Harsh Mander

This Land Is Mine, I Am Not of This Land Caa-NRC and the Manufacture of Statelessness Harsh Mander

Description

The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), passed by the Parliament of India

in December 2019, promises citizenship to migrants of the 'Hindu, Sikh,

Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian community from Afghanistan, Bangladesh or

Pakistan'. By excluding Muslims from the list and not extending the promise

to refugees from any of India's non-Muslim-majority neighbours, the CAA

makes religion the basis of citizenship for the first time in the history of the

Republic. Many fear that this Act, coupled with a countrywide National

Register of Citizens (NRC), will eventually be used to disenfranchise India's

Muslims, or to trap them in a permanent state of fear and insecurity, which

has been the fate of millions of Bengali-origin Muslims of Assam.

This Land is Mine, I Am Not of This Land brings together a comprehensive selection

of essays that deal with the theoretical, political and subjective aspects of this

issue. The first section traces the evolution of citizenship in India. The following

section deals with the peculiar case of Assam. Covered here are the bureaucratic

travesties unleashed in the name of protecting the state from 'external

aggression' as well as their sobering human cost. The concluding sections expose

the superfluousness of the National Population Register (NPR), and pose serious

questions on the constitutionality of the CAA.

The book argues that with a key value like citizenship in question, it is not

just the destinies of India's citizens but the very democratic foundation of the

Republic that is at stake.