Citizenship and its Discontents: An Indian History

by Niraja Gopal Jayal

Breaking new ground in scholarship, Niraja Jayal writes the first history of citizenship in the largest democracy in the world India. Unlike the mature democracies of the west, India began as a true republic of equals with a complex architecture of citizenship rights that was sensitive to the many hierarchies of Indian society. In this provocative biography of the defining aspiration of modern India, Jayal shows how the progressive civic ideals embodied in the constitution have been challenged by exclusions based on social and economic inequality, and sometimes also, paradoxically, undermined by its own policies of inclusion.

"Citizenship and Its Discontents" explores a century of contestations over citizenship from the colonial period to the present, analyzing evolving conceptions of citizenship as legal status, as rights, and as identity. The early optimism that a new India could be fashioned out of an unequal and diverse society led to a formally inclusive legal membership, an impulse to social and economic rights, and group-differentiated citizenship. Today, these policies to create a civic community of equals are losing support in a climate of social intolerance and weak solidarity. Once seen by Western political scientists as an anomaly, India today is a site where every major theoretical debate about citizenship is being enacted in practice, and one that no global discussion of the subject can afford to ignore."

Genres: History, Politics, India, Nonfiction

366 pages, Paperback

First published February 15, 2013

Reviews

[Sita · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is really good.

Partition casts such a long shadow in India but this is never acknowledged by the lawmakers or the judiciary except in rare circumstances. Especially when it comes to citizenship, where India and Pakistan were in a unique situation - those displaced could make a unique claim of being a refugee to a country and a citizen of the same country.

Aside from that theoretical issue, reading this book really provides insight into how our citizenship law has changed over the years. The makers of our constitution envisioned a citizenship based on birth, not blood. This can be attributed to several things and not least the aftermath of the expulsion of Jewish people from Nazi Germany and the Second World War.

The horrible irony is that by changing the vision of citizenship from based on birth to a citizenship that’s based on bloodlines and ethnicity over the years in India has literally led the rise of fascism and arbitrary dentition of thousands in the name of citizenship.

This book is a must read to understand the historical background of the NRC in Assam and the history of citizenship from the perspective of Constitutional Law as well as our bloody border histories.

[Christina Warner · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great linking of contemporary social issues in India to the Colonial and post-Colonial political genealogies that shaped them. Also one of the clearest explanations of scheduled and "backwards" groups that I've seen. The text is academic, and the first couple of chapters did feel like a bit of a slog, but I was very glad to have read it by the time I got through it.

[Sanjay Banerjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

India began as a repulbluc of equals unlike the Western democrarcies with a complex architecture of citizenship rights that was also mindful of societal hierarchies in India. The author shows how the progressive civic ideals of the Constitution have been challenged by exclusions based upon social and economic inequality and have, oftentimes, been undermined by its own policies of inclusion. The book also explores a century of contestatiobs over citizenship from the colonial
Period todate and analyses evolving conceptions of citizenship as a legal status, as rights and as identity.

For someone interested in how we reached the current state of contesting claims to backwardness and religious identities and its implications, this is a great book to read.

[Sonam Dechen · Rating 4 out of 5]

what an intelligently written piece of academic scholarship!