Majoritarian Projects and Exclusion in Modern India

The article, Majoritarian project sees a backdoor opening by Vishal R. Choradiya examines how recent legislative measures in India, particularly the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), represent a systematic erosion of fundamental rights for marginalized communities, especially Muslims.

While public attention focused on the Covid-19 pandemic and economic challenges, the author argues that exclusionary policies rooted in Hindutva ideology have advanced through bureaucratic channels. Rather than withering away, these measures have evolved into more sophisticated forms that threaten the constitutional foundations of Indian citizenship and belonging.

The NRC-CAA combination marks what Choradiya describes as a dangerous shift in Indian constitutional jurisprudence. For the first time, religion has become a determining factor in citizenship under the CAA, undermining the secular bedrock of the Indian Constitution. This represents a fundamental departure from the principle that citizenship should be based on birth, naturalization, or other secular criteria rather than religious identity.

The article details how the burden of proof for citizenship has been strategically shifted to individuals, many of whom lack comprehensive documentation due to poverty, displacement, or illiteracy. This system particularly disadvantages Muslims, migrants, and other vulnerable populations. The author describes this as creating millions of "stateless" people within their own country through bureaucratic processes.

Drawing on evidence from Assam, Choradiya shows how these policies have been implemented with devastating effect. Mass eviction drives have disproportionately targeted Bengali-origin Muslims, while the state has accelerated occupation of land for decades. The government has justified these actions by invoking claims of encroachment on "government land," while simultaneously failing to provide adequate legal protections for shelter and livelihood.

The article argues that this represents more than individual rights violations—it constitutes an assault on India's constitutional vision of pluralism and equality. The author suggests that what appears to be bureaucratic procedure is actually "demographic engineering" designed to marginalize the Muslim population and reshape India's religious composition.

Majoritarian project sees a backdoor opening by Vishal R Choradiya, in: Deccan Herald, 4 August 2025.

Choradiya concludes that India faces a critical moment where slow-burning processes of disenfranchisement could become irreversible. The article warns that without decisive judicial intervention and public resistance, the foundational promise of Indian democracy—a republic that denies no one the right to belong based on religion—may be fundamentally compromised.

The piece serves as both documentation of ongoing exclusionary practices and a warning about their cumulative effect on India's democratic and constitutional order.

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