In 2019, India’s government passed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which offers non-Muslim religious minorities from neighboring countries a fast-track pass to Indian citizenship. Prime Minister Narendra Modi claims that this policy intends to give sanctuary to people fleeing from religious persecution in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. However, this policy is inherently anti-democratic and is a serious concern for the state of democracy in India.
The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and its Criticisms
Three days after the approval of the CAA, a nationwide protest erupted as the Act would disproportionately affect Muslims and, with the National Register of Citizens (NRC), leave many stateless without any rights, protections, or legal identity. The riots that took place in 2020 led to over fifty dead and hundreds injured. Over four years passed before the government outlined the rules and guidelines of the CAA. In March 2024, the government announced eligibility criteria allowing non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan to apply for Indian citizenship. This is still contested today as states led by the opposition resist this law. Several states have declared they will not implement the law, aiming to protect democracy and secularism. West Bengal’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee emphasizes she will not implement CAA “as long as I am alive”. However, Modi states that states have a “constitutional duty” to implement any laws that are passed by the parliament.
The CAA is strongly criticized due to its exclusionary and non-secular nature. Concerns were raised about the CAA’s violation of India’s Constitution. India’s Constitution, adopted in 1949, emphasizes secular principles and equality under the law. Article 14 states, “The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India.” This has raised concerns that the CAA undermines constitutional guarantees of equality for non-Muslims. This concern sparked numerous protests. The government’s response to this criticism reflects a strain in India’s democracy. The regime suppressed backlash through Internet shutdowns, arbitrary arrests, and a ban on assemblies.
India’s Religious Tension
India’s religious tension plays an important role in its state of democracy. Hindus make up about 79% of the population while Muslims make up about 14%, according to the Census of India. The country has a long history of conflict between the Hindu majority and Muslim minority, starting with the partition riots in 1947. Throughout the years, there have been sporadic outbreaks of riots, leading to the notable Gujarat riots of 2002, in which Modi is criticized for his lack of intervention. Such internal conflicts have an impact on the stability of democracy. This division can be exploited by populist leaders, influence voter behavior and undermine equal protection under the law. The CAA further exacerbates these tensions, illustrating how religious polarization can threaten democratic norms and minority rights in India.
Why India’s CAA is a Threat to Democracy
What makes democratic backsliding so difficult to identify and combat is its ambiguity. According to Nancy Bermeo, backsliding occurs when leaders who are elected democratically use established tools to execute anti-democratic goals. This is the case with India and its Citizenship Amendment Act. The Bharatiya Janata Party government changed constitutional rights with little political opposition. This is a clear example of a subtle type of erosion called executive aggrandizement, where Modi expands his power by creating institutional change through democratic means. Because of this, those who oppose the government and its policies are seen as anti-democratic, and their efforts are delegitimized or suppressed. Despite how this policy was passed, its effects undermine democratic norms.
According to Levitsky and Ziblatt, the four warning signs for an authoritarian are the following: he rejects, in words or action, the democratic rules of the game, he denies the legitimacy of political opponents, he tolerates or encourages violence, or he indicates a willingness to curtail the civil liberties of opponents, including the media. He further states that any leader who exhibits even one of these is cause for concern. There’s evidence that suggests that Modi’s government exhibits these warning signs. He rejects the Constitution, denies the legitimacy of any opposition and suppresses them, fails to intervene in violence against the minority Muslims, and curtails the liberties of Muslim minorities. For these reasons, India’s democracy is at risk. Given that the country has already shown signs of erosion, India’s future becomes incredibly important as the people work toward stabilizing democracy.
The Future of the World’s Largest Democracy
While India’s Freedom House score is a 66/100 and only labeled as Partly Free, there is hope for India’s future. Elections are opportunities to apply horizontal accountability to anti-democratic leaders, and protests can be effective at gaining public attention on critical issues. Coordination and civil engagement are key to cultivating the democratic civic culture embedded in India. The people of India must make an effort to resist populist leaders and policies that weaken democratic governance. By persistently challenging anti-democratic actions, democracy can be reinforced through checks and balances. This is supported by Michael Bernhard et al. in “Parties, Civil Society, and the Deterrence of Democratic Defection,” who demonstrate that institutionalized political parties and an active civil society are effective in deterring democratic defection. When formal institutions are weakened, civil society becomes even more crucial in checking governmental abuse of power and preventing democratic erosion. Strengthening these practices is a vital way India can protect and preserve its democracy.
References
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Bermeo, Nancy. 2016. “On Democratic Backsliding.” Journal of Democracy 27 (1): 5-19.
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While I was reading your post, I couldn’t help but draw parallels to democratic erosion in Turkey. Like India, it is a case where individuals in power are intentionally stoking ethnic tensions between groups in order to amass more power. In Turkey, the AKP stoked tensions between a Muslim majority and a Kurdish minority, and similarly, these ethnic tensions are a barrier to democratization.
When it comes to tactics of democratic erosion, exploiting ethnic tensions remains an incredibly sinister tactic, as it is intended to further polarize the masses. It’s effective because it draws from the immense historical pain of both parties. In fact, in “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy” Fareed Zakaria states that democracy is incompatible with areas that face great ethnic tensions because democratic elections require competition, and in many multiethnic states, competition is along religious, ethnic, or racial lines (Zakaria 1997). Many choose to simplify democratic backsliding and attempt to assess it on an operational level outside of religious, racial, and ethnic history, but in fact these painful divides leave a sort of “anti-democratic trauma” on historically divided societies. To best understand democratic backsliding, studying the underbelly of ethnic conflict helps better understand the tactics utilized by executives. Like Erdogan, Modi uses the historical tensions to amass more power.
Thank you for sharing this! I think what’s particularly striking is how Modi’s approach in India mirrors the same patterns we have seen in Turkey under Erdoğan, as they both utilize democratic institutions as weapons rather than dismantling them completely. Bermeo’s framework, as you mentioned in the article, really helps us understand why responding to the CAA is difficult, as it uses legislative processes to create anti-democratic acts/legislation. Like Turkey’s gradual erosion under the AKP, India’s backsliding is operating through what seems to be legitimate governance.
Both of the leaders are exploiting the deeply rooted religious tensions, Hindu-Muslim divisions in India, and the Turkish-Kurdish conflicts in Turkey, to justify expanding executive power by marginalizing the (religious) opposition as threats to national security and unity. Furthermore, Erdoğan used constitutional amendments and emergency powers following the 2016 coup attempt to consolidate authority under the guise of protecting national security. Similarly, Modi justifies the CAA as providing sanctuary for persecuted minorities. However, both leaders use these humanitarian framings to mask policies that actually marginalize specific religious groups and expand executive power. This comparison to Turkey and its similarities reveal the troubling realities and things that happen for democratic erosion in multiethnic societies, all while claiming to “protect democracy.” This furthers Bermeo’s argument that modern authoritarians rarely stage dramatic overthrows, but instead gradually hollow out the democratic institutions from within.
I agree with your concerns about civil society’s ability to maintain stability in a region already deeply divided. I believe the CAA demonstrates that even established democratic societies can remain immune to authoritarian drift. A countries population size and democratic history offer no protection when leaders successfully weaponize existing ethnic and religious divisions to pursue executive aggrandizement. This case study really goes to show how societal fracture can become a tool for democratic erosion in the hands of a determined authoritarian.
Your post really captures how the CAA is not just a technical citizenship reform but part of a broader project of redefining who counts as fully Indian. The way you link executive aggrandizement to deep historical Hindu-Muslim tensions helps show why the law is so powerful and so dangerous at the same time.
One aspect I found especially interesting is the tug-of-war between the central government and opposition-led states that refuse to implement the CAA. On the one hand, their resistance looks like a form of democratic defense, using federalism as a shield for minority rights. On the other hand, it raises tricky questions about what it means for states to openly defy a national law passed through constitutional procedures, even if that law is illiberal. It almost flips Bermeo’s framework: usually the center erodes democracy and subnational units follow, but here state governments are trying to preserve pluralism by selectively complying.
I also kept thinking about the bureaucratic side you hint at with the NRC. Even if the CAA remains formally limited, the combination of documentation requirements and administrative discretion can create a de facto tiered citizenship, where Muslims in particular live under constant threat of being labeled “illegal” or stateless. That kind of everyday insecurity might change how minorities participate politically – whether they feel safe protesting, voting, or even approaching state institutions for basic services. Your conclusion about the role of civil society made me wonder whether we should also be watching smaller, local organizations (student groups, legal aid clinics, neighborhood associations) that help people navigate these new rules and, in the process, quietly contest the exclusionary logic behind them.
This is a really great analysis and application of the theory Bermeo and Levitsky & Ziblatt expand on in their respective works, and I appreciate how you include the potential for democratic resilience through elections. One angle that has the potential for further exploration is the role of the judiciary in the decision to adopt the CAA. Article 131 of the Indian Constitution grants the Supreme Court exclusive jurisdiction on cases between states and the federal government. If states refuse to implement the law, it seems the Supreme Court will be forced to mediate.
This intervention could be exactly what democracy in India needs to preserve its integrity by defining the bounds of federal authority and the law’s constitutionality. However, whatever the outcome, Modi could still succeed in an adoption of the CAA; either through a decision that endorses the law and indirectly his federal authority, or by continuing down the path you point out of rejecting the Constitution and denying the legitimacy of opposition. Involving the judiciary also raises deeper questions concerning constitutional guarantees of equality under Article 14 and protecting the secular principles of the Constitution itself. A decision that upholds the CAA could permit a form of selective citizenship and grant legal protections to some religious groups while systematically excluding others, effectively disregarding the notion of equality under Article 14 and further eroding democracy in India.