Interest groups are part and parcel of a functioning democracy. Discuss.
a) Democracy is a government of the people by the people and for the people.
b) It is of two types direct and representative.
c) In direct democracy all the citizens can participate in making public decisions and do not need an elected or appointed official.
d) However in representative democracy the citizens elect the representative who formulate law and take decisions on their behalf and for them.
e) India is a representative democracy.
f) The interest groups are the private organisations which are formed to influence the public policy, they are non-political in nature and their aim is to uphold their own interest.
g) In a democratic system the political parties represent the interest of different groups. These different interest groups work towards influencing political parties.
h) When interest groups feel that their interests are not been considered by the ruling political party they move to form the alternative party or build pressure on the ruling political parties.
i) Interest groups are organised to pursue specific interest in political arena, they operate by influencing the members of Legislative bodies.
j) In some situations the interest groups may be political organisations also but such organisation which are denied from the opportunity of achieving power and they are regarded as movements until they achieve recognition as political party.
Therefore we can say interest groups are part and parcel of a functioning democracy
Read the snippets from the debates held in the Constituent Assembly. Identify the interest groups. Discuss what kind of interest groups exist in contemporary India. How do they function?
With reference to the snippets given in Box 3.5 of the book in Lesson 3, the following conclusions can be drawn –
In contemporary India at the time of framing constitution the interest group that existed had following features –
a) People had faith in ideology interest in socialism and wanted to include right to work as fundamental right in the constitution.
b) They gave more importance to economic and social justice than the classification of political duties of government.
c) They favoured the division of power of government but with the objective that the government should remove the problems like hunger, discrimination on various bases, and bring social justice to every citizen so as to ensure social security.
d) They believed that the governing party should represent all the adults of the country.
There were some pressure groups who wanted to raise voice for following –
a) To abolish the Zamindari system
b) To raise voice in favour of tribal people of the country
c) To adopt some programs and policies under Directive Principles of State Policy
d) To promote and protect cottage industry
These interest groups worked in two ways as discussed below –
a) By influencing the legislative committee by presenting their views and demanding amendments as and when required
b) By helping the people at the time of natural calamity, which helped them to earn goodwill of people and they could influence the government also
Create a’ phad’ or a scroll with your own mandate when standing for school election. (this could be done in small groups of 5, like a panchayat)
In school panchayat me along with my 5 members, that is we as a group propose to do the following works for betterment of school and our school mates –
1) Will arrange transport facility for all the students and will look after it that the buses of a particular route are not overcrowded and the single bus do not cover far and distant routes. We will arrange different buses for different routes.
2) Educational support from all the teachers in form of notes, problem handling, extra classes and so on
3) Availability of sports equipment and well maintained sports room and sports ground
4) Proper arrangements regarding cleanliness and availability of required materials, equipments, etc in school lab, painting and drawing room, medical room and other concerned departments.
5) Special educational assistance arrangement for those students who are facing problem in understanding and coping with the syllabus or any particular subject so that they can gain good marks.
6) A disciplinary committee will be constituted which will look after the disciplines in the school.
7) Making available various indoor games in the sports room and arranging coaches for other Sports.
8) We will emphasize on extra co-curricular activities as well as on the academic facilities.
9) Installing cctvs in the school, transport buses, class rooms and connecting school buses with GPS system.
10) Regular co-ordination between parents and class teachers
11) We will talk to school authorities and will try to include a foreign language in the syllabus.
Have you heard of Bal Panchayats and Mazdoor Kissan Sanghathan? If not, find out and write a note about them in about 200 words.
Bal Panchayat – The Bal Panchayat system is very common in my school and all the schools nearby. Actually nowadays the Bal Panchayat system is followed by schools in form of prefectoral system.
1. All the students of my school are divided into four houses named as Shivaji, Tagore, Ashoka, Raman (STAR).
2. Each house has a House Master and 5 perfects. In all total there are 20 prefects in the school. They are selected on the basis of their academics, leadership traits and their contribution towards the curricular and co-curricular activities of school and house.
3. The principal, teachers and these 20 perfects select the head boy and head girl of the school.
4. The head boy and head girl are responsible for -
a. Discipline in School,
b. School environment,
c. Curricular and extra-curricular activities,
5. They also listen to the complaints of the students and act as a spokesperson for students to the school management.
6. The head boy and head girl coordinates with the principal, headmasters, house master and the 20 perfect and helps in proper functioning of the transport system, maintenance of assets of schools, maintaining of sports club and taking care of school property and school discipline.
Mazdoor Sanghathan – Mazdoor Sangathan means the labour Union.
1. The very first labour Union of India named as All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) was established in 1922, it was initiated by the Congress party but later on the communist took over the control in 1929.
2. The Other trade unions like
a. Indian Trade Union Congress was found by Congress
b. Hind Mazdoor Sabha by socialist and
c. Bharatiya Mazdoor Sabha by Bharatiya Janata Party
3. These trade unions played an important role in deciding the recruitment and wage policy in India. They also took effort to develop a political and social awareness among the workers and to improve their living conditions.
Kissan Sanghathan – Kisan Sangathan are the groups of farmers.
1) At very first Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel took the initiative and established all India Kisan Sabha so as to make the farmers united but it failed due to the caste and class conflict.
2) In 1978 All India Kisan Kamgar Sammelan was formed due to the motivation of Shri Raz Narain and Chaudhary Charan Singh.
3) Many more steps were taken by many politicians and farmers to organise the farmers of India but even today the farmers are not well organised pressure groups.
The 73rd amendment has been monumental in bringing a voice to the people in the villages. Discuss.
The 73rd amendment of constitution has been monumental in bringing a voice to the people in village due to following reasons -
1) It was a big step in enfranchising women.
2) Out of the total seats in all elected offices of local bodies one third were reserved for women in both rural and urban areas and out of this 17% seats reserved for women belonging to scheduled castes and tribes.
3) In the election of 1993-94, soon after 73rd amendment, almost 8,00,000 women came into the political processes in a single election.
4) It described the three tier system of local governance for the entire country which was affected since 1992-93.
5) It gave power and authority to panchayat to function as Institutions of self-government and required all state governments to revitalize local representative institutions.
6) The 73rd amendment delegated following powers and responsibilities to the panchayat –
a. To prepare plans and schemes for economic development
b. To promote scheme to enhance Social Justice
c. To levy and collect appropriate taxes, duties, tolls and fees so as to help in devolution of governmental responsibilities
Write an essay on the ways that the Indian Constitution touches peoples’ everyday life, drawing upon different examples.
1) Indian Constitution seeks to ensure not only political justice but also social and economic justice for the citizens.
2) It ensures right of equality to all the citizens of India.
3) Indian Constitution is the bedrock of Indian democracy, which gives us a democratic system, which is of the people by the people and for the people.
4) It is the basic norm of India, all other law are made up as per the procedure prescribed in the constitution.
5) It gave us an equal opportunity to make use of all the natural resources and the resources of countries.
6) It imposed certain duties up on us among which one was to protect public and national property and another was to put our best effort for economic development.