Abstract
Citizenship has been at the heart of many of the more recent controversies within India – be it those linked with the revocation of Article 370 of the Indian constitution and the dismemberments of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, the National Register of Citizens, or the Constitutional Amendment Act. The polemics around these issues have demonstrated with uncomfortable clarity, however, that there is much confusion between the terms nationality and citizenship, with the latter often being understood to mean the same as the former. Drawing on the legal history of the subcontinent, including spaces from outside of British India, particularly Portuguese India, Dr Fernandes suggests that there is a fundamental distinction between the two terms and it is necessary to maintain this distinction if the citizenship rights of Indian nationals are to be preserved.
