Can a secular state grant citizenship selectively based on religion? The most ominous implication of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (CAA) emerges when it is read along with the possibility of an India-wide National Register of Citizens (NRC). Muslims are a 200-million strong minority in India. A failure to prove citizenship on account of loss of documents or a lack of them will mean a loss of citizenship for this minority. We must remember that India is a woefully undocumented country. The poor, the landless, and those on the margins, have neither the resources to procure documents nor a sympathetic State to hold their hand. The specter of statelessness looms on the horizon for a large section of the population. In the current political climate such undocumented people will also have to face the ire of public opinion which has been systematically poisoned by the BJP through persistent use of terms like “termites” and “infiltrators”. The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 and the National Register of Citizens are twin weapons of whipping up communal frenzy, reducing Muslims to prospective second-class citizens in their own country. The BJP understands the explosive potential of these legislative and administrative tools and it will leave no stone unturned to milk them for all their worth. The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 is parochial and it is not based on “intelligible differentia” which is a necessary requirement for all classification under Article 14 (Right to Equality) to stand the test of judicial scrutiny.