Poonam Sharma
While demographic change, minority rights, religious appeasement, and constitutional protections are often discussed in India’s political discourse, one of the most significant historical decisions that continues to shape citizenship patterns on the subcontinent goes without mention in mainstream debate: the Nehru–Liaquat Pact of 1950.
For many, the pact is remembered as a post-Partition commitment between India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan to safeguard minorities on both sides of the border. But there is a sharper constitutional question: Was the pact ever legally empowered to decide citizenship inside India? And if not, can its long-term consequences be re-examined today?
The question has now started surfacing again as India revisits older constitutional arrangements, be they Article 370, special provisions for certain states, or even treaties signed during the early years of the Republic. Many legal commentators are of the view that if India is serious about correcting historical errors, then it should look into the issue of whether massive citizenship decisions taken through executive pacts—rather than parliamentary authority—can stand the test of constitutional legitimacy.
The Central Question: Can an international pact define citizenship?
Citizenship in any modern democratic nation is created only through constitutional provisions and parliamentary laws.
India’s Constitution has been very clear:
Only Parliament can legislate citizenship.
Executive agreements cannot supersede parliamentary authority.
International agreements do not automatically become laws unless ratified by Parliament.
The moot question that critics raise is straightforward: Did the Nehru–Liaquat Pact ever receive the constitutionally required parliamentary approval to redefine or stabilize the citizenship status of a large population?
If the answer is no, then its implementation—providing protection, rights, and long-term residence assurances—may raise serious constitutional questions.
This is not to suggest that any community today can be deprived en masse of its rights and dispossessed; this would squarely fall foul of Articles 14, 15, and 21 of the Constitution. However, the legal validity of the method whereby citizenship protection was extended continues to remain a legitimate area for judicial review.
Historical Context: A Pact Signed Under Turmoil
The 1950 pact was born in an era of chaos:
Partition violence was ubiquitous.
Population transfers were uncontrolled.
The minorities in East Pakistan were being persecuted.
The inflows of refugees into Bengal and Assam were unmatched.
Instead of having Parliament define the long-term rules of citizenship, the executive decided to settle the issue diplomatically , signing a pact offering assurances to Muslims in India and Hindus in Pakistan
This was an administrative shortcut , without thinking about the longer-term demographic consequences. Many people believe that successive governments transformed this temporary diplomatic understanding into a permanent pathway to citizenship without ever legislating clearly for it.
Constitutional Grey Zones: Executive Overreach or Historical Necessity?
From a constitutional standpoint, three major questions arise:
1. Can an executive pact decide the citizenship of millions?
There is nothing in the Constitution that would permit the Prime Minister to unilaterally confer citizenship or permanent protections on anyone through an international agreement.
2. Was Parliament consulted or asked to approve the pact?
Historical records show no formal parliamentary approval.
When the citizenship law was drafted in 1955, the pact was accepted as an historical reality but not incorporated as a legislative mandate.
3. Does the pact hold legal force today?
Technically, international treaties do not override constitutional law. The Supreme Court has frequently stated that **executive actions must conform to the Constitution , not the other way around.
The pact is thus a grey zone : morally significant, historically important, but legally questionable.
Why the Pact’s Legality Still Matters Today
The relevance of this debate is not about targeting any community.
It is about Revisiting historical executive overreach, Clarifying constitutional boundaries, Ensuring citizenship is governed only by law, not political agreements,
And learning how early decisions shaped present-day demographic and political realities.
The larger strategic question is:
Is it desirable that a temporary executive pact of 1950 should continue to shape the demographic structure and citizenship framework of India in 2025?
The general belief is that it is now time to **separate humanitarian commitments from legal foundations**. While India can protect all its citizens under its Constitution, that does not stop the legal fraternity from questioning the constitutional validity of historical arrangements.
The Way Ahead: Judicial Review, Not Social Conflict
What a democratic country does not need is revolutions or animosity to sort out historical disputes. It needs only legal clarity.
The proper direction to follow in case citizens, scholars, or public representatives decide that the Nehru–Liaquat Pact exceeds constitutional limits is
1. File a judicial petition challenging the legality of the pact’s implementation.
2. Request Supreme Court clarification whether citizenship rights can be obtained through an executive treaty. 3. Invite Parliament to debate the historical and legal implications. In other words, the Constitution already provides peaceful and lawful mechanisms** to examine whether early-post-Partition decisions were constitutionally valid.
Conclusion:
A Debate Whose Time Has Come The Nehru–Liaquat Pact may have been signed with the intention to stabilize the subcontinent after Partition. But intent cannot replace constitutional procedure. India today is a mature democracy with strong institutions. Re-examining the pact is not about targeting any community; it is about ensuring that citizenship—one of the most fundamental constitutional rights—is governed strictly by law and parliamentary authority, not by executive deals struck 75 years ago . Finally, an open, legal, and constitutional debate on this subject may bring clarity to an issue that has been unresolved since the birth of the Republic.
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