THE RESISTANCE MOVEMENT AGAINST THE CITIZEN AMENDMENT BILL AND ACT IN NAGALAND AND NORTHEAST INDIA

  • Unique Paper ID: 209167
  • Volume: 13
  • Issue: 5
  • PageNo: 963-974
  • Abstract:
  • The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, passed as the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) on 11 December 2019, triggered one of the most sustained mass mobilizations in Northeast India's recent history. Unlike the communal framing that dominated protests elsewhere in the country, opposition in Assam, Nagaland and the wider Northeast was rooted primarily in concerns over indigenous identity, land, and demographic security. Critics argued that granting expedited citizenship to non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan who entered before 2015 would undermine the Acts, Accords and rights granted to these states under the new bill, leading to influx of the illegal immigrants. Student bodies such as AASU, NSF etc. alongside civil society organizations across Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya, Nagaland and other states, organized strikes, road blockades, and large public demonstrations, several of which turned violent and drew heavy state response. The movement exposed a fault line between the Northeast's ethno-linguistic anxieties and the CAAs religiously framed national discourse, prompting partial exemptions for Sixth Schedule areas and Inner Line Permit regions. This article examines the course of the protest movement in the Northeastern states of India which remains a significant case study as to how frontier regions negotiate citizenship, belonging, and constitutional change within the Indian federal structure.

Copyright & License

Copyright © 2026 Authors retain the copyright of this article. This article is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

BibTeX

@article{209167,
        author = {K Hokato Sumi and Kethovino Catherine Kulnu},
        title = {THE RESISTANCE MOVEMENT AGAINST THE CITIZEN AMENDMENT BILL AND ACT IN NAGALAND AND NORTHEAST INDIA},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2026},
        volume = {13},
        number = {5},
        pages = {963-974},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=209167},
        abstract = {The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, passed as the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) on 11 December 2019, triggered one of the most sustained mass mobilizations in Northeast India's recent history. Unlike the communal framing that dominated protests elsewhere in the country, opposition in Assam, Nagaland and the wider Northeast was rooted primarily in concerns over indigenous identity, land, and demographic security. Critics argued that granting expedited citizenship to non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan who entered before 2015 would undermine the Acts, Accords and rights granted to these states under the new bill, leading to influx of the illegal immigrants. Student bodies such as AASU, NSF etc. alongside civil society organizations across Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya, Nagaland and other states, organized strikes, road blockades, and large public demonstrations, several of which turned violent and drew heavy state response. The movement exposed a fault line between the Northeast's ethno-linguistic anxieties and the CAAs religiously framed national discourse, prompting partial exemptions for Sixth Schedule areas and Inner Line Permit regions. This article examines the course of the protest movement in the Northeastern states of India which remains a significant case study as to how frontier regions negotiate citizenship, belonging, and constitutional change within the Indian federal structure.},
        keywords = {Citizen Amendment Bill, NRC, CAA, Northeast protest, Illegal Immigrants.},
        month = {October},
        }

Cite This Article

Sumi, K. H., & Kulnu, K. C. (2026). THE RESISTANCE MOVEMENT AGAINST THE CITIZEN AMENDMENT BILL AND ACT IN NAGALAND AND NORTHEAST INDIA. International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology (IJIRT), 13(5), 963–974.

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