Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the lived and material politics of the Overseas Citizenship Act (OCI) for non-resident Indians (NRIs) living in the UK.

Paper long abstract:

his paper examines the lived and material politics of the Overseas Citizenship Act (OCI) for non-resident Indians (NRIs) living in the UK. The OCI Act represents one of a series of initiatives in post-liberal India to invigorate and expedite a sense of tacit connection amongst NRIs with 'home'. Initially headlined as 'dual' citizenship in 2003 when the Act was passed, the OCI Act actually falls short of truly representing 'dual' citizenship since it provides the overseas Indian with a citizenship card rather than passport (Roy 2006). While the Act may be critiqued for its exclusionary and partial reality (Dickinson and Bailey 2007), it has nonetheless reconfigured how overseas Indians across migration generations imaginatively and physically (re)orientate themselves towards India. The paper is animated by questions of who, how and why overseas Indians are choosing to avail of this pseudo citizenship category, or not, and how decisions are shaped within translocal contexts. It will explore the ways in which NRIs with different migration histories differentially relate to, transact and engage with the idea and reality of overseas Indian 'citizenship' status and the citizenship card within a particular transnational setting.