 Dear learners, welcome to the video lecture of the Discipline of Political Science, Krishnakanta Hondikoi State Open University. I am Krishnaki Saikya, assistant professor in the discipline of political science. In this video lecture, we will learn about a very important topic on Aristotle's conception of citizenship from Unit 2 of the course on Western political thought from the master's degree first semester. This lecture will essentially cover the ideas on Aristotle's views on citizenship and the virtues of a good citizen as put forward by Aristotle. Now let us learn about Aristotle, who was he as a philosopher. Aristotle, the disciple of Plato, was born in the ancient Greek city of Stegaira in Tras in 384 BC. Aristotle is considered as one of the greatest intellectual figures in Western history. His intellectual range encompassed most of the sciences and many of the arts, including biology, botany, chemistry, ethics, history, logic, political theory, psychology, sociology to name a few. However, he outshined most as a philosopher. His book Politics is considered as the most valuable masterpiece representing the Greek political thought. Politics consists of eight books from book one to book eight. Aristotle's thinking was largely influenced by his preconceived notion about the superiority of Greek philosophy. Aristotle also pleaded for conferment of citizenship rights only on a few. All these preconceived notions greatly influenced the political thought of Aristotle. Let us now come to the most important aspect of our lecture, Aristotle's views on citizenship. In book three of his famous masterpiece Politics, Aristotle deals with the conception of citizenship in a more comprehensive way. At first, he tries to find out as to who is an ideal citizen. Aristotle was essentially a conservative thinker who was very much in favor of conserving the existing institution of citizenship. Aristotle was not in favor of conferring citizenship to all. Aristotle analyzes the conception of citizenship by putting forward two criteria for granting citizenship, namely first, essential qualifications and non-essential qualifications. Let us first try to understand non-essential qualifications of citizenship. According to him, residential qualification cannot be considered as a valid ground for conferring citizenship rights. Aristotle believed that if residential qualification is insisted upon, aliens and slaves would also be entitled to citizenship rights and which to him was not acceptable. Again, Aristotle goes further by stating that enjoyment of legal rights is also not enough for enjoying the status of a citizen. It is because to him, even a foreigner must possess certain legal rights. Likewise, decent from a citizen also does not necessarily entitle a person to become a citizen. Aristotle specifically stated that those born of a citizen father and a non-citizen mother and vice versa cannot be considered as citizens. Again, Aristotle was also opposed to conferring citizenship rights to children who were young and underdeveloped. Accordingly, the above three qualifications, namely residence, enjoyment of legal rights and decent from a citizen, are at best only non-essential qualifications which are desirable in nature. If these are non-essential qualifications, then what are the essential qualifications of citizenship? The essential attribute of citizenship which a citizen must possess is the performance of civic functions, not for a limited but for an indefinite period of time. According to Aristotle, a citizen is one who has the ability to participate in the judicial and deliberative functions of the state. Therefore, Aristotle held a view that a citizen was one who took part in the activities of the sovereign state by way of participating in the deliberations of the state assemblies and in the juries of the state for the administration of justice. Let us now try to understand what according to Aristotle are the virtues of a citizen. The first virtue essential for acquiring citizenship is that a person should be engaged in the protection of his or her community. Aristotle defines a citizen as a person who participates in the administration of justice and legislation as a member of the deliberative assembly. In other words, a person holding office as a judge or enjoying membership of the popular assembly is a citizen. The second virtue is that the citizen should have the capacity to rule and be ruled in return. A good citizen according to Aristotle is one who is capable of both. A person who does not know how to govern and be governed is not a citizen. Again, possession of leisure also constitute an essential condition of citizenship. According to Aristotle, only those persons who can enjoy leisure and do not have to take care of the worries of daily life can actively participate in the affairs of the state as a judge or a legislator. Aristotle therefore excludes slaves, the resident aliens engaged in trade and business, foreigners, mechanics, and laborers, etc. from the category of citizens. Again, in order to ensure that the citizens can enjoy leisure and discharge their duties effectively, Aristotle holds the view that the citizen should be free from economic worries. In this regard to Aristotle, the essential qualification for citizenship therefore is to have property which alone could ensure leisure activities for participation in the civic duties. We can therefore say that Aristotle's conception of leisure is fundamentally different from that of ours. According to Aristotle, leisure does not mean recreation. Leisure is a kind of activity which are not economic in nature. Leisure activities are identical with the activities of good life for the promotion of which the state exists. In order to enable the citizen to undertake leisure activities, Aristotle advocates the institution of slavery. From this discussion, let us now come forward to the certain classes which are excluded from citizenship rights as per the Aristotelian view. Aristotle excludes women, old age people, as well as children from the category of citizens. According to Aristotle, the labor class, the slaves, the women, the aged and the children are not fit to participate in the affairs of the state, either due to insufficient time for leisure or due to lack of mature judgment. As such, they are not fit to acquire citizenship rights. Again, Aristotle excludes even the producing class from citizenship rights. To Aristotle, the essence of citizenship is that a citizen must be a functioning member of a city-state and not a mere adherent to its existence. Thus, Aristotle is not liberal in conferring citizenship to all as he excludes the already discussed categories from his privilege. To Aristotle, enjoying citizenship rights is a privilege enjoyed only by the selected aristocratic class. From this discussion, we come to the perspective that there could be certain criticisms of Aristotle's views on citizenship. Let us now understand those criticisms. According to the critics, Aristotle's conception of citizenship goes against the liberal philosophy as he denies the majority section of the population from citizenship rights. The critics believe that it would cultivate a feeling of this interestedness amongst them which is detrimental to the interest of the state. Aristotle's conception of citizenship is contrary to the modern notions of citizenship and is also unfit to the modern nation-state. Hence, condemning the manual workers and thereby depriving them of citizenship is not justified according to the critics. Again, the critics refuse to accept Aristotle's perception of direct participation of the citizens in the legislature and judiciary of the state. To them, this is only possible in the city-states of his times when the numbers of the citizens were very small. But in a modern nation-state, such a concept of citizenship is not acceptable as the state consists of millions of people. Moreover, in today's representative democracies, Aristotle's conception of citizenship does not fit in. It is because in representative democracies, citizens participate in the activities of the state through their representatives who are elected at fixed intervals. Again, his advocacy for slavery, for ensuring leisure to the citizens, goes against the very philosophy of human rights which looks upon all human beings as one and equal. Aristotle's concept of citizenship, as we have understood, reflects his conservative outlook and as such, his theory is severely criticized. However, it shall be unjustified to completely discard his views by locating the theory of citizenship in the context of the modern nation-states. Aristotle offered a theory of citizenship which was primarily intended for the city-states as prevailed during his time. Let us now summarize what we have understood in today's lecture. In Book 3 of his famous Master Pace Politics, Aristotle deals with the conception of citizenship in a more comprehensive way. At first, Aristotle tries to find out as to who is an ideal citizen. Aristotle was not in favor of conferring citizenship to all, as we have understood. Aristotle analyzes the conception of citizenship by putting forward two criteria for granting citizenship, namely essential qualifications and non-essential qualifications. According to Aristotle, the three qualifications, namely number one, residence, number two, enjoyment of legal rights and number three, decent from a citizen, are at best only non-essential qualifications which are desirable in nature. The essential attributes of citizenship which a citizen must possess are neither residence nor decent and not even legal privilege, but performance of civic functions, not for a limited but for an indefinite period. Dear learners, having understood Aristotle's conception of citizenship, here are two questions for all of you to think and engage on. Number one, what is Aristotle's definition of citizenship and how does it differ from modern conceptions? Number two, how does Aristotle distinguish between a citizen and a non-citizen in his political philosophy? Dear learners, with this we have come to the end of today's lecture. We hope that this lecture has been able to deliver its objectives and we hope to see you again soon. Thank you.