K Nalini was born in a refugee camp in 1986 in Tamil Nadu’s Mandapam, the first stop for those fleeing Sri Lanka during its civil war. For all of her 36-year-old life, Nalini has flitted between three such camps, her identity as a “refugee” refusing to leave her behind. Until earlier this month, when Nalini has become the first Sri Lankan refugee to be granted Indian citizenship on September 29. Eleven days later, speaking to HT over the phone from her mother’s village in Chinna Salem, where her family rears goats, Nalini says that she fought her battle for an Indian identity because of her two sons, aged 7 and 8. “They can’t live all their lives inside a refugee camp. That is no way to live,” Nalini said.
Nalini’s quest for citizenship began in January 2021, when Madhini, a fellow resident in a camp in Trichy where she now lives, introduced her to advocate Romiyo Roy, and told him that she was born in the year 1986. Roy told Nalini that she was eligible to be a citizen under section 3 of the Citizenship Act, 1995 which says that a person born in India between 26 January 1950 and 1 July 1987 is a “citizen by birth.”
In April 2021, she applied for a passport, but two months later, the regional passport office asker her to appear in person. She argued that she had a birth certificate from Mandapam, but her application was rejected on the grounds that her “nationality is doubtful”. On July 21, 2021, through advocate Roy, Nalini moved the Madurai bench of the Chennai High Court. In court, Roy argued her case based on the 1995 Act and said that she wanted her rights, a dignified life and personal liberty granted under the Constitution. On August 12, 2022, the Madurai bench of the Madras high court headed by Justice GR Swaminathan directed authorities to issue an Indian passport to Nalini, upholding her contention. Assistant Solicitor General of India, Victoria Gowri submitted to the court that unless the petitioner’s citizenship is declared, the passport cannot be issued. “In the case on hand, there is no scope for any doubt. The petitioner has enclosed the birth certificate issued by the competent authority. Its genuineness is not doubted,” justice Swaminathan said in his order attributing it to the Citizenship Act. “Since the petitioner is an Indian citizen by birth, she need not apply for citizenship.”
In September, the Trichy regional passport office called her again in person, this time to take copies of her Aadhaar card. The office staff told an incredulous Nalini that in ten days, her Indian passport would arrive, which it did by post on September 29.
Thiyagu (who goes only by first name), general secretary, Tamil National Liberation Movement said that this is a breakthrough judgment. “Citizenship had always been a grey area because much of it is related to the Partition and we don’t have much clarity about those born after that. This judgment gives the government that clarity,” Thiyagu said. “This is the first such case that we know of and now more people will come forward to take an Indian passport. It answers their statelessness,” Thiyagu said.
“Nalini is the first person to be given an Indian passport on the grounds that she is already an Indian citizen. Until now they were not considered as Indian citizens but the court has given us that clarity,” said a senior official of Tamil Nadu’s department of Commissionerate of Rehabilitation and Welfare of Non-Resident Tamils. “We have been giving them relief like they are refugees including Nalini but she now she has told us that with the help of rehabilitation she wants to live a normal life like an Indian citizen.”
Government records in Tamil Nadu show there are 58,822 refugees that live in 822 camps across 29 districts with another 34,087 that live outside of these camps and are registered at local police stations. For this group, hopes had risen in August 2021, when Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin told the state assembly that his government would set up a committee that would look to grant dual citizenship. With Sri Lankans not covered under the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019, Nalini’s case is now a beacon of hope.
“For those born before the 1987 cut off, it will not be straight forward to get a citizenship,” said an official not wishing to be identified.
According to the Act, “those born on or after 25.01.1950 and before first day of July 1987 shall be a citizen of India by birth”.
Nalini’s advocate Roy said that following the court’s judgement, he has been receiving several requests from Lankans who were born within the cut-off date. “Nalini has not been granted citizenship because she’s already a citizen by the virtue of the Act which the court recognized,” said Roy. “It is sad that even the state and union departments, and passport officials do not know this fact. Now, the court’s conclusion has given many people confidence to apply for their passports. Earlier they had a fear that if they applied, they would be identified as illegal migrants. A majority of them want to be Indian citizens and live here,” Roy said
Nalini has always lived under a burden of being called an “agadhi”, the word for refugee in Tamil. “That word marginalises us. It is heart wrenching,” she says. Nalini’s parents were born in Sri Lanka, to parents that themselves had moved from Tamil Nadu to the island nation. In 1985, with the country in the throes of violence, her parents fled Mannar in Sri Lanka and reached Mandapam where she was born a year later. Till Class 5, Nalini and her 33-year-old younger brother studied in a school within the Mandapam camp’s premises. Between 1995-96 when there was another exodus of people fleeing Sri Lanka, the state government then shifted them to a refugee camp in Chinna Salem.
Her mother was the first family member she informed. “Because from the time I remember, I kept asking my mother why they came to a refugee camp and why I had to live here. My parents never said a great deal about the ‘prachanai kaalam (the troubled period in reference to the Sri Lankan war) and I didn’t ask much about Ceylon,” she said.
Nalini studied till Class 12 and in 2013, married M Kirubakaran from the Trichy camp and moved there. Her husband had himself escaped Sri Lanka with his family as an eight-year-old boy, and has asked for citizenship himself, but has been rejected thus far. He works as an auto driver, and Nalini now hopes to get a job now that she is a citizen. “There are so many educated youngsters living in the camps but it is of no value. No one wants to give a job to someone from Lanka. So they are all mostly painters. I don’t have big dreams. I want a small job that will help me bring home some income. I want to put my boys in a better school,” Nalini, who has worked as a kindergarten teacher in a refugee school.
For her, daily life has changed very little. “My friends have always accepted me. But the biggest change is after living for 36 years as a refugee, I can now call myself an Indian.”
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