Скачать или смотреть Episode 29- Undoing Citizenship: A Battle in Assam

In this episode of Yeh Daagh daagh Ujala, Human Rights activist, Harsh Mander is joined by Mohsin Alam Bhat, Assistant Professor of Law, HRA Choudhary, Lawyer at Guwahati High Court and Arshad Ahmed, an independent journalist.

Mohsin Alam Bhat talks about his report 'Unmaking Citizens: The Architecture of Rights Violation and Exclusion in India’s Citizenship Trials.' The report examines how Assam’s citizenship verification regime—centred on the Foreigners Tribunals (FTs) and upheld by the Gauhati High Court—systematically undermines the rule of law and basic human rights. It shows how nearly 166,000 people have already been declared “foreigners,” with over 85,000 cases still pending, often based on minor documentary errors, missed notices, or customary practices like women’s name changes after marriage. The system reverses the burden of proof, forcing largely poor and marginalised groups, especially Miya Muslims, to prove their citizenship through documents they often lack. Many cases are decided ex parte, without the accused being heard, and tribunal members work under insecure contracts that incentivise declaring people foreigners. Judicial review by the High Court has largely entrenched, rather than corrected, these flaws. The report argues that this regime produces statelessness, indefinite detention, and illegal “pushbacks” into Bangladesh, amounting to structural and systemic exclusion that violates both constitutional protections and international human rights obligations.

H.R.A Choudhary, who has spent years defending those declared ‘foreigners’ and Arshad Ahmed, who has been reporting on the crisis from ground, together, they share the legal battles, personal struggles, and human stories behind one of the most urgent questions in India today- who gets to belong. Furthermore, they talk about recent illegal pushbacks of Miya Muslims to Bangladesh, the violence and killing faced by those labelled ‘encroachers’ and the climate of fear that shadows everyday life.

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