{"id":3936,"date":"2026-07-15T09:54:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T09:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/?p=3936"},"modified":"2026-07-15T09:54:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T09:54:23","slug":"indian-passport-intended-to-regulate-departure-held-by-fewer-than-8-of-citizens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/15\/indian-passport-intended-to-regulate-departure-held-by-fewer-than-8-of-citizens\/","title":{"rendered":"Indian Passport Intended to Regulate Departure, Held by Fewer Than 8% of Citizens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Amidst an ongoing national debate over which documents establish citizenship, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) clarified on Tuesday that an Indian passport is primarily a travel document issued to &#8220;regulate the departure&#8221; of citizens from the country.<sup><\/sup> Speaking at a press briefing, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal noted that less than eight percent of Indian citizens currently hold a passport.<sup><\/sup> The clarification follows a political controversy triggered by MEA officials during Passport Seva Divas on June 24, where the passport was described as a travel document rather than an absolute proof of citizenship.<sup><\/sup> This initial remark drew sharp criticism from opposition parties, including the Congress, who accused the government of creating pathways to arbitrarily deny citizenship rights to legitimate residents.<sup><\/sup> Seeking to calm the waters, Jaiswal reiterated that the issuance of passports is strictly governed by the Passports Act, 1967, and the Passports Rules, 1980, and is subject to rigorous verification procedures.<sup><\/sup> While the passport reliably verifies identity and nationality for international transit, official sources maintain that domestic citizenship is legally governed by the Citizenship Act of 1955 under the Ministry of Home Affairs rather than the travel document itself.<sup><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amidst an ongoing national debate over which documents establish citizenship, the Ministry of External Affairs&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":3940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3936"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3941,"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3936\/revisions\/3941"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theimphalreporter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}