Test: Class 10 Polity NCERT Based-3 - UPSC MCQ

• Sexual division of labour is a system in which all work inside the home is either done by the women of the family, or organised by them through the domestic helper.

• Gender division is a form of hierarchical social division seen everywhere, but is rarely recognised in the study of politics.

• The gender division tends to be understood as natural and unchangeable. However, it is not based on biology but on social expectations and stereotypes.

• In India, the proportion of women in legislature has been very low. For example, the percentage of elected women members in Lok Sabha has never reached even 10 percent of its total strength till 2004.

• In 2009 it was 10.87 percent and 12.15 percent. Their share in the state assemblies is less than 5 per cent. In this respect, India is among the bottom group of nations in the world (see the graph below).

• India is behind the averages for several developing countries of Africa and Latin America.In the government, cabinets are largely all-male even when a woman becomes the Chief Minister or the Prime Minister.

• One-third of seats in local government bodies – in panchayats and municipalities – are now reserved for women. Now there are more than 10 lakh elected women representatives in rural and urban local bodies.

1. The problem begins when religion is seen as the basis of the nation and it becomes more acute when religion is expressed in politics in exclusive and partisan terms, when one religion and its followers are pitted against another.

2. This happens when beliefs of one religion are presented as superior to those of other religions, when the demands of one religious group are formed in opposition to another and when state power is used to establish domination of one religious group over the rest. This manner of using religion in politics is communal politics.

3. Communal politics is based on the idea that religion is the principal basis of social community.

• Communalism involves thinking along the following lines: The followers of a particular religion must belong to one community.

• Their fundamental interests are the same. Any difference that they may have is irrelevant or trivial for community life.

• It also follows that people who follow different religions cannot belong to the same social community. If the followers of different religions have some commonalities these are superficial and immaterial.

• Their interests are bound to be different and involve a conflict. In its extreme form communalism leads to the belief that people belonging to different religions cannot live as equal citizens within one nation. Either, one of them has to dominate the rest or they have to form different nations.

1. The most common expression of communalism is in everyday beliefs. These routinely involve religious prejudices, stereotypes of religious communities and belief in the superiority of one’s religion over other religions.

2. A communal mind often leads to a quest for political dominance of one’s own religious community.

3. For those belonging to the majority community, this takes the form of majoritarian dominance. For those belonging to the minority community, it can take the form of a desire to form a separate political unit.

4. Political mobilisation on religious lines is another frequent for communalism. This involves the use of sacred symbols, religious leaders, emotional appeal and plain fear in order to bring the followers of one religion together in the political arena. In electoral politics this often involves special appeal to the interests or emotions of voters of one religion in preference to others. Sometimes communalism takes its most ugly form of communal violence, riots and massacre.

1. There is no official religion for the Indian state. Unlike the status of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, our Constitution does not give a special status to any religion.

2. The Constitution provides to all individuals and communities freedom to profess, practice and propagate any religion, or not to follow any.

3. The Constitution prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion.

4. At the same time the Constitution allows the state to intervene in the matters of religion in order to ensure equality within religious communities. For example, it bans untouchability.

• Caste inequalities Unlike gender and religion, caste division is special to India. All societies have some kind of social inequality and some form of division of labour. In most societies, occupations are passed on from one generation to another. Caste system is an extreme form of this.

• What makes it different from other societies is that in this system, hereditary occupational division was sanctioned by rituals.

• Members of the same caste group were supposed to form a social community that practiced the same or similar occupation, married within the caste group and did not eat with members from other caste groups. Caste system was based on exclusion of and discrimination against the ‘outcaste’ groups.

1. Partly due to efforts of socio religious reformers and partly due to other socio-economic changes, castes and caste system in modern India have undergone great changes. With economic development, large scale URBANISATION, growth of literacy and education, OCCUPATIONAL MOBILITY and the weakening of the position of landlords in the villages, the old notions of CASTE HIERARCHY are breaking down.

2. Now, most of the time, in urban areas it does not matter much who is walking along next to us on a street or eating at the next table in a restaurant. The Constitution of India prohibited any castebased discrimination and laid the foundations of policies to reverse the injustices of the caste system.

• The Family laws are those laws that deal with family related matters such as marriage, divorce, adoption, inheritance, etc.

• In our country, different family laws apply to followers of different religions. Women’s movement has argued that FAMILY LAWS of all religions discriminate against women.

• So they have demanded that the government should change these laws to make them more equitable.

• The most basic outcome of democracy should be that it produces a government that is accountable to the citizens, and responsive to the needs and expectations of the citizens.

• Democracy is based on the idea of deliberation and negotiation. So, some delay is bound to take place but that does not make democratic government inefficient. Suppose, a government that may take decisions very fast.

• Following practices and institutions are necessary in a democracy: Regular, free and fair elections; Open public debate on major policies and legislations; Citizen's’ right to information about the government and its functioning. However, The actual performance of democracies shows a mixed record on this.

• Democracies have had greater success in setting up regular and free elections and in setting up conditions for open public debate. But most democracies fall short of elections that provide a fair chance to everyone and in subjecting every decision to public debate.

• Democracies are expected to produce good governments, however evidence shows that in practice many democracies did not fulfil this expectation.

• If you consider all democracies and all dictatorships for the fifty years between 1950 and 2000, dictatorships have slightly higher rates of economic growth.

• The inability of democracy to achieve higher economic development worries, but this alone cannot be reason to reject democracy. Economic development depends on several factors: country’s population size, global situation, cooperation from other countries, economic priorities adopted by the country, etc. However, the difference in the rates of economic development between less developed countries with dictatorships and democracies is negligible.

• It will be a fair expectation that democracy should produce a harmonious social life. Through democracy we can certainly learn to respect these differences and we can also evolve mechanisms to negotiate the differences.

• Democracy is best suited to produce this outcome. Non-democratic regimes often turn a blind eye to or suppress internal social differences. Ability to handle social differences, divisions and conflicts is thus a definite plus point of democratic regimes. Democracy must fulfil two conditions in order to achieve this outcome: 1. It is necessary to understand that democracy is not simply ruled by majority opinion. The majority always needs to work with the minority so that governments function to represent the general view. Majority and minority opinions are not permanent. 2. It is also necessary that rule by majority does not become rule by majority community in terms of religion or race or linguistic group, etc.

1. The rulers elected by the people must take all the major decisions.

2. Elections must offer a choice and fair opportunity to the people to change the current rulers; this choice and opportunity should be available to all the people on an equal basis.

3. The exercise of this choice must lead to a government limited by basic rules of the constitution and citizens’ rights.

• At least one fourth of the globe is still not under democratic government. The challenge for democracy in these parts of the world is very stark.

• These countries face the foundational challenge of making the transition to democracy and then instituting democratic government.

• This involves bringing down the existing non-democratic regime, keeping the military away from controlling government and establishing a sovereign and functional state. Most of the established democracies face the challenge of expansion.

2. Democracy is based on consultation and discussion. A democratic decision always involves many people, discussions and meetings. When a number of people put their heads together, they are able to point out possible mistakes in any decision. This takes time, but this reduces the chances of rash or irresponsible decisions. Thus democracy improves the quality of decision-making.

3. Democracy provides a method to deal with differences and conflicts. In any society people are bound to have differences of opinions and interests. Democracy provides the only peaceful solution to this problem. In democracy, no one is a permanent winner. No one is a permanent loser.

• Popular governments can be undemocratic. Popular leaders can be autocratic. In a democracy, there should be sufficient room for normal political activity, including political opposition, in the period before elections.

• This requires that the state should respect some basic rights of the citizen. They should be free to think, to have opinions, to express these in public, to form associations, to protest and take other political actions.

• Everyone should be equal in the eyes of law. These rights must be protected by an independent judiciary whose orders are obeyed by everyone. Similarly, there are some conditions that apply to the way a government is run after the elections.