In the words of Duco A. Schreuder (2014): “Argument from ignorance” (from Latin: argumentum ad ignorantiam), also known as appeal to ignorance (in which ignorance represents “a lack of contrary evidence”), is a fallacy in informal logic.
It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false or a proposition is false because it has not yet been proven true. In the same way, the Goan minds in the interregnum between getting their Indian Passports cancelled and jumping ship to the Portuguese Nationality, seem to feel soothed by the balm of lies being propagated by activists and political commentators in believing that there exists a silver lining. The reality has to strike at some time, and why shouldn’t that time of reckoning be in the present. Dual Nationality will never become a reality unless pigs start to fly!
Hence the appeal to ignorance i.e. the claim that whatever has not been proved false must be true, and vice versa is nothing but a mere manifested dream in the case of dual nationality. Therefore, the argument from ignorance should be put to a full stop because the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
In order to accord well-founded theoretic rationality to the premise of this article, certain concepts need to be clarified and discussed, which would ultimately substantiate the impossibility of dual citizenship for Goans.
Foremost, the Cambridge dictionary defines statehood as the condition of being a country or a part of a large country that has its own government. It was on the 30th of May, 1987 that Goa got its full statehood. Legally it would be impossible to reverse the conferment of statehood unless a complete referendum were to be conducted in the state of Goa.
Article 14: Right to Equal Treatment before the law: And moreover, how would dual nationality upon Goans be reconciled with the constitutional principle of Equality enshrined in Article 14 of the Constitution of India. As it has been guaranteed that every Indian shall be entitled to equal treatment before the law, it becomes highly unjustifiable that after Goa was conferred with Indian ‘Statehood’, could Goans still be placed on a higher pedestal and conferred exclusively with dual citizenship rights.
Legal Implications of Sedition and Treason: According to Cristina Escobar (2019) in her book titled: Dual Citizenship: “The increase in dual nationality/citizenship since the late 20th century has promoted a normative debate about its consequences in terms of military service, state loyalty, diplomatic protection, equality of rights among citizens, and so on.”
The Law Commission of India in its 267th Report on “Hate Speech” had observed: “In 2017, the panel issued a proposal on the topic of hate speech that distinguished amongst hateful speech and sedition as criminal offences. The foundation of this argument is that the former is an offence that disrupts public order, but the latter is a serious offence that involves acts that threaten the “sovereignty” and “unity” of the nation. As what seems like “disaffection” as well as “disloyalty” might actually be constructive criticism pointing towards the genuine problems of the society, many standards have been created to determine whether kinds of speech qualify as seditious.” (Shukla and Prajapati, 2023).
Temptation for Espionage:
In the case of Kawakita v. US (1952), before the United States Supreme Court the following facts appeared:
- Petitioner was born in the United States of Japanese parents.
- He lived in the United States until he was 18 years of age and then went to Japan to study.
- War broke out between the United States and Japan while Petitioner was still in school there, and he remained to finish his course of study.
- Upon reaching his majority, he registered in the Koseki, a family census register, and had his name removed from the list of enemy aliens in the police records.
- He changed his address from California to Japan and procured a position as an interpreter in a Japanese war plant, which was under the supervision of the army, and was manned partly by American prisoners of war.
- Petitioner was convicted of treason in the United States District Court and his conviction was affirmed.
- The conviction of treason was based on evidence of unnecessary cruelty to the American prisoners to get more work from them which was the giving of aid and comfort to the enemy.
- The Petitioner contended that at the time of the alleged treasonous acts, he felt no allegiance to the - United States and had thrown his lot with the Japanese war effort.
- The Supreme Court of the United States affirmed the conviction on the grounds that even if Petitioner was possessed of dual nationality, he still owed such allegiance to the United States as would make his acts constitute treason.
Hence, it would be interesting to see how the holders of dual nationality would be prosecuted for treason and espionage.
Why doesn’t every descendant of persons born in British occupied India not possess the right to British nationality?
- Under British Nationality Act, 1948, British nationality law was reorganised to take account of countries becoming independent as self-governing Dominions.
- From the Statute of Westminster, 1931 onwards, countries had been free to make their own laws without interference from the Westminster Parliament.
- By the Indian Independence Act 1947, both India and Pakistan achieved the same status.
- India and Pakistan became independent on 15 August 1947. At that time neither country enacted a new nationality law. Since India and Pakistan did not immediately enact new citizenship laws.
- Moreover, even when they did, those laws were not recognised in UK law for important nationality purposes, leading to the perpetuation of a class of British subjects from India and Pakistan who were without citizenship.
- In order for India and Pakistan’s new citizenship laws to have been recognised in UK law, they would have to have fallen within the scope of being defined as a ‘citizenship law for the purposes of the British Nationality Act 1948.
- Thereafter, India made provision for citizenship in the Constitution of India (26 January 1950). That provision was further supplemented by the Citizenship Act of 1955.
