31 Jan 2021 The three-pronged idea of citizenship germinating at the constitutional moment as status, rights, and identity have undergone significant transformations since the Constitution was drafted. In this Special Issue on Citizenship, we take the occasion of the Republic Day to look back at the historical and material conditions surrounding the citizenship debates in the Constituent Assembly, as well as in the everyday lives of ordinary citizens who negotiated, resisted, or facilitated legal belongings with the state. The ‘undesirable’ (Muslim) immigrant emerged as a legal category; vis-à-vis the non-Muslim refugee. Part, if not most, of the undesirability, lay in the possibility of said undesirable immigrants staking claim to the property they still legally owned, which had been placed in the evacuee property pool, writes