ASSAM, India — Dilip Biswas had lived in the small northeastern state of Assam for 40 years, growing rice on his land and cooking lunch at a local restaurant, when one day in 2009 the police came knocking on his door. Despite being an ethnic Bengali, a targeted minority in the state, Biswas had never doubted his Indianness. But suddenly he was told to prove it, leave the country forever, or go to jail.

Biswas was given the option to appear in a special court called a “Foreigners Tribunal,” a quasi-judicial system that orders the removal of so-called non-Indians from the country. The number of these tribunals has nearly tripled under India’s nationalist leader Narendra Modi.

...

Read more