Citizenship can be defined in the words of Laski, “Is the contribution of one’s instructed judgment to the public good”. Thus, a citizen who enjoys certain rights and privileges owes allegiance to a state and contributes to the public good through creative judgment. The word ‘citizen’ can be traced back to Greek city-states when Aristotle defined a citizen as “He who has the power to take part in the deliberative or judicial administration is said by us to be a citizen of that state.
Also Read: Rights – Meaning, Nature, and Framework
Duty – Theories and Major Duties
Equality – Dimension, and Relation with Liberty and Justice
Citizen and People
Citizenship could be acquired by meeting certain conditions and fulfilling certain obligations as per law; hence, all people living in the territory of a country are not its citizens. According to Gettell: ‘Citizenship is that condition of an individual due to which he can use national and political rights in his ready to fulfill obligation’. Boyd views citizenship as ‘consists in the rights ordering of loyalties. Citizenship gives many rights to people, for example, only the citizens of India can contest elections in India.
Citizenship as Group-Differentiated Identity
After the emergence of multiculturism, citizenship emerged as a group-differentiated identity because multiculturism advocates the plurality of cultures in a nation, which is conceived as a cultural field. Multiculturalism stands for cultural diversities and the enjoyment of liberty and the main assumption of multiculturalism is that cultural diversity within a nation clicks well with the enjoyment of liberty, as the cultural mosaic of the nation is enriched with different cultures maintaining their identities freely. The rights and privileges are culture-specific; hence they are different from each other.
Citizenship is based on Polyethnic Rights as Western society has shifted to a multi-ethnic one having different communities, minorities, and cultural groups, and there is the same trend in the societies of developing countries, the citizenship confers rights, which are compatible with the growth and development particular ethnic group. Hence, citizenship provides polyethnic rights to different ethnic groups.
Special Representative Rights are another prominent hallmark of group-differentiated citizenship. Citizenship provides special representation rights for different ethnic groups. For example, women in India are provided a 33% representation in the Indian Parliament and State Assemblies. Apart from that the 73rd and 74th Constitution Amendments act to the Indian Constitution provided a 33% reservation in local government.
Other than women, the peoples of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes had reservations in Indian Parliament and State assemblies as per the population in country and state as well. Self-government rights are also guaranteed under the group-differentiated citizenship. These rights are granted to the citizens or the group of citizens sharing distinct histories, cultures, and social experiences.
Thus, broadly speaking, citizens are one of the important elements of the state. The type of rights guaranteed through the citizenship helps in understanding the nature of the state as well, for example, the rights guaranteed to Indian citizens from the Indian Constitution denote the welfare nature of the state which is impartial and based on the principle of equality. Thus, citizenship is an important tool to specify rights to citizens.