Like many nations, India has its legal challenges, yet a pluralistic spirit continues to run in the nation’s arteries. India transcends the lines drawn on a map, hope is rekindled here, and new beginnings take root. This country offers more than a refuge. It gives people a chance to reclaim their identity and secure a future with purpose.
Nothing exemplifies this spirit of inclusion more than the journey of a doctor from Pakistan, Nanikraz Khanoomal Mukhi.
Yearning for dignity and determined to escape discrimination in Pakistan, he arrived in India in 2009.
For sure, he knew the stakes when he landed in Ahmedabad. There would be no return ticket home, for he surrendered his passport to the Pakistan Embassy in New Delhi in 2021.
Finally, after a long and winding path, he received Indian citizenship.
But the stakes were huge — he had taken a chance on a new life but everything else seemed to be falling apart around him.
He had only a visitor visa and settled in Ahmedabad’s Sardar Nagar. His degree — he was professionally accomplished, having completed his MBBS from Liaquat Medical College in Karachi and a diploma in Sonography from Jinnah Medical College — was his only chance for a shot at a new journey.
India initially granted him a Long Term Visa (LTV). In 2016, under Section 6 of the Citizenship Act, 1955, he formally applied for Indian citizenship. A year later, he received an acknowledgment from the Office of the Collector and District Magistrate (DM), Ahmedabad.
“They told me to pay the challan (fee) and said my citizenship will be processed within 15 days,” he said, according to a report.
But what followed was not a quick process.
While his family’s applications progressed, his own remained in limbo — allegedly due to a pending report from the Intelligence Bureau.
His wife received Indian citizenship in 2022, his daughter two years later, and his siblings were also granted citizenship.
His elder son, pursuing an MBBS in Kota, applied under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, while his youngest son, who recently completed Class 12, remains a Pakistani national.
The lack of Indian citizenship had real consequences. Despite clearing India’s Foreign Medical Graduate Examination (FMGE) in 2023, which qualifies overseas doctors to practice in India, he couldn’t register with the Gujarat Medical Council, a process that requires Indian citizenship.
In October 2024, the AMC Health Department (North Zone) sealed his clinic — Jhulelal Sonography — in Rakhiyal, Ahmedabad, on the grounds that he lacked the required registration.
He shared his ordeal with a media outlet: “It’s a bureaucratic paradox. I’m not a Pakistani anymore, and I’m not yet Indian. So, I fall through every crack in the system.”
Unable to practice medicine, he supported his family doing odd jobs in allied health fields, all while continuing to follow up with the DM’s office about his citizenship status.
Frustrated by the delays, he took a new route this year. He approached the Gujarat High Court, invoking Articles 14, 21, and 226 of the Indian Constitution, and Section 6B of the Citizenship Act.
His counsel, advocate Ratna Vora, shared the long wait and bureaucratic confusion. She was quoted as saying, “The application for citizenship had been pending since 2016. The petitioner filed another application in 2021, which was rejected. Thereafter, in 2024 he applied again and the matter was pending as they said they had not received the report of the Intelligence Bureau. We received the certificate today (Thursday), which means his application has been accepted and citizenship granted with effect from August 5. He is happy and relieved…”
The certificate, issued by the District Collector of Ahmedabad, officially registered him as an Indian citizen under Section 5(1)(a) of the Citizenship Act, 1955. The court then formally disposed of the petition.
His joy was unmistakable: “It feels like everything I had been struggling for is finally here. There’s nothing left to hold me back. Now, I can get an Aadhaar card and live my life not as a stateless person, but as a rightful citizen.”
The fact that a Pakistani-born doctor can now live, work, and raise his family in India says more than any speech ever could.
