View from the margins: After CAA rules, Mumbai Muslims rush to get their identity documents in order

Voting is often the only chance that many of India's marginalised groups get to express themselves. As national elections approach, Scroll's reporters fanned out across the country to talk to groups with little socio-political power as part of a series called the View from the Margins. The aim: try to understand how the powerless and the voiceless have fared under a decade of the Modi government.

It was nearly 11 pm when Sajeed Sheikh walked into the community centre he runs in the suburb of Jogeshwari in northwestern Mumbai, but the room was bustling with activity. Sheikh, with the help of volunteers, began arranging for foodgrain to be distributed among poor families in the neighbourhood during Ramzan, a month of prayer, charity and fasting. Instructions about the logistics flew thick and fast, but so did anxious questions – about the Citizenship Amendment Act, the contentious law that had been implemented just two days earlier.

Queries ranged from the practical to the conceptual. Will all of India be made to apply for inclusion in the National Register of Citizens? What documents could be needed for it? Was the Citizenship Amendment Act in keeping with India’s commitment to secularism?

With the Lok Sabha elections around the corner, and given the...

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