Description
The paper seeks to address two issues pertaining to the recent Citizenship [Amendment] Act (CAA) in India. First, it engages with the problem of cultural intrusion faced by the states of the north-eastern region of India, specifically Assam. Second, it examines the communally exclusive nature of the Act that defies the idea of secularism enshrined in the Preamble of the Indian Constitution. Both these issues tilt the balance in favour of centralising tendencies of the federal system. On the problem of cultural intrusion, the Act goes against the Assam Accord of 1985 that provided for identification and deportation of illegal foreign immigrants to safeguard the local culture and economy. On the communal aspect, the Act allows non-Muslim persecuted minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan to gain citizenship in India. The combination of CAA with a proposed National Register of Citizens will further lead to large-scale marginalisation of Muslims - Indian or otherwise. Theoretically, the paper examines these two issues through a post-structural lens. It examines the logic of othering and the reduction of certain life forms as ‘bare’. Methodologically, the paper uses critical discourse analysis in ascertaining the power relation between the right-wing central government and the marginalised masses.
