‘UNTRUSTWORTHY AND UNBELIEVABLE’: WOMEN
AND THE QUEST FOR CITIZENSHIP IN ASSAM
TRISHA SABHAPANDIT* AND PADMINI BARUAH **
Non-male people experience citizenship in ways that are not at par with those who are identified
by the state as male. This gendered experience is replicated when it comes to establishing the
existence of one’s citizenship before a hostile state that is invested in propagating statelessness
among certain communities. This paper uses the Indian State of Assam and the surrounding legalbureaucratic endeavour to identify ‘genuine’ citizens as a case to explore how the experience of
becoming stateless is inherently disadvantageous to women. Using the tools of feminist
methodology, the specific challenges of women have been highlighted through a combination of
case law discourse analysis and fieldwork.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Citizenship: the Insider, the Outsider. .......0000 ccc cece ccc cee eeecteseeeeesaeeeennseeey
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Citizenship and Sovereignty .......000. ccc
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Differential Citizenship «0.000.000 c ccc cece ccc cccteeecessaeeeeceseeeeeteeeesestaeeeees
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Gender and Statelessness........000o
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The Burdens of Proof .......00000cccccccc
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Citizenship in India and the Assam Story ........0000ccccc
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India and the Construction of the Citizen... cece
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Assam: Snapshots from History .0.....0.0000ccccccccccccccsseecesseeesentseeeetseaeeees
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Colonial Era oo... cece
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Post-Colonial Era and the Development of the Legal Regime.....
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TNE NRC vance
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Women and the FT Process ..0.....000.ccccc
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The Pitfalls of the VRC: A Glimpse from the Ground ..........0....0.0..000.8
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INTRODUCTION
For 64-year-old Sabjan Nessa, the notification is a jolt out of the ordinary. Her
day-to-day existence is not without struggle; the life of a female daily wage worker
in an underdeveloped part of India is not easy. She has spent her entire life in
poverty, in two tiny villages in a single district. Yet, after all these years, a new
TE
Trisha Sabhapandit is a gold medallist of the Department of Law, Tezpur University,
specialised in International Human Rights Law. They hold a law degree from University Law
College, Gauhati University and a Masters degree from Gauhati University, Gauhati. They
have been a Core Team Member of Parichay, a collaborative legal aid clinic for NRC Appeals
and have worked extensively in the areas of citizenship and statelessness. Currently, they are
registered as an advocate in the Gauhati High Court.
Padmini Baruah 1s a recent graduate of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts
University, where they focus on gender and comparative politics. They hold a law degree
from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. They have worked in the past
for the Leir Institute for Human Security, MIT's J-PAL and McKinsey and Co. As a
Samvidhaan Fellow for Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, they are currently conducting research
on Assam’s Foreigners Tribunals. They are currently an MPhil candidate in the Department
of Anthropology at the University of Cambridge.