The proposed panel will discuss amendments to India’s citizenship laws. Under the provisions of the amendment, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Christians, Sikhs and Zoroastrians from its Muslim majority neighbours Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh will find their applications for citizenship fast-tracked. By explicitly omitting Muslims, Jews, Bahais and atheists from its purview, the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) thus introduces a religious filter that strikes at the heart of the secular principles enshrined in the Constitution. India’s Home Minister Amit Shah promised parliament as well as audiences during political rallies and press conferences that the Amendment will be followed by the enumeration of the controversial National Register of Citizens (NRC), adding to popular anxiety. Indians will now have to prove their citizenship by providing certain documents so they could be enlisted in the NRC: failure to do so could result in detention as “illegal immigrant” and possibly deportation. It is here that the CAA kicks in. India’s 200 million Muslims (the second largest Muslim community in the world), not covered under the ambit of the CAA, could find themselves disenfranchised and stateless if they are not able to prove their citizenship. On this given background, the panel members will respond to some critical questions ,including:

1. What do these contests over citizenship mean for democratic politics? How the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 violates constitutional provisions and broad principles of social justice? What are the implications of the protests for democracy in India?

2. Why Muslim women have protested against the CAA, 2019? How are different social groups likely to be affected?

3. How the Indian government could potentially create further divisions among citizens by linking different sets of data collected through various citizens’ services and create ‘legacy linkages’

Paper 1

Secularising citizenship: Muslims and India’s amended citizenship laws

Professor Mujibur Rehman, Jamia Milia Islamia

India’s newly passed Citizenship Amendment Act (hereafter CAA) in December 2019 violates the letter and spirit of the country’s Constitution. It blatantly discriminates against Muslims, thereby undermining the Constitutional guarantees of equality to all Indians. My paper examines the spirit of subordinating Indian Muslims that underpins the constitutional amendments. Such subordination is consistent with the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government’s larger project of building a Hindu  Rashtra, an ethnically defined nation where Hindu supremacy is enshrined.

Paper 2

Feminising citizenship: Women and India’s amended citizenship laws

Dr. Qudsiya Contractor, University of Erfurt

Almost from the moment of its promulgation, the amendments to India’s citizenship laws have faced protests across the country. A young Muslim woman student from Jamia Milia Islamia stopping a policeman from assaulting a male student and the crowds of women gathered at a Delhi neighbourhood called Shaheen Bagh are now etched in public memory. The image of resistance to the newly introduced Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) has become that of a Muslim woman holding the national flag and a portrait of B. R. Ambedkar, the architect of the Indian Constitution. Younger Muslim women have been active in expanding support to the peaceful protest through social media and a door-to-door campaign to create awareness on the need to resist CAA. Most such women are first time participants in a public protest that has spread nationwide, while Muslim men continue to support them from the sidelines.

Paper 3

Doubtful citizenship

Dr. Buddhadeb Halder, University of York

Within days of passing the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 (CAA),  the Indian government had allocated 39.4bn rupees (£427m) for updating the National Population Register (NPR) database. Creating the NPR database is regarded as the first step to a nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC). Government’s determination to conduct a countrywide NPR exercise as part of the 2021 Census has provoked doubts about its real intention since, with the passage of the CAA, religion has now become a criterion for acquiring Indian citizenship in the CAA. Indeed, India’s Home Minister Amit Shah, outlined the chronology linking the NPR, NRC and CAA with characteristic clarity.

During the proposed NPR exercise, if an individual or a family cannot provide satisfactory ‘legacy linkage’ data, they would be marked as “doubtful citizen”. Legacy linkage can be proved only through any legally acceptable document which establishes a relationship in clear terms between an individual and a parent or ancestor whose name appears in Legacy Data”. The ‘legacy linkage’ data was used to construct the NRC  in Assam back in 2018 and had resulted in the exclusion of 1.9 million people from citizenship. This controversial data promises to be crucial to the construction of the NPR”. The intricacies of this data collection need further detailing as there is where the devil resides.