Citizenship, Rights of Marginalized Groups and Civic Responsibilities
This domain links Part II, the constitutional and statutory commissions for disadvantaged groups, and Art. 51A duties.
Citizenship
Part II, Arts. 5-11, laid down who was a citizen at commencement and left further law to Parliament. The Citizenship Act, 1955 recognises acquisition by birth, descent, registration, naturalisation and incorporation of territory, and loss by renunciation, termination and deprivation. India has single citizenship; there is no State citizenship. The 2003 amendment made citizenship by birth conditional on at least one parent being Indian and the other not an illegal migrant. The CAA, 2019 gives a faster route to persecuted minorities from three neighbouring countries; it confers citizenship on nobody by itself.
Rights of marginalised groups
SCs (Art. 341) and STs (Art. 342) are notified by the President. The National Commission for Scheduled Castes (Art. 338) and for Scheduled Tribes (Art. 338A, added by the 89th Amendment) are constitutional bodies; the Backward Classes Commission is under Art. 338B (102nd Amendment). Statutory bodies include the National Commission for Women, the National Commission for Minorities and the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights. Safeguards: Art. 17, reservation, the SC/ST (PoA) Act, 1989 and the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016.
Fundamental Duties
Art. 51A lists eleven duties, added by the 42nd Amendment on the Swaran Singh Committee's advice; the eleventh - providing education to a child aged 6-14 - came with the 86th Amendment (2002). They are not directly enforceable but guide courts and legislatures.
Worked example
A child is born in India in 2020 to a citizen and a foreign national. Reasoning: under the Citizenship Act as amended in 2003, a child born in India is a citizen by birth only if at least one parent is a citizen and the other is not an illegal migrant. One parent is a citizen and nothing suggests the other is an illegal migrant, so the child is a citizen.
Traps
Arts. 5-11 do not list the modes of acquiring citizenship - the 1955 Act does. Fundamental Duties sit in Part IVA, not Part IV. The National Commission for Minorities is statutory, not constitutional.