Twilight Citizenship

Abstract

In the last three decades, the Indian state has created a multitude of legal norms for identifying foreigners in the state of Assam. The National Register of Citizens (NRC) published on 31 August 2019 states that more than 1.9 million persons now stand at the verge of statelessness. Assam’s Foreigners Tribunals have already declared more than 100,000 persons as foreigners. Thousands more await their fate as they attempt to establish their citizenship in these tribunals or in appeals to higher courts. The complex web of legality has made the status of numerous residents of the state precarious by subjecting them to arcane rules and procedures. The Indian state claims that these procedures filter the non-citizen from the citizen. But the scale of due process violation has made citizenship of many vulnerable to arbitrary official discretion. I argue there is more at stake. Beyond engendering precarious citizenship for the most vulnerable, it threatens to undo India’s citizenship altogether.

Keywords: Indian, Citizenship, Assam, Statelessness, Adjudication, Evidence, Legal Documents, Exception, Human Rights, Bureaucracy