SUB-REGIONAL OVERVIEW: SOUTH ASIA Other groups of refugees affected by statelessness include as many as 73,404 Tibetan refugees and more than 92,000 Sri Lanka refugees in India.1944 There are also 6,365 Bhutanese Lhostshampa refugees in Nepal, many of whom are stateless.1945 Undetermined nationalities In 2019, India’s National Register of Citizens in Assam excluded over 1.9 million Assamese, leaving them labelled as foreigners or ‘D voters’ and the validation of their citizenship at the hands of the foreigners’ tribunals.1946 In a recent court proceeding, the Central Government informed the Supreme Court of India that between 2017 to 2022, 14,346 individuals have been deported from India with 32,381 individuals being declared as foreigners.1947 Another 123,829 cases remain pending before the tribunals.1948 UNHCR has noted that ‘various studies estimate that a large number of individuals lack citizenship certificates in Nepal. While these individuals may not all necessarily be stateless, UNHCR has been working closely with the Government of Nepal and partners to address this situation.’1949 In 2016 the Forum for Women, Law and Development projected that by 2021, as many as 6.7 million people would be without citizenship.1950 In Pakistan, Bengali-speaking and Bihari communities also hold an uncertain status with limited information available on their citizenship status. The community largely consists of persons repatriated to Pakistan following Bangladeshi independence (and their descendants), some of whom hold passports and documentation, yet continue to face discrimination and exclusion.1951 In the process of digitization of civil registration in Pakistan, Bengali speaking and Bihari individuals were registered as aliens.1952 While registered as ‘aliens’, they are often denied citizenship under the previous interpretation of Pakistan’s jus soli provision.1953 176 SUB-REGIONAL OVERVIEW: SOUTH ASIA Other Populations of note It is important to note two population groups within South Asia who have had their stateless status ‘solved’ in recent decades yet continue to face discrimination and social exclusion. In Bangladesh, the Urdu-speaking (Bihari) community who have resided in Bangladesh since independence,1954 yet were only recognised as citizens from the early 2000’s. However, the Urdu-speaking community, with a population size estimated to be 300,000, continues to face discrimination and marginalisation including through the denial of passports, physical isolation in refugee-like camps and denial of services.1955 The granting of citizenship to the ‘Hill Country’ (or ‘Up-Country’) Tamil population in Sri Lanka 2003, who had been deprived of citizenship since 1948 has both been held up as a success story of ‘solving’ statelessness and analysed for the continuing discrimination faced by the population group despite their citizenship status being resolved.1956 Causes of Statelessness Discriminatory nationality laws As noted above, two States within South Asia have discriminatory provisions in their laws which restrict the ability to confer nationality onto children. The laws of the Maldives containing religious discrimination (and potentially some gender discriminatory provisions)1957 and the laws of Nepal gender discrimination.1958 Statelessness among Muslim and ethnic minority populations in India, including persons excluded by the National Register of Citizens in Assam and Rohingya refugees, is further protracted by their discriminatory exclusion from the Citizenship Amendment Act (2019). The Citizenship Amendment Act provides a pathway to Indian citizenship for ‘illegal migrants’ in India who belong to Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi STATELESSNESS ENCYCLOPEDIA ASIA PACIFIC (DETAILED VERSION) and Christian faiths from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Notably, Muslims are excluded from the amendment, an act labelled by numerous commentators as being discriminatory or on religious grounds.1959 Despite the 2023 amendment which removed some gender discriminatory aspects of Nepal’s citizenship legislation, several groups still face barriers in accessing citizenship. Previously, a child born to a single Nepali citizen mother would only gain citizenship by descent when the father is not identified.1960 The changes provided that children born to single mothers and citizens by birth may obtain Nepali citizenship, however, extra conditions remain for single mothers to confer citizenship to their children, denying women equal right to confer nationality to their children.1961 Further, in instances where a child is born to a citizen mother and a foreign father, citizenship can only be acquired through naturalization, even though children born to citizen fathers gain citizenship by descent. As many as 400-500,000 persons are estimated to have been rendered stateless due to these discriminatory provisions.1962 The laws of three States (Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan) also contain discriminatory provisions that inhibit the ability of married women to confer nationality onto foreign spouses.1963 The laws of three States (Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan) also contain discriminatory provisions that inhibit the ability of married women to confer nationality onto foreign spouses. As previously mentioned, the entire reported stateless population within South Asia comprises stateless refugees, largely Rohingya from Myanmar. As outlined in the Myanmar and Southeast Asia chapters, the statelessness of the Rohingya community is largely caused by ethnic discrimination embedded in the citizenship laws of Myanmar.1964 Other ethnic minority groups have been impacted by discriminatory nationality laws which either indirectly excluded population groups or ignored them entirely. Urdu-speaking ‘Bihari’ communities were excluded from accession to Bangladeshi citizenship until court intervention in 2008 due to discriminatory interpretations of the citizenship law.1965 Ethnic minority groups including the Mosuli and Jogi (or ‘Magat’) communities who have lived semi-nomadic existences in Afghanistan from generations have been largely excluded from the operation of citizenship laws due to ethnic discrimination based on their historic connections to neighbouring countries.1966 Pakistan’s jus soli provisions on paper provide citizenship to all children born on the territory of Pakistan, except those whose fathers have diplomatic immunity, or are enemy aliens.1967 However, as a result of the interpretation of ‘enemy alien’ to be anyone labeled as ‘alien’, minority groups labeled as alien have largely been denied citizenship.1968 Ethnic minority groups including the Mosuli and Jogi (or ‘Magat’) communities who have lived seminomadic existences in Afghanistan from generations have been largely excluded from the operation of citizenship laws due to ethnic discrimination based on their historic connections to neighbouring countries. Lack of legal safeguards against childhood statelessness The citizenship laws of three countries (Afghanistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka) provide limited protection for foundling children, with no countries providing broad protection for foundling children. In Afghan citizenship law a child found in Afghanistan will be considered a citizen of Afghanistan if documentation of their parent’s citizenship is not available.1969 Similarly, the citizenship laws of Sri Lanka provide that a foundling child of unknown and unascertained parentage will be considered a citizen of Sri Lanka until the contrary can be proven.1970 The REPORT 2024 177