Reclaiming the sublime: The (un)making of the people’s constitution in India

Abstract

The Currents section foregrounds the work of Indian scholars who examine the ramifications of state responses and counterresponses regarding the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in December 2019. This amendment to the Constitution of India granted citizenship to persecuted minorities from three nearby countries—namely, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan—but not to those who were Muslim. The act brought into question not just the issue of barring certain refugees to the country but also the relationship of India’s minorities with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party that is at the helm of a Hindu right-wing wave. The contributions focus on the implications of the amendments and the protests against them for minority and/or Muslim identities through a combination of historical, autoethnographic, ethnographic, media, and theoretical perspectives in the midst of growing religio-political communalization in the subcontinent.