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.

This book intersects marginality, politics, and policies by focusing on the narratives of selective marginalised groups within India. Encouraging inclusive government policies that consider the diverse identities of individuals and groups within India, this book is a systematic documentation of the lived experiences of various marginalised collectives, such as the Naths of Bengal, the De‐notified Tribes of Maharashtra, the Kukis of Manipur, and the beggars. The chapters use historiography as a method to understand narratives of marginality in India, illuminating how power imbalances in Indian society lead to the marginalisation of specific groups, depriving them of fundamental rights and opportunities, while others enjoy privileges. The political analysis of this edited volume introspects the political dynamics that perpetuate marginalisation. It details the aspirations of various marginal groups in evolving and changing socio‐political circumstances. This book offers a deeper understanding of the intricate issues faced by marginalised groups. It will be of interest to students, academicians, and researchers in South Asian Studies, Subaltern Studies, Political Science, Sociology, Social History, and Migration/Refugee Studies.

The 1947 Partition of British India remains the largest instance of forced migration in the recorded human history. Despite the passage of time, it is still widely seen as a process of singular distress and sorrow. Yet, for those in the subcontinent, the Partition also offers a process of self-exploration for subsequent generations. This book is the first collection of chapters related to the Partition studies wherein experts of various disciplines from the three major modern nation-states affected by this cataclysm - Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan - have closely collaborated to develop a nuanced assessment of the Partition as active in the present. The book casts a somber yet uplifting light on the enormous challenges the Partition imposed on societies struggling to emerge from generations of colonial rule into a post-war world depleted of resources and a future of uncertain prospects.

amid widespread protests, the Indian Parliament passed the citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 on 11 December 2019. A topic of heated debate, the caa has divided the country into two distinct groups-one section of people considers the apprehensions about the caa being a case of miss-readings of the Act, and the other thinks the 'non-secular' Act is a manifestation of the prejudices and malevolent agenda of the ruling party. But does either side really understand the caa? Or, for that matter, does anyone who has listened to the shrill and often unconvincing arguments for and against the Act? In this short but powerful book, Amit Malviya and Salman Khurshid present to us the two sides of the debate that took the country by storm. While offering insights into the history and politics of the citizenship debate, they leave it up to us to decide which side we are on.

A Booklist "Top 10 History Book of 2022" The first true people's history of modern India, told through a seven-year, 9,000-mile journey along its many contested borders Sharing borders with six countries and spanning a geography that extends from Pakistan to Myanmar, India is the world's largest democracy and second most populous country. It is also the site of the world's biggest crisis of statelessness, as it strips citizenship from hundreds of thousands of its people--especially those living in disputed border regions. Suchitra Vijayan traveled India's vast land border to explore how these populations live, and document how even places just few miles apart can feel like entirely different countries. In this stunning work of narrative reportage--featuring over 40 original photographs--we hear from those whose stories are never told: from children playing a cricket match in no-man's-land, to an elderly man living in complete darkness after sealing off his home from the floodlit border; from a woman who fought to keep a military bunker off of her land, to those living abroad who can no longer find their family history in India. With profound empathy and a novelistic eye for detail, Vijayan brings us face to face with the brutal legacy of colonialism, state violence, and government corruption. The result is a gripping, urgent dispatch from a modern India in crisis, and the full and vivid portrait of the country we've long been missing.

This study sets out to do two things. Firstly, it seeks to contribute to the burgeoning literature on ontological security in International Relations (IR)... Secondly, I hope to say something about Indian nationalism by making the case for Bangladesh’s importance in the project of nation-curation. I show how the uncodability of the Bangladeshi migrant and the Indian citizen presents an ontological threat to the Indian nation, portending an implosion of selfhood by undermining claims to an ontic reality for something called the Indian nation...