Population and the Political Imagination

Census, Register and Citizenship in India

R.B. Bhagat

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781032253633
• eBook ISBN: 9781000574807
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Civics & Citizenship
• Index: Social Sciences

This book identifies population as a central issue of polity and examines its links to ideas of state and citizenship. It explores the relationship between the state, citizenship and polity by reexamining processes related to census enumeration, population and citizen registers, and the politics of classificatory governmentality.

Religion, ethnicity, caste and political class play a key role in determining community identities and the relationship between an individual and the state. Contextualizing the arguments and controversies around the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 (CAA 2019) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC), the book examines the processes of inclusion or exclusion of minorities and migrants as citizens in India. It focusses on the classification of irregular and refugee migration since independence in India, especially in the state of Assam. The book highlights how political imagination, as a theoretical framework, shapes the processes and strategies for enumeration and classification and thereby the idea of citizenship. Underlining the relationship between instruments of government, political mobilization and the resurgence of communal polarization, it also offers suggestions for alternative constructions of citizenship and an inclusive state.

This book will be useful for students and researchers of population studies, population geography, migration studies, sociology, political science, social anthropology, law and journalism. It will also be of interest to policy makers, journalists, as well as NGOs and CSOs.

Chapter 1 Population, state and citizenship An introduction

DOI: 10.4324/9781003097785-1

Introduction

Population has been a central concern of human progress and wellbeing in various historical epochs but more so right from the middle of the seventeenth century. Population, polity and moral order of the society were looked at in an integrated manner, but the separation began to emerge by the end of the nineteenth century. This was the outcome of the economic changes and technological progress which reorganized the production process through the division of labour and also created a compartmentalized domain of knowledge production in specialized disciplines like economics and political science separated from political economy. Economy, polity and society began to be looked at separately and their relationship was ruptured. As a result, population was not seen as a part of an integrated whole linked with the economic and political process. This was contrary to the contribution of John Graunt who wrote a treatise on ‘Natural and Political Observations Mentioned in a following Index and Made Upon the Bills of Mortality’ in 1662 (Sutherland 1963), and his friend William Petty wrote a book named Political Arithmetick in 1690 linking population issues with the political and economic conditions of their times (McCormick 2006). The latter work of Malthus (1798) in the empiricist and quantitative tradition, such as the famous idea of arithmetic vs geometric rate of growth for food supply and population growth respectively, laid the foundation of demography as an empirical and quantitative discipline largely insulated from political economic perspectives. A similar process also happened in economics as a result of the marginal revolution and mathematization of economic theory (Schabas 1989). By the end of the nineteenth century, the separation of disciplines emerged which was not only topical in knowledge production but was also methodological. In demography, the genesis of Demographic Transition Theory in the middle of the twentieth century describing the trends and patterns of population change as a development outcome has further strengthened the quantitative nature of the discipline. In such a context of knowledge production, population, as connected to polity and political system, is hardly seen by demographers as a part of the political imagination unlike the works of classical and pre-classical periods.

The book argues that population is a central issue of polity and is closely connected with the idea of state and citizenship. Citizenship is defined as the legal bond between the individual and the state determining the rights and duties of individuals. Citizenship can be awarded by birth or by naturalization of non-citizens who have migrated into the country. Naturalization is a process of becoming or making someone a citizen of a country that they were not born in. Population is generally counted on de facto basis constituting both citizen and non-citizens of a country, and its composition is affected by the magnitude of migration and state’s policy of naturalization. Looked from this perspective, there has been a dynamic relationship between population, state and citizenship over different periods of history. Population and territory are two important constituents of the state mediated through the idea of citizenship. On the other hand, citizenship is a dynamic and evolving concept closely related to population composition influencing the nature of state which has been also changing historically. Changes in the population composition influence citizenship through migration prompting the state to reconstitute citizenship based on the political imagination and unfolding a citizenship politics to hold on power. In a big country like India it has implications for both national and sub-national levels—while the former is influenced by immigration, the latter by the internal migration. The book highlights aspects of migration and their relationship with citizenship and the nation-state in the light of recent debate on Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 (CAA 2019), National Population Register (NPR) and the National Register of Indian Citizens (popularly known as NRC) and the ensuing struggle for citizenship in India.

Population and state—a historical perspective

The etymology of the word ‘population’ or also the word ‘populace’ traces its origin to the Latin word of ‘populus’ meaning people. In Greek, a similar word for people is ‘demos’. The name of demography is imparted to the science of population combining the two Greek words namely demos and graphein (to write) (Guillard 1855). It means that demography is a discipline which writes/describes about the people. Interestingly the Greek word dēmokratia means democracy which is derived from dēmos, people consisting of the entire citizen body, and kratos, meaning rule.¹ This shows the extent to which demography and democracy are related in their etymology.

Although the two terms namely population and people are often used synonymously, a distinction between the two is very important to understand the nature and organization of polity and politics. The idea of population refers to individuals, while people are defined as social groups. In other words, population is a number while people constitute relationship and relational categories. However, both are related but are two different ways of looking at demos. The size, growth and composition of population are important factors influencing social, economic and political processes and relations between and among various communities. However, these two integrated dimensions are ruptured and separated in modern times with huge political and epistemological significance (Legg 2005). It has changed our political consciousness, the way we define, categorize and imagine people. However, during the colonialism population occupied the centre stage of nation-state politics.

The idea of state as an organized institution goes back to the Greek city-states (Kaur 2010). The size of population and its reproduction has been the central concern of the ancient Greek city-states. The great works of Plato namely The Republic and The Laws written in the fourth century BC elaborated not only the ideal size of population of a state but also the laws related to marriage, birth and emigration as a matter of statecraft (Charbit 2002). During almost same time in the ancient India, Kautilya’s Arthasastra describes the role of king and the nature of statecraft. Kautilya also believed that state as a territory should be full of people with various occupations and trades (Kaur 2010; Mishra 2004). The Greek city- state was small in size but considered to be prosperous if its population is engaged in diverse economic activities. Plato proposed that in an ideal city-state the number of citizens should be 5040 which amounts to a population of 10 or 12 times (50,400–60,480) when women, children and slaves are taken into account. According to Plato, state has emerged out of the needs of the mankind. In meeting the needs and wants, ‘many persons are needed to supply them, one takes a helper for one purpose and another for another; and when these partners and helpers are gathered together in the habitation the body of inhabitants is termed a State’ (Jowett 1986:782). Similarly, in a significant work of Aristotle (b. 384–d. 322 BCE) known as the Politics, population (demos) is a recurring topic extensively discussed. Aristotle, a disciple of Plato, believed that state identifies with its principal population group, but the type of political system differs with the composition, cohesiveness and size of subpopulations or social groups. Population is not simply an aggregate but categories that are defined on the basis of their relationship with the state. For example, in the city-state of Athens three classes of populations were identified—citizens, metics and slaves. Citizens (polites) are those freemen who are involved in ruling excluded women, slaves and metics (Trott 2014:162). In Athens, for example, citizens had the right to attend the assembly, the council and other bodies or to sit on juries. A group of citizens was selected out of the whole body of citizens to make a policy (Standing 2011:180). Thus, the Athenian system differed from a modern representative democracy in that the citizens were more directly involved in governing (Miller 2017). Citizens included wealthy property owners, peasants, some shopkeepers and craftmen, while metics were merchants, traders and banausia (skilled or unskilled labourers). Metics were migrants who came mostly from other Greek states, attracted by the wealth and opportunities of Athens. Mobility across social categories was permitted. Thus, neither population nor state was a closed and a fixed entity. Reclassification of population and migration constantly changed the membership characteristic of different population groups in relation to the state. The purpose of the state was to keep the conflict in balance and the stability and development of polity depended upon how the challenges of inequality have been addressed. Aristotle, who lived in the city-state of Athens for many years, believed that inequality determines the level and destination of migration, the desirability and means of reproductive control and mortality. The capacity of inequalities between populations undermines the stability, and regime change in return affects the size and composition of population. Aristotle refuted the idea that state arose from people who are all alike (Kreager 2008). However, this misunderstanding persists even in contemporary times, and the apparatus of some states directly or indirectly is/working towards this goal. The rising power of Macedon—another city-state under King Philip II united the various city-states planting the seeds of national consciousness, and his son Alexander the Great further consolidated the Macedonian empire throughout Mediterranean and Near East (Miller 2017).

The emergence of city-states was possible due to the increasing size and concentration of population in some settlements defined as cities which was not solely based on agriculture but trade, commerce and crafts. Urbanization in ancient times was a moving force of the diversification of the economic system and the participation of citizens in the polity of Greek city-states. It is in this sense that the words like city, citizenship and civilization are having a common origin to the Latin words like civis (citizen), civitas (city as a body of citizens) and civilatas (art/craft of government). These three related concepts are very much important in understanding the nature and functioning of modern states (Gawthrop and Waldo 1984). By 1300 civilatas also meant citizen and citizenship acquiring meaning of civic life or city life contrasted with non-civic, with country life and peasants. By this way, it became a concept establishing identity (Boer 2005:52). Similar development also took place in ancient India since the middle of the sixth century BC that coincided with origin of Buddhism in India. There were many tiny states with an urban centre as headquarter known as janapada in the Gangetic Valley and adjoining areas. The nature of janapada defined in Kautilya’s Arthasastra indicates that both territory and population are intended to be covered by this expression (Kaur 2010). Some of the janapadas also functioned as republics in the form of gana-sangha or gan rajya. Gana means people of equal status and rajya means governance. Gan-sangha was a clan-based smaller territory in which people used to assemble to decide the matters related to governance. The assembly used to take place in the main urban centre. It was not a democracy but preferred term would be republic as only small number of ruling families participated in the governance and excluded large number of people who lived in the territory. The gana-sangha had mainly two strata namely kshatria and dasa-karmakara—the slaves and labourers which were not part of the assembly and governance. Notwithstanding, it was distinct from monarchy as decisions were taken in an assembly of people presided over by the chief of the clan, a position not of hereditary nature, but who was responsible to rule and to maintain justice. According to Romila Thaper, the political system of gana-sangha is the earliest example of approaching social contract theory (Thaper 2004:148–51). The famous gana-sangha of the Vrijjis—a confederacy of clans was located at Vaishali. However, due to political expansion several gana-sangha or janapadas could not survive.

The emergence of state was closely associated with urban centres, and use of iron technology for cultivation during this period accelerated the process of urbanization in the Gangetic valley (Thaper 2004; Sharma 2005). It is remarkable to see that city-states emerged in Greece and in India, i.e. in two different parts of the world during the same period. However, there were many similarities and contrasts between the two–important among them was the boundary line between those who were citizens privileged to participate in matters of governance and those who were not allowed to participate in ruling, i.e. the non-citizens. While in Greek city-states, the division between citizens and non-citizens was not very rigid and the change in status was permissible; this was not so in the city-states of gana-sangha having strong roots in clan or caste status. Thus, the idea of citizenship as found in the Greek city-states was not similar to the political tradition in ancient I...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Foreword
• Preface and acknowledgements
• Chapter 1 Population, state and citizenship: An introduction
• Chapter 2 The statecraft and citizenship: Census, NPR and NRC
• Chapter 3 Religious classification and governmentality
• Chapter 4 Refugees, irregular migrants and non-citizens
• Chapter 5 Irregular migration and NRC: The Assam experiment
• Chapter 6 Evolution of the Citizenship Act
• Chapter 7 Political imagination and citizenship: A way forward
• Index