Hi Radhakrishnan
You raise an interesting question about Auroville. I may have heard of such
a place but definitely of other similar 'communes' in Britain and elsewhere.
Such communes tend to come and go and the people there are inclined to say
they have renounced their nationality and citizenship but this is said
metaphorically. Anyone can call themselves "world citizens" and indeed, I
like to think I am one myself! But this is a meaningless term in a legal
context or in international law. We are all world citizens if we want to
call ourselves, as such, but as there is no recognition of such a status,
for a passport for instance, the self-declared world citizens need to resort
to their travel documents which make their nationality explicit if they
urgently need to travel abroad.
Indeed, if persons in Auroville had actually travelled there from outside
India, and then torn/destroyed their passports, but had to be deported for
any reason, they would be deported to their country/nationality which they
had prior to entry into India, regardless of their plea that they were world
citizens.
Similarly, if such people opted to leave Auroville because they had become
disillusioned, or whatever, and had previously destroyed their passports,
they would need to obtain new passports and use the pretext that they had
lost their passports to their embassies/high commissions! But of course,
there may well be people in Auroville who did not have a passport in the
first place and could leave Auroville and stay on elsewhere in India.
Re your last sentence/question, the answer is simple enough. Those in
Auroville would have taken a specific identity and good luck to them.
However, such a self-taken identity definitely does not constitute their
nationality as legally defined anywhere in a globalised world. If necessary,
the Indian Government would have no difficulty in determining the
nationality and citizenship of anyone in Auroville irrespective of their
assumed identity as world citizens. The criteria for determining nationality
have become pretty universal today.
I hope I have answered your specific question but do have to say that, I am
a little surprised at the seeming conflict within you to a fairly simple
issue. My explanation is based on commonsense and not on anything remotely
academic at which you also hint!
Regards
Cornel
PS Yes, I did note Mario's dictionary presentation for 'nationality'
fleetingly. Anyone can draw from a dictionary/encyclopaedia but I chose to
ignore it. I have tended to do this about anything from that source
recently, for invariably being inconsequential and unhelpful on Goanet.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Radhakrishnan Nair" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <goanet@goanet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2006 10:42 PM
Subject: [Goanet] Re: Portuguese passports etc.
Hi Cornel,
Read your post with keen interest, sir! As a professor of post-doctoral
studies in Britain, you've given a politically correct definition of
nationalilty. I have to concede that my definition of nationality is what
you
call identity if "nationality" is defined within the narrow parameters of
citizenship. In this context, please note a subsequent post from Mario on
the
topic.
You might have heard of Auroville, a commune founded by sage-philosopher
Sri
Aurobindo in Pondicherry, a former French enclave in South India. Talented
people from all parts of the world are engaged in spiritual, intellectual
and
artistic pursuits there, after renouncing their citizenships. They call
themselves "world citizens".
Please tell us how we determine their nationality, independent of their
identity.
Regards,
RKN
Radhakrishnan
