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radical reforms including prime minister would have
devaluation of the rupee placed contemporary India CITIZENSHIP REGIMES, LAW &
and liberalising the Exim on a par with China. But BELONGING: THE CAA & THE
policy introduced during successive governments at NRC
PVNR’s five-year term are the Centre, including the Anupama Roy
astonishing, given that two-term Narendra Modi OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
simultaneously he had to government, have failed to Rs.1,495; 270 pp
deal with major political sufficiently take the 1991
problems including de- reforms forward.
molition of the “politically DILIP THAKORE
explosive” Babri Masjid to reside in Transvaal. The power of the
scam which upended the Citizenship But the identity card State to determine
(1992), the Harshad Mehta
involved profiling Indians
membership of
stock market (1992), while imbroglio with photo mugshots and political communities
undertaking several dip- fingerprints, which the and people's power
lomatic initiatives in the protesters believed was to challenge the State
Far East. All this and more N CITIZENSHIP an affront to their dignity are discussed
without upsetting Sonia Regimes, Law, and Be- as they were being treated
Gandhi whose mole within Ilonging: The CAA and like criminals.
the government was the the NRC, Anupama Roy The second moment have found a new iteration
Machiavellian Arjun Singh. examines the form and is borrowed from Saadat in the 21st century.
Sonia’s support as chief of content of recent changes Hasan Manto’s short In chapter one titled
a faction in the Congress to citizenship laws in India story, Toba Tek Singh. In Hyphenated Citizenship:
party was necessary for by placing the Citizenship the midst of the violence The National Register of
the survival of the PVNR Amendment Act (CAA, wrought by the Partition of Citizens, Roy contends
government. 2019), the National Regis- India in 1947 and discord that NRC through the
The consensus of ter of Citizens (NRC), and between the newly-formed judicial route and the
opinion is that Rao was a the Land Border Agree- nations of India and CAA through the legisla-
reluctant reformer driven ment (LBA, 2015) in their Pakistan on most mat- tive route introduced two
by the IMF and adverse historical, ideological, and ters, the two governments distinct ways of determin-
economic circumstances to political contexts. concurred on the exchange ing Indian citizenship. The
initiate his path-breaking The power of the State of ‘lunatics’. The inmates NRC in Assam became
reforms. The author dis- to determine one’s mem- of the lunatic asylum how- a citizenship register for
misses this charge head on. bership of a political com- ever resisted the madness people of Assamese origin
Proof was that throughout munity and the people’s outside. They refused to as well as for identifying
his term, PVNR retained power to challenge state be boxed into either India ‘illegal migrants’, who were
the industry portfolio to power are the two types of or Pakistan. If Partition incarcerated in detention
implement his reforms powers that Roy alludes created new boundaries centres. CAA made religion
agenda. As a result, annual to at the beginning of the for India and Pakistan, a criterion for determin-
6-7 percent GDP growth of book. These allusions are the madness of Partition ing those amongst illegal
the economy has become elaborated with reference violence smudged the migrants who were eligible
the new minimum and to two historical moments. boundaries between lunacy for Indian citizenship by
India’s middle class is the The first moment was and rationality. naturalisation.
world’s largest and most the people’s non-violent The two moments from Chapter two is titled
high-potential market. resistance in the South the early and mid-20th Bounded Citizenship:
But public memory is African province of century display the expan- The Citizenship Amend-
short and the strategic role Transvaal led by Mahatma sive power of the State to ment Act 2019, where Roy
PVNR played in placing Gandhi against state impact affective ties. At examines the discourses
India on the free markets power. The people, largely the same time, they reflect surrounding the CAA and
road is interred with his Indians, were protesting the power of the people notes that the category
bones. Had they been against the imposition of to resist the State, and of ‘illegal migrant’ had
continued to their logical the Transvaal Registra- raise questions about the acquired a connotation
conclusion, the radical tion Act (1906) because it relationship between legal that differs from the NRC.
economic reforms intro- created an identity card for rationality and the power While the CAA sought
duced by this accidental non-whites, who wanted of the law. Those moments to stretch citizenship

64 EDUCATIONWORLD JULY 2023