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Gender, Religion and Caste

*Gender

*Discrimination against women

Reasons:

1) Literacy Rate: Men 76% and women 56%.

Hence women are denied education.
2) Low Wages: Women are paid low wages as compare to men
for same work.
3) Society Mindset: Parents prefer to have a male
Child rather than a female Child as a result sex
ratio has fallen down to 914.
4) Womens are exploited and harassed at work place and at
home.
5) Women have low representation in legislature ( Parliament and
state assembly)

*Feminist: Those who believe in equality.

* Steps Taken by the Government:'

1) Several Programmes have been launched by the government to

promote girl education like 'Beti Bachoo, Beti Padhaoo'
2) Anti-dowry laws have been implemented. Strict laws are there
against Domestic violence.
3) Female infanticides and sex selective abortions have been
declared illegal. there are legal provisions to punish those who
practice this Social crime.
4) The equal Renumeration Act, 1976 have been implemented so
that men and women are paid equally
5) In local government bodies 1/3rd seats are reserved for women
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 *Religion

*Communalism Problem

1) When one Religion and its followers are discriminated by

another one.
2) When Religion is seen as the basis of Nation
ex : Pakistan
3) When demands of one religion is formed in opposition of
another.
4) When people start believing that beliefs of one religion is
superior than other.
5) When state power is used to establish dominance of a Religion
over rest.

* What makes India a Secular Country?

1) Our Constitution does not give special status to any one

religion.
2) Our Constitution provide all individuals and committees the
right to practice any religion or not to follow any.
3) Our Constitution prohibits discrimination on the ground of
religion.
4) Our Constitution allows the state to intervene between religious
matters in order to ensure equality within religious communities.
5) ex : The Constitution has banned the practice of untouchability
for welfare of Community

*Caste

* Caste in Politics
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1) Parties nominate candidate which belong to the caste of
majority in the region.
2) When govt. is formed, parties make sure that representatives of
each Caste find a place in cabinet.
3) Parties and Candidate appeals to the caste sentiments to gain
support.
4) Parties act like they care about lower caste due to their high
population in India so that they can win elections easily

* Limitations:

1) No constituency have the majority of one caste so the

candidate has to win support of more than one caste to win the
elections.
2) No Candidate or party gets the vote of all the voters of a caste
or community.
3) Many parties put up the candidate from same caste. then,
some voters have many candidates of their caste and some
have no candidates from their caste.
4) The sitting MP or MLA's often loose the next elections. this
could not had happened if caste had frozen political preferences.

*Politics in Caste

- Politics too influences the Caste system and caste identities.

- It is not politics that gets Caste ridden, it is thcaste that gets
politicised
- Each Caste group tries to become bigger by incorporating within
it neighbouring castes or sub - castes.
- Coalition among various Caste groups thus enter into a dialogue
and negotiation.
- New kinds of caste groups have came up.
- Backward and Forward caste groups.

*Solution:
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1) Economic Development
2) Urbanisation
3) Growth of literacy Rate and Education.
4) Jobs..
5) Awareness..

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