Sifting, selecting, relocating citizenship at the commencement of the Republic

"Through a study of archival material, primarily files pertaining to citizenship in the Indian Citizenship Section of the Home Ministry in the 1950s, laws, and court judgements, this paper will explore the liminal spaces of citizenship that emerged in the interregnum between the enforcement of the Citizenship provisions as contained in the Constitution of India and the enactment of the Citizenship Act of 1955. Significantly, while the concern around demarcating in precise terms the territorial boundaries of the Indian nation-state and who could claim its legal membership endured, the process of executive decisionmaking and the court decisions on citizenship ultimately show how the citizenship question at the commencement of the Republic was fraught with contests. Before one ventures into unraveling these contests, in particular, the manner in which restoration, relocation and alternatively, excision and denial of citizenship took place, it will be pertinent to discuss briefly the legal frameworks of citizenship as they obtained at the birth and early years of the Indian Republic.