Amulya K Tripathy and Sivani Baral, India-China relations: Vajpayee, Manmohan and Modi Periods, New Delhi: Authors Press, 2022, pp. 177.

Abstract

In the 1990s globalization triggered the process of transnational migration, mainly from underdeveloped to developed countries. The huge migration resulted in changing the social and demographic landscape of the recipient societies; homogeneous societies began to turn heterogeneous. Increasing heterogeneity in such societies created many challenges to the existing socio-political structure and state policies. One of the major challenge that got the attention of leading political scientists to revisit the centuries old concept - universal citizenship. Consequently, the debate surfaced in western democracies over current state of citizenship, aiming to cope up with the growing ethno-cultural diversity and finding solutions of emerging challenges. Universal citizenship embraces every citizen similarly, and provides equal rights, entitlements, and obligations regardless of any difference, however, the marginalized groups, mainly immigrants seek different entitlements. So, the present study focuses on theoretical foundations and justifications of the changing nature of citizenship. The paper begins with a brief historical overview of the concept of citizenship. The second part discusses three generations of rights within the framework of ‘universal’ citizenship. The third views the multicultural rights (group- differentiated rights) as fourth generational rights. The fourth explores the practice of citizenship over different ethnic groups in Canada by taking the example of two ethnic groups- Sikhs and Muslims as citizens. The last draws outcomes of the study.