II. Authoritarian Nationalism India’s Constitution commits it to democracy, equality, secularism, asymmetrical federalism and the protection of civil liberties, including freedom of speech and religious freedom. Nevertheless, each of these commitments is now under threat from authoritarian nationalism. This section offers a brief summary of some of these developments in India, primarily over 2019-2020: a. Indian Parliament has enacted legislation — the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 — which discriminates on the grounds of religion in the provision of citizenship; b. Protests and dissent have been met with an authoritarian government response and civil liberties have been dramatically curtailed. These are best understood as part of the Hindu nationalist commitments of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which leads India’s federal government and shows increasing disregard for India’s constitutional order.10 Although these commitments take various forms, including the reversal of a number of perceived historical injustices to Hindus11, they broadly aim to convert India into a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ or a homeland for Hindus.12 a. The Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 The Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 (‘CAA’),13 passed in December 2019, discriminates between migrant religious groups in the provision of citizenship.14 The CAA amends the definition of “illegal migrant” in the Citizenship Act 1955 to create a fast-tracked pathway to Indian citizenship for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Thus, the CAA may allow persons who have been excluded from the NRC to gain citizenship if they belong to some religious communities, while explicitly providing no avenue for Muslims who are in otherwise identical circumstances. The CAA thus signifies a shift away from India’s commitments to equality, non-discrimination, secularism and religious freedom.15 As has been noted by Ms. Michelle Bachelet Jeria, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in her Application before the Indian Supreme Court, the CAA violates international law norms regulating states’ powers to grant citizenship, particularly the international human rights of all migrants to equality before the law, equal protection of the law and the right to non-discrimination, including on the grounds of religion.16 Given the discriminatory nature of the CAA, which provides a potential avenue to citizenship for most non-Muslims left out of a citizenship verification process, there are concerns that this legislation is part of a systemic plan to revoke citizenship from Muslims and vulnerable populations.17 These concerns have been exacerbated by the Government’s decision to introduce a modified ‘National Population Register’ of its residents,18 which, unlike its predecessor, has explicit questions on a person’s ancestry.19 There are also concerns that this exercise may be a precursor to an all-India National Register of Citizens,20 and will be used to filter out ‘undesirable’ citizens, possibly over 100 million of them.21 This threatens to become the world’s largest exercise risking mass statelessness.22 As criticism mounted over the possible creation of a nation-wide citizenship register, the Prime Minister has denied any such plans. This, though, stands in contrast to the position taken by the Home Minister earlier, as well as the ruling party’s own election manifesto.23 Although the Central Government had initially indicated that the National Population Register will be rolled-out from 1 April 2020, the exercise has been postponed for the time being due to COVID-19. b. Crackdown on dissent The enactment of the CAA was met with widespread protests across India, with their initial epicenter in NorthEastern India, particularly the State of Assam.24 Although the protests in the North-East continued unabated, protests spread to other parts of the country too, including Delhi.25 The Government’s response to these protests was criticised for police brutality,26 an overt anti-Muslim bias,27 as well as the alleged involvement of ruling party leaders in the incitement of violence.28 Supporters of the Government clashed with anti-CAA protestors in Delhi. This soon turned into a full-blown riot — one of the worst in Delhi’s recent past29 — with predominantly Muslim victims.30 The investigation into the riots has been allegedly vitiated by bias.31 The riots have been described as a “pogrom” given alleged inaction on the part of the police to check the violence against Muslims.32 The silencing of dissent and targeting of dissenters is a theme which transcends the anti-CAA protests. The suppression of dissenting views has taken various forms, including internet bans,33 arbitrary arrests of dissenters under repressive laws,34 attacks on press35 and academia,36 among others. Many of these forms of suppression were seen in the recent events in Jammu and Kashmir. In August 2019, the Union Government revoked the semiautonomous constitutional status of Jammu and Kashmir37 - the only Muslim-majority state in India at the time. In