Equal rights without certain safeguards to cultural minorities may tend to reinforce majoritarian domination over minorities. Group differentiated citizenship qualifies citizenship by cultural belonging. It sees citizenship as constituted of both equal rights and  differences. A society avowing group differentiated citizenship appreciates the cultural differences

in which equal and free citizens are anchored. While understanding of cultures are widely varied, Will Kymlicka has suggested that the pertinent notion of culture in terms of group-differentiated rights is societal culture; that is, “a culture

which provides its members with meaningful ways of life across the full range of human activities, including social, educational, religious, recreational, and economic life, encompassing both public and private spheres”. It is not merely shared memories or values, but also common institutions and values. Societal culture, according to him, is expressed in everyday vocabulary of social life and embodied in practices covering most areas of human activity such as in

schools, media, economy, government etc. He argues that culture has the capacity to survive in modern times only by becoming a societal culture. Citizenship is deeply bound with such societal culture, and citizens through their activity shape and reshape this culture. Societal cultures play a major role in enabling and promoting contexts of freedoms. Kymlicka has suggested that “freedom involves making choices amongst various options and our societal culture not only provides these options, but also makes them meaningful to us”. It is with reference to culture that the value of practices comes to be underscored. It is in the background of cultural narratives that certain authoritative lines of appropriate conduct is marked for us, conduct which, of course, can be subsequently revised by the exercise of our freedoms. This

requires according to the famous philosopher of law, Ronald Dworkin, protection of our culture from “structural debasement or decay”. The availability of meaningful options to people largely depends upon access to societal culture.

Cultures are modes of life which are much more enduring. While there are instances of people making a successful transition from one culture to another, this is not a reasonable option for a vast number of people. Of course, cultures are not sterile waters. They do undergo significant changes over time, but across these changes they remain the self-same cultures. With liberalization and globalisation, there has been a greater interface between cultures, but it cannot be said that the coming together of cultures have made people less aware of