My Story
India raised me. A foreign country trained me. And now a stamp on a piece of paper stands between me and home.
I left India for my education — not because I wanted to leave, but because an opportunity opened a door I had to walk through. I packed a suitcase, the taste of my mother's food, and the certainty that I would always be Indian.
Years passed. To study, to work, to stay legally in the country that had become my second home, I had to take its citizenship. It was a paperwork decision, not a change of heart. India was still where my parents lived, where my grandmother's voice waited on every phone call, where my childhood streets still knew my name.
And then I learned the cost. Because India does not allow dual citizenship, the moment I accepted that foreign passport, I stopped being a citizen of my own country. Now, when I want to visit my own home, I must apply for a visa. Stand in a queue. Pay a fee. Be allowed in — as a guest — to the country that made me.
That is what breaks my heart. Not the distance, not the paperwork — but the quiet, official reminder that the country I love no longer counts me as its own.
I am still Indian. Millions of us are. We are simply asking India to see us that way too.
This story is shared by millions of overseas Indians. What's yours?
What we are asking for
A simple, modern policy that reflects the reality of a global India:
- Allow Indians who took a foreign citizenship to also retain Indian citizenship.
- Replace the OCI workaround with true dual citizenship rights.
- Recognise that loving two countries does not make us loyal to neither.
Add your voice
Tell us why you left — and tell India you still belong. Every signature is a line in a letter we are writing together.