Citizenship & Statelessness in India

India is in the midst of a crisis around citizenship and statelessness. There are two immediate triggers for the crisis: (1) following a citizenship verification process, almost two million people have been left out of the state-run National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the state of Assam, augmenting risks of statelessness; and (2) Indian Parliament has enacted legislation - the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 - which differentiates between religious groups in the provision of citizenship.

The Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness has built networks with Indian universities and international scholars to support engagement regarding this citizenship crisis. Together with other MLS faculty members, as well as colleagues at Jindal Global Law School and the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, Oxford University, the Centre has established a collaborative initiative on ‘Citizenship and Statelessness in India’. This initiative will lead to a series of academic and non-academic publications, an online repository of resources and a virtual workshop with legal professionals and scholars.

In addition, the Centre is supporting the work of Indian university-based legal clinics and has hosted Indian legal professionals as Visiting Scholars.

Publications associated with this project:

• Michelle Foster and Jade Roberts, ‘Manufacturing Foreigners: The Law and Politics of Transforming Citizens into Migrants’, in Catherine Dauvergne (ed) Research Handbook on the Law and Politics of Migration (Edward Elgar) forthcoming 2021.
• Citizenship, Constitutionalism and Civil Liberties: A Briefing Note on Recent Developments in India
• Michelle Foster and Jade Roberts, ‘Manufacturing Foreigners: The Law and Politics of Transforming Citizens into Migrants’, in… [forthcoming]
• Talha Abdul Rahman, ‘Identifying the “Outsider”: An Assessment of Foreigner Tribunals in the State of Assam’ (2020) 2(1) Statelessness & Citizenship Review 112-137.