36 Observers have consistently complained about the integrity and veracity of the citizenship determination procedures instituted by the state, especially Foreigners Tribunals (‘FTs’) and the border police.16 In 2015, the Supreme Court of India initiated a citizenship enumeration called the National Register of Citizens (‘NRC’) in the eastern state of Assam. All the residents of the state were expected to submit documentary proof of their citizenship. When the NRC authorities came out with the final list in 2019, they had excluded over 1.9 million (1,906,657) residents of the state.17 The excluded persons have a right to file appeals in FTs, failing which they stare at uncertainty of citizenship status. Numerous high-ranking Indian government officials have proposed the implementation of an NRC at a national level.18 These two categories of persons – precarious citizens and the stateless – are doubtlessly distinct. However, they share the condition of insecure status and rights owing to their citizenship. The stateless do not enjoy the security of citizenship at all. The citizenship for precarious citizens is insecure and hence, they are in many ways on the verge of statelessness. Citizenship, as recent scholarship has noted, is like a slippery slope.19 ‘Lucky holders of hard citizenship rights’ are at the top. Towards the bottom are a number of persons with varying degrees of uncertainty: the stateless, refugees, asylum seekers, the migrants deemed illegal by the state, and precarious citizens. Appreciating their shared vulnerability on the slippery slope allows us to crossfertilise lessons and best approaches for the benefit of securing citizenship. 16 Amnesty International, ‘Designed to Exclude: How India’s Courts are Allowing Foreigners Tribunals to Render People Stateless in Assam’ (2019) 37-39 <https://amnesty.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/ Assam-Foreigners-Tribunals-Report-1.pdf> accessed 23 April 2020; Ipsita Chakravarty, ‘Declaring foreigners: How Assam’s border police and tribunals form a secretive system of justice’ (Scroll.in, 19 August 2018) <https://scroll.in/article/890134/declaring-foreigners-how-assams-border-police-andtribunals-form-a-secretive-system-of-justice> accessed 27 July 2020. 17 Express Web Desk, ‘Assam NRC Final List 2019: Over 19 lakh excluded, 3.11 crore included in list’ The Indian Express (31 August 2019) <https://indianexpress.com/article/india/assam-nrc-final-list-2019published-19-lakh-left-out-5953202> accessed 12 August 2020. 18 Rohan Venkataramakrishnan, ‘Who is linking Citizenship Act to NRC? Here are five times Amit Shah did so’ (Scroll.in, 20 December 2019) <https://scroll.in/article/947436/who-is-linking-citizenship-actto-nrc-here-are-five-times-amitshah-did-so> accessed 21 June 2020. 19 Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann and Margaret Walton-Roberts, The Human Right to Citizenship: A Slippery Concept (University of Pennsylvania Press 2015). SECURING CITIZENSHIP