SUB-REGIONAL OVERVIEW: SOUTH ASIA Stateless Refugees India’s entire reported stateless population of 21,591 people consists of stateless Rohingya refugees from Myanmar.2177 Human Rights Watch has estimated that Rohingya registered with UNHCR represent half of the total population of 40,000 Rohingya refugees in India.2178 With continually tightening restrictions of refugees within India, many fear that the population will face deportation to Myanmar.2179 Additionally, based on the most recent census conducted by the Central Tibetan Relief Committee 73,404 Tibetan refugees reside in India.2180 While some Tibetan refugees in India have gained citizenship through previous schemes, many remain stateless, frequently by choice.2181 More than 92,120 Sri Lanka refugees still reside in India, many of whom lack identity documents and birth registration and may be at risk of statelessness.2182 Undetermined nationalities Enhanced focus has been given in recent years to the situation in Assam following the publication of the state’s National Register of Citizens in 2019 which excluded over 1.9 million Assamese, leaving them labelled as foreigners or ‘D voters’ and the validation of their citizenship left at the hands of the foreigners’ tribunals.2183 In a recent court proceeding, the Central Government informed the Supreme Court of India that between 2017 to 2022, 14,346 individuals have been deported from India with 32,381 individuals being declared as foreigners.2184 Another 123,829 cases remain The Citizenship Amendment Act provides a pathway to Indian citizenship for ‘illegal migrants’ in India who belong to Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian faiths from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Notably, persons of Islamic faith are excluded from the amendment, an act labelled by numerous commentators as being discriminatory on religious grounds. 196 SUB-REGIONAL OVERVIEW: SOUTH ASIA pending before the tribunals.2185 There are some recent unverified reports that as of August 2022, this figure may have drastically increased to 30,000 persons.2186 Causes of Statelessness Discriminatory nationality laws As outlined in the Myanmar chapter, the statelessness of the Rohingya community is largely caused by ethnic discrimination embedded in the citizenship laws of Myanmar.2187 The stateless status of Rohingya in India is further protracted by their discriminatory exclusion from the application of the Citizenship Amendment Act (2019). The Citizenship Amendment Act provides a pathway to Indian citizenship for ‘illegal migrants’ in India who belong to Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian faiths from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Notably, persons of Islamic faith are excluded from the amendment, an act labelled by numerous commentators as being discriminatory on religious grounds.2188 The Citizenship Amendment Act further limits pathways to citizenship for persons of Muslim faith declared foreigners by the NRC process.2189 The Passport Act (1967) also has implications for persons who are stateless or at the risk of becoming stateless. Section 6(2)(a) of the Act allows the issuing authority to refuse to issue a passport if the applicant is not a citizen of India or if the issuance of a passport will be against public interest.2190 Section 12 of the Act prescribes the offences and penalties for persons who are not citizens of India and who apply for a passport or obtain one by suppressing information about their nationality or hold forged passports or travel documents with imprisonment for a minimum of one year and a maximum of five years, with a fine. This Act also provides the designated customs officer the power to make arrests based on “reasonable STATELESSNESS ENCYCLOPEDIA ASIA PACIFIC (DETAILED VERSION) suspicion” and conduct searches at any place and seize a passport or any travel document based on it.2191 The implication of this provision is that a person suspected of being a stateless person residing in India or an undocumented migrant can face harassment, be arrested, sent to jail and be forced to pay a significant fine. Lack of legal safeguards against childhood statelessness The citizenship laws of India do not address access to citizenship for foundlings or children born to stateless parents. Avenues to citizenship for children born to stateless persons could provide protection for children born to stateless refugees within India including the Rohingya from Myanmar. The lack of legal safeguards for stateless individuals remain persistent as India has not ratified either of the Conventions on Statelessness, which leaves the status of stateless persons unrecognised. Further, the law groups together all non-citizens, including stateless persons, refugees, and asylum seekers, as foreigners despite their needs being different from each other.2192 The citizenship laws of India do not address access to citizenship for foundlings or children born to stateless parents. Citizenship stripping The history of the National Register of Citizens in Assam is politically complex and driven by ethnic and religious tension spanning back to the early 1900s.2193 The first National Register of Citizens in Assam was undertaken in 1951, and through the modern process residents of Assam have to evidence their family lineage to Assam prior to 1971 (when Bangladesh gained independence from Pakistan) to be included in the registry of citizenship. In 2019, the final National Register of citizenship excluded 1.9 million residents from the list, essentially stripping them of their citizenship. Persons excluded from the National Register of Citizens must in turn apply to the government or Foreigners Tribunal to have their citizenship status verified, with those unable to verify their status as citizens rendered stateless.2194 As noted above, between 2017 to 2022, 14,346 individuals have been deported from India with 32,381 individuals being declared as foreigners.2195 The right to appeal a decision given by the Foreigners Tribunal exists, as the individual can file an appeal to the High Courts and Supreme Court, respectively. However, the scope of judicial review in such cases was limited by the case of State of Assam v. Moslem Mandal (2013), where the High Court denied reviewing the fact-finding undertaken by the tribunals and limited themselves to reviewing apparent errors of law.2196 It has been noted that the cases of citizenship involve gross fact-finding errors by investigating authorities and the lack of due process followed by Foreigner Tribunals results in a case where the scope of appeal in cases of citizenship deprivation becomes very narrow.2197 Administrative barriers Barriers to birth registration among Sri Lankan refugee populations and ethnic minority groups including the Kutchi community residing in border regions of the country places these populations at risk of statelessness.2198 The burden of documentary evidence (which is a non-exhaustive list of documentation) placed on a ‘doubtful’ individual to prove their citizenship displays the highly arbitrary nature of proceedings in the quasi judicial tribunals. These administrative and documentary requirements placed on persons excluded from the National Register of Citizenship have acted as a barrier to the verification of thousands who have lost or had destroyed relevant documents due to relocation and flooding.2199 The Citizenship Rules indicate that a birth certificate is a supporting document for many kinds of citizenship, indicating that having a birth certificate would REPORT 2024 197