Writer and lyricist Javed Akhtar on Wednesday criticized the Ministry of External Affairs’ statement that said a passport was “not proof of nationality” but a travel document, as “ridiculous”.
The poet shared his thoughts in a post on the social media platform X, asking whether the authorities issue passports without being convinced that the person is an Indian citizen.
“The Ministry of External Affairs says that a passport is a travel document and not proof of citizenship. Really??? So are they offering this travel document to some people without being fully convinced that that person is an Indian citizen?? It’s ridiculous,” Akhtar wrote.
This comes after Foreign Ministry officials said on Wednesday that RA passport is a travel document, not a citizenship document, highlighting measures built into new chip-based e-passports, such as biometric data, to enhance global acceptance and reduce the risk of fraud.
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The passport remains a travel document, not a nationality document, as it certifies the nationality of Indians when they are abroad. Foreign Ministry officials said.
“The passport is issued after a lot of due diligence and relies on documents from several government agencies,” an official said.
A total of 14.7 million e-passports have been issued since then The chip-based documents were introduced last year as part of the revamp of the Passport Seva programme, officials said.
E-passports, which contain a built-in antenna and a radio-frequency identification (RFID) chip that contains personal details and biometric data, represent about 10% of the total passports. All new passports are currently chip-based passports.
Officials said that electronic passports provide high security measures and significantly reduce the scope of unauthorized access or tampering of data, as well as the possibility of obtaining the document through fraudulent means. “It is difficult to issue fake passports, and e-passports provide greater reassurance to immigration authorities abroad and make clearance faster,” an official said.
The chips used in the e-passports are sourced from India Security Press in Nashik, which in turn sources them from abroad, officials said. Best practices from other countries have been studied to make Indian e-passports as robust as possible, and efforts are underway to enhance document security, they said.
