‘Untrustworthy and Unbelievable’ threat is poised to strike at the very foundation of her existence. Sabjan has just received word that her citizenship is under question and will have to be proven. The Pandora’s Box of bureaucracy is now open and an uncertain fate awaits her. In 2019, the world bore witness to the debacle that was the National Register of Citizens (‘NRC’) in the Indian State of Assam. A documentary exercise to identify who belongs within the category of ‘citizen’, the NRC register excluded nearly two million people from its ambit, people who are now at risk of losing their citizenship.! Much has been written about the NRC process,? the administrative challenges around it and the fact that it threatens to put religious minorities at risk.2 There has been in depth scholarly analysis on the issue of ‘foreigners’ in Assam‘ and how the existing system conspires to cast doubt over people’s status as citizens.> The issue has been framed as a question of migration, as well as one of statelessness, as it manifests among a marginalised population.® This phenomenon highlights the crucial importance that a paper trail occupies in the elusive quest for citizenship, especially for populations that are at risk of statelessness. However, as Deirdre Brennan demonstrates, a feminist methodology in statelessness studies is yet to emerge,’ especially in the context of this crisis. While gender issues have become a part of the statelessness discourse, the approach has largely been to compartmentalise gender issues as one of the multiple issues of statelessness, or what Brennan refers to as ‘add women and stir’. A feminist analysis of statelessness entails looking at the structure that supports and propagates this phenomenon, and how it impacts vulnerable populations. Such an analysis must necessarily be intersectional, given that statelessness disproportionately affects people from ethnic or religious minorities. In this paper, we have attempted to undertake such an analysis using the case of Assam. While there is robust literature around the question of illegal immigration in Assam, there is little scholarly work on the impact this issue has on the lives of women. A feminist analysis of this issue is valuable for two reasons. First, it contributes to the burgeoning scholarly research that is emerging on the gendered impact of statelessness. Second, a feminist standpoint may bring greater rigor and perspective to an issue that has so far been analysed as a ‘neutral’ 1 2 3 4 > 6 7 8 Subasini Raj and Jeffrey Gettleman, ‘A Mass Citizenship Check in India Leaves 2 Million People in Limbo’, The New’ York Times (online, 31 August 2019) <https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/3 1/world/asia/india-muslim-citizen-list.html>. See, eg, Dipendra Kumar Khanal, ‘Issue of Bangladeshi Immigrants and the Importance of NRC in Assam’ (2018) IV(1) Mizoram University Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences 12. Press Trust of India, ‘Assam NRC a Tool to Render Muslims Stateless: US Panel on Religious Freedom’, Business Standard India (online, 16 November 2019) <https://www.businessstandard.com/article/current-affairs/assam-nrc-a-tool-to-render-muslims-stateless-us-panelon-religious-freedom-119111600636_1.html>. Sanjib Baruah, India against Itself: Assam and the Politics of Nationality (University of Pennsylvania Press 1999). Anupama Roy and Ujjwal Kumar Singh, ‘The Ambivalence of Citizenship: The IMDT Act (1983) and the Politics of Forclusion in Assam’ (2009) 41(1) Critical Asian Studies 37. «125 Civil Society Organisations Condemn Mass Disenfranchisement in Assam’, /nstitute Statelessness and Inclusion (Web Page) <https://www.institutesi.org/news/cso-jointstatement-on-assaim-nrc>. Deirdre Brennan, ‘Feminist Foresight in Statelessness’ (2020) 2(1) The Statelessness and Citizenship Review 43. Deirdre Brennan, ‘Statelessness and the Feminist Toolbox: Another Man-Made Problem with a Feminist Solution?’ (2019) 24(2) Tilburg Law Review 170, 172. 237