This paper explores modern British citizenship through an analysis of Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia. Published in 1990, Kureishi’s novel reveals the political realities of citizenship that structure a modern sense of national identity. My analysis is especially concerned with the ways in which a sense of political engagement grows out of the personal experiences of the novel’s ostensibly apolitical protagonist. I pay particular attention to those moments when this character slyly employs his own hybridity as a strategy of disavowal, a strategy reminiscent of Homi Bhabha’s theory of hybridity and its use as a subversive tool. Additionally, the paper examines how Karim’s suburban upbringing is consequential to his burgeoning cosmopolitan political identity. In his movement from suburb to city and through the narration of his personal, professional, and sexual experiences, important issues in citizenship studies are revealed: the ascent of multicultural citizenship in the international arena, the legal and social status of migrants, the political implications of passive citizenship, the reputed demise as the nation-state as the locus of political power, and the return of this power to the city. The novel provides insight into attitudes about citizenship expressed by first wave immigrants and their British-born children, and how affiliative ties have come to be more closely associated with London (and its suburbs) than with Britain. Additionally, I discuss the roles of race, class, “authenticity,” and performance as strategies of subversion for ethnic minorities and the implications such strategies have for the concept of citizenship.