Listen to this article:

At London’s Heathrow airport, the queue splits in two.

One line moves quickly – of those with British and European passports in their hands. The other inches forward.

For decades, Dr Sarfraz Ashraf has stood in the slower line.

He arrived in Britain in the 1970s, part of a generation that would go on to shape the country’s public services and professional life. Over the years, he built a long career in the National Health Services before moving into healthcare investment, working across the UK and India. His life is firmly rooted in Britain. His children – and now grandchildren – are British citizens. But he never became one.

“It was never just paperwork,” he says. “It was something I couldn’t quite let go of.”

Much of the global conversation around migration assumes a linear trajectory: people move, settle and eventually adopt the citizenship of their new country. For many, that is true. Citizenship brings ease of travel, legal certainty and a sense of belonging on paper.

But for some Indians abroad, the decision is not so straightforward.

Dr Sarfraz Ashraf chose not to take British citizenship because giving up Indian citizenship felt like losing a core part of his identity. Photo: Courtesy Dr Sarfar Ashraf.

Across conversations with long-term residents in the UK – including Dr Ashraf and Anwar Saleem – a different pattern emerges. These are individuals who have spent decades building lives overseas, professionally established and socially integrated, often with families fully embedded in their adopted countries, yet who have consciously chosen not to relinquish Indian citizenship.

The reasons for this are rarely administrative. Those who decide not to give up their Indian passports point to something less tangible.

The weight of citizenship

In practical terms, the trade-off is clear. For those living in Britain through the 1970s, 80s and 90s, holding an Indian passport meant navigating a more complex world – visas, embassy visits, longer airport queues and added scrutiny at borders.

“You would see colleagues book a ticket and go,” recalls Dr Ashraf. “For us, it was forms, waiting, uncertainty.”

The alternative – accepting British citizenship – would have removed much of that friction.

And yet, they did not take it.

“You’d stand there and think – this could all be easier,” Dr Ashraf says. “But ease was never the point.”

A different kind of belonging

What emerges from such conversations is a more layered understanding of citizenship, one shaped less by convenience and more by continuity.

For many Indians abroad, giving up citizenship is not experienced as a procedural step, but as a symbolic rupture.

“It’s difficult to explain,” says Saleem, a banker by profession. “It’s not logic; it’s something you feel.”

Anwar Saleem, a banker, with his family. He did not take British citizenship because his sense of belonging remained tied to India. Photo: Courtesy Anwar Saleem.

That feeling often centres on the idea of “home”, not necessarily as a place one intends to return to permanently, but as an anchor of identity.

“It keeps a door open,” Dr Ashraf says, “Even if you never walk through it.”

Within families, this distinction is often most visible across generations. Children and grandchildren born or raised abroad tend to adopt the citizenship of their country of residence without hesitation. Their relationship to India is different: it is mediated through heritage rather than lived experience.

“It comes up,” says Saleem, “They ask, why didn’t you just do it?”

The answer is not easily reduced to a single explanation.

“It’s not about practicality,” he says. “It’s about where you feel you still belong.”

Rethinking assumptions

These stories complicate the common assumption that citizenship is primarily a matter of opportunity or advantage. For some Indians abroad, the decision not to naturalise reflects a conscious negotiation between practicality and identity.

It is not a rejection of the country they have made their home, nor necessarily an intention to return. Rather, it is a way of holding on to a connection that remains meaningful, even at a distance.

As global mobility increases, citizenship is often framed in transactional terms, as access, as privilege, as a tool.

But for some, it continues to carry deeper significance, not just as a legal status, but as a marker of belonging. And belonging is not just about where one lives, but of where one still, in some sense, feels from.

Syed Fayaz is a UK-based, award-winning professional with international experience across media, technology and digital governance, and is a Chevening Scholar and IVLP Fellow.

© The Wire