So, Who Is A Citizen?

It takes a certain kind of mindset for the state to look at a person who has lived on a piece of land for their entire lives and ask, politely, for documentation to prove it. Not a mindset beset by menace or hostility – just a form, a counter, an official with a stamp, and a bored expression.

This summer, two of the world’s largest democracies produced a near-perfect study in how a Supreme Court might respond to such state action.