184 SOCIO-LEGAL REVIEW VOL. 17 ing to lay the foundation of a pluralist, secular democracy.195 This decision is interesting when juxtaposed with colonial imaginations that pitted Hindus against Muslims as separate nations; an idea that crystallised in the ‘two-nation’ theory196 most famously propagated by M.A. Jinnah.197 Building on the two-nation theory that India was a ‘homeland for Hindus’,198 some Constituent Assembly members argued for Indian citizenship to favour Hindus and Sikhs.199 The ‘homeland for Hindus’ notion has seen a modern resurgence in independent India, most strikingly with the rise to power of the Bharatiya Janata Party.200 As a result, recent governmental policies, including the reconceptualisation of citizenship law, have sought to address otherwise “neglected” Hindu interests.201 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 Ahmad and Yousuf (n 23); however, several challenges have seriously questioned the ability of Indian democracy to accommodate plurality, like movements for self-determination in, inter alia, Nagaland, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab etc. as in Guha (n 176); Sanjib Baruah, Ethnonationalism in India: A Reader (OUP 2012). ‘“Two-Nation Theory” refers to the thesis that Hindus and Muslims in India were two distinct communities that could not coexist within a single state without dominating and discriminating against the other or without constant conflict; it resulted in the 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan’ as in Clinton Bennett, ‘Two-nation Theory’ in Zayn Kassam and others (ed), Islam, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism: Encyclopedia of Indian Religions (Springer 2018). Thapar (n 59). Thapar argues that determining indigenous populations is a tricky process since the growth of nation-states bounded in territory is a relatively recent phenomenon, including in India as in Thapar (n 59); Elizabeth Seshadri, ‘CAA and the Devaluation of Secular India’ (The Hindu Centre 12 February 2020) <https://www.thehinducentre.com/the-arena/current-issues/article30789891.ecesee> last accessed 28 July 2021; see generally, Andreas Wimmer and Yuval Feinstein, ‘The Rise of the Nation-state Across the World, 1816-2001’ [2010] 75 American Sociological Review 764. Gurmukh Singh Musafir, Constituent Assembly Debates Vol VII p 7.51.117 (8 November 1948) <https://www.constitutionofindia.net/constitution_assembly_debates/volume/7/1948-11-08> accessed 28 July 2021; P.S. Deshmukh, Constituent Assembly Debates Vol IX p 9.116.34 (11 August 1949) <https://www.constitutionofindia.net/constitution_assembly_ debates/volume/9/1949-08-11> accessed 28 July 2021. Jaffrelot (n 1); Jayal (n 23); Jayal (n 27); M. Reza Pirbhai, ‘Hindutva and the Meaning of Modernity’ (Berkley Forum, 9 March 2020) <https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/responses/ hindutva-and-the-meaning-of-modernity>; Angana Chatterji, ‘Citizenship Laws and the Nazification of India’ (Berkley Forum, 9 March 2020) <https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/ responses/citizenship-laws-and-the-nazification-of-india> accessed 28 July 2021; Satish Misra, ‘Understanding the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party’ ORF Online (2018) <https://www.orfonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/ORF_Issue_Brief_258_BJP_N.pdf> accessed 28 July 2021; Ashutosh Varshney, India’s Watershed Vote: Hindu Nationalism in Power?, Journal of Democracy, Vol 25, No 4 (2014) accessed 28 July 2021. Jayal (n 23); Jayal (n 27); Milan Vaishnav, ‘Religious Nationalism and India’s Future’ Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (2019); Usama Hameed, ‘Footprints of Fascism in India: Implications for Local Muslims’ [2020] 17 Policy Perspectives 27; Kalim Siddiqui, ‘Hindutva, Neoliberalism and the Reinventing of India’ [2017] 4 Journal of Economic and Social Thought 142; Irfan Ahmad, ‘Citizen Amendment Act is Confirmation of India as a Hindu Nation-State’ (Berkley Forum, 9 March 2020) <https://berkleycenter. georgetown.edu/responses/citizen-amendment-act-is-conf ir mation-of-india-as-a-hindu-nation-state> accessed 28 July 2021; Rajshree Chandra, ‘Has India Descended Into a Constitutional Theocracy?’ (The Wire, 17 December 2020) <https://thewire.in/government/