On the verge: Revocation and denial of citizenship in India Each of these amendments was driven by a heightening anxiety about the undocumented immigrants from Bangladesh. The anti-immigrant rhetoric has also increasingly taken a religious frame, with dominant political actors expressing worries about a demographic shift in favour of Muslims especially in eastern India.7 The shift towards ius sanguinis was meant to create a disincentive for immigration from Bangladesh. But the citizenship denial at the heart of the 1986 and 2003 amendments also threatens to create a population in India that despite being born in the country is permanently excluded from citizenship. They clearly have a disproportionate impact on children born in India who cannot even make viable claims to the citizenship of any other country. Assam and the National Register of Citizens The biggest concerns related to citizenship revocation and statelessness have emerged in Assam. While the controversy has older antecedents, the initiation of the NRC by the Indian Supreme Court in 2014 and the enactment of the CAA in 2019 has added further worrying dimensions to it. Public justifications Assam is an ethnically and religious diverse province. According to the latest census, 61.47% of the state professes Hinduism and more than 34% are Muslims. 13% of the population falls under the Scheduled Tribes, which is a category that comes closest to the indigenous people. Approximately 30% of the population is Bengali speakers. These categories crisscross and overlap. Bengali speakers include both Hindus and Muslims, and numerous Muslim communities identify as Assamese speakers. The state has had a long history of immigration, including Bengali migration that goes back to at least the early nineteenth century.8 However, the issue became increasingly volatile in the 1970s after the influx of refugees fleeing the Bangladesh war. Most of the refugees returned to Bangladesh after the end of the war.9 But there remained a growing concern among many sections of the Assamese society – both Assamese speakers and the Scheduled Tribes – that this was not so. There was a heightening sentiment among them that the Bengali immigrants would dominate the politics of the state and threaten what they understood to be the indigenous culture of the state. In late 1970s, the students came to spearhead the agitation for the disenfranchisement and deportation of Bengali ‘illegal migrants’.10 This culminated in an agreement – called the Assam Accord – between the various segments of the Assam agitation and the Indian government in 1985, with the latter committing itself to the deportation of migrants who entered the country after the formation of Bangladesh on or after 25 March 1971. As a balancing act, the Indian government introduced Section 6A in the Citizenship Act that provided a route to citizenship for all undocumented migrants that entered Assam before that date. The public pressure had led the Indian government to establish a legal infrastructure to detect foreigners. In 1983, the Indian parliament passed the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act (IMDT).11 Alongside this, the state significantly expanded the Border Police that was empowered to identify suspected foreigners and refer them to the Foreigners Tribunals. The government constituted 7 Gillan, M. (2002), ‘Refugees or infiltrators? The Bharatiya Janata Party and “illegal” migration from Bangladesh’, Asian Studies Review 26(1): 73, 86; Weiner, M. (1983), ‘The political demography of Assam’s anti-immigrant movement’, Population and Development Review 9(2): 279, 285-289. 8 Baruah, S. (1994), India Against Itself: Assam and the Politics of Nationality. University of Pennsylvania Press 44-68. 9 Weiner, M. (1993), ‘Rejected Peoples and Unwanted Migrants in South Asia’, Economic and Political Weekly 28(34): 1741. 10 Baruah, S. (1986), ‘Immigration, Ethnic Conflict, and Political Turmoil--Assam, 1979-1985’, Asian Survey 26(11): 1184. 11 The Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act 1983. European University Institute 27