Citizenship: meaning, history, acquisition by birth, descent and naturalisation, and loss

1. Meaning

A citizen is a full member of a state, enjoying its civil and political rights and owing it allegiance. Citizenship is the legal status that marks that membership. The citizen differs from the alien, who lives in a state but owes allegiance to another, and who does not have political rights such as voting and holding public office.

• Aristotle: a citizen is one who shares in the administration of justice and in the holding of office, that is, in deliberative and judicial power.
• Vattel: citizens are the members of the civil society, bound to it by certain duties and subject to its authority, and equally partaking of its advantages.
• Laski: citizenship is the contribution of one's instructed judgment to the public good.
• T.H. Marshall (Citizenship and Social Class, 1950) described its growth in three stages: civil rights (eighteenth century), political rights (nineteenth) and social rights (twentieth).

Qualifications of a good citizen, as the textbooks list them: intelligence and education, self-control, an enlightened conscience, a sense of duty, and public spirit; and the hindrances, which are indifference, selfishness, party spirit and communalism. Questions on the “qualifications” of citizenship expect both this and the legal requirements for naturalisation below.

2. A brief history

• Greek city-states. Citizenship was a privilege of the free adult males of citizen parentage; slaves, women and resident foreigners (metics) were excluded. Citizens took part directly in the assembly and courts.
• Rome. Roman citizenship carried legal rights and protection (“civis Romanus sum”) and was gradually extended to allies and provinces, until the edict of Caracalla (AD 212) granted it to almost all free inhabitants of the empire.
• The medieval period replaced citizenship with feudal allegiance to a lord.
• The modern nation-state. The American and French Revolutions made citizenship a relationship between the individual and the nation, with equal rights, and it has since expanded to include those once excluded (the propertyless, women, colonial subjects).

3. Methods of acquiring citizenship

(a) By birth

1. Jus sanguinis (law of blood). A child takes the citizenship of the parents, wherever born. A child of German parents born in India is German. Germany, Japan, Italy and most continental countries use it as their main rule.
2. Jus soli (law of the soil). A child born in the territory of a state is its citizen, whatever the parents' nationality. The USA (Fourteenth Amendment, 1868: all persons born or naturalised in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction), Canada and many Latin American countries follow it.
3. Mixed system. Most countries combine the two. Britain moved from pure jus soli to a mixed system under the British Nationality Act 1981, under which a child born in the UK is a citizen only if a parent is a citizen or settled there. Germany added a conditional jus soli in 2000.

The two rules can produce dual citizenship (a child of American parents born in Germany) or statelessness (a child of parents from a jus soli country born in a jus sanguinis country). Ships and aircraft are treated as part of the territory of their flag state, and children of diplomats are excluded from jus soli.

(b) By naturalisation

Naturalisation is the grant of citizenship to an alien on application. The usual conditions are: residence for a period (five years in Britain and the USA); good character; knowledge of the language; an intention to reside; renunciation of former citizenship (where dual citizenship is not allowed); and an oath of allegiance. Other modes, which are forms of naturalisation:

• Marriage: a foreign woman marrying a citizen was formerly given citizenship automatically; most countries now allow either spouse to register after a period.
• Government service in the state.
• Purchase of property (some countries, historically) or investment programmes.
• Adoption or legitimation of a child by a citizen.
• Honorary grant to distinguished persons.
• Incorporation of territory: inhabitants of a territory acquired by a state become its citizens (Goa, 1961; Pondicherry; Sikkim, 1975).

4. Loss of citizenship

1. Renunciation: a voluntary declaration giving it up.
2. Acquisition of another citizenship by naturalisation, in states that forbid dual citizenship (India: Citizenship Act 1955, section 9).
3. Marriage: formerly a woman lost her citizenship on marrying a foreigner. This rule has largely disappeared.
4. Long residence abroad without registering with the consulate.
5. Deprivation by the state, for obtaining citizenship by fraud, disloyalty, trading with the enemy in war, or conviction for serious offences within a period after naturalisation (India, section 10).
6. Desertion from the armed forces or service in a foreign army.
7. Accepting a foreign title or office without permission.

5. The Indian position, briefly

India has single citizenship for the whole Union, unlike the dual citizenship of the USA and Switzerland. Articles 5–8 settled who was a citizen at the commencement of the Constitution; Article 11 left the rest to Parliament, which enacted the Citizenship Act 1955. It provides five modes of acquisition: birth, descent, registration, naturalisation and incorporation of territory; and three of loss: renunciation, termination and deprivation.

India has thus moved from jus soli towards jus sanguinis. Naturalisation ordinarily requires residence of eleven of the preceding fourteen years and the twelve months immediately before the application. The Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019, whose rules were notified in March 2024, reduces this to five years for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who entered India on or before 31 December 2014. Overseas Citizenship of India is a long-term visa status, not dual citizenship.

How this is examined

The 10- or 16-mark essay wants the definition (Aristotle, Laski), a paragraph of history, the two rules of birth with examples, naturalisation and its conditions, the other modes, and the seven ways of loss. Add the Indian position at the end in one paragraph and the table. Where the question says “qualifications”, cover both the qualities of a good citizen and the legal requirements of naturalisation.