Statelessness And The Role Of Law: A Comparative Study Of The Rohingya In Myanmar And NRC-Affected Communities In Assam, India
- IJLLR Journal
- Sep 22
- 1 min read
Dharamvir, Chandigarh University
Introduction
Statelessness is a legal condition where an individual is not considered a national by any state under the operation of its law. This legal void is not a mere administrative oversight but a profound crisis that strips individuals of their fundamental right to a nationality, as enshrined in Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Beyond the denial of legal status, statelessness is a precursor to a cascade of human rights violations, rendering individuals and communities vulnerable to exploitation, violence, and systematic discrimination. This paper argues that statelessness, while manifesting as a humanitarian crisis, is fundamentally a product of exclusionary citizenship laws and political agendas. Through a deep comparative analysis, this study examines how legal frameworks in Myanmar and India have been weaponized to create and perpetuate statelessness, focusing on the Rohingya Muslim minority and communities affected by the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam. By deconstructing the legal mechanisms, political rationales, and international legal implications, this paper seeks to provide a comprehensive understanding of how law, in both authoritarian and democratic contexts, can be a tool of ethnic and religious exclusion, and it proposes a pathway toward more just and inclusive citizenship regimes.
Existing Literature and Contextual Analysis
The issue of statelessness is not new, but its contemporary manifestations in countries like Myanmar and India reveal a disturbing trend of states using domestic law to formalize discrimination against minorities. The existing scholarly literature, while extensive, often treats these cases in isolation. This project builds upon and integrates these separate bodies of work to offer a holistic, comparative legal analysis.
