The South Asian Studies Council presents
Dr. Mohsin Alam Bhat, Associate Professor of Law at Queen Mary University of London:
“Unmaking Citizenship in India: Majoritarianism and Denationalization Trials in Assam”
India is witnessing an alarming majoritarian turn, where citizenship is being increasingly ethnicised. The Citizenship Amendment Act, arbitrary detention of alleged “illegal Bangladeshi migrants”, and wrongful “push-backs” across the national border have deepened anxieties over belonging and security of minorities. Assam has become the central theatre of this politics. Through instruments such as the National Register of Citizens, voter disenfranchisement, and the state’s Foreigners Tribunals, millions—particularly Bengali-origin Muslims—face uncertainty over their legal status. This talk presents findings from Unmaking Citizens: The Architecture of Rights Violations and Exclusion in India’s Citizenship Trials, the most comprehensive study of Assam’s citizenship trials. Drawing on analysis of over a thousand tribunal-related court decisions and extensive interviews with lawyers and litigants, the report shows how citizenship determination has become arbitrary, inconsistent, and deeply unjust. Short-term political pressures, bureaucratic discretion, and the absence of effective judicial safeguards have combined to produce a system where procedural fairness is hollowed, and legal protections fail those most in need. The talk reflects on how these developments signal a dangerous shift in India’s legal culture—where ostensibly neutral processes insidiously undermine constitutional principles and render minority lives precarious.
Dr. Mohsin Alam Bhat specializes in constitutional law, human rights, and the law of democracy, examined through comparative, socio-legal, and cross-disciplinary lenses. His research critically engages with minority rights, religious regulation, and the resilience of democratic institutions under authoritarian pressures. He studies the legal mobilization of marginalized Muslim communities in India, grounded in extensive fieldwork and clinical legal interventions. He co-founded Parichay, a legal aid initiative for people facing citizenship deprivation in India, and serves on the editorial board of Article-14, a major civil liberties platform in India.