Context

• Modern citizenship has traditionally been tied to territorial residence, with political rights anchored to stable habitation within defined borders.
• However, large-scale migration, both international and internal, is disrupting this foundational assumption.
• As populations move with increasing frequency, governments face growing challenges in regulating political membership, electoral participation, and demographic change.
• This tension has produced public anxiety, nativist politics, and administrative interventions that are reshaping democratic systems.

Citizenship, Migration, and Electoral Anxiety

• The overlap between citizenship and territory weakens when people migrate.
• Electoral systems that depend on fixed residence become sites of political contestation, as questions arise over who is entitled to vote and where.
• In India, the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is justified as a response to duplicate registrations caused by migration.
• Yet such exercises raise fears of disenfranchisement of mobile and vulnerable populations.
• Similar anxieties are visible in the United States, where demands for access to voter databases and documentary proof of citizenship have been framed as election-integrity measures.
• Critics argue that these moves risk restricting voter access and undermining federal autonomy.
• In both countries, the fear of alien voters has become a powerful political narrative, often outweighing empirical evidence.

Global Migration and the Rise of Nativism

• Although migrants form only a slightly higher share of the global population than in the past, their absolute numbers have nearly doubled since 1990, exceeding 300 million by 2024.
• This demographic reality has intensified political reactions, particularly in developed democracies.
• Immigration ranks among the top electoral concerns in countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, where the proportion of foreign-born residents has risen sharply.
• This has fuelled nativist populism, even as these economies rely heavily on migrant labour.
• The contradiction between economic dependence and political exclusion lies at the heart of contemporary migration politics.

Labour Without Citizenship

• A defining feature of current migration regimes is the growth of temporary labour systems.
• Wealthy countries increasingly seek migrant workers who contribute economically but do not settle permanently or claim political rights.
• Examples include H-1B workers in the United States and migrant labour systems in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries and Singapore.
• These arrangements produce a large class of workers without political identity, essential to economic growth yet excluded from democratic participation.
• Migration thus creates mobility without belonging, redefining the relationship between labour and citizenship.

Internal Migration and Democratic Representation in India

• Migration within national borders has equally profound political consequences.
• In India, rural-to-urban and inter-State migration has reshaped demographics, electoral outcomes, and party strategies.
• Voting rights remain tied to place of residence, making electoral roll revisions decisive not only in determining who can vote, but where that vote is counted.
• This has major implications for federal politics. Migrant-receiving States gain political weight, while migrant-sending States risk losing influence.
• With delimitation approaching after decades, internal migration is set to significantly redistribute political representation.

Cultural Transformation and Historical Continuity

• Migration is not only a political force but also a cultural one. Migrating populations carry languages, beliefs, and social practices, reshaping societies over time.
• Historically, migration enabled the spread and transformation of religious traditions, languages, and cultural identities.
• Contemporary examples, such as the celebration of Deepavali at the White House, highlight migration’s role in expanding cultural universes rather than eroding them.
• Languages themselves bear the imprint of past migrations, reflecting gendered and social patterns of movement.

The Retreat from Birthright Citizenship

• One of the most consequential shifts concerns birthright citizenship, long considered a settled principle in liberal democracies.
• In the United States, long-standing interpretations of constitutional citizenship are being challenged amid fears of demographic change.
• India has similarly restricted citizenship by birth for children of undocumented migrants.
• These developments signal a global move away from inclusive citizenship toward conditional belonging, driven by migration-related anxieties.

Conclusion

• Migration is moving more than people; it is moving the foundations of political life.
• By destabilising the link between territory, citizenship, and representation, it compels democracies to confront fundamental questions of belonging and participation.
• Administrative processes such as censuses, electoral roll revisions, and delimitation are not neutral exercises, but arenas where the future of democracy is negotiated.
• As populations continue to move, the central challenge will be adapting political institutions without sacrificing inclusion, representation, and democratic legitimacy.