Citizenship Securitization in India: Reflections from Debates in the Constituent Assembly and the Indian Parliament

Abstract

Citizenship policies to manage, control, and filter secure identities from insecure identities are influenced by citizenship securitization, an emotive and contentious subject due to the Partition and multiple migrations in India. The idea of citizenship securitization that had entered into the discourse after the Partition, knitting varieties of unease and danger into a patchwork of insecurities became harder with time, rendering Indian citizenship exclusionary. This paper attempts in-depth content analysis of the Constituent Assembly and Parliamentary Debates on citizenship in order to follow the development of citizenship securitization.

Keywords:

• citizenship
• citizenship securitization
• immigration
• security
• Constituent Assembly Debates (CAD)
• Lok Sabha Debates (LSD)
• Rajya Sabha Debates (RSD)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s ).

Notes

1 V. F. Y. Zamindar, The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia Refugees, Boundaries, Histories, Columbia University Press, 2007.

2 M. Kapur, “India’s Citizenship (Amendment) Act”, The Statelessness and Citizenship Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2021, pp. 208–35.

3 Ibid., p. 211.

4 N. G. Jayal, “Reinventing the Republic: Faith and Citizenship in India”, Studies in Indian Politics, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2022, pp. 14–30; N. G. Jayal, “Faith-based Citizenship: The Dangerous Path India is Choosing”, The India Forum, November 1, 2019, https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/faith-criterion-citizenship; N. G. Jayal, Citizenship and Its Discontents: An Indian History, India: Permanent Black, 2010. A. Roy, Mapping Citizenship in India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2013; A. Roy, Citizenship Regimes, Law and Belonging the CAA and NRC. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. H. Roy, Partitioned Lives Migrants, Refugees, Citizens in India and Pakistan 1947–1965, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2012.

5 J. Cons, Sensitive Space Fragmented Territory at the India-Bangladesh Border, London: University of Washington Press, 2016.

6 D. Ludden, “Presidential Address: Maps in the Mind and the Mobility of Asia”, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 62, No. 4, 2003, pp. 1057–1078.

7 K. Kannabiran, “The Shifting Sands of Citizenship: Dispossessions, Constitutional Ruptures and Borderlands”, Sociological Bulletin, Vol. 69, No. 3, 2020, pp. 1–20.

8 S. Elden, “Secure the Volume: Vertical Geopolitics and the Depth of Power”, Political Geography, Vol. 34, 2013, pp. 35–51.

9 D. Bigo, “Security and Immigration: Toward a Critique of the Governmentality of Unease”, Alternative, Vol. 27, Special Issue, 2002, pp. 63–92. B. Buzan, O. Waever, and J. De Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998, pp. 119–120.

10 M. C. Williams, “Words, Images, Enemies: Securitization and International Politics”, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 47, 2003, pp. 511–531. O. Waever, B. Buzan, M. Kelstrup, and P. Lemaitre, Identity, Migration and the New Security Agenda in Europe, London: Pinter, 1993. O. Wæver, “Securitization and Desecuritization”, in On Security, ed. R. D. Lipschutz, New York: Columbia University Press, 1995, pp. 46–86. B. Buzan, O. Waever, J. De Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998. J. Huysmans, “Defining Social Constructivism in Security Studies: The Normative Dilemma of Writing Security. Alternatives”, Vol. 27, No. 1, 2002, pp. 1–62.

11 Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver and Jaap de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis, Boulder, Colorado, USA. 1998.

12 P. Nyers, “Abject Cosmopolitanism the Politics of Protection in the Anti-Deportation Movement”, in The Deportation Regime Sovereignty, Space, and the Freedom of Movement, eds. N. De Genova and N. Peutz, Durham and London: Duke University Press, pp. 413–441.

13 D. Cowen and E. Gilbert, ed. War Citizenship Territory, New York: Routledge, 2008. P. Fournier, “The Neoliberal/Neurotic Citizen and Security as Discourse”, Critical Studies on Security, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2014, pp. 309–322. X. Guillaume and J. Huysmans, Citizenship and Security: The Constitution of Political Being, New York: Routledge, 2013. K. Hepworth, At the Edges of Citizenship Security and the Constitution of Non-Citizen Subjects, London: Routledge, 2016. A. Macklin, “The Securitization of Dual Citizenship”, https://ssrn.com/abstract=1077489. P. Nyers, ed. Securitizations of Citizenship, London: Routledge, 2009. P. Nyers, “Introduction: What’s Left of Citizenship?” Citizenship Studies, Vol. 8, No. 3, 2004, pp. 203–215. P. Roe, “Securitization and Minority Rights: Conditions of Desecuritization”, Security Dialogue, Vol. 35, No. 3, 2004, pp. 279–294. K. Rygiel, “The Securitized Citizen”, in Recasting the Social in Citizenship, ed. E. F. Isin, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008, pp. 210–238.

14 K. Hepworth, At the Edges of Citizenship Security and the Constitution of Non-Citizen Subjects, London: Routledge, 2016. P. Nyers, Irregular Citizenship, Immigration, and Deportation, New York: Routledge, 2019.

15 S. Smooha, “The Model of Ethnic Democracy: Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State”, Nations and Nationalism, Vol. 8, No. 4, 2002, pp. 475–503.

16 V. Squire, “The Securitisation of Migration: An Absent Presence?” in The Securitization of Migration in the EU Debates since 9/11, eds. G. Lawaridis and K. Wadia, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, pp. 19–36.

17 T. Diez and V. Squire, “Traditions of Citizenship and the Securitisation of Migration in Germany and Britain”, Citizenship Studies, Vol. 12, No. 6, 2008, pp. 565–581. G. Ben-Porat and A. Ghanem, “Introduction: Securitization and Shrinking of Citizenship”, Citizenship Studies, 2017. doi:10.1080/13621025.2017.1380652.

18 A. Dobrowolsky, “(In)Security and Citizenship: Security, Immigration and Shrinking Citizenship Regimes”, Theoretical Inquiries in Law, Vol. 8, No. 2, 2007, pp. 628–662.

19 J. Huysmans, “Migrants as a Security Problem: Dangers of 'Securitizing' Societal Issues”, in Migration and European Integration. The Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion, eds. R. Miles and D. Thränhardt, London: Pinter, 1995, pp. 53–72.

20 Dobrowolsky, “(In)Security and Citizenship”, op. cit., at 639.

21 A. Acharya, “Guns and Butter: Why Do Human Security and Traditional Security Co-exist in Asia?” Global Economic Review, Vol. 32, No. 3, 2003, pp. 1–21. S. Chatterjee, India's Spatial Imaginations of South Asia: Power, Commerce, and Community, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2019.

22 J. Cons and R. Sanyal, “Geographies at the Margins: Borders in South Asia an Introduction”, Political Geography, Vol. 53, 2013, pp. 5–13.

23 L. Dubochet, “Citizenship as Burden of Proof: Voting and Hiding Among Migrants from India’s Eastern Borderlands”, Citizenship Studies, Vol. 27, No. 1, 2023, pp. 107–123. S. Punathil, “Precarious Citizenship: Detection, Detention and ‘Deportability’ in India”, Citizenship Studies, Vol. 26, No. 1, 2022, pp. 55–72.

24 P. Nyers, “Introduction: What’s Left of Citizenship?” Citizenship Studies, Vol. 8, No. 3, 2004, pp. 203–215.

25 G. Pandey, “Can a Muslim Be an Indian?” Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 41, No. 4, 1999, pp. 608–629.

26 Pandey, “Can a Muslim Be an Indian?”, op. cit., p. 617.

27 Ibid., p. 626.

28 Zamindar, The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia Refugees, Boundaries, Histories, op. cit.

29 Pandey, “Can a Muslim Be an Indian?”, op. cit., p. 627.

30 Kapur, “India’s Citizenship (Amendment) Act”, op. cit., at 223.

31 Constituent Assembly Debates (CAD). 1949. https://www.constitutionofindia.net/constituent-assembly-debate/volume-9.

32 CAD, note 31, 11 August.

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid.

36 CAD, note, 31, 12 August.

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid.

40 Y. Berda, Colonial Bureaucracy and Contemporary Citizenship Legacies of Race and Emergency in the Former British Empire, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022.

41 Berda, Colonial Bureaucracy and Contemporary Citizenship Legacies, op. cit., at 210.

42 CAD, note 31, 12 August.

43 Berda, Colonial Bureaucracy and Contemporary Citizenship Legacies, op. cit., at 128.

44 N. Lori, Offshore Citizens Permanent Temporary Status in the Gulf, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.

45 Jayal, “Faith-based Citizenship”, op. cit.

46 Lok Sabha Debates, 8 August 1955. https://eparlib.nic.in/handle/123456789/7.

47 Ibid.

48 Ibid.

49 Lok Sabha, Ibid.

50 Lok sabha, op. cit., 9 August 1955.

51 Rajya Sabha Debates, 8 September 1955. https://rsdebate.nic.in/

52 Rajya Sabha Debates, op. cit.; emphasis added.

53 R. Samaddar, The Marginal Nation: Transborder Migration from Bangladesh to West Bengal, New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1999.

54 Rajya Sabha Debates, note 51, 2 December 1985.

55 Ibid.

56 Lok Sabha Debates, note 51, 20 November 1985.

57 Rajya Saba Debates, note 51, 2 December 1985.

58 Ibid.

59 Buzan et al., Security, op. cit., at 24.

60 A. Dutta, Refugees and Borders in South Asia the Great Exodus of 1971, London: Routledge, 2013.

61 Lok Sabha Debates, note 46, 10 November 1986.

62 Rajya Sabha Debates, note 51, 19 November 1986.

63 Lok Sabha Debates, note 46, 10 November 1986.

64 Ibid.

65 Ibid.

66 Lok Sabha Debates, op. cit., 11 November 1986.

67 Weaver, “Securitization and Desecuritization”, op. cit., at 55.

68 Dobrowolsky, “(In)Security and Citizenship”, op. cit.

69 Rajya Sabha Debates, note 51, 19 November 1986.

70 R. A. Karnard, R. Dhavan and B. Acharya, Protecting the forgotten and excluded: Statelessness in South Asia, Public Interest Legal Support and Research Centre, http://www.mcrg.ac.in/AddReading/2012/Statelessness.pdf (accessed 7 October 2020).

71 D. Nauzoks, “The Securitization of Dual Citizenship. National Security Concerns and the Making of the Overseas Citizenship of India”, Diaspora Studies, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2015, pp. 18–36.

72 Rajya Sabha Debates, note 51, 18 December 2003.

73 Ibid.

74 Ibid.

75 Rajya Sabha Debates, note 51, 28 July 2005.

76 Ibid.

77 Ibid.

78 Ibid.

79 Lok Sabha Debates, note 46, 16 August 2005.

80 Nauzoks, “The Securitization of Dual Citizenship”, op. cit., at 18.

81 Speech of L. K. Advani, The Inauguration of Global Investor’s Summit, 12 January, 2005. https://www.bjp.org/pressreleases/speech-shri-lk-advani-honble-leader-opposition-lok-sabha-inaugural-global-investors (accessed 9 March 2023).

82 Nauzoks, “The Securitization of Dual Citizenship”, op. cit., at 25.

83 W. V. Schendel, “Stateless in South Asia: The Making of the India Bangladesh Enclaves”, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 61, No. 1, 2002, pp. 115–147.

84 S. Baruah, “The Partition's Long Shadow: The Ambiguities of Citizenship in Assam, India”, Citizenship Studies, Vol. 13, No. 6, 2009, pp. 593–606.

85 Roy, Citizenship Regimes, Law and Belonging the CAA and NRC, op. cit., at 17.

86 Roy, Citizenship Regimes, Law and Belonging the CAA and NRC, op. cit., at 43–44.

87 Jayal, note 4.

88 Roy.

89 Roy, Citizenship Regimes, Law and Belonging the CAA and NRC, op. cit., at 158.

90 JPC, Report of the Joint Committee on the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016, 2019, https://eparlib.nic.in/handle/123456789/783918?view_type=search.

91 Roy, Citizenship Regimes, Law and Belonging the CAA and NRC, op. cit., at 145.

92 Lok sabha Debates, note 46, 8 January 2019.

93 Ibid.

94 Lok Sabha Debates, note 46, 9 December 2019.

95 Rajya Sabha Debates, note 51, 11 December 2019.

96 Lok Sabha Debates, note 46, 9 December 2019.

97 Bigo, “Security and Immigration”, op. cit.

98 Berda, Colonial Bureaucracy and Contemporary Citizenship Legacies, op. cit.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Chetna Sharma

Chetna Sharma, Ph.D. is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, Kamala Nehru College, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India.