Romila Thapar, N. Ram, Gautam Bhatia and Gautam Patel

On Citizenship, Aleph Book

Company, India, 2021, 108 pp

Muzaffar Hussain Mir

 

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, declares unequivocally that every person has the right to nationality, and states cannot deprive anyone of this right without cause (Article 15).1 The UN Convention on Reduction of Statelessness, 1961, further mandates every signatory state to grant nationality to all individuals or persons born within its territory, subject to conditions of age and other conditions prescribed by national laws (Art. 1). 2 While the global elite endorse the idea of multiculturalism and human rights defenders advocate ‘global citizenship’, global populism has made its way back, fomenting the hateful and destructive narrative of the Settler-Native dichotomy.3 Every country is feeling the brunt of this narrative, and India is no exception. The book under review, On Citizenship, is one of the essential pieces of literature that discusses the problem of populism and its impact on the actions of the legislative, executive, and judicial organs of the Indian Constitution. The book is a compilation of four essays written by four authors, who are doyens in their fields: Romila Thapar, a thinker and academic; N. Ram, an editor and political commentator; Gautam Bhatia, a lawyer and legal scholar; and Justice Gautam Patel.