India and Statelessness: An Introduction the amendment to the Indian citizenship regime as ‘an extreme example of discriminatory treatment’. 3 BACKGROUND Underlying this crisis of citizenship and statelessness in India lies the nexus between two related exercises. First, there is the National Register of Citizens (‘NRC’), which assumed the form of a citizenship verification exercise aimed at stripping those termed ‘illegal migrants’ of Indian citizenship and which has been directed, scheduled and monitored by the Supreme Court of India since December 2014 for the State of Assam. 4 This verification process required the submission of documents (dating back to before 24 March 1971) by all residents of the State in order to verify and establish their citizenship either through their own birth or through establishing their parents’ citizenships. After two rounds of updating, the final list of the NRC for Assam was released on 31 August 2019 and it left out 1.9 million residents of the state (a draft list, published in 2018, had excluded over 4 million residents) — half of whom are Muslims. 5 This exclusion from the NRC does not entail a formal declaration of deprivation of citizenship, with those excluded (termed ‘doubtful citizens’), technically having a right to appeal the decision before what are known as Foreigners Tribunals (‘FTs’). Originally, these tribunals were appointed under an executive order issued by the Central Government in 1964, exercising its powers under s 3 of the colonial era Foreigners Act, 1946, to provide their ‘opinions’ on ‘whether a person is not a foreigner’ within the meaning of said legislation. 6 However, in connection with the NRC exercise in Assam, this original executive order was amended in May 2019, to empower these FTs to respond to these appeals concerning the determination of citizenship status itself (ie, whether an individual is a citizen of India). 7 There is a lack of ‘effective’ appeal against the ‘opinions’ of these tribunals (only a limited judicial review), with the burden of proof falling on these excluded individuals and the tribunals themselves being beset by a myriad of serious procedural flaws. 8 Those declared to be ‘foreigners’ by these tribunals, more often than not through ex parte orders, are put into detention in one of the six detention centres that have been built in the state (with 10 further planned to be constructed). 9 There are reportedly 1,133 people languishing in these detention centres, with 30 of them 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Mia Stewart, ‘Does the CAA Comply with India’s Human Rights Obligations?’, Al Jazeera (online, 30 March 2020) <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/3/30/does-caa-complywith-indias-human-rights-obligations>. See Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha v Union of India (2015) 3 SCC 1. See also Michelle Foster and Jade Roberts, ‘Manufacturing Foreigners: The Law and Politics of transforming Citizens into Migrants’ in Catherine Dauvergne and Simon Fraser (eds), Research Handbook on the Law and Politics of Migration (Edward Elgar 2021) 218. Gordon and Sekercioglu (n 2). Foreigners (Tribunals) Order 1964, Vide GSR No 1401 (India). See Talha Abdul Rahman, ‘Identifying the “Outsider”: An Assessment of Foreigners Tribunals in the Indian State of Assam’ (2020) 2(1) Statelessness & Citizenship Review 112, 118; ‘Foreigners Tribunals’, Press Information Bureau, Government of India (Press Release, 11 June 2019) <https://pib.gov.in/PressReleseDetailm.aspx?PRID=1573947>; Foreigners (Tribunal) Amendment Order 2019 , Vide GSR No 409(E) (India). See Rahman (n 7) 113–15. Aman Wadud, ‘Citizens Without a Country’, Indian Express (print, 23 September 2021). 177