Citizenship

Written and reviewed by Subhra Gupta, Humanities faculty at UniDrill (M.A. Sociology, University of Delhi · 7 years teaching Humanities). Based on NCERT Political Science Class XI (Political Theory), Chapter 6.

Can you be an outsider in your own country?

A nurse from Kerala takes a job in a Delhi hospital. A software engineer from Lucknow moves to Bangalore. A construction worker from one state builds flats in another. All of them are Indian citizens, and yet in each city someone will eventually say that jobs, schools and hospital beds should be kept for "locals". The slogan "Mumbai for Mumbaikars" is the famous version of that demand.

That small argument holds the whole chapter. If citizenship means belonging to a country, who decides how much you belong? Does a citizen have fewer rights in a city that is not her hometown? What happens to people who belong to no country at all? Every section below is one answer to that question.

The big idea: full and equal membership

Citizenship is full and equal membership of a political community. Learn that sentence word for word. It carries three ideas: you are a member (you belong), you are a full member (nobody holds you at the edge), and you are an equal member (your status is the same as everyone else's).

A modern state gives its members a shared political identity and a bundle of rights. The chapter groups these in three families.

The exact list of rights differs from one state to another. What does not change in a democracy is the base: equality of rights and status.

Rights come with obligations. Citizenship is not only about what the state owes you. Citizens also owe things to each other: legal duties such as paying taxes and obeying laws, and a moral duty to take part in the shared life of the community. Citizens are also trustees of the country's culture and natural resources, which is why India's Constitution lists Fundamental Duties.

Citizenship is a project, not a finished prize. A "project" is something still being built. Rights that look natural today were won by long struggles, and groups that are included today were once left out.

Movements still going on in India, such as those of women and dalits, belong to the same story: they ask the state to turn equal status on paper into equal status in life.

Full and equal membership: the insider-outsider problem

Why the "outsider" demand arises. When jobs, college seats, water or land feel scarce, people look for someone to blame, and the easiest target is the newcomer. The demand then becomes: reserve opportunities for local people and put language tests or residence rules in the way of those from elsewhere.

Why it clashes with citizenship. Every Indian citizen has the right to move and settle anywhere in India. Workers use that freedom to go where the jobs are, and cities grow because of them. If a state could shut out citizens from other states, citizenship would no longer be equal. It would depend on where you were born.

Two views. For the exam: equal citizenship means a citizen of the country is not an outsider in any part of it, and the right to freedom of movement protects migration for work. Another reading: local residents argue that scarce public resources and local culture need some protection, and that migration can strain a small place. The debate is about balancing those worries without giving up equal membership. The chapter's answer is that disputes should be settled by discussion and negotiation, not by pushing citizens out.

Pause and predict: a town decides that only people born in the town can get a licence to sell vegetables in its market. Which idea from this section does that rule test?

Check your answer: the insider-outsider divide. It treats citizens from elsewhere as lesser members, which cuts against the right to move and settle freely and against equal membership.

Martin Luther King Jr. and unjust laws. In the southern United States of the 1950s, the Segregation Laws denied black citizens civil and political rights. King argued that segregation harmed the whole society, called it a "social leprosy on the body politic", and said it damaged the lives of whites as much as blacks by building artificial walls between people. He called for peaceful, non-violent resistance to unjust laws.

The right to protest. The chapter treats protest as flowing from freedom of expression. It is legitimate as long as it does not damage the life or property of others or of the State. Peaceful protest is how citizens ask for their claims to be heard; negotiation is how a dispute is finally settled.

Equal rights: Marshall, the urban poor and the Olga Tellis case

The question. Do all citizens have a real minimum standard of living, or only the right to vote? The chapter looks at city slum-dwellers and pavement dwellers to find out. They work as hawkers, small traders, domestic workers, plumbers and mechanics. Small businesses such as cane-weaving, textile printing and tailoring often start in slums. Without them a city would not run, yet their homes and work are the first to be treated as illegal.

T.H. Marshall's three rights. The British sociologist T.H. Marshall (1893-1981) defined citizenship as a status given to those who are full members of a community. The key idea in his definition is equality, in both the quality and the quantity of rights and duties.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: three rights, in the order civil, political, social. In reality: Marshall also argued that in England these rights arrived one after the other, civil first, then political, then social, and that social rights were needed so that the poor could use the first two in practice. A person who cannot read or earn a living cannot easily use a vote. Why it matters: it explains why citizenship is not complete without a minimum standard of living.

Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation (1985). Pavement dwellers in Bombay faced eviction. The Supreme Court held that the right to life under Article 21 includes the right to livelihood. Its reasoning was simple: if you take away someone's means of earning a living, you take away their ability to live. The Court also spoke of alternative accommodation for those who were evicted.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: Article 21 includes the right to livelihood, and evicted pavement dwellers should get alternative accommodation. In reality: the Court did not say that nobody may ever be removed from a pavement. It said that a person cannot be deprived of livelihood without a fair procedure, which includes notice and a hearing. Why it matters: the case shows how courts widen the meaning of a short constitutional phrase such as "right to life".

Street vendors. The National Policy on Urban Street Vendors, framed in January 2004, recognised vendors as a legitimate part of the urban economy. Its aim was to let them work without harassment, under reasonable regulation.

Tribal people and forest dwellers. The chapter notes that these groups face pressure on their livelihoods from population growth, commercial mining and tourism. The State has to protect them without ignoring national development.

Two views. For the exam: equal rights for citizens do not mean identical policies for everybody. Different groups have different needs, and policy must take those needs into account if people are to become genuinely more equal. Another reading: some argue that a single rule for everyone is the fairest way to show equal treatment, and that special policies can create new divisions. The chapter notes that the rights of one group may sometimes clash with the rights of another, so these choices need careful reasoning, not slogans.

Pause and predict: a college builds a ramp beside its main staircase so wheelchair users can enter. Is this equal treatment or special treatment?

Check your answer: equal treatment. Everyone gets the same access to the building, but because their needs differ, the means differ. This is the logic of "equal does not mean identical".

Citizen and nation: who belongs?

The nation-state and citizenship. French revolutionaries in 1789 were among the first to claim that the nation, made up of its citizens, was sovereign. Modern states express a national identity through symbols such as a flag, an anthem, a language and public ceremonies.

Different countries, different answers. The chapter compares how states decide who belongs.

Citizenship in the Indian Constitution. Part II of the Constitution (Articles 5 to 11) deals with citizenship. The earlier articles say who became a citizen when the Constitution began, and Article 11 gives Parliament the power to make laws on the subject. Parliament did so through the Citizenship Act, 1955.

Whatever the route, once you are a citizen, the State cannot discriminate against you on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: the five modes above. In reality: the details inside each mode, such as how long a foreigner must live in India before applying, are set by the Citizenship Act and by rules, and can change when Parliament amends the law. The Constitution lays down who was a citizen at the start and gives Parliament the power to regulate later changes. Why it matters: in an exam the safe answer is "Constitution (Part II) plus the Citizenship Act, 1955".

Beyond one country: stateless people and global citizenship

Statelessness. Every state sets its own conditions for citizenship, even while supporting the idea of inclusive citizenship. People who fall between those conditions can end up with no state at all. Refugees and migrants, such as the Palestinians and people displaced from Darfur in Sudan, as well as groups from Myanmar and Bangladesh, are among those the chapter discusses. A stateless person often cannot work legally, send children to school or own property. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was created to help such people.

India has given shelter to persecuted groups. The best-known example in the chapter is the Dalai Lama and his followers, who were granted refuge in 1959. The chapter also notes that many migrants stay stateless for generations, and only a few are granted citizenship.

Global citizenship. In an interconnected world, problems cross borders. The 2004 tsunami brought worldwide help, terrorist networks operate across countries, and bird flu is handled by international cooperation. These examples support the idea of global citizenship: a sense of belonging to the world that helps in dealing with cross-border problems such as migration and statelessness.

Two views. For the exam: global citizenship supplements national citizenship. It does not replace it. Another reading: supporters of a world-wide identity say that borders matter less when problems such as disease or displacement do not respect them. The chapter's reply is that economic and social inequalities inside a country can only be solved by that country's own government and people, so full and equal membership of a state remains important.

Exam traps

60-second revision

Where this chapter connects

• Previous: Equality explains the idea of equal status and opportunity that citizenship relies on.
• Next: Nationalism asks what binds a nation together and how that connects to who counts as a citizen.
• Also see: Rights discusses what a right is, and Rights in the Indian Constitution lists the Fundamental Rights that Indian citizens hold, including Article 21 used in the Olga Tellis case.