Who Does Belong? An Essay on the Idea, Contradictions and Struggle over Citizenship and Belonging in India: Part-1
Note: This essay is presented in two parts. The first part examines the historical evolution of the legal and ideological foundations of membership in the Indian national community. The second part will explore migration, refugees and recent developments in India's citizenship regime in greater detail. While these issues are closely interconnected, they are too extensive to be addressed adequately within a single article. Dividing the discussion into two parts allows for a more focused and historically grounded analysis of each dimension of the citizenship question.
We are living through a defining moment in the constitutional history of the Indian Republic. Rarely since Partition has the question of who belongs to the nation occupied such a central place in public and political discourse. Developments such as the proposal for a nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC), the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules, 2024, and more recent initiatives such as the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls have brought the question of citizenship to the forefront of Indian politics. Together with the growing influence of ethno-religious nationalism, these developments have reopened a fundamental debate about the meaning of the Indian nation and the criteria of national belonging. Whatever one's position on these measures, they underscore a profound reality: citizenship in contemporary India is no longer treated as a settled constitutional fact but as a status increasingly subject to legislative definition, administrative verification and political contestation. In this sense, the contemporary debate is not merely about legal documentation or immigration; it is about the evolving idea of India itself.
The Beginning
The establishment of the two new Dominions in 1947 brought the question of citizenship in the Indian subcontinent into a new legal and political framework. Before 1947, people living in British India were British subjects, while the legal status of those residing in the princely states was more complex. More broadly, citizenship as membership in a modern nation-state is a relatively recent development in world history. The great empires of the pre-modern era did not recognise citizenship in its modern sense. Political allegiance was more commonly local, dynastic, imperial, or grounded in religious and sovereign authority. The French Revolution of 1789 and the subsequent Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen helped lay the ideological foundations of the modern conception of the citizen as a constituent member of the nation. Around the same period, related traditions of citizenship were also taking shape in Britain and North America. In India, however, the legal question of citizenship acquired unprecedented urgency in the extraordinary circumstances of Partition and the catastrophic population movements that accompanied it.
During the framing of the Constitution, following extensive and often animated debates in the Constituent Assembly, Articles 5 to 11 were adopted to deal with citizenship at the commencement of the Constitution. Citizenship itself was not included among the Fundamental Rights. B. R. Ambedkar, Chairman of the Drafting Committee, made clear that these provisions were intended principally to determine who would be a citizen when the Constitution came into force. Article 11, in turn, gave Parliament the power to make laws governing the acquisition and termination of citizenship and other matters relating to citizenship thereafter.
Without prolonging the introduction, let us turn to a closer examination of citizenship in India. Such an inquiry demands a historically grounded analysis, for without understanding the historical evolution of citizenship in the Indian context, not only does a satisfactory answer remain elusive, but even the precise nature of the question itself becomes difficult to define.
Early Legal Basis of Citizenship in India
Let us begin with the legal foundations of citizenship in India. The first comprehensive legislation to codify Indian citizenship was the Citizenship Act, 1955. For the first time in the country's history, the Act sought to define who belonged to the political community of the Indian Republic and who could, in the future, become a member of it.
In its original form, the Act provided five principal modes of acquiring Indian citizenship:
By birth - broadly, a person born in India on or after 26 January 1950, subject to the statutory exceptions.
By descent - a person born outside India after 26 January 1950 could acquire Indian citizenship through the requisite Indian parentage, originally through the father, subject to the conditions laid down in the Act.
By registration.
By naturalisation.
By the incorporation of territory into the Union of India.
Birth, Blood and the Early Republic
In international law, citizenship has generally been associated with two broad principles: jus soli (the right of the soil), whereby citizenship is acquired by virtue of birth within a state's territory, and jus sanguinis (the right of blood), whereby citizenship is derived from parentage. Although the Citizenship Act, 1955 recognised jus sanguinis in certain circumstances, its original orientation was strongly towards jus soli. This reflected the constitutional vision of the newly independent Republic, in which territorial membership and civic belonging, rather than ethnic or religious identity, formed the primary basis of citizenship. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that, in its formative years, India's legal conception of citizenship was rooted largely in the ideals of civic constitutional nationalism.
Another Ideology of Nation and Belonging
While one side of the ideological contest over national belonging was represented by the civic constitutional nationalism broadly embraced by the framers of the Constitution, the other may be characterised as the ethno-cultural conception of nationhood associated with Hindutva. Before proceeding further, however, one point requires clarification. The idea of the nation and the criteria of national belonging are seldom products of a linear historical progression. Rather, they are shaped by the dominant ideological currents of a given historical moment. Nationhood is not a fixed anthropological category but an imagined political community whose boundaries are defined by particular ideological and normative commitments. Although the concept of the nation is historically contingent, history itself does not prescribe a single, immutable definition of it.
Consequently, our understanding of national belonging depends largely on the ethical and political principles through which we choose to define it. At its broadest level, this is a contest between inclusive and exclusive conceptions of political community. The civic constitutional vision locates citizenship in territorial belonging and equal membership of the political community, irrespective of religion, ethnicity, language or cultural identity. By contrast, the Hindutva conception of nationhood defines national belonging primarily in ethno-cultural and civilisational terms, identifying India with the imagined community of a "Hindu nation". Within this framework, those regarded as lying outside that civilisational community occupy a more contested position in relation to the nation and its political identity.
Constitutional Fault Lines
Although this competing conception did not shape the constitutional settlement, concerns about birthright citizenship and the relationship between citizenship and political rights were not absent from the Constituent Assembly debates. In the debates of 29 April 1947, B. Das questioned whether a broad birthright provision would automatically confer citizenship on children of non-Indians; Rajendra Prasad, presiding over the Assembly, also pressed members on the implications of the proposed rule. K. M. Munshi stressed that future laws of the Union would have to govern citizenship more fully. Alladi Krishnaswami Ayyar, drawing a parallel with the United States, observed: "There is no general rule of law that a citizen is entitled to political rights, because we know as a fact that according to the American law of citizenship the citizen is only entitled to civic rights." These exchanges show that even at an early stage, the content of citizenship - and particularly the relationship between civic and political rights - was open to debate. Yet the discussion was conducted in legal and constitutional terms rather than through an explicit ethno-religious definition of citizenship.
The Hindu Nation as Counter-Idea
The ideological consolidation of an explicitly ethno-religious conception of Indian nationalism was shaped, above all, by V. D. Savarkar and M. S. Golwalkar. Claiming that Hindusthan must be accepted as the exclusive homeland of the "Hindu Nation", Golwalkar wrote:
"... applying the modern understanding of 'Nation' to our present conditions, the conclusion is unquestionably forced upon us that in this country, Hindusthan, the Hindu Race with its Hindu Religion, Hindu Culture and Hindu Language ... complete the Nation concept; that, in fine, in Hindusthan exists and must needs exist the ancient Hindu nation and nought else but the Hindu Nation. All those not belonging to the national i,e, Hindu Race, Religion, Culture and Language naturally fall out of pale of real 'National' life."
This conception of the nation stands in direct tension with the constitutional idea of equal civic membership, which Golwalkar himself rejected as akin to treating India as a "serai", or travellers' inn. The exclusionary logic is sharpened in the following passage:
"There are only two courses open to the foreign elements, either to merge themselves in the national race and adopt its culture or to live at its mercy as long as the national race may allow them to do so."
It is, of course, impossible to explore the full depth and complexity of competing theories of nationhood and national belonging within the limited scope of this article. For the present discussion, it is sufficient to outline these broad ideological traditions, as they provide the necessary framework for understanding the competing conceptions that continue to shape the question of citizenship in India.
Evolution of the Question of Citizenship
As we have seen in the previous sections, two competing conceptions of citizenship have coexisted throughout the evolution of the Indian Republic. One conceives citizenship primarily as a civic and constitutional relationship between the individual and the state, grounded in territorial belonging and equal political membership. The other seeks to define national belonging through ancestry, cultural affiliation or civilisational identity. The history of Indian citizenship law since Independence can, to a significant extent, be understood as the outcome of the continuing tension between these two competing visions.
Assam Changes the Terms
The first major political struggle to reshape India's citizenship regime did not emerge in New Delhi but in the north-eastern state of Assam. Unlike later nationwide debates surrounding citizenship, the origins of this conflict lay in a complex regional history marked by colonial migration policies, demographic change, linguistic tensions and ethnic anxieties. During the colonial period, the British administration encouraged migration into Assam, particularly from the densely populated districts of Bengal, to cultivate agricultural land and support economic development. After Partition in 1947, and again following the creation of Bangladesh in 1971, migration into Assam continued, intensifying concerns among many Assamese groups about demographic transformation, political representation, access to land and employment, and the preservation of indigenous linguistic and cultural identities.
These anxieties culminated in the Assam Movement (1979-1985), led primarily by the All Assam Students' Union (AASU) and the All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad. The central demand of the movement was the identification and removal of persons regarded as illegal immigrants who had entered Assam after an agreed cut-off date. Although the agitation was rooted in the specific historical and demographic circumstances of Assam rather than in a pan-Indian conception of citizenship, it profoundly influenced the trajectory of citizenship law in India. The movement ended with the Assam Accord of 1985, which made 24 March 1971 the decisive cut-off: persons who entered Assam on or after 25 March 1971 were to be detected and expelled in accordance with law, while those who had arrived in the preceding period were dealt with under a separate arrangement.
The significance of the Assam Movement extends well beyond the state's regional politics. It marked the first occasion on which citizenship became the subject of sustained mass political mobilisation in independent India. More importantly, it shifted the emphasis of citizenship from the predominantly territorial logic that had informed the Citizenship Act, 1955, towards a greater concern with ancestry, documentary proof and the historical moment of entry into the country.
While the movement itself was driven largely by regional ethnic and linguistic concerns rather than by religious nationalism, its legal and political consequences strengthened the logic of descent and documentary citizenship. The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 1986, which took effect on 1 July 1987, restricted the previously broad principle of citizenship by birth. Citizenship increasingly came to depend not merely on the fact of birth within India's territory but also on the citizenship status of one's parents and, in particular contexts, the ability to establish lawful belonging through documentary evidence.
Thus, a conflict that began as a regional struggle over migration and indigenous identity in Assam had far-reaching consequences for the understanding of citizenship across India. It represented the first major departure from the broad birth-based orientation that characterised the early decades of the Republic and laid the foundations for subsequent debates on the relationship between citizenship, migration, identity and national belonging.
Consolidation and Recent Events
The next significant turning point in the evolution of Indian citizenship law came with the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2003, which came into force on 3 December 2004. While earlier amendments had already begun to narrow the broad jus soli orientation of the Citizenship Act, 1955, the 2003 amendment marked a more decisive shift. Among its most consequential changes was the introduction of the legal category of an "illegal migrant" into the statutory framework governing citizenship. Although immigration control had long existed under other laws, the category now became central to the law of citizenship itself.
The amendment also fundamentally altered the law relating to citizenship by birth. Under the amended Section 3 of the Citizenship Act, a person born in India on or after 3 December 2004 qualifies for citizenship by birth only if both parents are citizens, or if one parent is a citizen and the other is not an illegal migrant at the time of birth. This represented a significant departure from the more inclusive framework of the original 1955 Act, under which birth within the territory of India was generally sufficient, subject to limited exceptions, to establish citizenship.
From Birthright to Documentary Proof
The long-term implications of these changes became evident more than a decade later with the updating of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam. The NRC exercise required millions of residents to establish their citizenship through documentary evidence linking themselves or their ancestors to the legally prescribed cut-off date. Although the NRC was undertaken pursuant to the Assam Accord and orders of the Supreme Court, it brought into sharp public focus a citizenship regime increasingly centred on ancestry, documentation and proof of lawful belonging.
From a broader historical perspective, the 2003 amendment may be seen as a decisive moment in the transformation of India's conception of citizenship. Whereas the constitutional framework and the Citizenship Act, 1955 had largely reflected a civic understanding of political membership grounded in territorial birth, the post-2003 legal framework increasingly conditioned citizenship by birth on parental citizenship and immigration status. The subsequent enactment of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA) further intensified this transformation by creating a special route to citizenship for specified Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Supporters viewed the legislation as a humanitarian response to the persecution of religious minorities in neighbouring Islamic states, while critics argued that it departed from the secular and religion-neutral principles that had historically informed Indian citizenship law.
Whether one regards these developments as a legitimate exercise of Parliament's constitutional authority under Article 11 or as a fundamental reorientation of the Republic's civic identity, they represent a watershed in the evolution of Indian citizenship. The contemporary debate is therefore not merely about immigration policy or administrative procedure; it concerns the deeper constitutional question of whether Indian citizenship should continue to be understood primarily as an inclusive civic relationship between the individual and the Republic, or whether it should increasingly reflect considerations of ancestry, historical belonging and civilisational identity.
Further Ethno-religious Turn and the Legal Differentiation Between Asylum Seekers and Illegal Migrants
The year 2014 marked a watershed in Indian politics. The electoral victory of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), securing a single-party majority in the Lok Sabha, had far-reaching consequences for the country's political and constitutional trajectory. While these developments extended across multiple domains, the present discussion is confined to one specific issue: the gradual incorporation of an ethno-religious conception of national belonging into India's citizenship framework.
Religion Enters the Legal Architecture
It is often assumed that the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 was the first legal measure to differentiate explicitly between religious communities in matters relating to migration and citizenship. Such a characterisation, however, overlooks important executive changes that preceded the CAA. In 2015, the Central Government amended the Foreigners Order, 1948 and the Passport (Entry into India) Rules, 1950. These measures exempted Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Pakistan and Bangladesh who had entered India on or before 31 December 2014 without valid travel documents, or whose documents had expired, after fleeing "due to religious persecution or fear of religious persecution", from specified provisions of those immigration laws. Afghanistan was brought within the same framework through subsequent amendments in 2016. These measures did not confer citizenship, nor did they by themselves alter the definition of "illegal migrant" under the Citizenship Act, but they created a distinct and religion-specific regime of exemption under immigration law.
Parallel regulatory relaxations were later introduced under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA). Among other things, specified long-term visa holders from these minority communities were permitted, subject to conditions, to open an NRO bank account and to acquire limited immovable property for residence and self-employment. Although these measures did not confer citizenship, they further established a differentiated legal regime for specified religious communities from neighbouring countries.
From Exemption to the CAA
Viewed in this broader legal context, the CAA of 2019 appears less as an abrupt departure than as the culmination of a legislative and executive trajectory that had begun several years earlier. Building on the exemptions created by the 2015 and 2016 measures, the CAA amended the Citizenship Act so that members of the same six religious communities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, who entered India on or before 31 December 2014 and were covered by the relevant exemptions, would not be treated as illegal migrants for the purposes of the Citizenship Act. It also created a special pathway to citizenship by registration or naturalisation and reduced the residence requirement for naturalisation for these groups.
This chronology is also relevant to a frequent criticism of the CAA - namely, that its cut-off date of 31 December 2014 is arbitrary. Whether the date is normatively justified remains a matter of legitimate political and constitutional debate. From a legislative standpoint, however, the cut-off becomes more intelligible when read alongside the earlier executive notifications, which had already used 31 December 2014 as the relevant date for the specified exemptions. The CAA can therefore be understood as extending and formalising a process of differentiated legal regularisation that had already begun, rather than inaugurating an entirely new policy framework.
This does not resolve the constitutional questions raised by the CAA. The central issue remains whether differentiating between similarly situated migrants on the basis of religion is compatible with the constitutional commitments to equality and secularism. Nevertheless, any serious analysis of the Act must situate it within the wider sequence of legal and ideological developments that preceded 2019 rather than treating it as an isolated legislative event. In this sense, the CAA marks a distinctive moment in India's constitutional history: religion became an explicit differentiating criterion in the statutory law of citizenship, while Muslims were excluded from the special route created for the six named communities.
Conclusion: The Present and the Future
Recent political developments, particularly the BJP's decisive victory in the 2026 West Bengal Assembly election, have further altered the balance of the debate over citizenship and national belonging in favour of the party's conception of the nation. The BJP's electoral success has strengthened the political legitimacy of an understanding of citizenship that places increasing emphasis on civilisational identity, historical continuity and the protection of communities perceived to share a common cultural heritage.
Whether this trajectory will ultimately reshape the constitutional character of the Indian Republic remains an open question. The Constitution deliberately entrusted Parliament with the authority to legislate on citizenship under Article 11, making citizenship an evolving legal and political category rather than a fixed constitutional settlement. Yet the exercise of this authority is inevitably influenced by the prevailing conception of the nation held by those who command political power.
The history of citizenship in India demonstrates that it has never been a static or purely legal concept. From the commencement provisions of the Constitution, through the Citizenship Act of 1955 and its successive amendments, to the debates surrounding the NRC and the CAA, citizenship has continuously reflected broader struggles over the meaning of the Indian nation itself. The legal definition of who belongs has evolved alongside changing political realities and competing ideological visions.
Ultimately, the question confronting India is not merely who can become a citizen, but what kind of political community the Republic seeks to be. Is India to be understood primarily as a civic, constitutional nation founded upon equal citizenship irrespective of religion, ethnicity or language, or as a civilisational nation whose political community is shaped by a shared cultural and historical identity? The answer to that question will determine not only the future of Indian citizenship law but also the evolving character of Indian democracy in the decades to come.
(To Be Continued)
Photo: Kushal Kar