After living in India all his life, father-of-two Gokul Chandra Saha woke up last weekend to learn he was among almost two million people in the religiously diverse state of Assam that the government had suddenly deemed to be foreigners. The register, initially feared to be a stalking horse for the ruling Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to expel Muslims, has in fact ensnared many people from both religions. Assam, a poor and isolated state in India’s far northeast neighbouring Bangladesh, has long seen large influxes of migrants from elsewhere.
