentimental thing more than a practical thing, but did wonder if anyone else here has done it and had any views.

Also, if anyone knows of other disadvantages of giving up Indian citizenship that I might've missed, that would be helpful!

(In before 'send them back...')

 

[scorza]

If you were on a plane that gets hijacked by terrorists and they confiscate everyone's passport, I'd rather hand over an Indian passport than a British one.

 

[Uther]

If you were on a plane that gets hijacked by terrorists and they confiscate everyone's passport, I'd rather hand over an Indian passport than a British one.

So true!

OP I used to work with several Indian guys on nightshifts. The one thing they all talked about without fail was going back to India and having a very nice life with all the money they were making here.

 

[Destination]

If you were on a plane that gets hijacked by terrorists and they confiscate everyone's passport, I'd rather hand over an Indian passport than a British one.

Really? Lets just hope it isn't Pakistani terrorists then. You'd be the first out the door.

OP, one thing to ask yourself. If you gain British citizenship, they do allow dual citizenship. Any travel to and from India could be done by nature of your IDR sticker in your Indian passport, using your Indian passport, and in the course of 20 years, you'd have to renew it, in India, or through the embassy here 3-4 times.
Travel elsewhere can be using your British passport.
Until technologies improve, they won't automatically know, and they won't automatically cancel your Indian citizenship.

Not sure of the rules in India, but in many places you can't own property unless you are a citizen, so might be worthwhile gaining one, without automatically giving up the other.

 

[Mr Badger]

So you want to spend your productive working life contributing here, then "send yourself back" to retire? Are you sure you're doing this right?

 

[Jono8]

If you were on a plane that gets hijacked by terrorists and they confiscate everyone's passport, I'd rather hand over an Indian passport than a British one.

Why? I can't see that helping anyone much.

 

[darkgen]

Why would you need to renounce your Indian citizenship?
Just renew your passport via your family if so desired and remember to only use it when travelling to and from India.

 

[pepsilol]

Give up the Indian passport and die here.

 

[Jimbeam3678]

I met a few Indian people in Australia who got their Aussie passport they said they couldn't buy any property not just Agriculture property.

It sounds like you are clued up but might be worth double checking the property thing just to be sure

 

[thep02]

If you were on a plane that gets hijacked by terrorists and they confiscate everyone's passport, I'd rather hand over an Indian passport than a British one.

This, plus the fact that the US is going down and camoron has tied us firmly to them in his loyalty to an old Rhodesian Victorian strategy so we'll be right down with them rather than being the last stop on the One road One belt 21st century Chinese strategy.

 

[Em3bbs]

If you were on a plane that gets hijacked by terrorists and they confiscate everyone's passport, I'd rather hand over an Indian passport than a British one.

Yes, that's a perfectly reasonable response to this question given how often this situation occurs. Bravo.

 

[Aldav]

I can't answer your question directly, Sudden, but I can put a slight perspective from being in something of a mirror position, British by birth, but I do hold citizenship in another country. Which one, I'm not saying, for a reason that will become apparent in a moment.

However, I'm British by birth, and hold dual citizenship by virtue of application to the country I was resident in for some years, though it isn't India.

My situation is "mirror" because my new country required renouncing my British citizenship in that country, but when I subsequently queried the legal validity of that in the UK, the Embassy informed me that I was British by birthright, and whatever I had told a foreign government had no legal bearing on that right.

So, as far as my new citizenship's country is concerned, I'm solely a citizen of that country. As far as the UK is concerned, I'm British and they don't care about the other citizenship. So I hold both passports.

For quite a long time, I used both passports when travelling, often leaving one country on their passport and using the other country's passport on arrival there.

But, airport procedures have, unsurprisingly, tightened up a lot in recent years, as have the frequency and depth of searches, including a couple of times, inspecting personal papers, and even my wallet. Two different passports imediately raises eyebrows, especially in a country which neither passport belongs to. It's not an insurmountable problem, but it has led to delays.

There is also a rapidly increasingly level of detail being held in computer databases, such as the US NCIC database, and a more slowly developing degree of database comminucations, at least between some countries, sharing information .... such as criminal records data. This, in my view, is only likely to get more detailed over time.

So, an issue. Customs and Immigration departments increasingly look for "inconsistent" patterns, and mismatches between records of you departing country A for B, but never arriving in B are going to increase if the match is done by passport data, as are the presence or absence of physical stamps.

I suspect that the two-passport trick is going to go from something smoothing entry, to something raising red flags, increasingly, as database links increase further. And they will.

Dual nationality is less useful than it was.

As for your primary question, does the UK require evidence that you have surrendered Indian citizenship as a condition, or precondition, of getting UK citizenship? If in doubt, I'd suggest formally asking. I wasn't aware that they did, but my situation is the reverse of yours, so may be different.

And can you get away with not telling India you have (when you do) UK citizenship?

And critically, if you surrender Indian citizenship to get UK citizenship, when the time comes that you want to return permanently, how easy is it to regain Indian citizenship, as a matter of birthright, if you then surrender UK citizenship? Certainly, UK advice to me was that I couldn't surrender my birthright, even if I surrendered citizenship, and a fair bit of Indian and British beaurocratism bear strong resemblences, for historical reasons, as I understand it.

Beyond that, I don't know, but you have an interesting dilemma there.

 

[dowie]

Just get both and don't tell India... problem solved.

 

[Destination]

Dual passport stuff.

The passport problem goes away when you enter and leave using the same passport.
As in going to India, use Indian in and out.
If going anywhere else use British out and back in again.
Currently, India won't know.
Currently, Britain doesn't care.

As for losing it and then regaining it, you might find by then they want details of your pension and then want 35% a month to allow you to regain citizenship and to grant a permanent stay in India. (Others do this already, perm res type stuff)
Keep it until you 'have' to give it up.

 

[Freefaller]

I personally wouldn't give up dual/multi nationality. It may turn out to be useful. Surely there must be a way of you keeping both?

 

[scorza]

Yes, that's a perfectly reasonable response to this question given how often this situation occurs. Bravo.

It was a tongue-in-cheek response so ... whoooooosh!

 

[neoboy]

Dual nationality here myself, find it absolutely ludicrous India doesn't let you have two passports nevermind a British one.

 

[Amp34]

Yes, that's a perfectly reasonable response to this question given how often this situation occurs. Bravo.

It's even funnier when you think that if you are that risk averse then you wouldn't even board the plane in the first place, as you'd be more likely to die from a crash than some airborne terrorists.

But scorza lives for terrorism so it makes sense he posted it.

 

[eatcustard]

Stay Indian

 

[BigT]

I looked into dual citizenship but in the end keeping only my Swiss citizenship and ILR in the UK (35 years now) is just fine. The only 'drawback' as such is an inability to vote and be on the electoral role (pain for credit profile)

Everything else is just fine. Pay my taxes here, contribute to society and life etc.