Under the orders and monitoring of India’s Supreme Court, the north-eastern state of Assam has just finished, on August 31, the process of updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC) which was first made in the state in 1951. While they can challenge the absence of their names in the NRC, the two million people who do not find their names on the NRC will no longer be Indian citizens and their future is uncertain. Will they be stateless people, put in labour camps, deported to Bangladesh, moved to other parts of India, disenfranchised or given work permits? How has the NRC process, which the current Indian government wants to replicate over India along with enacting a new religion-based citizenship law, altered the idea of citizenship? What does this mean for India and South Asia?
Sushant Singh is the Deputy Editor of The Indian Express newspaper in India where he has been awarded the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism. He reports on national security, strategic affairs, higher judiciary and functioning democratic institutions. A former military officer, he has served with the United Nations in Cote d’Ivoire. He is the author of Mission Overseas: Daring Operations by the Indian Military and the co-author of Note by Note: The India Story 1947-2017.