What felt like a triumph in 2019 now feels like a temporary pause.

In December 2019, nationwide protests had erupted after the Modi government passed the Citizenship Amendment Act, which introduced for the first time a religious criteria for Indian citizenship. The government claimed the law had nothing to do with Indians – it was only meant to give amnesty to those fleeing religious persecution in India’s neighbourhood.

But the argument failed to convince many people: they recalled what Amit Shah, the Bharatiya Janata Party president at the time, had proclaimed in his election speeches just months ago – that the CAA would be followed by the NRC or the National Register of Citizens.

The country had already seen millions struggling to prove their citizenship in the NRC conducted in Assam. Many now feared the same fate – Muslims, in particular, suspected that the CAA, which excluded Muslim migrants, would be used in conjunction with the NRC to disenfranchise them.

Thousands came out on the streets to protest. The Modi government was forced to clarify that it had no plans to conduct an NRC.

But this year, it has stealthily done what it could not openly do – devise a highly exclusionary test of Indianness.

For one, the Election Commission – made up of officials appointed by the government – has drafted an electoral roll revision exercise in Bihar that is essentially a citizenship test for millions of people in the state.

Nearly eight crore voters in the state, even though they may have voted in previous elections, must fill a form before July 25 if they want to be included in the revised roll. Those whose names do not feature in the 2003 electoral roll – a staggering 2.9 crore, by the Election Commission’s own estimate – must additionally prove their identity and citizenship.

For voters above the age of 40, this means submitting documents establishing their date or place of birth. Those under 40 face an even more onerous test – if they were born before 2004, they need to prove the citizenship of one parent, and if they were born after 2004, of both their parents. The distinction flows from an amendment of the citizenship law made in 2003 by the Bharatiya Janata Party government, which as scholars have pointed out, cemented lineage and not just birth as the basis of Indian citizenship.

Bihar is one of India’s poorest and least literate states. An abysmally small number of people possess a birth certificate or a school certificate. To establish their identity and citizenship, millions are now scrambling to acquire a domicile certificate – all within a matter of three weeks.

The sheer absurdity of carrying out an exercise like this within a month should have been a good enough reason for the Supreme Court to pause it. But in response to petitions filed by Opposition leaders and activist groups, the court has merely asked the Election Commission to respond to three questions – one of which is whether the poll body has the powers to determine citizenship.

Even if the court in the future holds that the commission does not have this power, and that the home ministry alone can decide matters of citizenship, much damage would have been done. By default, the Bihar roll revision exercise would have cast in doubt the citizenship of all those who fail to furnish the required documents. Needless to say, a majority of them would be poor, marginalised voters from Dalit, backward and Muslim communities.

What the state can do with such “doubtful” voters, we already know from the experience of Assam.

It was precisely an electoral roll revision exercise in 1997 that first created a list of “doubtful” voters in Assam. These D-voters, as they came to be known, were subsequently hauled up in foreigners tribunals. Many were declared to be foreigners without even being heard.

Until this summer, those who failed to summon up resources to challenge these arbitrary verdicts in higher courts ran the risk of being sent to detention camps. But now they face an even worse fate – since May, Assam has been forcing hundreds of such people across the border into Bangladesh.

Among those deported, as my colleagues Rokibuz Zaman and Raghav Kakkar found, is a former government school teacher, an elderly man whose name features on the National Register of Citizens, another man who had secured a High Court order protecting him from deportation, and several others whose citizenship cases are still being heard by the higher courts.

What is common to them is that they are all Muslims of Bengali origin, a community with roots in pre-Partition East Bengal, or current-day Bangladesh.

While even Hindus of Bengali origin have been tagged D-voters and declared to be foreigners in Assam, by all available accounts, they are not being deported – the Citizenship Amendment Act appears to be shielding them. Last year, citing the CAA, the Assam government had directed the state border police to overlook the cases of Bengali Hindus. It seems the same reasoning is being deployed to exempt them from deportations.

In the future, could the “doubtful” voters of Bihar face similar discrimination on the basis of religion?

This is not far-fetched, if you pay attention to another development that is going under the radar.

Over the past few months, in several states ruled by the BJP, hundreds of working-class Muslim migrants from West Bengal – who have no history of being in Assam or been summoned by its foreigners tribunals – have been rounded up by the police on suspicion that they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

In a conversation with my colleague Rokibuz Zaman, a migrant detained in Odisha recalled what the police told him: “You are speaking Bengali means you are Bangladeshi.” He also recounted the police asking him about his religious identity, which raises the suspicion that only Bengali Muslims are being targeted in these drives.

As our ongoing reporting suggests, even migrant workers possessing documents proving that they hail from villages in West Bengal are not being spared by the police. Worse, in Delhi and Maharashtra, we found instances of detained Bengali Muslim families being summarily deported to Bangladesh – they were brought back to India on the intervention of the West Bengal government. We will be publishing a report on these detentions and deportations next week.

If you join the dots between what is happening in Bihar, Assam and elsewhere, it is clear that the BJP is harnessing both law and state power to systematically create a new citizenship regime.

This regime renders those not seen as Indian enough by Hindutva extremely vulnerable – not only can they lose their voting rights, they can be thrown out of the country overnight. And the courts, going by recent orders, are unlikely to come to their rescue.

Vineet Bhalla explains why having to prove you are an Indian citizen is a nightmare.

Here is a summary of the week’s other top stories.

Arbitrary, unexplained blocking orders? Social media platform X said that the Indian government had earlier this month directed it to block 2,355 accounts, including two handles of the Reuters news agency, in the country. Hours later, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology stated that it had not “issued any fresh blocking order” and had “no intention to block any prominent international news channels”.

X has stated that the Indian government asked it to block the accounts on July 3 “within hours”. The accounts of Reuters were blocked on the evening of July 5. “After public outcry, the government requested X to unblock @Reuters and @ReutersWorld,” claimed the platform. “We are deeply concerned about ongoing press censorship in India due to these blocking orders.”

The Elon Musk-led platform stated that it was limited by India’s law in its ability to legally challenge the blocking orders. “We urge affected users to pursue legal remedies through the courts,” it added.

Vineet Bhalla explains why India’s censorship of news media online without stating reasons is unlawful.

Rain havoc. At least 85 persons have died in rain-related incidents since the onset of the monsoon in Himachal Pradesh on June 20. Thirty-four persons were missing and 129 have been injured.

In neighbouring Uttarakhand, 22 persons have died and 11 injured in rain-related incidents. Over 140 houses have been damaged and several families displaced due to the weather. More than 130 roads, including highways, remain blocked.

Amid incessant rains, Nagaland, Assam and Manipur also reported flooding.

Also on Scroll last week

Follow the Scroll channel on WhatsApp for a curated selection of the news that matters throughout the day, and a round-up of major developments in India and around the world every evening. What you won’t get: spam.

And, if you haven’t already, sign up for our Daily Brief newsletter.