Citizenship has remained the cutting edge of identity, state formation and nation-building, as well as legitimacy in South Asia. Rooted in European modernity and connected with the sphere of individual freedom and liberty,though with varied social nuances across different Western Countries, the concept flowed worldwide during the last three centruies, mostly through colonialism, and was adapted to local circumstances in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In the West over the last decade and a half, there has been an increased interest in the studies of citizenship as a result of which the concept has been ‘liberated’, as it were, from the clutches of its narrow legalistic, state-controlled,connotation. Today, citizenship is considered to be a strategic concept inseparably linked with a whole range of problems and issues such as globalization,identity participation, empowerment,, human rights, social justice,entitlement, the public interest., migration, religion, education militarism, indigenous struggles, ecological movements, secularization, hierarchies and exclusion, to name but the most most widely discussed ones.
The book explores both exclusionary as well as inclusionary dimensions of citizenship, rival conceptualization, institutional arrangements, political factors, agencies and public delivery. It contains a high level theoretical discussions as well as detailed empirical analyses of country-specific experiences written by specialists and will therefore be of interest to students and researchers studying policy, society and development as well as identity politics of South Asia. |
