170 SOCIO-LEGAL REVIEW VOL. 17 these efforts.82 Further, Sri Lanka has tried to domestically alleviate Estate Tamils’ statelessness through various laws passed in 1986, 1988, 2003 (“2003 Grant of Citizenship Act”) and 2009.83 Some of these laws witnessed limited success due to onerous procedural requirements,84 loss of documentation by civilians in the wake of the war,85 and the prevailing socio-political climate.86 However, the 2003 Grant of Citizenship Act was a notable exception since it successfully resolved statelessness for 190,000 Estate Tamils in Sri Lanka.87 The success of the 2003 Grant of Citizenship Act lies in its simplified procedure of granting citizenship and collaboration with the UNHCR along with local stakeholders.88 Sri Lanka earned immense praise for alleviating its statelessness problem from the UNHCR, which called the 2003 Grant of Citizenship Act a “turning point” in Sri Lanka’s history.89 Unfortunately, India has not yet followed suit in demonstrating political willingness to reduce statelessness for Sri Lankan Tamil refugees. III. INDIAN CITIZENSHIP LAW AND THE “ILLEGAL MIGRANT” QUESTION A. Framework of Indian citizenship laws Understanding citizenship law in India requires an understanding of both citizenship laws and the immigration regime.90 Collectively, this set of laws distinguishes between insiders or citizens, and outsiders or non-citizens.91 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 Phadnis and Kumar (n 81); Richa Bajaj, ‘Indo-Sri Lankan Relations: Nehru to Indira Gandhi’ (DPhil thesis, Aligarh Muslim University 2004); Akshaya Mishra, ‘Indira Gandhi Helped Train Tamil Rebels, and Reaped Whirlwind’ (Firstpost, 23 May 2011) <https://www.firstpost.com/world/indira-gandhi-helped-train-tamil-rebels-and-reaped-whirlwind-13913.html> accessed 28 July 2021. Grant of Citizenship to Stateless Persons Act 1986; Grant of Citizenship to Stateless Persons (Special Provisions) Act 1988; Grant of Citizenship to Persons of Indian Origin Act, 2003; Citizenship to Persons of Indian Origin (Amendment) Act 2009. Grant of Citizenship to Stateless Persons Act 1986, s 3; Indo-Ceylon Agreement (Implementation) Act 1967. Wolozin (n 6). To illustrate some socio-political events, India intervened in the civil war with the Indian Peacekeeping Force, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by an LTTE member, Sri Lankan leadership changed with a fresh general election as in Chimni (n 7); Chowdhory (n 64); Dasgupta (n 79). Chetani Wijetuna, ‘Feature: Sri Lanka makes citizens out of stateless tea pickers’ (UNHCR India, 7 October 2004) <https://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2004/10/416564cd4/feature-sri-lanka-makes-citizens-stateless-tea-pickers.html> accessed 28 July 2021. UNHCR, Resolving existing major situations of statelessness, Good Practices Paper Action I (2015). Chimni (n 5). This point is explained further infra in Part III (b). Brubaker (n 43).