STATELESSNESS IN INDIA
INSTITUTIONAL DISCRIMINATION AND STATELESSNESS IN INDIA
I.
Introduction
Protection of minorities, and fundamental human rights for all is embedded in India’s
Constitutional structure. These guarantees are under intensified threats from religious
extremism that promotes a monolithic national identity based on the Hindutva ideology.1
The notion of a future non-secular Hindu state has gained political prominence since the
destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992.2 These developments,3 also captured by different
mandates of the United Nations (“UN”) system,4 have dismantled a secular India. This
submission focuses on Indian citizenship laws and in particular the efforts to develop a
National Register of Indian Citizens (“NRIC”) – which upholds this monolithic notion of
citizenry and undermines the legal status of existing citizens through a quasi-judicial
review process that can eventually lead to detention, and statelessness for those declared
‘foreigners’. As argued in this submission, the existing widespread fear of statelessness
among Indian Muslims is not without basis. While this submission focuses on the targeted
persecution and reprisals faced by the Muslim minority, the NRIC and recent citizenship
laws is likely to also disproportionately affect women,5 and other minorities, such as
indigenous people, and migrants.
1
Peter Friedrich, The Polis Project, Cultural Malware: The rise of India’s RSS, March 12, 2020. See also,
Arundhati Roy, The Nation, Fascism’s Firm Footprint in India, September 12, 2020; Prabhat Patnaik, The
Fascism of Our Times, Social Scientist, March-April, 1993.
2
BBC, ‘How the Babri Mosque Destruction Shaped India’, December 6. 2017; See also: BBC, ‘Ayodhya
Dispute: The Complex Legal History of India’s Holy Site’, November 9, 2019.
3
Eliza Griswold, The violent toll of Hindu Nationalism in India, March 5, 2019. See also, Samanth
Subramanian, How Hindu supremacists are tearing India apart. And
4. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom recently recommended designating
India as a “country of particular concern” for “engaging in and tolerating systematic, ongoing, and egregious
religious freedom violations, as defined by the International Religious Freedom Act.”
4
The following communications by Special Procedures to the Government of India highlight their
concerns: OL IND 11/2019 of 27 May 2019, OL IND 29/2018 of 13 December 2018 and OL IND 13/2018 of
11 June 2018. See also, The Hindu, UN voices concern over violence in India against CAA, urges respect
for freedom of expression, December 18, 2019; Samanwaya Rautray & Dipanjan Roy Chaudhury, the
Economic Times, UNHCR moves SC against CAA: India rejects intervention, March 4, 2020.
5
Nilanjana Bhowmick, Foreign Policy, India’s New Laws Hurt Women Most of All, February 4, 2020. See
also, Sidharth Yadav, The Hindu ‘Poor, women will bear brunt of CAA, NRC,’ January 3, 2020; See also:
Ritumbara Manuvie, Citizens for Justice & Peace, ‘Disasters, Displacement and Polictical
Disenfranchisement in a Warming World’, September 23, 2019.
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