Gender, Religion and Caste (Question answer) CBSE BOARD

Q1. Mention different aspects of life in which women are discriminated or disadvantaged in India.

Ans. In our country, women still lag much behind men despite some improvement since independence. It is because Indian society is a male-dominated, patriarcha society. It values men over women and gives them more power and women face discrimination and oppression in many ways:

(1) Education: The literacy rate of women is still lower than men. Only 54% of the Education: literate against 76% literacy among to school because a boy womation is still preferred over sending a girl child to school. results are out, girls perform as well as boys but they drop out prefer to spend their resources on boys education rather than girls. because parents

(ii) Proportion of women in paid jobs: Women still have a small share in the highly paid jobs. Even though on an average an Indian woman works one hour more than an average man every day, her work is not given importance. This results in lo paid jobs for women. The Equal Wages Act provides that equal wages should be paid to equal work. However, in almost all areas of work, from sports and cinema to factories and fields, women are paid less than men, even when both do exactly the same work and that too with same quantity.

(iii) Preference for a male child: In India, parents prefer sons over daughters and find ways of aborting girl child. This abortion has led to decline in child sex ratio (number of girl children per thousand boys).

(iv) Crime against women: There are various instances of crime against women. Women are exploited and harassed at the workplace and at the home. There are cases of domestic violence against women which make her unsafe even within her family, Urban areas have been become unsafe for women. There are reports of various kinds of harassment, exploitation and violence against women. 

Q2. State different forms of communal politics with one example each.

Ans. Different forms of communal politics:

(i) The most common expression of communalism is in everyday beliefs. Stereo type religious communities and belief in the superiority of one's religion over other religions are so common that we often fail to notice them even when we believe in them. Militant religious groups are a good example of this.

(ii) A communal mind often leads to a quest for political dominance of religious community. For those belonging to majority community this takes the form of majoritarian dominance. For those belonging to minority community it can take the for of a desire to form a separate political unit. Separatist leaders and political parties in Jammu and Kashmir and Central India are examples of this.

(iii) The most frequent form of communalism is political mobilisation on the religious guidelines. It generally involves the usage of sacred symbols, religious leaders, emotional appeal and creating fear in order to accumulate followers of one religious community in the political arena. It attempts to bring the people of one's religion together. The political leaders pay special attention to the demands of their own community at the cost of the other. This technique is applied by many politicians to influence the voters from the two largest religious communities in the country 

(iv) Communalism can be ugliest if it takes the shape of communal violence, riots and massacre. India and Pakistan suffered some of the worst communal riots at the time of the partition.

. State how caste inequalities are still continuing in India. 23

Caste people marry withint completely disappeared from India. Even today, own caste or tribe. Despite constitutional prohibition, untouchability has not ended completely. Education is not easily available to the so-called low castes'. Economic status is closely linked to the caste system. In modern India, like in pre-independence India, the poor are mostly the low castes' while the rich are the high castes', thereby showing that caste inequalities are still continuing in India.

4. State two reasons to say that caste alone cannot determine election results in India. 8. (1) 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.

(ii) No party wins the votes of all the voters of a caste or community. When people say that a caste is a vote bank' of one party, it simply means that a large proportion of the voters from that caste vote for that party.

5. What is the status of women's representation in India's legislative bodies? .In India, the proportion of women in legislature is very low. The women strength in the Lok Sabha is not even 10%. Their share in state assemblies is less than 5%.

6. Mention any two constitutional provisions that make India a secular state. s. In India, communalism has always been a major threat and challenge to the spirit of democracy. Therefore, the model of secular state was chosen by the makers of our Constitution as they were aware of this challenge. Two constitutional provisions that make India a secular state are:

(i) There is no official religion for the Indian state. Our Constitution does not give special status to any religion.