Jana-Brown Citizenship Index Project

A research partnership between Janaagraha and Brown University

Overview

Depending on the definition of “urban”, India’s population, 32% urban in 2011, could well be over 40% urban in the next 8-10 years, if not higher.

As India continues to urbanise, some critical questions on the landscape emerge:

In the rising cities, are citizens able to invoke their rights or do ties between the political elite and citizens remain unwaveringly strong?
Can effective citizenship, exercised by citizens through political and civic participation, lead to substantive improvements in people’s lives? Specifically, can it help improve the extent and quality of public service delivery (water, sanitation, electricity, transport)?

With these questions in mind, Janaagraha and Professors Ashutosh Varshney and Patrick Heller from Brown University, USA, formed a research partnership and developed the JBCI project, along with Professor Siddharth Swaminathan from Azim Premji University, Bangalore as our academic collaborator in India.

Approach

Entitled the Jana-Brown Citizenship Index (JB-CI) study, we are gathering systematic data on the relationship between citizenship and delivery of public services as well as on how citizens engage the state in cities across India.

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are also expanding our research to look at the response and recovery of different communities from COVID-19, with reference to citizenship and basic service delivery.

Cities Selected

Cities have been selected from all the geographic zones of the country. The table below summarizes these case selections. Data has already been collected in cities which are highlighted in green while we are currently preparing for fieldwork in the cities highlighted in orange. Following completion of data collection in all the listed cities, a nationwide comparison of urban and rural governance is planned.

Cities part of JB-CI

No.	City/(UA)	(Target) number of interviews	Population (UA)* in 2011	State
1	Bangalore	3000	87,49,944	Karnataka
2	Mumbai	3000	1,83,94,912	Maharashtra
3	Chennai	3000	86,53,521	Tamil Nadu
4	Ahmedabad	3000	63,57,693	Gujarat
5	Hyderabad	3000	76,77,018	Telangana/Andhra Pradesh
6	Delhi	3000	1,63,49,831	Delhi
7	Kolkata	3000	1,40,57,991	West Bengal
8	Kochi	2000	21,19,724	Kerala
9	Vadodara	2000	18,22,221	Gujarat
10	Mysore	2000	9,90,900	Karnataka
11	Lucknow	2000	29,02,920	Uttar Pradesh
12	Bhopal	2000	18,86,100	Madhya Pradesh
13	Bhubaneswar	2000	8,50,000	Odisha
14	Bhavnagar	1000	6,05,882	Gujarat
15	Shimoga	1000	3,22,650	Karnataka
16	Ajmer	1000	5,51,101	Rajasthan
17	Jalandhar	1000	8,74,412	Punjab

*Urban Agglomeration (UA) includes population in urban areas surrounding cities (Census 2011, Government of India).

Green – fieldwork complete

Orange – preparations underway for fieldwork

Findings

Our Bangalore findings can be studied here:

Citizenship in Urban India: Evidence from Bangalore
Citizenship in Bangalore: A Practitioner’s Review
Does citizenship abate class? Read our article in EPW here.
Does Citizenship Abate Class? Evidence and Reflections from Bangalore, India

Opinion pieces based on the data collected on the seven last phase cities can be accessed here:

COVID 19 vaccination penetration in the urban poor

The objective of this research was to collect quantitative evidence on aspects around vaccine penetration in the urban poor in four cities; Chennai, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, and Kochi. This includes vaccine awareness, uptake, reasons for non-uptake, location of vaccine source and understanding how vaccines were coordinated. The survey was conducted from May 6 to June 14, 2021. Read our summary report.