More than four million residents of India may be blacklisted as foreign migrants on Saturday, in what is being called the biggest disenfranchisement exercise in history. But the crackdown on illegal immigration is unlikely to trigger instant deportations on a grand scale, according to Northeastern professor Liza Weinstein, whose focus includes the urban political economy of India.
Too many people in India lack the documentation to prove their citizenship, says Weinstein, which may force the government to scale back its expectations.
“I do not believe that over four million people will be deported,” says Weinstein, who chairs Northeastern’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology. “This rollout ended up being much messier than the government intended it to be.”
