What does the term Feminist Movement imply?
In most of the societies in the world, the role of women in public and in political life is limited whereas men played an important role in public affairs, votes or elections and participate in public offices. Gradually, this led to the emergence of gender inequality in politics and women started forming the organisation and demanded equal rights. Agitation in different countries started for providing voting rights to women and also to improve the political, legal status of women, educational and career opportunities. Moreover, women’s movements demanded equality in personal and family life. Movement led by men and women demanding equal rights and opportunities for women, such movements are termed as ‘Feminist Movement”.
List any one provision of the Equal Wages Act.
In most of the countries even though men and women do exactly the same amount of work, they are not paid equally, this happens in every field like sports, cinema, in factories and fields. One provision of the Equal Wages Act are-
• The Equal Wages Act mentions that equal wages should be paid for equal work irrespective of class, color, creed or gender.
Give the meaning of religious differences.
In the world, religious diversity is widespread. Most of the countries especially India have people following different religions. For instance in Northern Ireland, even though people followed the same religion but the way they practice that religion was different. Thus, people who follow a different religion or practice differently the same religion could be termed as ‘Religious differences’.
In the field of politics also, religious differences are often expressed. The meaning of the religious difference could be explained through following –
• According to Mahatma Gandhi, religion cannot be separated from politics. Here, he wants to say about the moral values that instruct all the religion and not any particular religion like Hinduism or Islam. He considered that politics should be controlled by the ethics and values drawn from religion.
• According to the Human Rights groups of our country, most of the people who die because of the communal riots belong to the religious minorities. They wanted that government of our country should take some initiative to protect religious minorities.
• Women’s movement claimed that Family laws of all religions in our country don’t treat women equally and discriminate against them.
What do you mean by Communal Politics?
In politics, religion is often expressed as exclusive and as a supporter of the party. The problem arises when one religion was set against another. All this happens when
• Beliefs of one religion were made superior against the other religions.
• The demands of one religion were given preference over another one.
• State power was used to impose the authority of one religious group over the remaining one.
Thus, the way religion was used in politics is termed as ‘Communal Politics’.
What is casteism?
The term ‘casteism’ refers to the discrimination made on the basis of the caste system. It believes that caste is the only foundation of the social community. This implies, people belong to the natural social community and have a common interest which they are not supposed to share with any other community.
State any two situation in which problem of communalism becomes acute.
Communalism has this belief that people of a different religion cannot live together in one single nation as equal citizens. The only solution is that they could live in a different nation or one could dominate others. Two situation in which problem of communalism becomes acute are as follows:
• In politics, religion is often expressed as exclusive and as a supporter of the various parties. The problem arises when one religion was set against another
• Beliefs of one religion were made superior against the other religions or the demand of one religion was given preference over another one.
Examine briefly communalism as an ideology and as a social phenomena.
Communalism as an ideology and a social phenomena believes in the following:
• People following one religion should be in one community and their interests should also be the same.
• People following different religion cannot belong to the same community.
• If they have any differences then it will be insignificant for the community life.
• If the followers of the different religion share some common thoughts than it will be considered as superficial. It means their interest should remain different and involve the difference in opinions and conflicts.
Thus, communalism has this belief that people of a different religion cannot live together in one single nation as equal citizens. The only solution is that they could live in a different nation or one could dominate others. This is an incorrect belief as this cannot be possible that people of one religion would have the same opinion and aspirations in every context. Everyone plays different roles, have different positions and identities. Every individual in the community has the right to say and they deserve to be heard. So of the attempt was made to bring people together on the basis of a different context than religion than many voices within the community will get suppressed.
Explain social equality in Indian context.
Social equality refers to the society where everyone is treated equally irrespective of any discrimination. It means they are provided with the freedom of speech, Right to Vote, Right to equality, etc. In India, all these laws have been implemented to assure social equality especially in a country like India with social and religious diversity.
• In India, there is no official religion. Like Buddhism in Sri Lanka, Islam in Pakistan and Christianity in England, the Indian constitution do not give any special status to any religion.
• Indian constitution ensures social equality by allowing an individual to profess, practice and propagate any religion of their choice.
• Discrimination on the basis of religion is prohibited according to the Indian constitution.
• To ensure equality, the constitution is allowed to interfere in matters related to religion within religious communities. For instance, In India, untouchability is banned.
All these steps have been taken to ensure social and other kinds of equality in India.
Do you think that religion should be the basis of nation? If not why? Explain.
In politics, ideas, ideals and values derived from religion play an important role. As a member of the religious community, every person should be able to express their needs, interests and demands. In order to prevent discrimination and oppression against anyone, an individual with power should regulate the practice of religion. All these actions are correct as long as they treat everyone equally. No, Religion should not be the basis of the nation. It is because-
• In politics, religion is often expressed as exclusive and as a supporter of the party. The problem arises when one religion was set against another. All this happens when
Beliefs of one religion were made superior against the other religions.
• The demands of one religion were given preference over another one.
• State power was used to impose the authority of one religious group over the remaining one.
This way of using religion in politics is often termed as ‘communal politics’.
List the negative effect of communalism.
Communalism believes that People following one religion should be in one community and their interests should also be the same and those following different religion cannot belong to the same community. If they have any differences then it will be insignificant for the community life. If the followers of the different religion share some common thoughts then it will be considered as superficial. It means their interest should remain different and involve the difference in opinions and conflicts.
The negative effect of communalism are-
• If the individual believes in communalism than his only thought would politically dominate his own religious community. It takes the form of majoritarian dominance, if he belongs to the majority community and those belonging to the minority community; it becomes their motive to form a separate political unit.
• Religious prejudices, stereotypes of religious communities and the belief to make one religion superior over another one is the common aspect of communalism in everyday beliefs. All these forms are so common that it is often unnoticeable to us even though we are the one believing in this.
• Another form of communalism is the political mobilisation based on religions such as the use of sacred symbols, religious leaders, emotional appeal and plain fear to bring people of one religion together in the political sphere. Special preferences are given to the interests and emotions of the voters of one religion or community over another one in electoral politics.
• Communalism also takes the form of communal violence, riots and massacre. For example – the worst one is the communal riots between India and Pakistan during the time of partition. Even the post-Independence period witnessed communal violence to a greater extent.
Prove by giving example that is not the caste, but other factors matter in electoral politics.
Yes, it is true that caste plays an important role in politics or in electoral politics but there are various other factors that matter in electoral politics such as –
• There is not even a single parliamentary constituency in the country that has a majority based on single caste. This implies that to win the elections every candidate and party has to win the confidence of more than one caste or community.
• There is no such party that wins the vote of all the voters of the single caste or community. When the term ‘vote bank’ is used with reference to caste, it means the maximum number of votes getting from the voters of all the caste or community.
• Many political parties choose their candidates from the caste that is believed to dominate the electorate in a particular constituency. Some voters have many candidates standing in elections from their caste while many voters have no candidate from their caste.
• If it is believed that all castes and communities have their strong political preferences than no ruling party and the sitting MP or MLA lose elections frequently in our country.
People have an attachment to the political party more than their caste and community. Thus, other factors also dominated in electoral politics and not just the caste.
(a) Could you think of some reasons why women’s representation is so low India?
(b) Identify the measures to check the low representation.
(c) Which values are revealed in such measures?
(a) Women’s movements and many feminists believe that women’s issue would only be taken into consideration when women control power. It means women should represent themselves politically so that their issues get enough attention.
The percentage of women in the legislature is low, for instance, elected women members in Lok Sabha has never reached even 10% of the total strength and in state assemblies, it is less than 5%. Even when a woman becomes the chief minister and prime minister, the cabinet is dominated by all male members. In India, women’s representation is low because-
• Literacy rate – the literacy rate among women is 54% as compared to men which are 76%. Moreover, only the small percentage of girl students pursues higher studies. Girls drop out as preference has been given to the education of the boy child.
• Unequal job opportunities - Highly paid and valuable job opportunities for women is still very less in India. Women usually work one hour more than men on a daily basis. Women in our country are not paid equally and her job is also not valued.
• Equal Wages Act - The Equal Wages Act mentions that equal wages should be paid to equal work irrespective of class, color, creed or gender. But in India, even though men and women do exactly the same amount of work, they are not paid equally, this happens in every field like sports, cinema, in factories and fields.
• Child sex ratio - This happens even today, that even before the girl child is born they abort her. This led to a decline in the child sex ratio (number of girl children per thousand boys). Women are also the victim of beating, harassment and other forms of domestic violence.
(b) To check the low representation of women in India, the following measures are taken:
• It should be made mandatory that women should be in fair proportion in elected bodies. This step was taken by the Panchayati Raj has done in India.
• In panchayats and municipalities, One-third of seats are now reserved for women in local government bodies. It is because of this measure that in rural and urban local bodies, there are 10 lakh elected women representatives.
• The Women’s organisations and activist demanded seats in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies for women. They demanded reservation of at least one-third of seats.
But even though the bill with this proposal was made but it is still pending before the parliament. Political parties have no interest in this proposal and the bill has not been passed.
(c) Through the mentioned measures, it is clear that gender division continues to exist. The values revealed are:
• The existence of gender division proves that some form of social division needs to be expressed in politics.
• Moreover, when social division becomes the topic of discussion in politics, some disadvantaged groups, get benefitted.