Themed week on citizenship, identity and belongingness : narratives from India

The declaration of 1.9 million people as foreigners through the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam in 2019 and the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 (CAA) has made international news. It has drawn criticism from various quarters, both within India and beyond its borders, for its communal and exclusionary nature. The NRC requires one to prove they came to India before March 1971, the day before neighbouring Bangladesh declared independence from Pakistan, in order to be on the citizens’ register. NRC has been prepared on the order of the Supreme Court to weed out ‘illegal migrants’ from India and has resulted in 1.9 million people at the risk of being stateless. The CAA which was subsequently passed in both houses of Parliament seeks to provide refuge to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians who “illegally” migrated to India from the neighbouring Muslim-majority countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan before December 2014, under the assumption that these are persecuted minorities. The Sri Lankan Tamil refugees and Rohingya Muslim refugees in India are conspicuous by their absence. Besides, Ahmadiyas from Pakistan Ulgyurs from China could also be recognised as persecuted communities in need of refuge, but they too are absent from CAA.