2021
STATELESSNESS AND THE CITIZENSHIP AMENDMENT ACT, 2019
157
jurisprudence that would support the alleviation of their
statelessness. In the same breath, this paper strongly argues
in favour of, first, the need for a forward-looking reconceptualization of Indian citizenship laws based on the jus soli
principle; and second, a recognition of India’s burden under
the UN Conventions on statelessness to reduce and prevent
statelessness, particularly through eliminating documentation-heavy citizenship determinations.
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Statelessness, The Right To Have Rights,
And Sri Lankan Tamil Refugees In India . 163
Conceptual framework to statelessness
and Hannah Arendt’s ‘right to have
rights’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Historical background to Sri Lankan
Tamil refugees in India . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Indian Citizenship Law And The “Illegal
Migrant” Question . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Framework of Indian citizenship laws. . . 170
Foundational shifts in Indian
citizenship: The illegal migrant issue. . 175
The question of jus sanguinis
citizenship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Jus sanguinis as an alternate basis
for Indian citizenship . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Right to have rights and jus
sanguinis citizenship for Sri
Lankan Tamils . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
The Way Forward For Indian Citizenship
Law And Sri Lankan Tamil Refugees’
Citizenship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Pathways to Indian citizenship for Sri
Lankan Tamil refugees . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Role of courts in extending Indian
citizenship for Sri Lankan Tamil
refugees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
The future of Indian citizenship law
for stateless persons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
I. INTRODUCTION
The enactment of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (“2019 Act”), and
the proposed National Register of Citizens (“NRC”) exercise have made citizenship the most contested topic in India, given that these two changes seek
to radically alter the foundations of Indian citizenship law and potentially render millions of people stateless.1Under the Convention Relating to the Status of
1
Gautam Bhatia et al., On citizenship (Aleph Book Company 2021); Human Rights Watch,
“Shoot the traitors”: Discrimination against Muslims under India’s new citizenship policy (2020); Christophe Jaffrelot, ‘Citizenship Law in India, a Populist Polarization?’ (6
February 2020) <https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/02/06/citizenship-law-in-india-populist-polarization-pub-81023> accessed 28 July 2021; Centre for Policy Research, ‘Unpacking
the Citizenship Amendment Act’ (18 December 2019) <https://www.cprindia.org/news/
unpacking-citizenship-amendment-act> accessed 28 July 2021; Jhuma Sen, ‘Afterlives
of Partition: citizenship and legal belongings’ (JGU Publications, 8 May 2020) <http://
dspace.jgu.edu.in:8080/jspui/bitstream/10739/3600/1/Afterlives%20of %20Partition.pdf >
accessed 28 July 2021; Niraja Gopal Jayal, ‘View: India on a slippery slope towards an
ethno-national state’ (Economic Times, 14 December 2019) <https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/view-india-on-a-slippery-slope-towards-an-ethno-national-state/articleshow/72624503.cms?from=mdr> accessed 28 July 2021; Peter McCullin
Centre on Statelessness, ‘Citizenship, constitutionalism and civil liberties: A briefing note
on recent developments in India’ (17 July 2020) <https://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/