Originally Posted by
oliver2002
PIO to OCI conversion is entirely voluntary? At most you will get a stupid comment at immigration which you could mitigate by printing out the relevant gazette notification.
The forced sterilisation program was during the 1975-77 emergency when civil rights were suspended. It was as close as India had come to a dictatorship and I'm proud of the fact that democracy finally prevailed.
Till 2002 NRIs who had accepted another citizenship were left in a legal grey zone, the PIO scheme and now the OCI card is slowly fixing that. Its far from perfect, but I would not venture to compare it to the 1975-77 emergency atrocities.
Even before 2002, NRIs who accepted/maintained non-Indian citizenship as adults were never left in a legal grey zone by India over citizenship and residency status allowances. Legally, they all were neither NRIs nor Indian citizens of any sort; they were foreign citizens with Indian heritages, many of whom chose when and how to appear to be NRIs or RIs as they found suitable for a given circumstance without consideration for the existing body law in India.
PIO to OCI conversion is indeed still voluntary AFAIK, but there may still be some issues when trying to do PIO to OCI that do put people in a legal grey zone.