Citizens, domicile, and migrants: Why we should worry about Provincial Citizenship

Ranjan, A. (2025). Provincial Citizenship: Jharkhand residence, migration and scale policy. Studies in Indian politicsSoon (published online, September 2025)

Many formats are accepted as the essence of the concept of progress and the formation of civilization. Conversely, plainctarism – the application of living in one place – it is due to the need to connect property, ups and downs to control of resources. World history is full of caravan trails of tribes, pastoralists, merchants and soldiers. This context of this historical mobility has been strengthened by today’s global networks that facilitate a new world defined by goods, services and capital flow. This, of course, implies globalization – a force that affects our social, cultural, political and economic perspectives, as well as our perspectives and identities.

A concern issue

Considering this ground, the idea of ​​mobility has expanded, but it is often limited when our physical mobility is looking for livelihoods other than its own state. Although immigrant workers became painful in a painful way during COVİD-19 PANDEM, Indian metropolises continue to be the most popular places for poor rural workers from different states.

More recently, after the National Citizen Registration (NRC) update and the special intensive revision of the election rolls (secret), the ill -treatment of immigrant labor in various cities has become a matter of national debate and anxiety. Although a ‘public mood’ increase that is fed by the media, the ‘public mind’ needs to be dragged for deeper participation with complex problems such as inter -state migration.

In this context, it is worth thinking about the provocative discussions in the academic forums such as “provincial citizenship” (a term presented by Alok Ranjan, a PhD candidate in Jnu). Following Ranjan’s leadership, it is meaningful to discover the idea of ​​migration for a wider audience, especially for those who can think that this problem is only directly affected or related to policy makers in charge of relief.

Ranjan’s work reflects how it prepares a new chapter in the “residence politics ında in India’s democratic body policy in India’s democratic body policy, but this only operates at the provincial level. “Provincial Citizenship çıkmış emerges from Nativist politics, which arises from an emotional situation of a state that immediately wins in regional election policy. In this process, the circulation of spatial identity, freedom of movement and citizenship allows residence to surface as a new category for political mobilization. Most importantly, these tendencies emphasize the importance of states as citizenship areas at a time when they are emphasized as the prediction of a more inclusive, national level of citizenship. Akhanda Bharat (Unidentified India).

Residence as a political tool

Following Ranjan, we see that states such as Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir (J & K) have been closely examined and help us understand how Assam has become a strong political tool. In J&B, it was implemented in 2019 after the elimination of special status as a measure of inclusive politics to protect minorities (Valmikiler, Gorkhas and Western Pakistani refugees). However, Jharkhand represents a case in which the residence was used to express great complaints against the perceived influence of a state established in 2000. The residence policy in Jharkhand, supported by its unique history, is separated from the norms seen in the sixth program regions. This tends to cover the entire state that replaces the federal structure of the country and questiones the national citizenship rights, which are guaranteed by Article 16 (2) of the Indian Constitution.

Reaching the state did not solve the national politics in Jharkhand. Instead, these feelings were directed to a democratic residence policy after 2000. This transition challenges the ideal of “one nation, a citizenship”. Here, a single national concept of citizenship is weakened by the effectiveness of the idea of ​​provincial citizenship, which can make political importance inadequate.

Jharkhand’s experience shows that conflicts between the interests of internal immigrants and the concerns of state citizenship cannot be democratically tried within the current political structure that requires the intervention of the High Court.

This “informal” state citizenship makes the official idea of ​​a singular Indian citizenship problematic. It creates a contest on the definitions of ‘native’, ‘native’, ‘adivasi’, ‘local’ or ‘son of the land’, which exists next to the identity of an Indian citizen.

The innovation of an old idea

The problem of internal immigrants in the provincial contexts is not new. Myron Weiner, in his book Sons of the Land: Migration and Ethnic Conflict in India (1978), perhaps the first person to evaluate the social and political consequences of internal migration in states such as Maharashtra, Bihar and Assam. “Citizen-Outsides” (Roy 2010), “Differentiated Citizenship” (Jayal 2013) and “Paused Citizens” (Sharma 2024) “Tireli Milliyet” (Sagar 2025) enriched our word repertoire to analyze this issue.

It is also important to take into account the proposals of the reorganization commission (SRC) of the states dated 1955. SRC members envisaged the problems of discrimination and exclusion arising from residence policies. They were of great concern about these rules, they found them inconsistent in 15, 16 and 19 of the Constitution, and unlike the concept of citizenship of India. The members said: uz We urge to pronounce the legal aspects of these restrictions, but there is no doubt that the total effects are the opposite of what is intended by the Constitution ”(SRC Report 1955, p. 230).

The SRC report suggested that the rules of residence be replaced by the appropriate parliamentary legislation, which said, “Otherwise, the concept of a common Indian citizenship would not have a meaning” (pp. 230-231). In many respects, the concept of provincial citizenship has reflected warnings for decades. The innovation is how this concept exceeds the passivity of a written report to make it an active and serious reality.

(Swatahsiddha Sagar, North Bengal University, Darjeeling, Western Bengal Himalaya Research Center is teaching)

Published – 26 September 2025 08:30 IST