In speech after speech, the Union home minister and other Sangh parivar leaders like Mohan Bhagwat are insisting that no Hindu will ever be deported from India when their plan to create a National Register of Citizens is enforced across India.

On October 1, in Kolkata, Shah said, “I want to assure all Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist and Christian refugees, that you will not be forced to leave India by the Centre. Don’t believe rumours. Before NRC, we will bring the Citizenship Amendment Bill, which will ensure these people get Indian citizenship.”

The fact is that the Modi government’s overarching plan is to divide the Indian people on the basis of religion. Leaders like Amit Shah are doing this by scaring Muslim citizens and making them feel insecure about their place in their own country, while telling Hindus that this country really belongs to them and reassuring them that they will never have to fear their citizenship or devotion to the country being questioned.

In this episode of Beyond the Headlines, Siddharth Varadarajan sees how this kind of policy goes against not just the letter and spirit of the constitution but marks a dangerous turn – even by the violent track record of the Hindutva organisations. But beyond that, he also explains how Shah’s reassurance rests on a gigantic fib – that he is actually lying when he says his government has no intention of allowing a single Hindu or any other non-Muslim to be deported from India.