event
Carnegie India

Understanding India: Citizenship and Identity

Wed. September 30th, 2020
Zoom Webinar

The formal recognition of religious identities as grounds for citizenship in the Indian constitution puts the fundamentals of citizenship up for debate. Reflections on the ways in which caste, class and religion have been conceived and discussed in reference to citizenship in the past, can shed light on the questions around citizenship confronting India today. Has the idea of citizenship in India changed materially over time? How do identity and status impact relations between citizens and the state? What are the present obstacles to achieving a more equitable concept of citizenship in India?

For our sixth Anahita Speaker Series session of 2020, we hosted Niraja Gopal Jayal, professor at the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, as she drew on her expertise to give us insights on the changing ideas of citizenship in India.

South AsiaIndia
Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
event speakers

Niraja Gopal Jayal

Niraja Gopal Jayal is a professor at the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She is also presently a centennial professor in the Department of Gender Studies at the London School of Economics. Her most recent publication (edited) is Re-Forming India: The Nation Today. (Penguin Random House, 2019) Her book Citizenship and Its Discontents (Harvard University Press, 2013) won the Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Prize of the Association of Asian Studies in 2015. She is also the author of Representing India: Ethnic Diversity and the Governance of Public Institutions (Palgrave, 2006) and co-editor of The Oxford Companion to Politics in India.

Nandita Singh

Communications and Program Coordinator