This week on Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Rinchen Norbu, and Anand Vardhan are joined by author Samrat Choudhury (Samrat X) and Poornima Joshi, resident editor of The Hindu BusinessLine.

The discussion opens on an issue that has quietly become one of the most unsettling debates in recent weeks: citizenship. The conversation was triggered by Samrat’s own experience of receiving a notice questioning his citizenship, despite holding a valid passport for years. He describes how a passport renewed without issue in 2022 suddenly became the subject of an “adverse police report” four years later, citing a chilling reason: “citizenship not established”.

Anand notes that Indian citizenship has never rested on a single document. He argues that the legal framework has always been layered and discretionary, with the Passport Act even providing for travel documents in exceptional circumstances. Samrat, however, maintains that a blue Indian passport is fundamentally distinct from travel documents issued to non-citizens.

The conversation then shifts to Manipur, where renewed violence, attacks on security camps, and continuing ethnic tensions have largely disappeared from national headlines. Samrat cautions against simple narratives. “It’s not simply a hill-versus-valley conflict, or a tribal-versus-non-tribal conflict. It’s much more complicated than that.”

Rinchen argues that regardless of its complexity, the crisis reflects a profound governance failure by the Modi administration. “Manipur has been in a state of perpetual civil war for nearly three years. This is a complete failure of political mediation and internal security.” 

Samrat also takes stock of the human cost and draws one of the episode’s heaviest comparisons. “People are not getting medicines; they’re not getting food or fuel. It’s a situation we’ve heard about in places like Gaza – and it’s happening so close to home.”

Finally, the panel broadens the lens to ask what makes a protest movement successful. Drawing parallels between the Anna Hazare movement, the farmers’ protests, and Sonam Wangchuk’s agitation, they debate whether protests need strong ideological foundations.

Poornima Joshi argues that successful movements require organisational backing and ideological depth, pointing to the RSS’s behind-the-scenes role during the Jan Lokpal movement. This prompts Abhinandan to challenge the panel: if the RSS – one of the most effective political entities of our time – is actually fluid in its ideology, is that fluidity a strength or a weakness for a movement?

Rinchen notes that ideology is important, but argues that enduring movements are defined by demands for systemic change rather than immediate political concessions. As he puts it: “My concern is that their (CJP) demands are not structural. They’re not systemic. It’s resignation, compensation... but then what?”

All this and more.