Mobility in its many types has lengthy been thought of core to the notion of progress and the formation of civilisation. Conversely, sedentarism—the apply of dwelling in a single place—emerges from the necessity to hyperlink property, descent, and lineage to the management of sources. World historical past is replete with the caravan trails of tribes, pastoralists, merchants, and troopers. This historic context of mobility is bolstered by at this time’s world networks, which facilitate a brand new world outlined by the circulation of not solely items, companies, and capital but in addition labour. This, after all, alludes to globalisation—a power that has affected our social, cultural, political, and financial standpoints, in addition to our very views and identities.
A matter of concern
Given this backdrop, it’s curious that whereas the concept of mobility has expanded, our bodily mobility typically stays restricted, notably in relation to searching for livelihoods exterior one’s residence State. Despite the precarity of migrant employees changing into painfully evident in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, Indian metropolises stay essentially the most coveted locations for destitute rural employees from completely different States.
More just lately, within the wake of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) updation and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of Electoral Rolls, the mistreatment of migrant labour in numerous cities has grow to be a matter of nationwide debate and anxiousness. While there was an upsurge of a media-fed ‘public temper’, the ‘public thoughts’ must be nudged towards a deeper engagement with advanced points like inter-state migration.
In this regard, it’s price reflecting on provocative discussions in educational boards the place recent insights, resembling “provincial citizenship” (a time period pitched by Alok Ranjan, a PhD candidate at JNU), are sparking deep reflection. Following Ranjan’s lead, it’s significant to discover the concept of inter-state migration for a broader viewers, particularly for individuals who may assume this problem solely considerations the straight affected or the policymakers tasked with offering reduction.
Ranjan’s work displays on inter-State migration and the way it has drafted a brand new chapter within the “politics of domicile” inside India’s democratic physique politic, although this operates solely on the provincial degree. “Provincial citizenship” emerges from nativist politics rooted in an emotional belonging to a State, which features rapid leverage in regional electoral politics. In the method, the entanglement of spatial identification, freedom of motion, and citizenship permits domicile to floor as a brand new class for political mobilisation. Crucially, these tendencies intensify the importance of States as websites of citizenship, even at a time when a extra inclusive, national-level citizenship is being emphasised because the fulcrum of Akhanda Bharat (Undivided India).
Domicile as a Political Instrument
Following Ranjan, we see {that a} shut scrutiny of States like Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir (J&Ok), and Assam can assist us perceive how domicile turns into a potent political instrument. In J&Ok, domicile insurance policies had been applied after the 2019 abrogation of its particular standing as a measure of inclusive politics to safeguard minorities (just like the Valmikis, Gorkhas, and West Pakistan refugees). Jharkhand, nonetheless, represents a case the place domicile was used to articulate majoritarian grievances in opposition to the perceived affect of a minority elite in a State shaped in 2000. Backed by its distinctive historical past, the politics of domicile in Jharkhand departs from the norms seen in Sixth Schedule areas. It tends to embody the entire State, superseding the nation’s federal construction and questioning the nationwide citizenship rights assured by Article 16(2) of the Indian Constitution.
Attaining statehood didn’t resolve sub-nationalist politics in Jharkhand. Instead, these sentiments had been channelled right into a democratic politics of domicile after 2000. This transition challenges the “one nation, one citizenship” best. Here, the notion of a single nationwide citizenship is undermined by the efficacy of the unofficially constructed concept of provincial citizenship, whose political significance can render the nationwide framework insufficient.
Jharkhand’s expertise additionally means that conflicts between the pursuits of inside migrants and the considerations of provincial citizenship can’t be democratically adjudicated throughout the current political construction, typically requiring the Supreme Court’s intervention.
This “unofficial” provincial citizenship problematises the official concept of a singular Indian citizenship. It creates a contest over definitions of ‘native’, ‘indigenous’, ‘Adivasi’, ‘native’, or ‘son of the soil’ that exist alongside the identification of an Indian citizen.
The newness of an outdated concept
The downside of inside migrants in provincial contexts will not be new. Myron Weiner, in his e-book Sons of the Soil: Migration and Ethnic Conflict in India (1978), was maybe the primary to evaluate the social and political penalties of inside migration in States like Maharashtra, Bihar, and Assam. More current coinages like “citizen-outsiders” (Roy 2010), “differentiated citizenship” (Jayal 2013), and “paused residents” (Sharma 2024) “hyphenated nationality” (Sarkar 2025) have enriched our vocabulary for analysing this problem.
It can be related to contemplate the suggestions of the States Reorganisation Commission (SRC) of 1955. The members of the SRC anticipated the issues of discrimination and exclusion arising from domicile insurance policies. They had been significantly involved about these guidelines, discovering them inconsistent with Articles 15, 16, and 19 of the Constitution and opposite to the very idea of Indian citizenship. The members said: “We don’t really feel known as upon to pronounce on the purely authorized elements of those restrictions, however we now have little question in anyway that their whole impact is the precise reverse of what was meant by the Constitution” (SRC Report 1955, p. 230).
The SRC Report advisable that domicile guidelines ought to be changed by applicable Parliamentary laws, warning that “Otherwise, the idea of a standard Indian citizenship would haven’t any which means” (pp. 230-231). In many respects, the idea of provincial citizenship echoes these decades-old warnings. Its newness lies in how this idea has transcended the passivity of a written report back to grow to be an energetic and grave actuality.
(Swatahsiddha Sarkar teaches on the Centre for Himalayan Studies, University of North Bengal, Darjeeling, West Bengal)
