The logic behind India's refusal to allow dual citizenship
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Dual citizenship allows a person to hold full legal citizenship in two countries at once, with the rights and obligations of both. A number of countries permit this arrangement, but India does not, and understanding why requires looking at how Indian citizenship law was framed in the decades after independence.
The constitutional and legal framework generally treats citizenship as a singular allegiance to the Indian state, partly reflecting concerns of the time about divided loyalty, security and the practicalities of governing a large and diverse population. Rather than amending this position, successive governments instead developed alternative frameworks, culminating in the OCI scheme, to give the diaspora meaningful ties to India without altering the core citizenship rule.
This is why OCI is often described as the practical substitute for dual citizenship in the Indian context, offering many of the lived benefits, such as simplified travel and extended residence, without changing the underlying legal position. For people who value maintaining a formal Indian citizenship, the trade off generally means choosing between that status and citizenship of their country of residence.