4802 M. A. BHAT AND R. SHAHID consolidation and the generation of an ethnonationalist identity of the polity. In Myanmar, the ethnic state has mobilised citizenship law to advance genocidal politics. Similarly, in Sri Lanka, the state has consolidated its ethnic Buddhist character by incrementally excluding minorities, especially Tamil, Hindu and Muslim minorities (DeVotta 2021). These three countries appear to be at different points on the spectrum: India is starting to become an ethnic state using, among other things, citizenship law as the site of exclusion; Sri Lanka is very much the central case of an ethnic state where citizenship law expresses exclusion; and Myanmar is at the pinnacle of a vile ethnic state engaging in genocidal politics (Lee 2021). The case of India should be of particular concern and deserves explanation. This is a democratic constitutional state, which has had secular and seemingly non-discriminatory laws. Despite an inconsistent track record in practice, this has remained a flawed yet profoundly impressive feat. But increasingly, as scholarship is mapping closely (Bhat 2023; Khosla and Vaishnav 2021), the country is slipping on several fronts of democratic governance, secular governance and even the rule of law (Freedom House 2023). The contributions in the special issue, especially Shahid and Lee, connect the wider erosion of citizenship with these wider dynamics, and specifically link it to the regime transformation taking place. They argue that India, along with Sri Lanka and Myanmar, are best described as a particular version of ethnic states or ethnocracies: what they call Saffron ethnocracies. Citizenship law is germane in these developments. First, because citizenship, perhaps more than any other area of state regulation, encapsulates regime and constitutional identity. Second, legal practices of citizenship status have profound material and symbolic consequences for excluded groups, something that is both immediate and long term. Specifically in the case of India, the citizenship-regime dynamic is particularly useful to highlight some key features. First, there is a formal connection, most explicitly illustrated by the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019. The legislation discriminated against Muslims by removing the label of illegality from non-Muslim unauthorised immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, and providing them a faster route to citizenship. The law – anachronistic in a formally secular system – is seen as incrementally encoding sectarianism in India’s constitutional governance. Second, there is a procedural aspect, most explicitly illustrated by documentary regimes like the National Register of Citizens in Assam, a citizenship enumeration exercise discussed at length by Gogoi and Sen. The policy places large swathes of population, specifically, the Miya community, under grave legal vulnerability despite being facially neutral. Third, outside and in relation to legality, there is an ongoing, violent ethnicisation of public life that marginalises minorities, turning them into political pariahs, diminishing their political voice. For instance, India’s Home Minister has called minorities and refugees ‘termites’. Finally, there are also patterns of extralegal, non-state violence against minority groups, most explicitly seen in the violent attacks against the Miya community in Assam. All this suggests a state that is complicit, supportive or even encouraging of everyday violent and authoritarian rule (Bhat 2023). In exploring the complex dynamics of nationalism and citizenship in South Asia, particularly focusing on India, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka, Shahid and Lee, and Berger and Garg offer complementary perspectives on how dominant religious and ethnic ideologies shape state policies and societal norms. Shahid and Lee introduce the concept of ‘Saffron