CITIZENSHIP OF CERTAIN MIGRANTS TO PAKISTAN

Citizenship gives a person his identity regarding his place of birth and place of residence. India has two types of residents in its territory such as citizens and aliens. Citizens are those people who have the legal status as residents of India and they enjoy all the rights regarding politics and fundamentals. On the other hand, aliens refer to those people who do not have any legal identification as Indian citizens and who are temporarily living in India and are restricted to certain types of rights. This study has effectively discussed Article 7 of part-III of the Indian constitution. This study has given a brief discussion regarding the procedure of accruing citizenship in India. The rights and privileges conferred to only the citizens of India have been discussed in this study. A brief discussion regarding the constitutional provisions for acquiring citizenship in India has been provided in this study. 

Constitutional provisions regarding citizenship in India

India has faced the challenge of partition during its independence and this created a big challenge for framing constitutional provisions regarding citizenship. Partition has created two situations regarding citizenship provisions and these are as follows;

1. Citizenship has to be given to those people who had come to India from modern-day Pakistan at the time of partition.
2. Citizenship of these people had to be canceled who had gone to modern-day Pakistan from India.

Besides that, India also faced a challenge in providing citizenship to those people of Indian origin who were living in foreign countries before independence and wanted a return to India for settlement. As per these challenges, the makers of the constitution had framed four provisions for giving Indian citizenship and these are as follows; 

• Article 5- If a person took birth in Indian territory or his mother or father took birth in India then he will be granted as a citizen of India. Besides that, if a person is residing in India 5 years before 26th January 1950 will also be considered an Indian citizen.
• Article 6- This provision deals with the citizenship of those people who have come to India from modern-day Pakistan after the partition. 

• Article 7- This provision deals with the citizenship rights of those people who have migrated to modern-day Pakistan from India after 1st March 1947 and again desired to come to India for permanent settlement. 

• Article 8- This provision grants citizenship rights to non-resident Indians based on their birth origin or their ancestors. 

Specification of Article 7 of Indian constitution

Article 7 of the Indian Constitution is one of the most important provisions regarding the citizenship rights of people. India has acquired its independence from the two-nation theory of the British and it has separated the Indian territory into two major parts such as India and Pakistan. This has created a big challenge regarding citizenship rights for the migratory population of undivided India. The makers of the Indian constitution have filed a provision for granting citizenship to certain migrants to Pakistan. Article 7 was framed to give citizenship rights to the migratory population to Pakistan and this article grants citizenship on two conditions and these are as follows;

1. The person who went to Pakistan after 1st March 1947 and wished to come back to India will get direct citizenship of India in case he returned before 19th July 1948. 
2. The person who has come back to India after the 19th of July 1948 will not get direct citizenship of India. He has to register himself under the citizenship permit issued by the Indian government and has to wait for the next 6 months.

Article 7 is very soft towards those people who were recognizing themselves as refugees from Pakistan to India instead of those people who were in the confusion of choice between the territories of the two countries.  

The procedure of acquiring Indian citizenship for refugees from Pakistan

Refugee refers to those people who have no permanent settlement or evacuated their country in terms of any emergency or forceful act by the government. The two-nation theory of British and the demand for separate nations for Muslims and Hindus by the Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha has caused millions of refugees and migratory population. Many people of western India were not ready to leave their ancestors’ ground and decided to settle down in modern-day Pakistan but religious rights compelled them to flee to India for shelter. These refugees were citizens of undivided India and they had rights to Indian citizenship. 

However, the Indian government had created two procedures for giving citizenship to Pakistani refugees. One was the direct granting of citizenship and the other was the permit system. The permit system came into force on 19 July 1948. Any migrator to Pakistan who had returned to India before 19 July 1948 got direct citizenship without any permit system. However, the migrator to Pakistan who again returned to India for permanent settlement after 19 July 1948 came under the permit system and had to wait for the next 6 months for getting Indian citizenship.

Conclusion

India and modern-day Pakistan has a very dark history of partition violence, religious rights and millions of human migrations. Millions of the refugee population came from Pakistan to India for permanent settlement. This study has effectively discussed the constitutional provisions for granting citizenship to migrants to Pakistan. This has effectively discussed Article 7 of the Indian constitution, which is associated with citizenship for migrants to Pakistan. This study can be very effective for identifying the permit system associated with the citizenship rights of migrants from Pakistan to India.