MODULE 1

WHAT IS CITIZEN?

LESSON 1: Defining the Citizen

The term ‘citizen’ can be understood in a narrow or in a broad sense. In a narrow sense, it means
the resident of a city or one who enjoys the privilege of living in a city. While in a broad sense, citizen
means a person, who resides within the territorial limits of the state.

Speaking in terms of Political Science, citizen means a person who is the member of the state and
who enjoys social and political rights. In our country an adult of twenty-one years of age enjoys,
regardless of the distinction of caste, color and creed, education, property and residence, etc. Vattal has
defined citizens as, “the members of society by certain duties, subject to its authority and equal
participants in its advantages”. “Citizenship”, according to Laski, “is the contribution of one’s instructed
judgement to the public good”.

Aristotle defined citizenship as “he who has the power to take part in the deliberative or judicial
administration of any state”. Greek enjoyed the privilege of being governed by democracy; their
government was made up of commoners, and they were allowed freedom of speech to a large extent
through public speaking rights.

Romans developed on the concept of citizenship to distinguish their original citizens (Romans)
from the citizen of their conquests.

Roman citizens enjoyed the right to vote, the right to serve the civil service and the right for military
service.

All who were born to Roman fathers, even if they had foreign mothers, were acknowledged to be
Roman citizens. Citizenship could also be granted by generals and emperors.

As a matter of fact, the concept of citizenship goes back to ethe ancient city- states where the
population was divided into two classes--- the citizens and the slaves. The citizens enjoyed both civil
and political rights. They directly or indirectly participate in all the functions of the civil and political life
of the state.

Whereas, the slaves enjoyed none of such rights and suffered from all kinds of political and
economic disabilities. In this way in ancient Greece the term ‘citizen’ was used in its narrow sense. Only
those who enjoyed the civil and political rights and who participated in the functions of the civil and
political life of people were regarded as citizens.

Since every individual of the total population privileged to enjoy these rights, the number of the
slaves was far in excess of citizens. The number of the citizens comprised 20,000 of the total population
and the rest were regarded as slaves who did not enjoy any such rights.

In short, we can say to enjoy that in ancient Greek states this right to citizenship was enjoyed by
only a selected few people. Much similar process was followed in ancient Rome. People belonging to
only rich class, known as Patricians, were privileged to enjoy the civil and political rights.

CRITERIA FOR CITIZENSHIP

In some states or countries, the condition of being a citizen is based on the place of a person’s birth,
which is known as “jus soli” and “jus sanguinis” citizenship. Some countries use both bases for ascribing
citizenship. Further, most democratic states have established legal procedures by which people without
a birthright to citizenship can become naturalized citizens.

On the basis of definitions given above, we arrive at the conclusion that in order to become a
citizen one must have the following:
1) The membership of the state
2) The Social and Political rights
3) Sentiment of devotion to the state.

Distinction between an alien and a citizen:

There is a marked distinction between an alien and a citizen. A citizen enjoys civil and political
rights in how own country. Whereas, an alien is not privileged to enjoy the political rights of the country
but sometimes he is privileged to enjoy a few of the social rights. It depends entirely on the government
if the country, in which he lives, to permit him to enjoy the social rights or not.

Aliens are of three types:

The people who left their native land and have settles in the foreign countries are known as resident
aliens. For example, a number of Indians have permanently settled in Sri Lanka, Burma, Canda, South
Africa, Australia, USA, England and etc.

They are no more the citizens of India. But it depends on the government of the respective sates to
grand these residents the citizenship of their country or not. Temporary aliens are those people who
visit foreign countries in order to serve their purposes and when their purposes are served, they go
back to their native land.

For example, every year a number of students go to foreign countries in order to receive higher
education. Traders visit foreign countries for the purpose of trade. When their purposes are serves, they
come back to their home.

Ambassadors are those aliens who settle in foreign countries as the representative of their government.
For example, the representative of foreign countries lives in India and the representatives of Indian
government live in foreign countries.