Tracing the Evolution of the Concept Citizenship

The paper first analyses the concept of citizenship throughout history, illustrating how the concept of citizenship has varied and changed throughout the years and has constantly been exclusionary, depending heavily on an 'other' to define itself coherently. With this perspective, the paper then looks at the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019, particularly the arguments surrounding it. After a critical review of the arguments, it takes up the view that the whole affair was concocted as a vote banking strategy for the majoritarian party. The various citizenship laws of other countries have been analysed in terms of their leniency towards granting citizenship. Furthermore, the economic question of migrants is briefly discussed, with data showing the increase of remittances by migrants from nine different countries. The paper concludes by questioning whether a concept of 'citizen' is actually meaningful, given our current humanitarian issues and argues for replacing the concept of 'citizen' with that of a ‘cosmopolitan.'The paper first analyses the concept of citizenship throughout history, illustrating how the concept of citizenship has varied and changed throughout the years and has constantly been exclusionary, depending heavily on an 'other' to define itself coherently. With this perspective, the paper then looks at the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019, particularly the arguments surrounding it. After a critical review of the arguments, it takes up the view that the whole affair was concocted as a vote banking strategy for the majoritarian party. The various citizenship laws of other countries have been analysed in terms of their leniency towards granting citizenship. Furthermore, the economic question of migrants is briefly discussed, with data showing the increase of remittances by migrants from nine different countries. The paper concludes by questioning whether a concept of 'citizen' is actually meaningful, given our current humanitarian issues and argues for replacing the concept of 'citizen' with that of a ‘cosmopolitan.