2021 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 3(1) with empirical findings that show that significantly more people from both these communities are tried and declared as foreigners. !43 It is pertinent to remember that there is little administrative clarity on what amounts to a proper document for purposes of proving one’s citizenship. !44 As discussed in the previous part, gender interferes with women being able to navigate public spaces and acquire documents. The challenges of procuring documents for identification for low-income women highlighted earlier are applicable in the Assam context as well. Moreover, even in those instances where women are able to the produce documents, the lack of access to education, legal awareness and finances places them at a significant disadvantage.!4° There is evidence to show that in many instances, women party to these cases rely heavily on support from their male family members in navigating this complex legal process. !4¢ In the absence of such support, their claims to citizenship can be further weakened. This heavy dependence on men may also reinforce the existing patriarchal power dynamic within the family. Proving linkage with a parent who is a citizen lies at the heart of these adjudications. For men, common practice dictates that their documents present their father as a guardian; however, for married women, this position is filled by the husband, which renders most of their identity documentation worthless in the FT. The adjudication of the FTs is disconnected from these realities — they impose extraordinary standards of proof and are quick to dismiss the evidence that women can present. Thus, the FTs, as predominantly majoritarian heteropatriarchal legal institutions, create the myth of the perfect litigant, which is an impossible standard that most women are unable to meet. E The Pitfalls of the NRC: A Glimpse from the Ground In furtherance of a feminist standpoint epistemology, we sought to focus on the lived experiences of the women to make our knowledge claims. We interviewed 30 women both before and after the publication of the final draft of the NRC in two districts of Assam, Darrang and Barpeta. The survey in Darrang was conducted on 27 June 2019, when the process of claims and verifications was in full swing. The Barpeta survey was conducted on 16 February 2020, after the publication of the final draft of the NRC, where two villages were covered as a part of the research. Purposive sampling was adopted in the selection of the sample. The questionnaires used consisted of both open-ended and close-ended questions for the stakeholders. A structured approach was adopted. We tried to gain a sense of the ‘everyday life’ of our respondents during the timeline of the NRC. We found that in all the instances, women were put through immense inconveniences in the process of registering their citizenship. In Darrang, during the submission and registration process, the respondents pointed out the fact that 143° 144 143 146 Rohini Mohan, ‘“Worse than a Death Sentence”: Inside Assam’s Sham Trials That Could Stip Millions of Citizenship’, Scroll.in (online, 30 July 2019) <https://scroll.in/article/932 134/worse-than-a-death-sentence-inside-assams-sham-trialsthat-could-strip-millions-of-citizenship>. Manu Sebastian, ‘Which Documents Prove Indian Citizenship?’, LiveLaw (online, 21 February 2020) <https://www.livelaw.in/columns/which-documents-prove-indiancitizenship-153027>. “Interview with Aman Wadud’ (n 130). ibid. 254