A 34-year-old web developer who was born in India to Sri Lankan refugee parents and has always considered himself Indian has been rendered stateless after authorities arrested him for holding an invalid passport.
Bahison Ravindran, who was born in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu in 1991, has lived, studied, and worked in the country his entire life, holding various government-issued identity documents, including a passport. However, he was arrested in April and held for 15 days on charges of cheating and forgery after being told he was not an Indian “citizen by birth.”
The issue stems from a 1987 amendment to India’s citizenship law, which requires at least one parent to be an Indian citizen for anyone born after that date to qualify for citizenship by birth. Mr. Ravindran’s parents fled Sri Lanka’s civil war in 1990, and he was born a year later. He told the Madras High Court that he was unaware of this rule and had immediately applied for citizenship through naturalisation upon learning of his status.
His case highlights the precarious situation of thousands of Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in India. Over 90,000 refugees reside in Tamil Nadu, and more than 22,000 individuals like Mr. Ravindran were born in India after 1987, leaving their citizenship status in limbo.
The situation is complicated by India not being a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and the exclusion of Sri Lankan Tamils from the 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Since 2022, only 14 Sri Lankan Tamils have been granted Indian citizenship.
Mr. Ravindran’s troubles began after he married a Sri Lankan woman in September 2024 and applied for a new passport to add her name. His parentage was flagged by the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO), leading to his arrest. Now out on bail, he has appealed to the Madras High Court, which has ordered authorities to halt any coercive action until the next hearing on October 8.
“In all these years, no-one ever told me I was not Indian,” Mr. Ravindran said. “When I was told for the first time that I am a ‘stateless person’, I could not accept it.” He pledges allegiance to India and is now hoping the court will resolve his case.
