Citizenship

Why this chapter matters for UPSC: Citizenship questions run from GS1 (migration, the urban poor) through GS2 (Part II of the Constitution, the Citizenship Act and its amendments, refugees) to GS4 (the ethics of turning refugees away). NCERT's chapter explains what "full and equal membership" means and where it is contested: migrants and "outsiders", the urban poor, tribal people, national identity, refugees and the stateless, and global citizenship. It is unchanged in the Reprint 2026-27. This page adds the law NCERT does not cover (the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019, the Immigration and Foreigners Act 2025, the Section 6A judgment and the Assam NRC), each dated from the official record, and corrects NCERT's box on the Olga Tellis judgment, which puts words in the Court's mouth.

🧠 First Principles — Read This First

Citizenship is full and equal membership of a political community. States give their members a collective political identity and certain rights, and citizens expect protection even when they travel. The importance of membership is clearest in its absence: refugees and illegal migrants whom no state will accept are guaranteed rights by none.

Rights of citizenship were won, not given. NCERT traces them through struggles against monarchies (the French Revolution of 1789), against colonial rule, against apartheid in South Africa (until the early 1990s), and today through the women's and dalit movements. Citizenship is also about citizen-to-citizen relations: legal duties and a moral obligation to take part in and contribute to shared life, as inheritors and trustees of the country's culture and natural resources.

Equal citizenship is a project, not a finished fact. The formal law is a starting point. New groups raise new claims (migrants, slum-dwellers, tribal people, the displaced), and in a democracy these claims must be negotiated, not settled by force.

PART 1 — Quick Reference

The Chapter at a Glance

Marshall's Three Kinds of Citizenship Rights (NCERT box)

Indian Citizenship Law at a Glance (beyond NCERT)

PART 2 — Concepts & Narrative

What Citizenship Means

Citizenship is "full and equal membership of a political community". In most democracies citizens' rights include political rights (the vote), civil rights (freedom of speech or belief) and some socio-economic rights (a minimum wage, education). "Equality of rights and status is one of the basic rights of citizenship."

Each of these rights was won by struggle: against powerful monarchies in Europe, sometimes violently, as in the French Revolution of 1789; by colonies in Asia and Africa demanding equal citizenship as part of independence; by black South Africans against the white minority until the early 1990s. NCERT's Let's Think describes South Africa until 1994: whites could vote, contest elections, buy property and move freely; blacks could not; they lived in separate colonies, needed passes to work in white areas, could not keep their families there, and went to separate schools. Did black South Africans have full and equal membership? The women's and dalit movements in India are, in NCERT's account, struggles of the same kind.

Citizenship is also about relations among citizens. It involves legal obligations to the state and a moral obligation to participate in and contribute to the community's shared life. Citizens are "the inheritors and trustees of the culture and natural resources of the country."

Full and Equal Membership: Insiders and Outsiders

In a crowded railway compartment or bus, people who fought each other to get in soon find a shared interest in keeping others out. The same thing happens in cities, regions and nations: when jobs, medical care, education, land or water are scarce, people demand that "outsiders", even fellow citizens, be kept out. "Mumbai for Mumbaikars" is NCERT's example.

Freedom of movement is especially important for workers. Labour migrates for jobs: IT workers to Bangalore, nurses from Kerala all over the country, construction and road workers from many regions. Local people may resist jobs going to outsiders, sometimes at lower wages, and demand that jobs be reserved for residents or speakers of the local language; parties take up the cause and resistance can turn violent. NCERT asks: does freedom of movement include the right to live or work anywhere? And are we as welcoming to poor, unskilled migrants as to skilled, affluent ones?

Disputes are inevitable in a democracy. Citizens may protest, as part of freedom of expression, provided they do not harm life or property; they may form groups, demonstrate, use the media, appeal to parties or go to court. "A basic principle of democracy is that such disputes should be settled by negotiation and discussion rather than force. This is one of the obligations of citizenship."

NCERT's Let's Think on migration: argue for and against freedom of movement and occupation across the country; should long-term inhabitants of a region get preference for jobs and facilities; should states fix quotas in professional colleges for students from other states? Article 19(1)(d) and (e) give every citizen the right to move freely and to reside and settle anywhere in India, subject to reasonable restrictions in the interests of the general public or to protect any Scheduled Tribe (Article 19(5)).

Equal Rights: The Urban Poor, Tribal People and Policy

Does full and equal membership mean every citizen, rich or poor, should be guaranteed basic rights and a minimum standard of living? NCERT takes the urban poor. Slum-dwellers and squatters do necessary work (hawking, petty trade, scavenging, domestic work, plumbing, mechanics; small businesses such as cane weaving, textile printing, tailoring) yet are treated as unwelcome, blamed for straining resources and spreading crime and disease. Conditions are shocking: crammed rooms without toilets, running water or sanitation, insecure life and property, little city spending on them. Even the vote is hard to exercise, because the voters' list needs a fixed address.

Awareness is growing. NCERT notes a national policy on urban street vendors framed in January 2004 to give vendors recognition and freedom from harassment if they followed regulations, and asks students to find out about the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014 (Act No. 7 of 2014, assent 4 March 2014).

Tribal people and forest dwellers depend on access to forests and natural resources. Their way of life and livelihood are threatened by population pressure, commercial interests mining forests or coasts, and tourism. Governments struggle to protect them and their habitat without endangering the country's development, an issue that affects all citizens. Equal rights need not mean uniform policies: if the aim is to make people more equal, the different needs and claims of groups must shape policy.

NCERT's Let's Think on Zimbabwe gives official figures from the 1990s: about 4,400 white families owned 32 per cent of agricultural land (about 10 million hectares) while about one million black peasant families owned 16 million hectares, 38 per cent, mostly less fertile and unirrigated; whites, 0.06 per cent of the population, had taken the fertile land a century earlier; in 1997 President Mugabe announced plans to take over about 1,500 farms. What ideas of citizenship support or oppose the claims of black and white Zimbabweans? NCERT's conclusion for the section: changes in the world, the economy and society demand new interpretations of citizenship's rights; equal rights and protection for all citizens should guide policy.

Citizen and Nation

The nation state is modern; one of the earliest assertions of its sovereignty and of citizens' democratic rights came from the French revolutionaries in 1789. Nation states claim their boundaries define a territory and a unique culture and history, expressed through a flag, anthem, language and ceremonies. Democratic states try to define national identity inclusively, but most make it easier for some citizens to identify with the state than others, and easier to extend citizenship to some than others, the United States included.

• France claims to be secular and inclusive. Citizens, including those of North African origin, are expected to assimilate into the national culture and language in public life while keeping personal beliefs in private. But the line between public and private is hard to draw: Sikh boys wanting to wear turbans and Muslim girls wanting headscarves at school were refused by some schools as religious symbols in public education. Assimilation is easier for some groups than others.
• Israel and Germany may give priority to religion or ethnic origin in granting citizenship. In Germany, Turkish workers once encouraged to come have demanded automatic citizenship for children born and raised there; NCERT says this "is still being debated".
• India defines itself as a secular, democratic nation state. The independence movement deliberately bound together people of different religions, regions and cultures; Partition in 1947 only strengthened the resolve to keep the nation secular and inclusive, and the Constitution embodied it. It sought full and equal citizenship for groups as different as Scheduled Castes and Tribes, women without previous equal rights, and remote communities of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, while letting people keep their beliefs, languages and practices: "a unique experiment". The Republic Day parade symbolises the effort to include all regions, cultures and religions.

Citizenship provisions are in Part II of the Constitution and in laws passed by Parliament. Citizenship can be acquired by birth, descent, registration, naturalisation, or inclusion of territory. The state may not discriminate on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth, and religious and linguistic minorities are protected. Yet even these provisions are contested by the women's movement, the dalit movement and people displaced by development projects. "Democratic citizenship in any country is a project, an ideal to work towards."

Universal Citizenship: Refugees and the Stateless

Refugees and illegal migrants come in many images: people from Asia or Africa paying agents to smuggle them into Europe or America; people displaced by war or famine; refugees in Darfur, Palestinians, Burmese, Bangladeshis. Democratic theory says citizenship should be universal, yet every state fixes criteria for citizenship in its constitution and laws and uses its power, even walls and fences, to keep unwanted visitors out. People displaced by war, persecution or famine whom no state will accept become stateless peoples or refugees, often in camps or living as illegal migrants, unable to work legally, educate their children or own property. The problem is large enough that the UN appointed a High Commissioner for Refugees.

States weigh humanitarian duty against numbers and security. India "prides itself on providing refuge to persecuted peoples, as it did with the Dalai Lama and his followers in 1959." Entry from neighbouring countries has taken place along all of India's borders; many remain stateless for years or generations, and only a few are eventually granted citizenship. Can citizenship solve their problem, or do we need a more universal identity?

The numbers today (beyond NCERT): UNHCR's population statistics for end-2025 count about 28.5 million refugees under UNHCR's mandate (down from about 31.0 million at end-2024) and about 4.48 million stateless people. India is a country of emigration too: the Ministry of External Affairs counts 3,72,80,845 overseas Indians as of January 2026 (1,95,20,317 persons of Indian origin and 1,77,60,528 non-resident Indians).

Global Citizenship

NCERT asks what links three statements: the world's outpouring of help for victims of the 2004 tsunami in South Asia, international networks linking terrorists, and the UN's work with states against bird flu and a possible human pandemic. We live in an interconnected world: the internet, television and mobile phones put us in immediate contact with distant events and create shared concerns.

Supporters of global citizenship argue that people already feel linked across borders, as the tsunami response showed, and that this feeling should be strengthened. National citizenship assumes the state can protect our rights, but states face problems they cannot tackle alone. Global citizenship might make it easier to deal with cross-border problems, such as migrants and stateless people, by guaranteeing basic rights wherever they live. But NCERT concludes that problems within a country, like socio-economic inequality, can ultimately be solved only by that country's government and people, so full and equal membership of a state remains important. Global citizenship reminds us that national citizenship needs supplementing by awareness of an interconnected world and readiness to work across borders. NCERT points students to UNESCO's Global Citizenship Education (GCED).

PART 3 — UPSC Integration

Applying the Chapter

Exam Strategy

For Prelims: know NCERT's definition, Marshall's three rights and his book (Citizenship and Social Class, 1950; Marshall 1893-1981), the five modes of acquiring Indian citizenship, the CAA's dates (Act in force 10 January 2020; Rules 11 March 2024) and cut-off (31 December 2014), the September 2025 exemption order (entry up to 31 December 2024, passport and visa exemption only), the Section 6A judgment (17 October 2024), and the NRC numbers.

For Mains: NCERT's six exercises ask which rights and obligations democratic citizenship brings, why equal rights may not be equally exercised, two struggles for citizen rights in India, the problems of refugees and how global citizenship could help, what migrants contribute to local economies, and why democratic citizenship is "a project rather than an accomplished fact". Use NCERT's material: the crowded compartment, Kerala nurses and Bangalore IT workers, the slum-dweller without an address, King's three arguments, and the French school controversy.

Avoid: saying the September 2025 order extended the CAA's citizenship cut-off; repeating NCERT's sentence that the Court required alternative accommodation before any eviction in Olga Tellis; treating "nationality" and "citizenship" as NCERT's paired terms (NCERT does not use that distinction).

Practice Questions

Practice (UPSC-pattern, not past papers). Mains items 1 to 4 are NCERT's own exercises.

Prelims:

1. T.H. Marshall's three kinds of citizenship rights, as NCERT presents them, are:
   (a) natural, legal and moral (b) civil, political and social
   (c) individual, group and national (d) economic, cultural and religious

2. Which of the following is NOT one of the modes of acquiring Indian citizenship listed by NCERT?
   (a) Registration (b) Naturalisation (c) Inclusion of territory (d) Investment

3. With reference to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, consider the following statements:
   

   1. It came into force on 10 January 2020.
      
   2. It covers migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who entered India on or before 31 December 2014.
      
   3. Its cut-off for citizenship was moved to 31 December 2024 by an order of September 2025.
      Which of the statements given above are correct?
      (a) 1 and 2 only (b) 2 and 3 only (c) 1 and 3 only (d) 1, 2 and 3

4. In Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation (1985), the Supreme Court:
   (a) held that pavement dwellers could never be evicted
   (b) read the right to livelihood into Article 21 but upheld the removal of encroachments, directing alternate sites for some
   (c) struck down the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act
   (d) declared housing a Fundamental Right under Article 19

5. The Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 repealed which of the following?
   

   1. The Foreigners Act, 1946
      
   2. The Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920
      
   3. The Citizenship Act, 1955
      (a) 1 only (b) 1 and 2 only (c) 2 and 3 only (d) 1, 2 and 3

Answers: 1 (b); 2 (d); 3 (a); 4 (b); 5 (b).

Mains:

1. Citizenship as full and equal membership involves both rights and obligations. Which rights can citizens expect in most democratic states today, and what obligations do they have to the state and to fellow citizens? (NCERT)
2. All citizens may be granted equal rights but not all may be able to exercise them equally. Explain. (NCERT)
3. What are some of the problems faced by refugees? How could the concept of global citizenship benefit them? (NCERT)
4. "Democratic citizenship is a project rather than an accomplished fact even in countries like India which grant equal citizenship." Discuss some issues regarding citizenship being raised in India today. (NCERT)
5. Migration within India is often resisted by local inhabitants. Examine the constitutional position and the contribution migrants make to local economies. (250 words)
6. "Refugees should not be turned back to the country where they would face persecution." Examine with reference to India's practice. (150 words)

📦 Revision Capsule

Sources

• NCERT, Political Theory (Class XI), ch. 6 "Citizenship", Reprint 2026-27: ncert.nic.in PDF; pre-2022 text in the book archive, Wayback copy of October 2021.
• Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation, 10 July 1985: Indian Kanoon.
• The Constitution of India, as on 11 November 2025 (Part II; Art. 19): Legislative Department PDF.
• Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 commencement, S.O. 172(E), 10 January 2020 (Gazette copy): LiveLaw PDF; CAA Rules notified 11 March 2024 (PIB, 15 May 2024): pib.gov.in.
• The Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025 (Act 13 of 2025): PRS PDF; Immigration and Foreigners (Exemption) Order, 2025, S.O. 3997(E), 1 September 2025: Gazette copy, Tripura High Court.
• In re: Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955, 17 October 2024: Indian Kanoon.
• Gauhati High Court judgment of 22 January 2026 (recording the NRC figures): Indian Kanoon.
• CAA challenge status: Supreme Court Observer case tracker: scobserver.in.
• Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014: PRS PDF.
• UNHCR population statistics, world totals for 2025: UNHCR population API; MEA, Population of Overseas Indians (as of January 2026): mea.gov.in.