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‘Won’t give up my passport’: Why Indians in Germany face hurdles to citizenship

Not all foreign nationals are eligible for dual citizenship even after Germany changed the rules. The Local spoke with long-term residents from India about their thoughts on the new law and whether they would renounce their Indian citizenship to naturalise.

Published: 15 July 2024 13:24 CEST
Updated: 5 August 2024 12:12 CEST

People at an airport. Indians in Germany have conflicted views about getting German citizenship. Photo: Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay

Many foreign nationals are getting their applications together for German citizenship now that they don’t need to renounce their citizenship at home.

But not everyone is able to benefit from this rule change.

Some countries, including for example India and Austria, have strict rules regarding holding more than one nationality.

The Indian Embassy in Berlin says: “Under Indian law, persons of Indian Origin, who have acquired foreign citizenship, are required to surrender their Indian passports to the nearest Indian Mission/Post immediately”.

In short, Indian citizens cannot legally obtain an additional nationality. That means they are barred from taking advantage of Germany’s new dual citizenship rules.

Qualified residents from India can apply for German citizenship and naturalise as German, of course, but it would require renouncing Indian citizenship.

The Local spoke with several Indian citizens and long-term residents in Germany to understand their thoughts on Germany’s citizenship law update, and what their options are.

A step in the right direction ‘does not mean that it works’

Arlene Chang, who lives in Munich, concisely sums up the situation that many Indians in Germany are confronted with now. “It’s better that one country is allowing dual citizenship versus two countries not allowing it,” she said. “But for someone like me it doesn’t make a difference.”

Chang went on to say that if she got German citizenship and India found out, she could be tried in court in India.

The Indian Citizenship Act, which dates back to 1955, does not provide for dual citizenship. The Indian Embassy in Berlin adds: “Holding Indian passport/acquiring Indian passport/ travelling on Indian passport after acquisition of foreign citizenship constitutes an offence under the Indian Passport Act, 1967, and attracts penalties.”

The number of people potentially affected by this dilemma is not insignificant.

The Indian population in Germany has steadily grown in recent years. With a total population around 246,000 at the end of 2023, according to Destatis, Indians outnumber immigrants coming from a number of Germany’s neighbouring European countries like Hungary, Spain, Austria or France.

Indian woman with German passport

A new German citizen, who comes from India, holds her passport up to the camera after her naturalization ceremony in Frankfurt am Main. Photo: picture alliance / Fabian Sommer/dpa | Fabian Sommer

When is it worth giving up your citizenship?

Gaining a German passport, and the ease of access that comes with holding one of the world’s strongest, is a huge perk of naturalising for almost every immigrant in Germany.

But the red eagle passport may be particularly appealing to Indian nationals, who don’t get easy access to as many countries.

“The Indian passport is one of the weakest passports, so getting a German passport would have really helped with a lot of travel around the world,” Urvashi Yadav told The Local.

Yadav lives in Berlin with her German husband and two kids. Asked if it’s a burden having a different passport than her spouse and children, she said that on the contrary, she sees it as a positive.

“Because I have an Indian passport my kids have easier access to India,” she said. “For example during Covid, only Indian citizens were able to travel but my kids and husband were also able to come because they were family members.”

In her mind, the best option would be that all of her family would be allowed to hold both German and Indian passports: “The world is getting smaller, people are travelling to all different parts of the world…I think it really helps if everyone has a similar playing field.”

But for Yadav, giving up her Indian citizenship is a non-starter.

“I have a very strong opinion about not giving up my Indian passport. It’s something that connects me to my country and means a lot to me,” she said, adding, “It’s deeper than just a document. It stands for the values of where you come from, the sense of belonging and culture.”

What is the Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card?

Indians that would like to naturalise as German do have one option that allows them to maintain access to their motherland.

The OCI card, sometimes called the forever visa, is designed to allow former Indian citizens to travel and reside freely in India after they have renounced their citizenship and naturalised overseas. OCI card holders have almost all the same rights as citizens in India with the exception of voting and buying agricultural land.

Hubertus Heil, Federal Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, welcomes Indian students of natural sciences and economics at Freie Universität (FU) Berlin. The government sees value in attracting skilled workers from India as part of its efforts to offset Germany’s labour shortage. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Soeren Stache

“With the OCI, I could still be a part of India and also part of Germany,” Aniket Parihar told The Local.

Parihar maintains permanent residency in Germany and does freelance work as a product manager and writer.

For Parihar, the OCI would allow him to maintain his connections to people in both countries, which is important for him.

“My hindering factor is my family,” he explained about his concerns about renouncing Indian citizenship. He currently spends about half of each year with his family in India, and the other half of the year in Germany.

With a German passport and an OCI card, however, he could continue to do so.

He added that he’s currently in a grey zone on the decision, “But at this point I’m more bent on citizenship…I want to start the process and give it a try.”

Of course, there are still a number of challenges involved with gaining citizenship in Germany, even after the decision has been made.

First up for Parihar, along with so many others, is taking the time to better learn the German language.

More information about the OCI card and who is eligible, is available on the Embassy to India’s website.

Certain exceptions may allow individuals to keep both Indian and German nationalities. Contact an immigration lawyer if you have questions about a specific case.

Reporting by Rachel Stern.

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With the German far right coming out on top in two state elections earlier this month, the socialist-led national Berlin government has reimposed border controls on Western frontiers that are supposed to see freedom of movement in the European Union’s Schengen zone.

The Netherlands government, which includes the party of Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders, announced Wednesday that it had requested from Brussels an opt-out from EU rules on asylum, with Prime Minister Dick Schoof declaring that there was an asylum “crisis”.

Meanwhile, new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the left-wing Labour Party paid a visit to Rome for talks with Italian counterpart Georgia Meloni, whose party has neo-fascist roots, to discuss the strategies used by Italy in seeking to reduce migration.

Far-right parties performed strongly in June European elections, coming out on top in France, prompting President Emmanuel Macron to call snap elections which resulted in right-winger Michel Barnier, who has previously called for a moratorium on migration, being named prime minister.

We are witnessing the “continuation of a rightward shift in migration policies in the European Union,” said Jerome Vignon, migration advisor at the Jacques Delors Institute think-tank.

It reflected the rise of far-right parties in the European elections in June, and more recently in the two regional elections in Germany, he said, referring to a “quite clearly protectionist and conservative trend”.

Strong message

“Anti-immigration positions that were previously the preserve of the extreme right are now contaminating centre-right parties, even centre-left parties like the Social Democrats” in Germany, added Florian Trauner, a migration specialist at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, the Dutch-speaking university in Brussels.

While the Labour government in London has ditched its right-wing Conservative predecessor administration’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, there is clearly interest in a deal Italy has struck with Albania to detain and process migrants there.

Within the European Union, Cyprus has suspended the processing of asylum applications from Syrian applicants, while laws have appeared authorising pushbacks at the border in Finland and Lithuania.

Under the pretext of dealing with “emergency” or “crisis” situations, the list of exemptions and deviations from the common rules defined by the European Union continues to grow.

All this flies in the face of the new EU migration pact, agreed only in May and coming into force in 2026.

In the wake of deadly attacks in Mannheim and most recently Solingen blamed on radical Islamists, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government also expelled 28 Afghans back to their home country for the first time since the Taliban takeover of Kabul.

Such gestures from Germany are all the more symbolic given how the country since World War II has tried to turn itself into a model of integration, taking in a million refugees, mainly Syrians in 2015-2016 and then more than a million Ukrainian exiles since the Russian invasion.

Germany is sending a “strong message” to its own public as well as to its European partners, said Trauner.

The migratory pressure “remains significant” with more than 500,000 asylum applications registered in the European Union for the first six months of the year, he said.

‘Climate on impunity’

Germany, which received about a quarter of them alone, criticises the countries of southern Europe for allowing migrants to circulate without processing their asylum applications, but southern states denounce a lack of solidarity of the rest of Europe.

The moves by Germany were condemned by EU allies including Greece and Poland, but Scholz received the perhaps unwelcome accolade of praise from Hungarian right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Moscow’s closest friend in the European Union, when he declared “welcome to the club”.

The EU Commission’s failure to hold countries to account “only fosters a climate of impunity where unilateral migration policies and practices can proliferate,” said Adriana Tidona, Amnesty International’s Migration Researcher.

But behind the rhetoric, all European states are also aware of the crucial role played by migrants in keeping sectors going including transport and healthcare, as well as the importance of attracting skilled labour.

“Behind the symbolic speeches, European leaders, particularly German ones, remain pragmatic: border controls are targeted,” said Sophie Meiners, a migration researcher with the German Council on Foreign Relations.

Even Meloni’s government has allowed the entry into Italy of 452,000 foreign workers for the period 2023-2025.

“In parallel to this kind of new restrictive measures, they know they need to address skilled labour needs,” she said.