Abstract

The Partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 created two new nation-states but it failed to automatically create and differentiate Indian and Pakistani citizens. This issue was further complicated by the large-scale migrations in the aftermath of the Partition in which minorities of one nation moved across the newly created border to join their majority brethren. In official discourse of India and Pakistan, the communities who now became a numerical minority came to be classified as ‘refugees’ and ‘evacuees’ as they migrated across the border. If they continued to remain then they came to assume the homogenous identity of ‘minorities.’ This complicated the issue of what constituted a ‘citizen.’ This paper focuses specifically on the citizenship debates in the Indian Parliament that led to the framing of the Citizenship Act of 1955. Rather than adopting the logic of the Partition, I argue that the architects of the Act debated along multiple axes of identity such as birth, residence, language and property ownership. In theory, the rules of citizenship were manifold aimed at facilitating inclusion for all those who sought to live within the borders of India. However, in practice, especially in the case of refugees, evacuees and minorities, the rules of citizenship entered the murky waters of contextual interpretation as border officials and middle and lower level bureaucrats subjected those seeking Indian citizenship to provide intangible proofs of loyalty to their chosen nation.