II. Legal Recognition of Statelessness in India 82 SECTION II.A A. RECOGNITION OF STATUS Statelessness poses a moral and normative challenge to the legitimacy of the international state system. In simpler terms, since the world is comprehensively divided between nation states, then every person should be able to claim citizenship and its attendant rights somewhere135 Yet, thousands of people around the world face barriers in claiming citizenship rights in any nation because of several aggravating factors. There are several stateless groups in India who either arrived or were born in India as stateless persons, such as the Tibetans and the Rohingyas. This section pertains to these stateless persons in Indian territory whose citizenship was not deprived as a result of any action of the Indian state. They have no avenues of return to their country of nationality as a result of their statelessness i.e. their state does not accept them as nationals. Thus, they are prohibited from exercising their right to return.136 In this situation, they cannot be deported and continue to reside in India as subjects of a legal framework which does not formally recognise their status. A close reading of the Indian domestic law framework governing the status of non-citizens reveals that the definitional categories determining the legal status of an individual are inadequate for 135 Matthew Gibney, ‘Statelessness and Citizenship in Ethical and Political Perspective’ in Alice Edwards and Laura van Waas eds., Nationality and Statelessness under International Law (CUP 2014) ch 2, 45. 136 Article 13(2) UDHR. SECURING CITIZENSHIP