Democratic Politics - All Lessons - Simplified Study Material - Grade 10

Std:10                                                  Democratic Politics

               Simplified study material         

1. Power Sharing

1.Case study of Belgium

Ø  In Belgium 59% of people speak Dutch and 40% of people speak French.

Ø  In capital Brussels 80% of people speak French While 20% of people speak Dutch.

Ø  Minority French speaking people was relatively rich and powerful

Ø  So rulling government schemes were in favour of Dutch speaking people.

Ø  It led to tensions between Dutch and French speaking communities.

2.Accommodation/solution in Belgium.

Ø  Between 1970 and 1993 four times constitution was amended.

Ø  Central government ministry was shared by French and Dutch communities equally.

Ø  Central government shared its power with the regional governments.

Ø  Community government was setup to look at the issues of language, education and culture.

Ø  Separate government for Brussels and French shared ministry with Dutch.

3.Case study of Sri Lanka / Majoritarianism in Sri Lanka.

Ø  In Sri Lanka 74% of people speak Sinhala.

Ø  Tamil speaking population was 18%.

Ø  In that Sri Lankan Tamils or Native Tamils were 13% and Indian Tamils were 5%.

Ø  1956 the Only Sinhala Act made Sinhala as the only official Language.

Ø  Only Sinhala speaking Buddhist can become the president of the country.

Ø  Reservation policies were made in favour of Sinhala and against of Tamils.

Ø  Tamil people raised their demands which was ignored by the government.

Ø  So Tamil people demanded Separate state called Tami Eelam.

Ø  The civil war took place in Sri Lanka and ended in favour in Sinhala

Ø  Thousands of innocent Tamil people were killed in the war.

4.Why power sharing is desirable? Why do we need power sharing?

Prudential Reasons:

Ø  Power sharing can reduce the conflict between two communities.

Ø  Power sharing may increase the stability of the government.

Ø  Power sharing can reduce the violence between two communities.

Moral Reasons: 

Ø  Power sharing is the very spirit of democracy.

Ø  People have a right to be consulted.

5.Forms of Power sharing / Kinds of power sharing:

Horizontal power sharing:

Ø  Power sharing among the organs of the government.

Ø  Power sharing between Legislative, Executive and Judiciary.

Ø  None of the organ is having unlimited powers.

Ø  Each organ can check others.

Vertical power sharing

Ø  Power sharing among the different levels of the government

Ø  Central government for overall country.

Ø  There will be regional government or state government.

Ø  The central government shares its powers with state government.

Ø  The state government shares powers with the local government.

Ø  There will be federal setup of multi-level governance.  

Ø  Ex: India and Belgium

Power sharing with different social groups

Ø  Power sharing with weaker section of the society.

Ø  In India reservation has been given to the SC/ST and women.

Ø  Powers sharing with minorities and weaker section of the people.

Ø  Ex: Community government in Belgium.

Power sharing with Political parties, pressure groups and movements

Ø  Two or more parties form an alliance and share power.

Ø  Interest groups like farmers, traders can also share the power by influencing the government in their favour.

Ethnic:A Social division based on culture. People have similarities in physical looks and culture. Need not always have same religion and nationality.

Majoritarianism: A belief of the majority community dominate or rule over the minority community. Disregarding the needs and wishes of the minority.

Civil war: A violent conflict between two groups within the nation.

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2. Federalism

1.What is federalism?

Ø  In a federal system a country have two or more level of government.

Ø  There will be a central or union government for entire country.

Ø  There will be regional governments at regional level.

2.What are the key features of  federalism?

Ø  There are two or more level of government.

Ø  Each level of government has its own jurisdiction.

Ø  Jurisdictions are specified in the constitution.

Ø  Basic rights of the constitution cannot be changed by one level of government.

Ø  Court have the power to interpret the constitution.

Ø  Sources of revenue has been shared between the different levels of the government.

3. What are two objectives of the federal government?

Ø  To safeguard and promote the unity of the country.

Ø  To accommodate the regional diversity.

4.DifferentiateCOMING TOGETHER FEDERATION AND HOLDING TOGETHER FEDERATION

COMING TOGETHER FEDERATION:

Ø  A.Independent states coming together on their own and form big unit.

Ø  All federal units have same kind of power

Ø  B.Ex:USA and Australia

HOLDING TOGETHER FEDERATION:

Ø  .A large country divided into smaller divisions.

Ø  All federal units do not have same kind of power.

Ø  B.Ex: India and Belgium.

5.What makes India a federal country?

Ø  The constitution of India declared that India is an Indian Union.

Ø  Earlier we started with two tier government now we have three tier administration.

Ø  Union list: subjects of national importance. Ex: Banking and Currency etc.,

Ø  State list: subjects of local importance. Ex: Police, agriculture and irrigation etc.,

Ø  Concurrent list: These are common subjects where both level of government can make laws. Ex:Education, forest and marriage.

6.Linguistic states

Ø  Lanuage based states were formed to ensure that people who spoke the same language lived in the same state. Exception to Nagaland, Uttarkhand and Jharkhand.

Ø  Some national leaders had a fear that linguistic states can separate the nation but now it made our country more united.

7.Language policy

Ø  Our constitution did not gave the status of National Language to any one language.

Ø  Hindi was identified as the official language of central government.

Ø  Hindi is the mother tongue of 40% of the Indians.

Ø  In 1965  the use of English for official purpose was stop, but non Hindi states demanded English to continue.

Ø  particularly in Tamil Nadu the Anti Hindi Movement took violent form.

Ø  So the Central Government agreed to continue the use of English for official purpose.

Ø  In this issue national leaders shown great flexibility which avoided the conflict like Srilanka.

8.Centre – State relationship

Ø  When same party ruling in the Central and State government than the state get more favours.

Ø  When State and Centre governments were ruled by different party, the Central Government undermine the State government.

Ø  In those days central government misuse the powers and dismiss the state government.

Ø  After 1990 we could able to sew a rise of regional parties.

Ø  The era of COALITION GOVERNMENTS has strengthened the federal set up.

9.What is decentralization?

Ø  When power is taken away from the Central and State governments and given to the Local government is called decentralization.

10 Why decentralization of power is needed?

Ø  Large number of problems are local in nature.

Ø  Most of the problems can be solved at local level, need not taken to the higher level.

Ø  Local people have the better understanding of the issue and they can come out with best solution.

Ø  It give the sense to the people that they are in decision making process.

11.What was the major step took in decentralization  in  1992

Ø  Local government elections became mandatory.

Ø  Seats are reserved SC/ST.

Ø  One third seats are reserved for Women

Ø  State Election commission was set up in all states to look after the election process.

Ø  The State government need to share its power and money to the local government.

Jurisdiction:  The area over which someone has legal authority.

Coalition government: A government formed by at least two political parties.

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            3.Democracy and Diversity                                     

1.Story of Mexico Olympics:

Ø  Mexico Olympics held at 1968.

Ø  African - Americans  Tommie smith and John carlos won gold and bronse medal in 200 meters race for USA

Ø  While receiving medal both were wearing black socks and no shoes to represent the black poverty.

Ø  The raised clenched fists, they represent black power.

Ø  Peter Norman who got silver medal also wear Human rights batch to support Tommie Smith and John Carlos.

Ø  The International Olympics Association held Tommie smith and John Carlos held guilty and taken back their medals.

Ø  Peter Norman was not selected for Australian team for next Olympics.

Ø  San Jose University erected statue for Tommie smith and John Carlos.

Ø  Tommie Smith and John Carlos were gone to Australia toparticipate in the funeral of Peter Norman whosupported him as an athlete.

2.Origin of Social Differences

There are two sources of social differences

a.On the basis of Birth: Race, Caste, Color, Nationality, Ability and disability of the body are the certain social differences the child gets with the birth.

b.On the basis of Choices:Education, Occupation, Ageists or Devotee, Games, Hobby are the certain social differences a person can choose in his life.

3.Overlapping and Cross-Cutting social differences.

Overlapping Social differences:

Ø  One social difference becomes more important than the other and people start to feeling that they belongs to different communities

Ø  Class and social division will overlap on each other

Ø  Ex:In Northern Ireland Roman Catholics were poor and discriminated while protestants were rich and influential.

Ø  In USA Blacks were poor, homeless and discriminated while Whites were rich.

Ø  In India Dalits were poor and landless while upper caste were rich and landlord.

Ø  Overlapping social division is very dangerous to any country.

Cross-Cutting social differences:

Ø  Social differences cross cut each other and it is difficult to pit one group of people against the other.

Ø  Ex:Netherland consist of Roman Catholics and Protestant.

Ø  There rich and poor in both sections of the religion.

Ø  So they don’t have conflicts like Northern Ireland.

4.Politics of Social division or Ranges of Outcomes of social division in politics.

Ø  Social division can be represented in politics.

Ø  But domination of one social division over other can lead to violence between two communities and also disintegration of the country.

Ø  Ex:Northern Ireland Roman Catholics were 44% and they were poor and discriminated.

Ø  The Nationalist party representing the Roman Catholics demanded that Northern Ireland be unified with Republic of Ireland where Roman Catholics are majority.

Ø  The Unionist party representing the 53% of protestant want the country remain with U.K.

Ø  Hundreds of civilians were killed in the violence.

Ø  Finally 1998 the U.K government and the Nationalist reached a peace treaty. And stop the violence.

5.Factors deciding the outcomes of representing social division in politics.

1.How people perceive themselves?:

Ø  If people see their identities in singular and exclusive it is difficult to accommodate.

Ø  In Northern Ireland people saw themselves as Roman Catholics and protestant.

Ø  Where as in Belgium the people saw themselves as Belgians first and then French and Dutch. So they could able to solve the problem. Which not took place in Northern Ireland.

2.How leaders raise their demands?:

Ø  When the leaders of the social division raise their demands within the constitution it will be easy to accommodate.

Ø  In Sri Lanka the Tamil community demand was above the constitution so it remainsun resolved.

3.How government react to the demands of different social groups?:

Ø  In Belgium rulers are willing to share the powers and accommodate the French. But it not took place in Sri Lanka the rulers are not ready to share their powers with the minority Tamil people.

Ø  If the rulers try to suppress the demand of the minority in the name of national unity we have to understand that they are sowing the seeds of disintegration. 

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4.Gender,Religion and Movement

1.Gender and Politics

1.1Sexual division of labour:

Ø  The main responsibility of women is house work like cooking, washing and taking care of children.

Ø  All the work outside the house is responsibility of men. Men is expected involve in economic activity and earn money of the family.

Ø  Indian family system is Patriarchal in nature.

1.2Women and education:

Ø  According to 2011 census female literacy rate is only 54%. Nearly half of Indian women are illiterate.

Ø  Even though girls do well in school education still their enrollment in higher education is very less. Parents are ready to spend more on boys than the girls.

1.3Women and work:

Ø  Now we could able to see women in many jobs. But from Sports to Cinema women are paid less than the men.

Ø  The Equal Remuneration Act1976 says that men and women should be paid equally.

Ø  Declining Child sex ratio: In many parts of India parents prefer to have sons and try to abort the girl. So child sex ratio has declined to 914 girls per 1000 boys.

1.4Women and politics:

Ø  In India 2009 alone the women representation has crossed 10% in loksabha. Still most of the state assemblies women representation is less than 5%.

Ø  Women representation in politics in India is around 8.3% .

Ø  world average of women in politics is 19.7% and Nordic countries women representation is 42%.

Ø  A bill stating one third seat in loksabha and vidhansabha is bending in parliament for more than the decade.

2.Religion

2.1Views on religion:

Views of Gandhi: Religion can never be separated from the politics.

He believed that politics must be guided by ethics drawn from religion.

Women’s Movement: family laws of all religions discriminate against women.

Human rights Movement:Human rights groups argued that most of the victims of communal riots are religious minorities.

Communalism:

Ø  The religion is seen as the basis of the nation.

Ø  State power is used to establish the interest of majority religion.

Ø  The majority religion dominate the minority religion through the political power.

How communalism can take various forms in politics?

Ø  Majority religion beliefs are established in superior with minority religion.

Ø  A communal mind search for political dominance.

Ø  Due to dominance of majority minority community started to desire for separate unit.

Ø  Political mobolisation on religious lines. Scared symbols and religious leaders emotional speech create the fear in the minds of the religious minority.

Ø  Sometimes communalism takes its ugliest form of violence.

Secular state:

Ø  There is no official language for Indian state.

Ø  People have the freedom to profess, practice and propagate any religion.

Ø  The constitution prohibits discrimination on the grounds of religion.

Ø  Government intervene into religion only when anything go unconstitutional. Ex: Indian constitution has bannedUntouchability.

Caste

What are the factors has reduced the effect of caste?

Ø  Social reformers like JothibaPhule, Gandhiji, B.R.Amebedkar and Periyar worked a lot against the caste inequalities.

Ø  Large scale urbanaisation has also reduced to effects of caste.  Mostly in urban we do not know who is traveling along with us and who is eating next to our table.

Ø  Weakening of the positions of land lard has also breakdown the caste hierarchy.

How castes still persist in India?

Ø  Even now people mostly marry within the caste group.

Ø  Still in certain places we could able to find untouchability in India.

Ø  The centuries of advantages and disadvantages continues still today.

Ø  The caste which were denied to get education in past, now they lagging behind.

How caste is represented in politics? Or How caste can take various forms in politics?

Ø  Political parties while choosing the candidates for the elections they keep the caste composition of the constituency.

Ø  Political parties mostly give the seat to candidate who belongs to the majority caste of a particular constituency.

Ø  Political parties and candidates make appeals to the people in the name of caste.

Caste alone will not decide the election success how? Or Caste cannot influence much how?

Ø  No parliamentary constituency in our country has a clear majority of one single caste.

Ø  A candidate need the support of other caste group to win the election.

Ø  We cannot expect all voters of one caste group will vote to the same candidate.

Ø  When all the parties give seat to the majority caste group, a candidate cannot take the caste advantage.

Ø  Many times we see the sitting MP or MLA who win the election due to the caste, looses the next election.

Ø  People also see the performance of the candidate.

Ø  When people have strong attachment with one party they will not the caste or any other differences.

How politics influence the caste?

Ø  Each caste group tries to become bigger by incorporating with in the neighbouring or sub caste.

Ø  Various caste groups are entering into negotiation to make coalition with other caste groups.

Ø  New kinds of caste groups have come up in the political area like backward caste groups and forward caste groups.

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6.Political Parties

1.What is a political party?

Ø  A group of people who came together to contest  elections.

Ø  They agree on some policies and programmes

Ø  Ex: All India National Congress

2.Functions of the political party?

Ø  Contesting elections and choosing candidates for the elections.

Ø  Framing the policies and programmes from the vast multitude of opinions on various issues.

Ø  Making laws and amending the law for a country after a good debate with not only opposition party but also with their own party members.

Ø  Running the government and train the leaders to run the government.

Ø  If unable to win the majority in the assemble, need to play a role of opposition - voicing different view and be a good critic of the government.

Ø  Creating good public opinion.

Ø  Connecting the people with government‘s well fare programmes.

3.Why do we need political parties?

Ø  Without political parties, in an election all the candidates will be an independent candidates.

Ø  No one can form a government in the assemble because independents find difficult to show majority in the assemble.

Ø  Even though they form government it won’t be stable.

Ø  No one will be able to make promises for the entire country.

4.How many parties we need for a good democracy?

Ø  One Party System: Any democratic system we need more than one, at least two parties. China has one party system and lack of democratic values.

Ø  Two Party System:U.S.A, U.K both has two party system. Both parties have a serious chances of winning the majority.

Ø  Multi party system:India has multi party system. When country like India has multi cultural and ethnic and linguistic people, by the time emergence of more number of political  are unavoidable. Local difference will be expressed in the politics.

Ø  Democracy is possible with any number but at least two.

5. classification of political parties (or) How political parties gets its recognition from the election commission?

Regional Party / State Party

Ø  The political party exist in one state or part of the country.

Ø  The party gives importance to the issues of the particular state.

Ø  A party has to get 6% votes and 2 seats in the assembly election of the state to get the recognition from the election commission as the regional party.

Ø  The party which got recognition they can contest in common symbol in all over the state.Ex:DMK

National parties

Ø  The political parties exist entire nation.

Ø  The parties has national goals

Ø  A party needs to get 6% votes in a loksabha elections (or) assembly election of any four states and to secure 4 seats in  loksabha to get recognition status from the election commission as a National party.

Ø  Ex:All India National Congress

6. What are the challenges faced by the political parties?

Ø  Lack of internal democracy: one or few leaders at the top control the entire party.

Parties do not maintains fairness in the membership

Party Leader choosing candidates for the elections.

Ø  Dynastic Succession: Family members of the party leader get the most important post in the party.

Members who are relatives of the family of the leader they get the seats easily.

Ø  Money and Muscle Power:  Rich, and members with criminal background getting the tickets easily.

They come up in the party and ordinary member remains ordinary.

Ø  Choices: Political parties finds very difficult to differentiate their parties from other parties.

Policies of different parties are very similar.

7.How can political parties be reformed?

Present laws:

Ø  Anti Defection Law: According to this act any MLA,MP moving from one party to another he/she will lose their post.

Ø  Affidavit: According to the order issued by the Supreme Court of India, a candidate contesting in an election has to file the affidavit giving the details of property, criminal cases and the personal information to the election commission.

Ø  Supreme court order: Supreme court has passed an order that political parties should hold their organizational elections and file income tax returns to the election commission.

Suggestions:

Ø  A officier can be appointed in political parties to regulate the internal affairs.

Ø  1/3 seats to be given to the women’s and women should be present the important positions of the party.

Ø  To control the flow of money government can fund the election expanses of the political parties.

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7.Outcomes of Democracy

1.Why democracy is better than other forms of government?

Ø  Promotes equality among the citizens

Ø  Enhances  the dignity of the individual

Ø  Improves the quality of decision making

Ø  Provides a method to restore conflicts

Ø  Allows room to correct mistakes

2.When people blame democracy?

Ø  If some of our expectations are not met, we start blaming the idea of democracy.

Ø  Democracy is just form of government. It can only create conditions for achieving something, the citizens have to take advantage of those conditions and achieve the goal.

3.Efficiency (or) Decision making

Ø  Non democratic rulers do have to bother about the consultation, people opinion and also majority in assembly where as in democratic system each decision will be taken only after the consultation and judicial reviews.

Ø   Non democratic governments takes quick decision but democratic countries taking good decision. So people in the democratic system accept the decision majorly.

4.Transparency (or) Accountable

Ø  Democratic governments are accountable to the people but we cannot expect this from non democratic systems.

Ø  Democratic system believes that people have the right to know what is happening inside the government or in other words people have the rights to know how decision taking process takes place in the government. Ex: Right to information Act 

5.Elections

Ø  In non democratic countries holding regular election nearly impossible even though elections conducted the fairness will not be there.

Ø  Ex: Military rule of Myanmer denied the victory of Aung Sun Su Ki in the elections.

Ø   Whereas if you take country like India we do not have any problem in conducting the regular election but political parties and people try to violate the code of conduct in the elections.

6.Debate

Ø  Public expression of dissatisfaction is not possible in the nondemocratic countries. Debates never encourages in that system, authoritative rulers try to implement their decisions, where as in democratic system the public issues will be debated in the media and all social platforms, may be all issues are not properly debated in India but the debate is exist in democratic system.

7.Economic growth and Development

Ø  Democracy is not a economic policy. Democracy is not guaranty for economic growth. Democratic system stands behind the non democratic system. But democratic governments are not very much behind the non democratic governments.

Ø  Little bit of difference exist, it can be acceptable because the people in democratic systems enjoy more privileges then others.

Ø  All democratic regimes achieved the growth of 3.95 %

Ø  All nondemocratic regimes achieved the growth of 4.45%

8.Reduction of inequality and poverty:

Ø  Democratic countries are not much successful in reduction of inequality and poverty.

Ø    Countries	Ø    Top 20 %	Ø    Bottom 20%
Ø    South Africa	Ø    68%	Ø    2.9%
Ø    USA	Ø    50%	Ø    4%
Ø    UK	Ø    45%	Ø    6%

Ø   

9.Accomodation of social diversity

Ø  The democratic systems are best suited to produce this outcome. Non democratic systems try to suppress the minorities.

Ø  The democratic systems not only accommodate the social differences but appreciate the social differences.

Ø  Democratic systems has the ability to handle the social differences in a better manner than the non democratic governments.

Ø  But there two condition to achieve the accommodation in democratic systems (a).The majority need to work with minority. The government should work in a general view and majority and minority views should not be permanent.

Ø  (b) The majority rule means not a rule of majority community or religion or linguistic group rule, majority rule means  rule majority opinion each and every decision or election there should be possibility for all the group to attain power.  Democracy remains democracy only as long as every citizen has the chance of being in majority at some point of time.

10.Dignity and freedom of the citizens

Ø  Democracies stands much superior to any other form of government in promoting the dignity and freedom of the citizens. In democracies every individual has the rights to get respected by the fellow citizens.

Ø  There the guaranty through the constitution for the weaker section of the society. The violations will be considered as the crime.

Ø  Dignity of women, protect of minority religions and SC/ST people in India are now protected through the constitution.

Ø  There  is legal base for them to protect their rights if they think that their rights are denied.

Ø  We made many laws to protect the dignity of every citizen. Ex: Eve Teasing Act, Domestic violence Act, SC/ST act etc.,

11.Examination never gets over in democracies

Ø  Yes examination never gets over in democracies. The government or a society cannot be satisfied with democratic approach one issue. Each and every issue and each and every step the government need to  prove that they are democratic in policies.  If the government passes in one issue democratically other issues are waiting the queue to be resolved democratically. Democracy should become habit in the system.

12. The fact that people are complaining is itself a testimony to the success of democracy (or) A public expression of dissatisfaction with democracy shows the success of the democratic project.

Ø  One of the fundamental aims of democracy is allowing the struggle against the injustice and giving the opportunity to the people to raise their voice against the mighty in the society.

Ø  When people are in ignorance even though rights are there in democratic system they don’t live as democratic people but when democracy creates the belief that they can bring their desired change, we could able to see people fight for their justice.

Ø  So we can conclude where ever we see the struggle of people against the decision of the government we can understand that democracy progressing towards the betterment.

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8.Challanges to democracy

1.What are the challenges in front of democracy?

Ø  Foundational challenge: The countries which are having the non democratic regimes facing this challenge. This involves keeping down the existing military away from controlling government and establishing a sovereign state.

Ø  Challenge of expansion: This involves spreading the  democratic principles to each and every region of the country and different social groups.

Giving  more powers to the regional governments.

Empowerment of women and weaker section of the society.

Country like India and U.S facing this challenge.

Ø  Challenge of deepening of democracy:

This involves the strengthening of the institutions of democracy.

Making an attempt to bring down the control and influence of rich and powerful people in making government decisions.

2.What are the aspects we need to keep in mind while thinking towards the political reforms?

Ø  Law alone cannot bring the desired change in the political. All the issues in politics cannot be solved through the laws.

Ø  No doubt that law is needed, carefully designed law can help to discourage the wrong politics but believing that only making law itself bring all the best in the politics is very foolish.

Ø  Some time laws are counterproductive. They can give the undesired results. Ex: the law that banned the persons who has more than two children contesting the punchayet election denied the rights of many people

Ø  The good laws are those which empower the people. Ex: RTI

Ø  More and more participation of ordinary people can improve the quality of politics.

Ø  Political reforms should think not only about what is a good decision but also about who will implement it and how.

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