South Asia State of Minorities Report 2019 of USD 180 million, has left 1.9 million persons off the list. Further demonstrating the religious agenda of the government is the fact that central government and senior BJP leaders have assured Hindus excluded from NRC (along with Buddhist, Christian, Parsi, Sikh and Jains, if any) against any government moves to deport them. This use of law and procedures, in claiming NRC as critical to identify and deport Muslim illegal immigrants, while offering the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 as a refugee protection mechanism for Hindus who will not be deported, is remarkable, coming as it does from the highest authorities in government and the ruling party. Under the new citizenship dispensation, the government also wants to expand its NRC as a ‘detect, detain and deport’ machinery, to the rest of the country, to create a National Register of Indian Citizens. This does not portend well for the religious minorities in India. Recommendations There is a clear need to strengthen India’s refugee laws and to democratise and make citizenship laws more inclusive for all kinds of persecuted people, including minorities.60 Below are some of our recommendations. For the state party: i. Refugees and asylum-seekers • Sign the 1951 Refugees Convention, and its 1967 Protocol. • Provide rights and services per existing international norms equally to all refugees. ii. Statelessness • Sign the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Statelessness Persons. • Sign the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. • Correct provisions of the Citizenship Act 1955 that create 60 Mohsin Alam Bhat, ‘The Constitutional Case against the Citizenship Amendment Bill,’ Economic & Political Weekly 54, no. 3 (January 19, 2019). https:// www.epw.in/journal/2019/3/commentary/constitutional-case-against-citizenship. html. 62