E-Paper
‘Very intriguing’: Jairam Ramesh on more and more Indians renouncing citizenship
The Congress leader’s response came after a 2023 report by Henley Private Wealth Migration (HPWM), which tracks wealth and investment migration trends worldwide, suggested that India is likely to see an outflow of at least 6,500 high-net-worth individuals in 2023
Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh slammed the Centre over the increase in the number of Indians giving up on their citizenship and seeking citizenship abroad.
Calling it ‘intriguing’, Ramesh mentioned how there has been a huge surge in the number of Indians renouncing their citizenship over the last decade and cited government’s data in the Rajya Sabha according to which 121,000 Indians gave up Indian citizenship in 2012, and 226,000 did so in 2022.
Taking this to Twitter, Ramesh said, “On Feb 9 2023 Dr. Jaishankar answered in RS that while 121000 Indians gave up Indian citizenship in 2012, 226000 did so in 2022. Very intriguing. So not just millionaires.”
According to the report, ‘millionaires’ or ‘high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) refer to those with an investable wealth of $1 million or more.
The Congress leader’s response came after a 2023 report by Henley Private Wealth Migration (HPWM), which tracks wealth and investment migration trends worldwide, suggested that India is likely to see an outflow of at least 6,500 high-net-worth individuals in 2023.
Also Read: 225k Indians renounced citizenship in 2022: Govt
The report cited India’s prohibitive tax legislation, coupled with convoluted, complex rules relating to outbound remittances open to misinterpretation and abuse as some of the issues that had triggered the trend of investment migration from the country. It added that Dubai and Singapore were preferred destinations for wealthy Indian families.
“The former is seen as particularly attractive for its government-administered global investor “Golden Visa” programme, favourable tax environment, robust business ecosystem and safe, peaceful environment,” the report stated.
“This places India as the country with the second-highest outflow of HNWIs globally, next only to China (net loss of 13,500),” added the report.
In February, Jaishankar in Rajya Sabha had given out the year-wise number of Indians who renounced their citizenship. “The total number of Indians who gave up their Indian citizenship since 2011 comes to 16,63,440,” the EAM had stated.
Stating that the matter was concerning, the Congress had asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi if he would talk about the issues that are forcing such a “high number” of Indians to move out of the country in search of “achche din”.
Addressing a press conference, Congress leader Gourav Vallabh earlier this year stated that factors like the consistently high unemployment rate, low growth opportunities due to demonetisation and flawed implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), the country’s poor standings in three global indices related to hunger, gender gap and press freedom, and the country having the maximum number of the poor in the world were some of the main reasons forcing many citizens to leave the country.
Although the same HPWM report also suggested that the outflow of high-net-worth individuals was not ‘’very concerning’, considering India’s capacity to generate new millionaires.
In 2020, the United States gave citizenship to 625,400 individuals of which 7.7% or 48,125 were Indians, whereas Canada granted citizenship to 25,381, 17,093 and 21,597 Indians in 2019, 2020 and 2021, respectively.
