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R. Rajagopal edited a well-known Kolkata based newspaper for many years. This year, he discovered that the Republic was no longer sure he existed. In March, his name vanished from the electoral roll of his constituency. The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) could not trace him in the voters’ list of 2003. It could not trace his late father either. His father was a Gandhian, a retired professor, once the state secretary of the Gandhi Smarak Nidhi in Kerala. He died in 2016. A man who gave his life to the Republic’s founding creed had become a gap in a register.

Rajagopal was one of nearly 27 lakh people struck off the rolls in West Bengal. The reason offered was a phrase: “Logical discrepancy”. He sent his matriculation certificate. It was found insufficient. His appeal sits before a tribunal. He could not vote in the recent election.

Then the second blow fell. He had applied to renew his passport. He gave his biometrics on March 19. The police would not clear his verification because his name no longer appeared on the voters’ list. The very deletion that took his vote reached across and took his passport. By the end of June, he had waited a hundred days. Kolkata Police had sent an adverse report. He was told to appear before the passport office at once. The earliest appointment they would give him was weeks away.

In April, his daughter married in San Francisco. He holds a valid ten-year American visa. He could not go. He had no passport. A father missed his daughter’s wedding because a clerk could not find a line on a list.

Now consider what the government has chosen to do. On Passport Seva Divas, the Union Ministry of External Affairs told the country that a passport is a travel document and not a document of citizenship. As a matter of strict law, the ministry was right. The passport is issued under........

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