Marking Passport Seva Divas on June 24, an MEA official reiterated that an Indian passport is not a document of Indian citizenship. Ironically, the statement came at an event celebrating the expansion of passport services across the country. It has since provoked widespread consternation.While the legal position itself isn't new, the wider context is important to understand the reaction. The question of how a citizen may prove citizenship has come to centre stage of Indian political life in recent years. National Register of Citizens (NRC) and Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) were about citizenship. Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, most recently rolled out in West Bengal, focused on citizenship. The ongoing nationwide SIR of electoral rolls now being conducted in 19 states and UTs is also partly about citizenship.In a milieu where everyone is being called upon to prove their citizenship, the anxiety this produces in people's minds is: how does one do so if no document(s) is enough? In that situation, who or what will determine who is an Indian citizen?The short answer is the police and courts. This has been the experience of lakhs of people in Assam over decades. The Indian passport is issued after police verification, which includes a verification of identity, a capacious term that includes citizenship.As I recently found out, this can be a fraught process. I hold an Indian passport, which was renewed via the Tatkal system in 2022. In this system, police verification happens after the passport is issued. Evidently, verification can happen any time after the passport is issued, and the passport-holder may remain blissfully unaware of it.Earlier this month, 4 yrs after my passport was issued, a letter arrived at my residential address from the Regional Passport Office (RPO), asking me to appear in person within 21 days to show cause why my passport should not be impounded or revoked. Failure to appear within the stipulated time would result in revocation of the passport.I was abroad at the time. Thankfully, my parents were at home to receive it, or I would not have known of the letter until after the required 21 days had elapsed. The police, it turned out, had sent an adverse report regarding my Indian citizenship status 4 yrs after the passport was issued. Why they did so, and why now, remains a mystery. I received no information that a verification was underway.I have all my documents from my birth certificate onwards. As someone born in India before July 1, 1987, under the provisions of Citizenship Act 1955, I'm a citizen of India by birth. Additionally, both my parents are also Indian citizens.I had presented all my documents every time I was issued an Indian passport from 1993 onwards. The documents were verified, and passports were issued and reissued, presumably after police verification, by RPOs in various states, without any problems since 1993.The old handwritten passport issued in my name in 1993 states clearly, on its first page, 'National status: Citizen of India'. This was changed to 'Nationality: Indian' in subsequent machine-printed passports.As former foreign secretary Nirupama Rao wrote on this page, a passport is issued only after GoI has verified that the applicant is an Indian citizen under Indian law. Yet, suddenly this month, after 33 yrs of being a verified Indian citizen holding an Indian passport, the police issued an adverse report questioning my citizenship without mentioning any reason for doing so.The field in the computerised police report form for the reason behind the adverse report is not mandatory, and was left blank. I was asked to hand in my passport at the RPO, and not told why.This experience suggests that not only is the passport not a document of citizenship, but also that anyone's citizenship can be questioned at any time without any reason being mentioned.This is the first passport I have held from West Bengal. Ironically, it's also the first time that I have had my citizenship officially doubted. If this can happen to me, a Bengali Hindu in West Bengal of the privileged middle class, then it can happen to 'anyone'.The writer is an independent journalist(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are that of the writer. The facts and opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of www.economictimes.com.)