Description
For seven decades, India–the world’s largest democracy–has employed a model of citizenship by which individuals are able to participate on equal terms. This conception of citizenship, which is based on secular and democratic foundations, has in recent years been challenged by a diverse set of legal and political developments–ranging from changes to India’s federal framework to amendments to its official requirements for political membership. The legal and constitutional architecture governing individual citizenship in India is changing in dramatic ways. In particular, there is an underlying trend toward viewing citizenship through the lens of religious or communal identities. Recent seismic changes in domestic politics–namely, the emerging political hegemony of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)–have given Hindu majoritarianism fresh momentum.
Contrary to the secular, syncretic vision of nationalist leaders such as Jawaharlal Nehru, B. R. Ambedkar, and Mahatma Gandhi, which embraced the notion of “unity in diversity” and advocated for constitutional protections for minority faiths in India, advocates of Hindu nationalism believe that Indian culture is synonymous with the culture of the Hindus, who account for roughly 80 percent of the country’s population. Advocates of Hindu nationalism believe that India is fundamentally a Hindu rashtra (nation) and that secularism, as articulated by the Constitution, was a betrayal of the majority’s wishes.
The South Asia Program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace proposes a new research project that will examine five contentious issues: the abrogation of partial autonomy of the state of Jammu and Kashmir; the contested Babri Masjid site in Ayodhya; the uniform civil code debate; the Citizenship Amendment Bill and National Register of Citizens; and anti–conversion legislation. Each of these has a significant bearing on the legal architecture that governs citizenship, minority protections, and secularism in India.
The goal of the project is to analyze and contextualize recent shifts in the legal and constitutional architecture of citizenship in India and the way in which citizenship is increasingly being defined in religious terms. The proposed contributors are a diverse mix of legal scholars, political theorists, and political scientists–largely, but not exclusively, based in India–with a track record of both rigorous scholarship and sustained public engagement.
Led by Carnegie senior fellow Milan Vaishnav and Madhav Khosla of Ashoka University and Columbia Law School, the project builds on a special grant from HRLI (2018), on the causes and consequences of rising religious nationalism in India.
The project will generate a collection of accessible, research–based essays by India’s leading scholars of law, politics, and religion, to be published as a special issue of the Journal of Democracy. Articles will also be published in the Hindustan Times, and journals such as Foreign Affairs or Foreign Policy. “Grand Tamasha,” Carnegie’s India podcast, will serve as another platform to share the findings. Public launch events will take place in Brussels, Washington, DC and New Delhi, where a roundtable discussion will include members of BJP, its affiliates, and representatives of the opposition.
Founded in 1910, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is “dedicated to advancing cooperation between nations and promoting active international engagement by the United States.” With headquarters in Washington,DC, it has offices in Moscow, Beijing, Brussels, New Delhi and Beirut.
Recommendation: That the Directors of the Henry Luce Foundation approve a two–year grant of $120,000 to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace for the project, Communalizing Citizenship in India.
