OUR OWN HIGH SCHOOL AL WARQA’A DUBAI

CHAPTER-4 Gender, Religion and Caste

2018-2019

Q1) DISCUSS THE FOUR DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF LIFE IN WHICH

WOMEN ARE DISCRIMINATED OR HAVE DISADVANTAGES IN INDIA.

 Education: the literacy rate of woman is still less than men. Only 54% of the
women are literate against 76% literacy among the men.
 Preference for Male Child: a female child is considered as a burden to the
parents who will have to earn for her dowry to marry her.
 Proportion of women in Paid Jobs: Women still have a small share in the
highly paid jobs. Even if a woman works for more number of hours than a
man her work is not given importance.
 Crimes against women: there are reports of various kinds of harassment,
exploitation and violence against women at the work place and at homes.
 Female foeticide: In India, a male child is considered a blessing and a female
child is considered a bane.

Q2) STATE THE DIFFERENT FORMS OF COMMUNAL POLITICS.

 Communalism in every day beliefs: The most common form of

communalism is in everyday religious ideas of people. People often believe
that the ideas of their religion are superior to the ideas of other religions. The
ideas ideals and interests of a particular religion are given more importance.
The demands of one religious group are against the demands of other
religious groups.
 Communalism as Majoritarian Dominance and Political: Electoral
politics may be done on religious basis.
 Communalism as Political Mobilization: political mobilization on
religious lines is another frequent form of communalism. It involves the use
of sacred symbols emotional appeals and plain fear in attempts to bring all
the people of one religion together in a political arena.
 Communalism in the form of Violence: In its most ugly form,
communalism leads to riots and violence. The people from various religions
are in opposition to each other and they use violence to show the domination
of their own religions. Ex: India and Pakistan.
Q3) WHAT IS A SECULAR STATE? “PROVISIONS OF INDIAN
CONSTITUTION MAKE INDIA A SECULAR STATE.” EXPLAIN.

A. A state in which the constitution provides to all individuals and communities

freedom to profess, practice and propagate any religion, or not to follow any.
 There is no official religion for the Indian State.
 The constitution prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion.
 The Constitution allows the state to intervene in the matters of religion in
order to insure equality within religious communities. E.g. bans
untouchability.

Q4) STATE HOW CASTE INEQUALITIES ARE STILL CONTINUING IN

INDIA.
A.
 The Census of India counts two special groups, Scheduled Castes and the
Scheduled Tribes. Both these broad groups include hundreds of castes or
tribes listed in an official Schedule. The scheduled castes commonly known
as Dalits, include those castes that were regarded as outcaste before 1950 in
the Hindu social order and were subjected to exclusion and untouchability.
 The schedule tribes often referred to as advises include those communities
that led to a self-sufficient life usually in hills and forests.
 The census does not yet count the Other Backward Classes. Hence these are
some differences about their share in the country’s population.
 The caste division is a peculiar quality of our country. All societies have
some kind of social inequalities and some form of division of labor. 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 hereditary
occupational division was sanctioned by rituals.
 The caste system was based on exclusion of and discrimination against the
outcaste groups. They were subjected to the inhuman practice to
untouchability.
Q5) STATE FOUR REASONS TO SAY THAT CASTE ALONE CANNOT
DETERMINE ELECTION RESULTS IN INDIA.
A.
 No parliamentary constituency in the country has a clear majority of one
single caste. So, every candidate and party needs to win the confidence of
more than one caste and community to win elections.
 No party wins the vote of all the voters of a caste or community. When
people say that a caste is a vote bank of one party, it usually means that
about 2/3 of the voters of that community.
 It does not happen that there are candidates from every caste. It might
happen that all the candidates are from one caste. It might also happen that
there are more than one candidate from one caste and no candidate from the
other caste.
 The ruling party and the sitting MPs or MLA frequently lose elections in our
country. That could not have happened if all castes and communities were
frozen in the political preferences.

Q6) WHAT IS THE STATUS OF WOMEN’S REPRESENTATION IN

INDIAN LEGISLATIVE BODIES?
A.
 In India the proportion of women in legislature has been very low. For e.g.
the percentage of elected women members in the Lok Sabha has never even
reached 10% of its total strength. Their share in the state assemblies is less
than 5%.
 One way to solve this problem is to make it legally binding to have a fair
proportion of women in the elected bodies. This is what the Panchayati Raj
has done.
 Women’s organizations and activists have been demanding a similar
reservation in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies for the women.

Q7) HOW CAN WE COPE UP WITH COMMUNALISM?

A. We can cope up with communalism by giving proper understanding of
religion through educational institutions and public media like radio,
newspapers and T.V. to the people belonging to different religions.
Q8) WHAT STEPS HAVE BEEN TAKEN BY THE GOVERNMENT OF
INDIA TO REMOVE INEQUALITY OF WOMEN IN INDIA?
A.
 Legislation has been enacted which assure women equal share in the family
property.
 Dowry has been declared ill-legal.
 Special administration has been set up to extend protection to women.
 Reservation for women in legislature is being actively considered by some
of the progressive political parties and leaders of Indian democracy.
 Special efforts have been made to encourage literacy and spread education
among women.
 Women empowerment is going on in India and some of the NGOs are
working very actively in this direction.

Q9) HOW HAS WORK BEEN DIVIDED IN INDIAN HOUSEHOLDS ON

THE BASIS OF GENDER?
A.
 In India, women are supposed to bring up children and look after the house.
They do all the cleaning, washing, cooking even tailoring. There is no value
attached to this work. In rural areas, women work in the fields, fetch water
and fuel but are hardly paid anything.
 In urban areas, middle class work in offices, factories etc. poor women work
as domestic helpers but none of them get the same wages as men. Their
status is lower than that of men.
 Men don’t do any housework. They are excellent cooks or tailors but they
take up those jobs only when paid.

Q10) HOW CAN RELIGION INFLUENCE POLITICS?

A.
 Gandhiji believed that politics must be guided by ethics drawn from all
religions.
 Ideas, ideals and values drawn from different religions can and should play a
role in politics.
 People should have the freedom to express in politics their needs, demands
and interests as a member of a religious community.
 People who hold political power should see that discrimination and
oppression doesn’t take place due to religion.
Q11) HOW DOES COMMUNALISM CREATE PROBLEMS IN POLITICS?
A.
 The way one uses religion in politics is communal politics. It creates
problems when one sees religion as the basis of the nation.
 When one religion considers itself superior to other religions.
 When there is discrimination against the followers of one religion.
 When the state power is used to help one religion to dominate other religions
and when the demands of one religious group are in opposition to other.

Q12) WHAT FORMS CAN CASTE TAKE IN POLITICS?

A.
 Sometimes, candidates are chosen on the basis of their caste. When political
parties choose candidates, they keep in mind the caste composition of their
voters.
 In many places voters vote on the basis of caste and fail to choose suitable
candidates.
 When a government is formed after elections political parties take care that
different castes are represented in the government.
 Political parties appeal to caste sentiments during elections. To gain support,
political parties raise caste issues during elections. This they do to get
political support as one man one vote, adult franchise has made the voters
very powerful.
 The castes considered low until now have been made conscious of their
rights by the political parties.

Q13) EXPLAIN THE MAJOR FACTORS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE RIGID

CASTE SYSTEM DISAPPEARING FROM INDIA.
A.
 Social reformers like Gandhiji, Jyotiha Phule, B.R.Ambedkar and
Ramaswami Naickar have worked hard for a society free of caste
inequalities.
 Literacy, education, occupational mobility and economic development
have been other factors. The position of landlords has been weakened.
 The constitution of India prohibits any kind of discrimination based on
caste.
 The fundamental rights have also played a major role because they are
provided to every citizen without any discrimination.
 The caste system can be further reduced if education is spread in every
group to caste.
 Inter-caste marriage can also remove caste barriers.
By Mr. G. Gomes