anula

i noticed on wikipedia it says "foreigners residing in india for 11 out of 14 years and the past 12 months prior to application" are entitled to citizenship. Has anyone tried this? I would imagine many of us longtermers are pretty near that mark, and i am absolutely not patriotic to my country of origin whatsoever, so it could be an option.... although i dont think for a minute it would be an easy one...

Is dual citizenship possible so that one could hold onto their other passport too, or would it mean a trade in for an indian passport only?

pennylessinindia

Is dual citizenship possible so that one could hold onto their other passport too, or would it mean a trade in for an indian passport only

No dual citizenship with Indian Citizenship

johnny five

Quite correct.

This is what brought about OCI (Overseas Citizen of India)
The vast numbers of Indians living in all parts of the world (and welcomed to a greater or lesser degree into those societies unlike the way foreigners are treated in India) put a lot of pressure on GOI to allow dual citizenship. However it is against the Constitution of India, so to avoid very difficult to execute constitutional changes a new category was created. It gives the holder certain rights but nowhere near those granted by dual nationality. It also lasts for life unlike POI that only lasts for 15 years. Unlike POI though, it does not confer benefits on your dependants, which is why comparitively few Indians have gone for it!

Just as an aside Anula, this is not a good route to go down to solve your present predicament I fear. You will be letting yourself in for an adminstrative nightmare, taking years, and the virtual certainty that at the end of the day they will find a reason to disallow it.
Considering India claims to be a "modern democracy", they do a nice line in retrospective law/rule making and are specialists in "no explanation will be given for refusals"