Citizen and nation: national identity, assimilation and who gets in

Detail

1. The nation-state and national identity

• Nation-state means a state that claims both:
• a fixed territory, marked by its borders;

• its own culture and history, shared by the people who live inside those borders.

• Nation-states belong to the modern era. The French Revolution of 1789 was an early claim that the nation is sovereign (holds supreme power) and that citizens have rights.

• A nation-state shows its identity through symbols: a flag, a national anthem, a national language and ceremonies.
• The democratic ideal: a democratic national identity should include every citizen.
• The reality: some citizens find it easier than others to identify with the national identity. States also give citizenship to some groups more readily than to others.

• This is true even of the USA, which calls itself "a country of immigrants".

• Core question for this section: who belongs to the nation, and on what terms do newcomers get in?

2. Assimilation: the French model

• Assimilation means the state expects every citizen to adopt the national culture and language in public life. People may keep their own religion and customs only in private life.
• France sees itself as a secular, inclusive state. It accepts European and non-European migrants as citizens, but it expects them to assimilate in public.
• The contested line between "public" and "private":
• Sikh boys' turbans and Muslim girls' headscarves were barred in some state schools.

• The state treats a school as a public space. Many students see religious dress as a private matter of faith.

• How French law changed after the NCERT account:

Year	Measure	What it does
2004	Law on conspicuous religious signs in public schools (in force from 2 September 2004)	Students may not wear signs or clothing that openly show their religion. It covers large crosses and Jewish skullcaps (yarmulkes) too, but it was widely seen as aimed at Muslims [7]
2010	Face-covering law (October 2010)	"No one, in a public space, may wear clothing intended to conceal the face." This is often called the burqa ban [8]
2014	European Court of Human Rights ruling	Held that the ban on face veils does not breach the European Convention on Human Rights [8]
2023	Abaya ban in state schools	Extended the 2004 logic to the long abaya robe (verify current)

• The Indian parallel: the Karnataka hijab case
• 5 February 2022: a Karnataka Government Order told government schools to follow the set uniform. In effect, this stopped students from wearing headscarves [9].
• 15 March 2022: a Full Bench of the Karnataka High Court dismissed the challenge to that order [9].
• 13 October 2022: in Aishat Shifa v. State of Karnataka, the Supreme Court gave a split verdict (the two judges disagreed). The main question was whether students could follow their religious practice in a secular school under Article 25, which gives the right to profess, practise and propagate religion [9].

• Because the judges were split, the case went to a larger bench. The full discussion is in the note on secularism.

• Exam link: NCERT's "Let's Debate" asks whether schools should allow religious symbols with the uniform. This is the same tension between assimilation and diversity.

3. Who gets in: criteria for citizenship by birth

• Countries use two basic rules to decide who is a citizen at birth.

	Jus soli ("right of the soil")	Jus sanguinis ("right of blood")
Meaning	Citizenship depends on place of birth	Citizenship depends on the parents' citizenship (descent)
Classic examples	USA (14th Amendment, 1868)	Germany (historically), Israel
Effect on migrants	Children born in the country become citizens automatically	Migrants' children can stay foreigners for generations
India	Followed fully until 1987	Moved steadily towards descent after 1987

USA: jus soli under strain

• 14th Amendment (1868): "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens…" It was adopted partly to undo the Dred Scott (1857) decision, which had denied citizenship to Black Americans [3].
• United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898): the Supreme Court confirmed that a child born in the USA to Chinese parents was a US citizen [3].
• Executive Order 14160 (January 2025), "Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship," tried to end birthright citizenship. It would have denied citizenship to children born in the USA unless one parent was a US citizen or a lawful permanent resident [2].
• Trump v. Barbara: argued on 1 April 2026. In the 2025–26 term, the Supreme Court, in an opinion by Chief Justice Roberts, held that the order violates both:
• the 14th Amendment's citizenship clause;

• the Immigration and Nationality Act 1952, which wrote that clause into ordinary law [2].

• Result: birthright citizenship in the USA stands, and the US example of jus soli survives (NCERT: 14th Amendment as the jus soli model).

Israel: descent plus religion

• Law of Return (1950) gives Jews the right to immigrate to Israel (aliyah) and receive citizenship. Its aims were to give Jews a safe haven after the Holocaust and to keep a Jewish majority [6].
• 1970 amendment:
• extended the right to the children, grandchildren and spouses of Jews;

• excluded people who had been Jewish but voluntarily adopted another religion [6].

• Why it matters: entry is given by religion and ethnicity. This sets up a sharp contrast with India's secular citizenship, and it is a useful reference point in debates on the CAA 2019.

Germany: from blood to conditional birthright

• NCERT's case: the German-born children of Turkish guest workers demanded citizenship, and the matter was "still being debated".
• Before 2000: Germany was a traditional jus sanguinis country. Birth in Germany alone did not make a child German [5].
• The 2000 reform (passed by the Bundestag on 7 May 1999) was meant to integrate guest-worker families, many of them in their second or third generation [5]:
• A child born in Germany to foreign parents becomes German if one parent has lived there lawfully for at least 8 years and holds a permanent residence permit [5].

• Option rule: children who also got another nationality at birth had to choose between ages 18 and 23. If they did not give up the other nationality, they lost German citizenship [5].

• The 2023–24 reform: the government bill of 1 November 2023 proposed to:

• allow multiple citizenship;
• make naturalisation faster and easier;
• cut the parent's lawful residence needed for birthright citizenship from 8 to 5 years [4].
• It was meant to take effect in the first half of 2024 [4] (verify current).

4. India: an inclusive, secular nation-state

• India is a secular, democratic nation-state. The freedom movement brought together people of many religions, regions and cultures.
• Partition (1947) and its violence made India's leaders more determined to build an inclusive nation, not a state for one religion.
• Full and equal citizenship in the Constitution:
• It covered Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), women and remote Andaman and Nicobar island communities.

• It protected the many languages and religions of India.

• Symbol: the Republic Day parade shows this diversity of regions, cultures and religions within one nation.

• Legal anchors:
• Part II, Articles 5–11 (1950) settled who was a citizen when the Constitution began.

• Article 11 lets Parliament make citizenship law. Parliament used this power to pass the Citizenship Act, 1955.

• India's own shift: from jus soli towards jus sanguinis (full detail in Section 7)

• Until 1 July 1987: anyone born in India was a citizen (pure jus soli).
• Citizenship (Amendment) Act 1986: from 1987, at least one parent had to be an Indian citizen.
• Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2003: for children born after it took effect, one parent must be a citizen and the other must not be an illegal migrant.
• Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 (rules notified 2024): gives a faster route to citizenship to non-Muslim minorities from three neighbouring countries. This made religion a factor in naturalisation for the first time, which is why the Israel comparison keeps coming up.

Prelims Hooks

• Jus soli = citizenship by place of birth. Jus sanguinis = citizenship by the parents' citizenship (descent). Do not mix them up.
• US 14th Amendment (1868) is the textbook jus soli provision. In Trump v. Barbara (2025–26 term), the US Supreme Court held that Executive Order 14160 violated it.
• Israel's Law of Return (1950) is citizenship by descent and religion. Its 1970 amendment extended the right to children, grandchildren and spouses of Jews.
• Germany's 2000 law brought in conditional birthright citizenship: one parent must have 8 years of lawful residence, and there was an option to choose a nationality between ages 18 and 23. The 2023–24 reform cut this to 5 years and allowed dual citizenship.
• France: the 2004 law banned conspicuous religious symbols in public schools. The 2010 law banned face coverings in public. The European Court of Human Rights upheld the face-covering ban in 2014.
• Aishat Shifa v. State of Karnataka (13 October 2022) was a split verdict of the Supreme Court on the hijab ban, decided under Article 25.
• India: pure jus soli lasted until 1 July 1987 (Citizenship Amendment Act 1986). Citizenship at the start of the Constitution is in Articles 5–11, and Article 11 gives Parliament the power to make citizenship law.
• Trap: "assimilation" allows private belief. It demands conformity only in public life.

Mains Points

• Assimilation vs. accommodation:
• France makes citizens public-facing "French first". India allows religious and linguistic identity to show in public life (Articles 25, 29–30).

• The hijab split verdict shows that India has not yet settled where its own public–private line lies.

• The test of a democratic national identity is how it treats newcomers.

• Germany's move from jus sanguinis to conditional jus soli shows how descent-based rules can leave generations of guest workers outside the nation.

• Germany has shifted to integrate them.

• India's direction has gone the other way.

• India moved from jus soli (1950–87) towards descent (1986 and 2003 amendments) because of concerns about illegal migration.

• This raises a GS-II question: can a secular nation-state founded after Partition use religion as a factor in naturalisation (CAA 2019), as Israel's Law of Return does?

• Courts guard birthright rules.

• The US Supreme Court protected jus soli against an executive order in Trump v. Barbara.
• In India, by contrast, the rules come from the Citizenship Act 1955 under Article 11. Parliament can change them by ordinary law, and courts can check those changes only against Part III rights such as Articles 14, 21 and 25.