Am I An Indian Citizen?

THe question stings, doesn't it? Seventy-eight years after independence, after every flag-hoisting promise of progress, after billions sunk into the so-called digital backbone of a "New India," an Indian citizen still stands stripped, clutching a deck of IDs that collapse like paper in the rain.

- PRABHU CHAWLA

The Bombay High Court, echoing the Supreme Court's earlier warning, has torn away the illusion: Aadhaar, PAN, voter ID—those sacred tokens of belonging—prove nothing about your citizenship. This is not a quibble of law. It is a betrayal, a bureaucratic unmasking that leaves 95 crore voters reeling. Every fingerprint scanned, every iris captured, every vote cast reduced to nothing more than administrative trivia. The very documents we were told defined us as Indians are suddenly revealed as hollow. So the question hangs, sharp as a knife: if these cards don't make me Indian, then what does? And if the state cannot answer, what is left of the nation we thought we belonged to?

The Bombay High Court's ruling came like a thunderclap, denying bail to Babu Abdul Ruf Sardar, a man accused of illegally entering India from Bangladesh and forging documents to claim citizenship. But Justice Amit Borkar's remarks were clear and cutting: "Merely having documents such as an Aadhaar card, PAN card, or voter ID does not, by itself, make someone a citizen of India." These documents, he said, are for identification or accessing services, not for establishing nationality under the Citizenship Act, 1955.

The Supreme Court, on the same day, backed the Election Commission of India (ECI) in a parallel case, stating that Aadhaar "cannot be accepted as conclusive proof of citizenship" and must be independently verified. Courts may be justified in invoking stringent conditions on infiltrators. But should the government agencies thoughtlessly thrust them upon those who were born in undivided India? And they chose to make an independent India their natural habitat for life. Or on those who were subsequently born in Bharat?