Full and equal membership in practice

Insiders and outsiders. In a crowded train compartment, people who pushed each other to get in soon unite to keep others out. Something similar happens in cities, regions or nations: when jobs, medical care, education, land or water are scarce, people may demand that 'outsiders', even fellow citizens, be kept out. The slogan 'Mumbai for Mumbaikars' expressed such feelings; many regions in India and elsewhere have seen similar movements.

Freedom of movement is a right of citizens in India and many other countries, and it matters especially to workers, who migrate where jobs are.

• IT workers flock to cities like Bangalore; nurses from Kerala work all over India; building and road projects draw workers from many regions.
• Locals may resent jobs going to 'outsiders', sometimes at lower wages, and demand that jobs be reserved for residents or speakers of the local language; parties may take up the issue, and it can even turn violent.
• Yet we are indignant when Indian workers abroad are ill-treated, and states are proud to attract skilled workers. Do poor, unskilled migrants have the same right to live and work anywhere as skilled ones? These are live questions about 'full and equal membership'.

Settling disputes. The right to protest is part of freedom of expression, as long as protest does not harm the life or property of others or the state. Citizens can form groups, demonstrate, use the media, approach parties or go to court. A basic principle of democracy, and an obligation of citizenship, is that disputes be settled by negotiation and discussion, not force.

Equal rights for the urban poor. Every Indian city has large numbers of slum-dwellers and squatters. They do necessary work (as hawkers, petty traders, domestic workers, plumbers, mechanics, in small businesses like tailoring or textile printing) yet are often treated as unwelcome, blamed for crime and disease, and live crammed into rooms without toilets, water or sanitation.

• A national policy on urban street vendors (January 2004) aimed to recognise and regulate vendors so they could work without harassment while following the rules; it was followed by the Street Vendors Act of 2014.
• In 1985, in a case brought by the activist Olga Tellis against the Bombay Municipal Corporation, the Supreme Court held that the right to life (Article 21) includes the right to livelihood, so pavement dwellers should be given alternative accommodation before being evicted.
• Tribal people and forest dwellers face threats to their way of life from population pressure, mining, commercial interests and tourism; governments struggle to protect them without halting development.
• Equal rights do not mean uniform policies: to make people more equal, policies must take account of different groups' different needs.

T.H. Marshall (Citizenship and Social Class, 1950) defined citizenship as 'a status bestowed on those who are full members of a community', equal in rights and duties. Its key idea is equality: the quality of rights should improve and the number of people who hold them should grow. Citizenship involves civil rights (life, liberty, property), political rights (taking part in governance) and social rights (education, employment). By countering the divisions of social class, citizenship helps build a more integrated community. Citizenship's meaning keeps being reinterpreted as society changes.