Every NCERT book that matters for UPSC — open a book, then a chapter. Learn each chapter's concepts, then how UPSC tests them — with diagrams, flowcharts and the past questions to attempt.
Citizenship
Start here: why this chapter matters
Chapter 5 explained rights; this chapter asks who holds them as a member of a state, what ‘full and equal membership’ means, how states decide who may become a member, and what happens to people no state accepts. NCERT's own outline: full and equal membership (6.2–6.3), citizen and nation (6.4), universal citizenship and stateless people (6.5), and global citizenship (6.6).
- Builds on Rights (Chapter 5), Equality (Chapter 3) and Freedom (Chapter 2: free movement); leads into Nationalism (Chapter 7) and Secularism (Chapter 8).
- Pairs with Indian Constitution at Work, Chapter 2 (rights, many limited to citizens) and Chapter 10 (an inclusive national identity). The Constitution's Part II (Articles 5–11) and the Citizenship Act are covered here as Beyond-NCERT support.
- UPSC: Prelims on single citizenship (2021), Aadhaar and citizenship (2018), the obligations of a good citizen (1984); GS2 on freedom of movement and residence (2022); GS3 on illegal cross-border migration (2014); GS4 on refugees and non-refoulement (2021).
| Word | What it means here |
|---|---|
| Citizenship | Full and equal membership of a political community |
| Political community | A state whose members share a political identity and rights |
| Obligation | A duty — legal (imposed by the state) or moral (to fellow citizens) |
| Migrant | A person who moves to another region or country, often for work |
| ‘Outsider’ | Someone treated as not belonging — even a fellow citizen from another region |
| Nation state | A state claiming that its boundaries mark a shared culture and history |
| Assimilation | Expecting citizens to adopt the national culture, at least in public life |
| Naturalisation | Acquiring citizenship after living in a country for a required period |
| Refugee | A person forced to flee their country by war or persecution |
| Stateless person | A person no state recognises as its citizen |
| Global citizenship | A sense of membership and responsibility across national borders |
| OCI | Overseas Citizen of India — a registration status for people of Indian origin, not citizenship (Beyond NCERT) |
At a glance — the six ideas to carry away
- Citizenship = full and equal membership of a political community: identity, rights (political, civil, socio-economic) and obligations — to the state and to fellow citizens.
- Every right was won through struggle: the French Revolution (1789), anti-colonial movements, South Africa's black majority (until the early 1990s), the women's and dalit movements.
- ‘Full membership’ is debated: free movement and work vs local preference; poor vs skilled migrants; disputes settled by negotiation, not force.
- ‘Equal membership’ includes basic rights for all: the urban poor and forest dwellers; T.H. Marshall's civil, political and social rights; Olga Tellis (1985): livelihood under Article 21.
- Nation states draw citizenship lines differently (France, Germany, Israel); India: inclusive and secular — Part II and laws of Parliament; acquired by birth, descent, registration, naturalisation, incorporation of territory.
- Citizenship should be universal, yet refugees and stateless people have no state (UNHCR); global citizenship may supplement national citizenship.
1. What is citizenship? Membership, rights and obligations
Citizenship is full and equal membership of a political community. States give their members a collective political identity — we think of ourselves as Indians, Japanese or Germans — and certain rights, plus help and protection wherever they travel. The value of membership is clearest for those without it: thousands of refugees and illegal migrants whom no state will accept, guaranteed rights by no one, living in precarious conditions — such as the Palestinian refugees in the Middle East, for whom full membership of a state is a goal worth struggling for.
The rights vary by state but in most democracies 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 a basic right of citizenship. Each right was won through struggle: against powerful monarchies in Europe, sometimes violently as in the French Revolution of 1789; in the colonies of Asia and Africa as part of independence struggles; in South Africa, where the black majority struggled against white minority rule for equal citizenship until the early 1990s; and today in movements such as the women's and dalit movements in India.
Citizenship is also about citizen–citizen relations. It brings obligations to each other and to society — not only legal obligations imposed by the state but a moral obligation to take part in and contribute to shared community life. Citizens are inheritors and trustees of the country's culture and natural resources. A good way to understand the concept is to look at where groups question its accepted meaning because it ignores their needs.
- Beside the definition, a line drawing shows people of different faiths — one with a cross, one in a cap, one in a fez, one in a turban — saluting the national flag together. The point: citizenship gives a shared political identity across religions.
- Lower down, a group of protesters hold placards reading ‘Give justice’, ‘Stop humiliate’ and ‘Down down’, with one protester's sign about the ‘world's worst dictators’. The point: citizens' rights — including the right to protest — were and are won by claiming them.
- A drawing shows two women hugging trees — a reference to the Chipko movement (Beyond NCERT: begun in the Garhwal Himalaya in 1973), where villagers protected forests by embracing trees. The point: citizens as trustees of natural resources, and struggles for rights over livelihood.
- The ‘Let's Think’ box describes apartheid South Africa until 1994: whites could vote, contest elections, buy property and move freely; blacks could not, lived in separate colonies, needed ‘passes’ to work in white areas, could not keep families there, and attended separate schools. It asks whether blacks had full and equal membership and what this says about relations between groups. Answer: no — they were subjects, not equal citizens; one group ruled and segregated the other.
2. Full and equal membership: free movement and ‘outsiders’
In a crowded railway compartment or bus, those who fought each other to enter discover, once inside, a shared interest in keeping others out — a division between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’. The same can happen in cities, regions or the nation: when jobs, medical care, education, land or water are scarce, people demand restrictions on ‘outsiders’, even fellow citizens — as in the slogan ‘Mumbai for Mumbaikars’. So what does full and equal membership mean? Equal rights wherever one chooses to live, study or work? Basic rights for all, rich or poor? This section takes the first question.
Freedom of movement matters especially to workers, who migrate where jobs are: IT workers to Bangalore, nurses from Kerala across the country, construction workers to booming towns, some workers abroad. But resistance can build against jobs going to people from outside, sometimes at lower wages; demands arise to reserve jobs for those from the state or who know the local language; parties take up the issue; it can turn to organised violence. Are such movements ever justified? We are indignant when Indian workers are ill-treated abroad, and proud when states attract skilled workers — yet we may be less welcoming to poor migrants. Should poor and unskilled workers have the same right to live and work anywhere as skilled ones?
Disputes arise even in democracies. The right to protest is part of the freedom of expression, provided it does not harm others' life or property or the state. Citizens can form groups, demonstrate, use the media, appeal to parties or go to court; courts may decide or urge government to act. It may be slow, but if the principle of full and equal membership is kept in mind, acceptable solutions can be found. A basic principle of democracy — and an obligation of citizenship — is that disputes be settled by negotiation and discussion rather than force.
- In the 1950s the Civil Rights Movement rose against segregation laws in many southern US states, which denied black people civil and political rights and kept separate railways, buses, theatres, housing, hotels and restaurants.
- Martin Luther King Jr. argued: (1) every person is equal in self-worth and dignity, whatever their race; (2) segregation is a ‘social leprosy’ that inflicts deep psychological wounds; it also diminishes white people's lives — some white communities closed parks rather than admit black people as courts directed, and baseball teams were disbanded rather than accept black players; (3) it builds artificial boundaries that stop people cooperating for the country's good.
- He called for peaceful, non-violent resistance: creative protest must not degenerate into physical violence.
- Page 82: an overloaded bus with passengers jammed inside, hanging from the doors and piled on the roof — the image behind NCERT's ‘insiders and outsiders’ argument.
- Page 85: a full-page cartoon, ‘A day in the life of urban Indian middle class without immigrant workers’. In ten panels, flustered middle-class men and women empty dustbins, cook, wash dishes, sweep, push a car through a flooded street, struggle with a flooding washing machine, juggle shopping and a crying child, and teach a classroom alone. The point: cities run on the labour of migrants — those who resent ‘outsiders’ depend on them every day.
3. Equal rights: the urban poor, forest dwellers and Marshall's theory
Does full and equal membership mean all citizens, rich or poor, should be guaranteed basic rights and a minimum standard of living? Take the urban poor. Every Indian city has many slum-dwellers and squatters, doing necessary work at low wages, yet seen as unwelcome — blamed for straining resources or spreading crime and disease. Slums may lack private toilets, running water and sanitation; life and property are insecure. Yet slum-dwellers contribute through their labour — hawkers, petty traders, scavengers, domestic workers, plumbers, mechanics — and small businesses like cane-weaving, textile printing and tailoring. The city spends relatively little on their services.
Awareness is growing. A national policy on urban street vendors was framed in January 2004 to recognise and regulate vendors so they could work without harassment if they followed regulations. Slum-dwellers are organising and approaching courts. Yet even the right to vote can be hard to use, because enrolment needs a fixed address. Tribal people and forest dwellers also face threats to their way of life and livelihood from population pressure, commercial mining of forests and coasts, and tourism; governments struggle to protect them without endangering development — an issue for all citizens.
- The British sociologist T.H. Marshall (1893–1981), in Citizenship and Social Class (1950), defined citizenship as a status given to full members of a community, all of whom are equal in the rights and duties it carries.
- Equality here means two things: the quality of rights and duties improves, and the number of people holding them grows.
- Three kinds of rights: civil (life, liberty, property), political (participation in governance), social (access to education and employment) — together making a life of dignity possible.
- Marshall saw social class as a system of inequality; citizenship counters it and builds a more integrated community.
- NCERT presents a sentence in quotation marks as the Court's words, including that evicted pavement dwellers ‘should first be provided alternative accommodation under the right to shelter’. That is a paraphrase, and broader than the judgment. The Court held that livelihood is part of Article 21 and that eviction must follow a fair, just and reasonable procedure (notice and hearing); it upheld the Corporation's power to remove encroachments and directed alternative sites for certain dwellers, but did not lay down a general right to alternative accommodation.
- Olga Tellis was a journalist, one of the petitioners alongside pavement dwellers; NCERT calls her a social activist.
- Safe exam line: Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation (1985) — right to livelihood is part of the right to life under Article 21.
Ensuring equal rights is not simple: groups have different needs, and one group's rights may conflict with another's. Equal rights need not mean uniform policies; if the aim is to make people more equal, different needs and claims must be considered. Changes in the world, economy and society demand new interpretations of citizenship. Formal laws are only a starting point; their interpretation keeps evolving. Providing equal rights and protection to all citizens should be a guiding principle of policy.
- Survey three families of workers near your home or school: their ancestral place, when and why they came, where they live, how many share the room, what facilities they have, whether children attend school.
- Find out about the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014 — the law that followed the 2004 policy.
- Zimbabwe: NCERT's figures say some 4,400 white families (about 0.06% of the population) owned about 32% of agricultural land — the fertile, irrigated land taken from native people about a century earlier — while about a million black peasant families owned about 38%, mostly less fertile; in 1997 President Mugabe announced plans to take over around 1,500 farms. Which ideas of citizenship support or oppose each side's claims? Worked answer in the in-text section.
4. Citizen and nation: how states draw the line
The nation state is modern; the French revolutionaries of 1789 made one of the earliest claims about the sovereignty of the nation and the democratic rights of citizens. Nation states claim their boundaries mark a territory and a unique culture and shared history, expressed in symbols such as a flag, anthem, national language or ceremonies. Most states contain many religions, languages and cultures; a democratic state's national identity is meant to give all citizens a shared political identity and to be as inclusive as possible. But in practice most countries define identity so that it is easier for some citizens to identify with the state than others, and easier to extend citizenship to some people — true even of the United States, a self-described country of immigrants.
France claims to be secular and inclusive, with citizens of European and North African origin; all are expected to assimilate into the national culture in public life while keeping private beliefs. But public and private are hard to separate: Sikh boys wanting to wear turbans and Muslim girls wanting headscarves at school were refused by some schools on the ground that religious symbols do not belong in public education — a burden that falls on some groups and not others. In Israel or Germany, religion or ethnic origin may weigh in granting citizenship; in Germany, Turkish workers once invited to work there have long demanded automatic citizenship for children born and raised in Germany.
- France passed a law in 2004 banning conspicuous religious symbols, including the headscarf and the Sikh turban, in state schools.
- Germany introduced conditional citizenship by birth for children of long-resident foreigners from 2000, and from June 2024 generally allows dual citizenship — so NCERT's ‘still being debated’ is dated.
- Israel's Law of Return (1950) gives Jews the right to settle and acquire citizenship.
- In the USA, citizenship by birth on its soil rests on the Fourteenth Amendment (1868).
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, when differences with the Muslim League could not be resolved, only strengthened leaders' resolve to keep India secular and inclusive, a resolve embodied in the Constitution. The Constitution tried to give full and equal citizenship to groups as different as Scheduled Castes and Tribes, women who had not had equal rights, and remote communities in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and to find a place for many languages, religions and practices — equal rights without forcing people to give up their beliefs, languages or cultures. The Republic Day parade symbolises this inclusion. Even so, struggles continue — the women's and dalit movements, people displaced by development projects. Democratic citizenship is a project, an ideal to work towards, with new demands negotiated as society changes.
5. Citizenship in India: the Constitution and the law
NCERT: the citizenship provisions are in Part Two of the Constitution and in later laws of Parliament. The Constitution adopted an essentially democratic and inclusive notion of citizenship. Citizenship can be acquired by birth, descent, registration, naturalisation or inclusion of territory. Citizens' rights and obligations are listed in the Constitution; the State may not discriminate against citizens on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth; and the rights of religious and linguistic minorities are protected.
| Article (Beyond NCERT) | What it provides |
|---|---|
| Article 5 | citizenship at the commencement of the Constitution for those domiciled in India who were born here, had a parent born here, or had lived here for five years |
| Articles 6 and 7 | people who migrated from Pakistan to India, and those who migrated to Pakistan after 1 March 1947 |
| Article 8 | persons of Indian origin living abroad, by registration with Indian missions |
| Article 9 | no one who voluntarily acquired another country's citizenship is an Indian citizen — hence no dual citizenship |
| Article 10 | citizens continue to be citizens, subject to Parliament's law |
| Article 11 | Parliament may make any law on acquiring and losing citizenship — the basis of the Citizenship Act, 1955 |
- The Citizenship Act, 1955 sets out acquisition (birth, descent, registration, naturalisation, incorporation of territory) and loss (renunciation, termination, deprivation). India has single citizenship for the whole country (UPSC 2021).
- The 1985 amendment inserted Section 6A to give effect to the Assam Accord (15 August 1985), with 24 March 1971 as the key cut-off for entrants from Bangladesh. In October 2024 a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court upheld Section 6A by 4:1.
- The 2003 amendment (in force from 3 December 2004) defined the ‘illegal migrant’, tightened citizenship by birth, introduced Overseas Citizenship of India (a registration status, not dual citizenship) and provided for a national register of citizens.
- An Aadhaar number is not proof of citizenship (UPSC 2018) — the Aadhaar Act, 2016 says so expressly.
- National Register of Citizens, Assam: updated under Supreme Court monitoring to identify citizens under the Assam Accord cut-off; the final list, published on 31 August 2019, left out about 19 lakh applicants, who could appeal to Foreigners Tribunals.
- Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 (enacted in December 2019): provides that Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who entered India on or before 31 December 2014 are not to be treated as illegal migrants, and reduces their naturalisation residence requirement from eleven to five years; it excludes tribal areas under the Sixth Schedule and Inner Line Permit areas. Its rules were notified on 11 March 2024.
- The government and supporters state that it offers refuge to religious minorities facing persecution in three neighbouring countries with a state religion, and does not affect any existing Indian citizen.
- Critics state that it makes religion a criterion for citizenship, excludes Muslims and persecuted groups from other countries, and conflicts with Article 14 and secularism; in Assam, some groups objected that it departs from the Assam Accord's cut-off.
- Petitions challenging the Act were filed in the Supreme Court from December 2019; the Court did not stay the Act, and the challenge was pending when the 2024 rules were notified.
6. Universal citizenship: refugees and stateless people
Images of refugees and illegal migrants come easily: people from Asia or Africa paying agents to smuggle them into Europe or America; people displaced by war or famine — in Darfur (Sudan), Palestinians, Burmese, Bangladeshis. We assume full membership should be open to all who ordinarily live and work in a country and to those who apply. But even states that support universal and inclusive citizenship fix criteria, written into constitutions and laws, and use their power — even walls and fences — to keep unwanted visitors out. People displaced by war, persecution or famine whom no state accepts, and who cannot return home, become stateless or refugees, often in camps or as illegal migrants, often unable legally to work, educate their children or own property. The UN has appointed a High Commissioner for Refugees.
How many people a country can absorb is a hard humanitarian and political question. Many states accept those fleeing persecution or war but not unmanageable numbers or security risks. India prides itself on giving 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 India's borders; many remain stateless for years or generations, and only a few are eventually granted citizenship. This challenges democratic citizenship's promise that citizens' rights and identity would be available to all — yet no alternative identity exists for those who cannot become citizens. Borders still shift through war and dispute, and people caught up may lose homes, identities and security.
- The UNHCR was established by the UN General Assembly in December 1950. The 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol define a refugee and set the principle of non-refoulement — no return to a country where a person faces persecution (UPSC GS4 2021).
- India is not a party to the 1951 Convention or the 1967 Protocol, nor to the 1954 and 1961 statelessness conventions; it deals with refugees through its general laws and case-by-case policy. Indian courts have read protection against arbitrary expulsion of non-citizens into Article 21, which applies to all persons.
- Debate (attributed): supporters of accession argue it would give refugees predictable rights; the government's stated concerns include security, resources and the region's porous borders.
7. Global citizenship
NCERT gives three statements — the worldwide outpouring of help after the 2004 tsunami in South Asia; international terrorist networks; the UN working with states to prevent the spread of bird flu and a possible human pandemic — and asks what they have in common. Answer: we live in an interconnected world. The internet, television and mobile phones put us in instant contact with events everywhere, building sympathies and shared concerns across countries.
Supporters of global citizenship argue that, although a world community does not yet exist, people already feel linked across borders — the tsunami response is a sign of an emerging global society that should be strengthened. National citizenship assumes the state can give us the protection and rights we need, but states face problems they cannot solve alone. Global citizenship might make it easier to tackle cross-border problems, including migrants and stateless people, and to ensure their basic rights wherever they live. But NCERT notes that inequalities within a country can ultimately be solved only by its own government and people, so full and equal membership of a state remains important. Global citizenship reminds us that national citizenship may need to be supplemented by awareness of an interconnected world and readiness to work across borders.
- India has single citizenship; there is no separate State citizenship (UPSC 2021).
- OCI is not dual citizenship; Article 9 rules out holding another citizenship.
- Aadhaar is not proof of citizenship or domicile (UPSC 2018).
- Part II covers Articles 5–11; Article 11 empowers Parliament — the Citizenship Act is of 1955.
- Marshall's three rights are civil, political, social — in Citizenship and Social Class (1950).
- Olga Tellis (1985) linked livelihood to Article 21 — the ‘right to shelter’ wording in NCERT is a paraphrase.
- India is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention.
NCERT's in-text questions, cartoons and activities — short answers
Let's Think: Did black people have full and equal membership in apartheid South Africa? What does the description tell us about group relations? (page 81)
Let's Do It: List citizens' activities in your area to help others or protect the environment, and what young people could do. (page 82)
Let's Think: Arguments for and against free movement and occupation; preference for long-term inhabitants; state quotas in professional colleges. (page 86)
Let's Do It: Survey three families of workers near your home or school. (page 89)
Let's Do It: Find out about the Street Vendors Act, 2014. (page 89)
Let's Think: Which ideas of citizenship support or oppose black and white Zimbabweans' claims over land? (page 89)
Let's Debate: Schools or the army should not insist on a common uniform or ban religious symbols such as the turban. (page 92)
Let's Do It: List stateless people living in India and write a note on one. (page 94)
What is common to the tsunami relief, international terrorist networks and UN action on bird flu? (page 94)
Let's Do It: Find out about UNESCO's Global Citizenship Education. (page 95)
NCERT exercise — answer outlines
Try each question yourself first, then open the outline. NCERT has no multiple-choice questions in this chapter; the self-check tests the key ideas.
Q1. Citizenship as full and equal membership involves rights and obligations. What rights can citizens expect in most democracies? What obligations do they have to the state and fellow citizens?
Q2. All citizens may be granted equal rights but not all can exercise them equally. Explain.
Q3. Write a short note on any two recent struggles in India for full enjoyment of citizen rights. Which rights were claimed?
Q4. What problems do refugees face? How could global citizenship help them?
Q5. Migration within the country is often resisted by locals. What contributions can migrants make to the local economy?
Q6. ‘Democratic citizenship is a project rather than an accomplished fact even in countries like India.’ Discuss issues being raised in India today.
What to remember
Numbers
One-liners
- Citizenship = full and equal membership of a political community.
- Every citizen right was won through struggle.
- Citizenship is citizen–state and citizen–citizen.
- Disputes among citizens are settled by negotiation, not force.
- Equal rights need not mean uniform policies.
- Marshall: civil, political, social rights; citizenship counters class inequality.
- Democratic citizenship is a project, not an accomplished fact.
- Global citizenship supplements, not replaces, national citizenship.
Traps to avoid
- India has single citizenship (UPSC 2021).
- Aadhaar is not proof of citizenship or domicile (UPSC 2018).
- OCI is a registration status, not dual citizenship (Article 9).
- Part II is Articles 5–11; the Citizenship Act is of 1955.
- Five modes of acquisition: birth, descent, registration, naturalisation, incorporation of territory.
- Olga Tellis was a journalist; NCERT's quoted ‘right to shelter’ line is a paraphrase.
- Marshall's book is Citizenship and Social Class (1950), not a legal text.
- India is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention.
- Article 16(3) lets Parliament, not State legislatures, prescribe residence requirements for jobs.
How to strategise
Prelims — what UPSC asks
- Indian citizenship: single citizenship (2021); Aadhaar is not proof of citizenship (2018). Learn Part II (Articles 5–11), the five modes of acquisition and three of loss, the birth-rule periods, OCI, and the dated facts on Section 6A, the NRC and the 2019 amendment.
- Concept: a good citizen is conscious of social obligations (1984) — NCERT's legal and moral obligations of citizenship.
Mains — where it appears and how to answer
- GS2: freedom of movement and residence are not absolute (2022) — NCERT's ‘insiders and outsiders’ debate, Article 19(5), Article 16(3), and negotiation over force.
- GS3 / GS4: illegal cross-border migration and security (GS3 2014) and refugees and non-refoulement (GS4 2021) — use NCERT's universal-citizenship section: states' power to admit or exclude, the humanitarian duty, statelessness, UNHCR and India's non-party status; state each side.
- Answer frame: define citizenship (full and equal membership; rights and obligations) → contested meanings (movement; basic rights for the poor; Marshall) → citizenship and nation (inclusive vs assimilative; India's model and law) → refugees and statelessness → global citizenship as a supplement. On current controversies, state dated facts and attributed positions only.
Self-check
Tap an option. NCERT's own exercise questions come first; the rest test the figures and common confusions.
1. NCERT defines citizenship as:
2. T.H. Marshall classified citizenship rights as:
3. UPSC 2021: Which statement is correct with reference to India?
4. Which is NOT a mode of acquiring Indian citizenship under the Citizenship Act, 1955?
5. UPSC 2018: Can an Aadhaar card be used as proof of citizenship or domicile?
6. The Olga Tellis case (1985) held that the right to life under Article 21 includes:
7. India gave refuge to the Dalai Lama and his followers in:
8. According to NCERT, global citizenship should:
UPSC questions from this chapter
Open any question to attempt it in the Question bank — your attempt is saved to your progress.