4788 M. A. BHAT AND R. SHAHID ethnic cleavages. There is consequently an unease among international observers about the unquestioned role of sovereign states in determining their citizenship norms (Foster and Baker 2021). The instrumentalisation of the legal process raises serious questions about the effectiveness and promise of the rule of law. These citizenship policies are also reshaping the character of democratic polities and threatening to make them more illiberal, exclusionary and violent. Thus, in contemporary times, the three values of citizenship, democratic politics and the rule of law share both a relationship of mutual legitimation as well as mutual attrition. The special issue builds upon scholarship that tackles these three values independently and offers a more comprehensive analysis of contemporary challenges of the law and politics of citizenship. It studies the mutual attrition of citizenship, law and democracy by adopting a focus on South and Southeast Asia, especially India, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. These countries have consistently been a subject of growing concern. For instance, documentary citizenship policies in India’s eastern state of Assam threaten citizenship status of more than four million people and have been described as ‘the biggest exercise in statelessness since the second world war’ (Gordon and Sekercioglu 2020). Indian government proposes to extend these policies to the country of 1.4 billion people. India has also introduced citizenship laws discriminating against Muslims (Bhat 2023), raising fears of persecution and ethnic violence, and concerns that the repertoire of citizenship policies would fundamentally weaken India’s democratic fabric. This is not unique to India. As contributions in this special issue show, these policies reflect affinities with other polities in the region and globally, and threaten to become models for replication and expansion outside India’s borders. Scholarship has focused separately on the questions of ethnic politics, documentary citizenship, discrimination and state detention practices. The special issue contributes to the field of law and politics of citizenship by studying how social, political and institutional dimensions in this crisis interact with each other. The special issue adopts an integrated multidisciplinary, cross-sectional and comparative approach. It brings together scholars from sociology (Gogoi, Das), political science (Shahid, Sharma, Berger, Garg), law (Bhat, Sen, Tiwari) and interdisciplinary social sciences (Lee, Field, Johar) to study how authoritarian or populist politics in the region capitalises on complex histories of migration to aggravate contemporary ethnic tensions, how citizenship law becomes a mode and site of racialisation, how this poses a serious threat to the well-being of the rule of law and human rights, what impact it has on the region’s minority groups, and what are its transnational implications. The combined themes of these articles shed light on the intricate relationship between citizenship law, identity documentation, bureaucracy, securitisation, racialisation and human rights. They underscore the urgent need for more inclusive and equitable approaches to citizenship and identity documentation processes that protect the rights of marginalised communities, ensure fairness in bureaucratic practices and adhere to international obligations. These discussions invite a critical examination of the intersection of law, politics and identity in various contexts, highlighting the broader implications for individuals and societies alike. The following section shows how the special issue’s regional focus advances the current scholarly conversation. The subsequent sections bring together the cross-cutting themes shared by the contributions.