‘Legal Identity for All’ and Statelessness at least one form of identity document. 106 The Aadhaar number has also not prevented, and perhaps facilitated, the politicisation of access to citizenship under the government of Narendra Modi, and the ‘screening out’ of minorities from entitlement to citizenship and an entry in the National Population Register and newly revived National Register of Citizens. 107 The government is reported as intending to link the Aadhaar platform to the NRC, rather than preserving the separation of Aadhaar from citizenship, and to refuse Aadhaar numbers to those not in the NRC. 108 Although one could imagine that the computerised record of identification and authentication provided by Aadhaar could in due course facilitate resolution of the more complex issues, by creating sufficient digital traces of a person’s existence over time to justify recognition of citizenship, this is not what has happened (or seems likely to happen) in practice. Meanwhile, average birth registration coverage — which records place and date of birth and identity of parents, on the basis of which citizenship could in most cases be determined, but also does not confirm legal status in the country — is now close to 90 per cent across India; and, in contrast to Aadhaar registration, reaches 100 per cent in Assam. 109 CONCLUSION: LEGAL IDENTITY, BIRTH REGISTRATION AND STATELESSNESS The first step to understanding the potential impact of the SDG Target 16.9 to ‘provide legal identity’ is to gloss the meaning of this deceptively simple language. A person’s legal identity, the identity they have in law, is separate from the question of whether they have been formally identified and registered by state authorities. Target 16.9 is therefore best understood (if it is to have a positive impact) as an objective related to the obligation to enable proof of legal identity, through a process of registration, in most cases followed by issue of a token — 106 State of Aadhaar Report 2017–18 (Report, ID Insight and Omidyar Network India May 2018) 5; State of Aadhaar: A People’s Perspective (n 94) ch 2.2. As of May 2020, coverage was reported to reach an average 88.6 per cent of the population across all states; but only 22.5 per cent in Assam, the lowest: State/UT wise Aadhaar Saturation (Report, Unique Identification Authority of India 31 May 2018) <https://uidai.gov.in/images/state-wiseaadhaar-saturation.pdf>. 107 ‘An Open Letter to the Citizens of India: India Does Not Need the CAA-NPR-NRIC’, Constitutional Conduct (Blog Post, 9 January 2020) <https://constitutionalconduct.com/2020/01/09/an-open-letter-to-the-citizens-of-india-indiadoes-not-need-the-caa-npr-nric/>; Niraja Gopal Jayal, ‘Faith-Based Citizenship: The Dangerous Path India Is Choosing’, The India Forum (online, 1 November 2019) <https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/faith-criterion-citizenship>; Sajaudeen Nijamodeen Chapparban, ‘Religious Identity and Politics of Citizenship in South Asia: A Reflection on Refugees and Migrants in India’ (2020) 63(1) Development 52; Abdessalam Jaldi, The Indian Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) (Policy Brief PB-20/23, Policy Centre for the New South 6 April 2020) <https://www.policycenter.ma/publications/indian-citizenship-amendmentact-caa>. 108 Ipsita Chakravarty, ‘In Assam, Merging NRC Update with Aadhaar Enrolment Leads to Fresh Questions’, Scroll (online, 2 December 2018) <https://scroll.in/article/902731/grey-areaassam-seeks-to-merge-nrc-claims-process-with-the-collection-of-biometric-data-foraadhaar>; Silvia Masiero, ‘A New Layer of Exclusion? Assam, Aadhaar and the NRC’, LSE South Asia (Blog Post, 12 September 2019) <https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/2019/09/12/anew-layer-of-exclusion-assam-aadhaar-and-the-nrc/>. 109 Vital Statistics of India Based on the Civil Registration System 2018 (Report, Office of the Registrar General, India July 2020) ch 3.17 <http://crsorgi.gov.in/web/uploads/download/crs2018_20072020_approved.pdf>. The average level of registration of births as of 2018 was 89.3 per cent, an increase from 81.3 per cent in 2009. 267