The Indian idea of citizenship – as embodied in the Constitution and the law – is in the throes of a profound and radical metamorphosis. The twin instruments of this transformation are the National Register of Citizens and the Citizenship Amendment Act. If the former is carving out paths to statelessness for disfavoured groups, the latter is creating paths to citizenship for preferred groups. While the first is, despite the looming threat of its extension across India, presently limited to the state of Assam, the second is designed to be pan-Indian in its application.

Not only do the two need to be read alongside each other, both of these in turn need to be read in the larger context of the government’s policies towards minorities, whether in the forced amelioration of Muslim women by the criminalisation of the triple talaq or the clampdown, since early August, in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. They also need to be read in the context of the acceleration of violence against minorities over the past few years, especially by vigilante lynch mobs who have been thriving on the promise of legal impunity. An adequate understanding of both the NRC and the CAA depends on an appreciation of the ecosystem for minorities constituted by these twin phenomena, emanating from the state and society respectively.

On the watch of the Supreme Court and under its unrelenting pressure for the completion of the NRC within a certain time-frame, Assam has served as a laboratory for a potentially dangerous experiment. Even though the results belied the expectations, the talk of sending those excluded from the Register to detention centres has given credence to the fear that thousands of people are vulnerable to being rendered stateless and rightless. Existing detention centres in Assam are already populated, and new ones are being erected on an unprecedented scale.