The Union, its territory and citizenship

Part I: the Union and its territory

The Constitution opens with a description of the country. Article 1 says that India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States. The word "Union" was chosen with care. It shows that the Indian federation is not the result of an agreement among the states, and that no state has the right to leave it.

The territory of India consists of the states, the union territories and any territory that India may acquire. The names of the states and union territories are listed in the First Schedule. At present India has 28 states and 8 union territories.

Making and changing states

Article 2 allows Parliament to admit new states into the Union. Article 3 gives Parliament the power to reorganise the states that already exist. By an ordinary law, Parliament can:

• form a new state by separating territory from a state or by joining states or parts of states;
• increase or reduce the area of a state;
• change the boundaries or the name of a state.

Such a bill can be introduced only on the recommendation of the President. The President must first send it to the legislature of the state concerned for its views, but Parliament is not bound by those views. Laws made under Articles 2 and 3 are not treated as amendments of the Constitution, so they need only a simple majority.

This is how the map of India has changed: the reorganisation of states on the basis of language in 1956, and later the creation of states such as Gujarat and Maharashtra (1960), Haryana (1966), and Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand (2000). Telangana became the newest state in 2014. In 2019 the state of Jammu and Kashmir was reorganised into two union territories, Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.

Part II: citizenship

A citizen is a full member of the country, with all civil and political rights. Some Fundamental Rights, such as the six freedoms of Article 19, and rights such as voting and holding high offices belong only to citizens.

Articles 5 to 8 settled who became a citizen of India at the commencement of the Constitution in 1950: people living in India who were born here or whose parents were born here, and, under set conditions, people who had migrated from Pakistan and persons of Indian origin living abroad.

The Constitution did not try to lay down permanent rules. Article 11 gave that power to Parliament, which passed the Citizenship Act, 1955. Under that Act, citizenship can be acquired in five ways: by birth, by descent, by registration, by naturalisation and by incorporation of territory. The Act has been amended several times. A person who voluntarily becomes a citizen of another country loses Indian citizenship (Article 9).

India has single citizenship. A person is a citizen of India only, whichever state he or she lives in.