CRITICAL ASIAN STUDIES 171 Article 5 of the Constitution stipulated that citizenship required domicile in India and fulfilment of one of the following: being born in India; having at least one biological parent who had been born in India; or having resided in India since January 1945. Articles 6 and 7 defined citizenship rights of those who migrated to India from Pakistan before July 1948 (Article 6) and those who migrated to Pakistan from India after March 1947, but wanted to return to India (Article 7). Article 6 was largely uncontroversial as it pertained to Hindu refugees fleeing communal violence in Pakistan, but Article 7 became the most intensely contested article in the Constitutional Assembly, frequently referred to by its detractors as “the obnoxious clause.”137 Indian Muslims who had fled communal violence in India but later returned were referred to by critics as “Muslim migrants” who had abandoned India. As Jayal notes: In a shared universe of meaning, the use of the terms refugee and migrant served to conceal the religious identities they encoded … the accommodation of the claims of returning Muslims was a hard-won battle in the constitution-making process … suggesting that there were already discernible elements of jus sanguinis in official and judicial decisions.138 Similar disagreements surfaced among civil society groups, in the practices of official agencies’ discretionary powers to grant resettlement permits to returnees, and in court cases.139 Overall, albeit broadly inclusive, adjudication of citizenship in the period immediately after partition was characterized by a preoccupation with ascertaining Muslims’ loyalty.140 The Citizenship Act was finally passed by parliament in 1955. In its original version, Section 3 stated that “every person born in India on or after 26th January 1950 shall be a citizen of India by birth.” Children born outside India were considered citizens if their father (later amended to either parent) was an Indian citizen at the time of birth. By and large, the Citizenship Act of 1955 recognized citizenship by birth as well as by descent. However, since the mid-1980s, the legal basis of citizenship has been gradually transformed by amendments to the Citizenship Act in response to ongoing political developments. The latest amendment in 2019 consolidates restrictive legislation on citizenship based on descent that is usually dated back to the 1985 Citizenship Amendment Bill.141 The genesis of this shift away from birthright as a basis for citizenship is usually attributed to unfettered immigration from East Pakistan from 1947 to 1971 and then, following the Bangladesh Liberation War, from Bangladesh (and to a certain extent from Nepal). This migration flow led to the enfranchisement of large numbers of refugees/migrants, irrespective of their religion, in the border states of Assam, 137 Jayal 2013. Jayal 2013, 58-62. Chatterji 2012. Besides Articles 6–7, there is a less acknowledged yet distinct fear of potential foreigners elsewhere in the Constitution too, most notably in Articles 102(d) and 191(d), which prohibits anyone who may have inadvertently been eligible for another form of postcolonial citizenship (effectively Pakistan or Burma) from holding elected office in India. Similarly, Myanmar’s 2008 Constitution prohibits minorities, particularly ethnic Chinese, South Asians, and Muslims, from running for office. 140 As Shani points out, “the inclusion of Muslims within the nation required a careful balancing act between different citizenship discourses, each containing barriers to Muslims, preventing them from attaining full membership in the nation state” (Shani 2010,171). The remaining articles were primarily concerned with the rights of persons residing outside India (Article 8); persons voluntarily acquiring citizenship of other countries (Article 9); and the supremacy of the Parliament in regulating all matters related to citizenship (Articles 10–11). 141 Sadiq 2009, Roy 2010. 138 139