The term ‘citizenship’
has been discussed, defined and understood at
different points of time in the political history.
One can find different traditions in the concept
of citizenship through out the discourse. While
some of these thoughts have supplemented the existing
thoughts, others have given rise to inherent polarity.
These polarities are many a time competing with
each other, which needs to be considered while
defining citizenship. This is especially true
in Indian context
Rights are
conceived as political (e.g. right to vote, right
to form association), civil (freedom of speech,
liberty of the person), social (not to be discriminated
against on the basis of caste, class, religion
or gender and equal access to basic services like
health, education etc.), economic (protection
of private property, equal access to employment
and sources of livelihood) and cultural (protection
and preservation of traditional culture).
To summarise,
it can be said that citizenship means ‘full
membership of a community’. The membership
entails participation by individuals in the determination
of the conditions of their own association without
any discrimination on the basis of caste, ethnicity,
religion or gender. Citizenship is an over arching
civic identity produced by, and productive of
a sense of belonging to a particular nation-state.
Citizenship is a status, which bestows upon individuals
equal rights and obligations, liberties and constraints,
powers and responsibilities. Citizenship is always
a matter of belonging to a community. In this
sense, the citizen is always a co-citizen, somebody
who lives with others.The citizen in a democratic
society is a person who has rights and duties.
Leadership
in the community context could be understood as
a process of influencing and motivating people
for bringing positive social change in favor of
the marginalised sections of society. Leadership
is that humanistic quality through which a person
tries to fulfill the needs of the community by
securing its cooperation and by establishing credibility.
A citizen leader is an individual who has the
ability to represent, to provide direction and
to seek acceptance of a particular section or
group. Furthermore, a leader has a direction,
necessary energy and ability to influence for
achieving common public good (desired social change).
Therefore, in the process of promoting citizen
leaders, the attributes of citizenship and leadership
should be considered together.
A good citizen
leader should be an active citizen and should
have the ability to shoulder responsibility
Three important
functions of Citizen Leader
Facilitating
Social Mobilisation
It includes
mobilization of the poor and marginalised for
collective action. Individual action is important
in society; however, it may feel powerless in
the face of powerful interests of advantaged sections
in the society. Collective action and collective
empowerment are powerful tools to change fundamental
structural differences, injustice and discrimination
in the society. The purpose of social mobilization
and collective action may range from engaging
in self help construction work in a village or
neighborhood (like building a road or cleaning
of ponds) to exercising rights over natural resources
(like protecting forest or common property resources)
to large-scale protest activities (like protest
against acquisition of agricultural lands).
Overcoming Social
Exclusion
The society
in its present form is deeply stratified and hierarchical.
The structural and other forms of inequalities
based on caste, class, ethnicity, religion, gender
and age reinforce social exclusion. The resources,
knowledge and opportunities in mainstream society
are denied to the poor and marginalised. One of
the functions of citizen leaders is to facilitate
the poor and marginalised in accessing resources,
knowledge and opportunities
Managing Differences/Divisions
In a democratic
society plurality should be seen as an asset.
However, when society is fragmented across hierarchical
stratification it may lead to discrimination against
and exploitation of the poor and marginalised
that are at the bottom of the hierarchy. In both
cases conflicts around interest and priority are
inevitable. One of the functions of citizen leaders
is to manage and resolve these conflicts within
the community through negotiation and consensus.
Citizen leaders must be sensitive enough to understand
that the poor and marginalised feel powerless
in such conflict situations unless an external
facilitation process helps their interest to surface.
