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Dr.G.S.

Kalyanasundaram Memorial School


Patteswaram Road, Chozhan Maligai – 612 703

Social Science - 087


Grade 10

Democratic Politics Study Material


2024 – 25

Prepared by:

Mr.R.Ayyappan
Head of the Department
Department of Social Science
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Index
S.No Name of the Chapter Page No
1 Power Sharing 02
2 Federalism 04
3 Gender, Religion and Caste 09
4 Political Parties 14
5 Outcomes of Democracy 21

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Democratic Politics - Study material
1. Power Sharing
1.Case study of Belgium
 Location:
 Belgium located in Europe.
 Belgium bordered by France, Germany, Netherland and Luxembourg.
 Ethnic Composition:
 In Belgium 59% of people speak Dutch and 40% of people speak French.
 In capital Brussels 80% of people speak French While 20% of people speak
Dutch.
 Reasons for Conflict:
 Minority French speaking people was relatively rich and powerful
 So ruling government schemes were in favour of Dutch speaking people.
 It led to tensions between Dutch and French speaking communities.

2.Accommodation/solution in Belgium.
 Between 1970 and 1993 four times constitution was amended.
 Central government ministry was shared by French and Dutch communities
equally.
 Central government shared its power with the regional governments.
 Community government was setup to look at the issues of language, education
and culture.
 Separate government for Brussels and French shared ministry with Dutch.

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


 Location:
 Srilanka located in Asia
 Srilanka shares water boundary with India
 Ethnic Composition
 In Sri Lanka 74% of people speak Sinhala.
 Tamil speaking population was 18%.
 In that Sri Lankan Tamils or Native Tamils were 13% and Indian Tamils were 5%.

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 Reasons for Conflict:
 1956 the Only Sinhala Act made Sinhala as the only official Language.
 Only Sinhala speaking Buddhist can become the president of the country.
 Reservation policies were made in favour of Sinhala and against of Tamils.
 Tamil people raised their demands which was ignored by the government.
 So Tamil people demanded Separate state called Tami Eelam.
 The civil war took place in Sri Lanka and ended in favour in Sinhala
 Thousands of innocent Tamil people were killed in the war.
4.Why power sharing is desirable? Why do we need power sharing?
Prudential Reasons:
 Power sharing can reduce the conflict between two communities.
 Power sharing may increase the stability of the government.
 Power sharing can reduce the violence between two communities..
 In short run imposing majority might be attractive but long run it affect the unity
of the nation.
Moral Reasons:
 Power sharing is the very spirit of democracy.
 People have a right to be consulted.
 Legitimate government is one where citizen participate more in decision making

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


Horizontal power sharing:
 Power sharing among the organs of the government.
 Power sharing between Legislative, Executive and Judiciary.
 None of the organ is having unlimited powers.
 Each organ can check others.
Vertical power sharing
 Power sharing among the different levels of the government
 Central government for overall country.
 There will be regional government or state government.
 The central government shares its powers with state government.
 The state government shares powers with the local government.
 There will be federal setup of multi-level governance.
 Ex: India and Belgium
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Power sharing with different social groups
 Power sharing with weaker section of the society.
 In India reservation has been given to the SC/ST and women.
 Powers sharing with minorities and weaker section of the people.
 Ex: Community government in Belgium.
Power sharing with Political parties, pressure groups and movements
 In democracies different political parties follow different ideologies.
 When two or more parties form an alliance and share power it can benefit
people belongs to different social groups.
 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.
Prudential: Careful calculation of gains and losses.
=======================================================================
2. Federalism
1.What is federalism?
 Federalism is a system of government in which the power is divided between a
central authority and various constituent units of the country.
 In a federal system a country have two or more level of government.
 There will be a central or union government for entire country.
 There will be regional governments at regional level.

2.What are the key features of federalism?


 There is two or more level of government.
 Each level of government has its own jurisdiction.
 Jurisdictions are specified in the constitution.
 Basic rights of the constitution cannot be changed by one level of government.

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 Court have the power to interpret the constitution.
 Sources of revenue has been shared between the different levels of the
government.

3. What are two objectives of the federal government?


 To safeguard and promote the unity of the country.
 To accommodate the regional diversity.

4.Differentiate COMING TOGETHER FEDERATION AND HOLDING TOGETHER


FEDERATION
COMING TOGETHER FEDERATION:
 A.Independent states coming together on their own and form big unit.
 All federal units have same kind of power
 B.Ex:USA and Australia

HOLDING TOGETHER FEDERATION:


 .A large country divided into smaller divisions.
 All federal units do not have same kind of power.
 B.Ex: India and Belgium.
5.Unitary government and Federal government
Unitary government :
 Only one level of government
 Central government controls entire country.
 If there is any federal units, they are not independent and federal units are sub
ordinate to central government.
 Central government can order the regional government to do something.
Federal government
 There will be two or more levels of governments.
 Central government governs entire country.
 The country is divided into small divisions and there will be a regional
governments.
 Regional governments are independent and functions on its own.
 Central government cannot order or force the regional government to do
something.
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6.What makes India a federal country?
1. The constitution of India declared that India is an Indian Union.
2. Earlier we started with two tier government now we have three tier
administration.
3. Union list: subjects of national importance. Ex: Banking and Currency etc.,
4. State list: subjects of local importance. Ex: Police, agriculture and irrigation etc.,
5. Concurrent list: These are common subjects where both level of government can
make laws. Ex:Education, forest and marriage.
6. All federal units do not have equal rights. Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal
Pradesh enjoy some special privileges.
7. States enjoy more rights while union territories have less powers.
8. Court can declare any law passed by the assemble as invalid.
9. Constitutional amendments need to be passed with two third majority in
Loksabha and Rajyasabha seperatly.

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

8.Language policy
 Our constitution did not gave the status of National Language to any one
language.
 Hindi was identified as the official language of central government.
 Hindi is the mother tongue of 40% of the Indians.
 In 1965 the use of English for official purpose was stop, but non Hindi states
demanded English to continue.
 particularly in Tamil Nadu the Anti Hindi Movement took violent form.
 So the Central Government agreed to continue the use of English for official
purpose.
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 In this issue national leaders shown great flexibility which avoided the conflict
like Srilanka.

9.Centre – State relationship


 When same party ruling in the Central and State government than the state get
more favours.
 When State and Centre governments were ruled by different party, the Central
Government undermine the State government.
 In those days central government misuse the powers and dismiss the state
government.
 Major judgement of the Supreme Court that made it difficult for the Central
Government to dismiss state governments in an arbitrary manner.
 After 1990 we could able to sew a rise of regional parties.
 The era of COALITION GOVERNMENTS has strengthened the federal set up.

10.What is decentralization?
 When power is taken away from the Central and State governments and given to
the Local government is called decentralization.

11 Why decentralization of power is needed?


 Large number of problems are local in nature.
 Most of the problems can be solved at local level, need not taken to the higher
level.
 Local people have the better understanding of the issue and they can come out
with best solution.
 It give the sense to the people that they are in decision making process.

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


 Local government elections became mandatory.
 Seats are reserved SC/ST.
 One third seats are reserved for Women
 State Election commission was set up in all states to look after the election
process.

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

13.Structure of the Local Government:

Local
Government

Rural Urban

Panchayat Zilla Parishad (All


Gram Panchayat Samiti/Block/Mandal Samitis in the Town (Municipal City (Mayour)
(Sarpanch) (Few Gram district) (Chair Chair Person)
Panchayat) Person)

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.Gender, Religion and Caste
1.Gender and Politics
1.1.Sexual division of labour:
 The main responsibility of women is house work like cooking, washing and taking
care of children.
 All the work outside the house is responsibility of men. Men are expected
involve in economic activity and earn money of the family.
 Indian family system is Patriarchal in nature.
 Patriarchy: Literally, rule by father, this concept is used to refer to a system that
values men more and gives them power over women
1.2.Women and education:
 According to 2011 census female literacy rate is only 54%. Nearly half of Indian
women are illiterate.
 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.
1.3.Women and work:
 Now we could able to see women in many jobs. But from Sports to Cinema
women are paid less than the men.
 The Equal Remuneration Act 1976 says that men and women should be paid
equally.
1.4.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 919 girls per 1000 boys.
1.5.Women and politics:
 In India 2019 alone the women representation has crossed 14.36% in loksabha.
Still most of the state assemblies women representation is less than 5%.
 Women representation in politics in India is around 11.8% .
 world average of women in politics is 24% and Nordic countries women
representation is 42.3%.
 A bill stating one third seat in loksabha and vidhansabha is bending in parliament
for more than the decade.

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 There were 10 lakh women representatives in Rural and Urban local body due to
the women reservation.

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:
 The religion is seen as the basis of the nation.
 Religion is expressed in politics in exclusive and partisan terms.
 One religion and its followers are pitted against another.
 Beliefs of one religion are presented as superior to those of other religions.
 The demands of one religious group are formed in opposition to another
 State power is used to establish the interest of majority religion.
 The majority religion dominates the minority religion through the political
power.
Communal Thinking:
 The followers of a particular religion must belong to one community.
 Their fundamental interests are the same. Any difference that they may have is
irrelevant or trivial for community life.
 It also follows that people who follow different religions cannot belong to the
same social community.
 Communalism leads to the belief that people belonging to different religions
cannot live as equal citizens within one nation.
 Either, one of them has to dominate the rest or they have to form different
nations.
 Minority start to feel that they cannot live along with majority and they desire or
demand for separate unit.

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How communalism can take various forms in politics?
 Majority religion beliefs are established in superior with minority religion.
 A communal mind search for political dominance.
 Due to dominance of majority minority community started to desire for separate
unit.
 Political mobilization on religious lines.
 Scared symbols and religious leader’s emotional speech create the fear in the
minds of the religious minority.
 Sometimes communalism takes its ugliest form of violence, riots and massacre.
 India and Pakistan suffered some of the worst communal riots at the time of the
Partition
Secular state:
 There is no official religion for Indian state.
 Unlike the status of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, that of Islam in Pakistan and that of
Christianity in England, our Constitution does not give a special status to any
religion
 People have the freedom to profess, practice and propagate any religion.
 The constitution prohibits discrimination on the grounds of religion.
 Government intervenes into religion only when anything go unconstitutional. Ex:
Indian constitution has banned Untouchability.
 Secularism is not just an ideology of some parties or persons. This idea
constitutes one of the foundations of our country.

Caste
What are the factors has reduced the effect of caste?
 Social reformers like Jothiba Phule, Gandhiji, B.R.Amebedkar and Periyar worked
a lot against the caste inequalities.
 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.
 Weakening of the positions of land lard has also breakdown the caste hierarchy.

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How castes still persist in India?
 Even now people mostly marry within the caste group.
 Still in certain places we could able to find untouchability in India.
 The centuries of advantages and disadvantages continues still today.
 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?
 Political parties while choosing the candidates for the elections they keep the
caste composition of the constituency.
 When governments are formed political parties take care of representation of
different caste in their cabinet.
 Political parties mostly give the seat to candidate who belongs to the majority
caste of a particular constituency.
 Political parties and candidates make appeals to the people in the name of caste.
 One person One vote pressurizing the political parties to look caste as a vote
bank.

Caste alone will not decide the election success how? Or Caste cannot influence
much how?
 No parliamentary constituency in our country has a clear majority of one single
caste.
 A candidate need the support of other caste group to win the election.
 We cannot expect all voters of one caste group will vote to the same candidate.
 When all the parties give seat to the majority caste group, a candidate cannot
take the caste advantage.
 Many times we see the sitting MP or MLA who win the election due to the caste,
looses the next election.
 People also see the performance of the candidate.
 When people have strong attachment with one party they will not the caste or
any other differences.

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How politics influence the caste?
 Each caste group tries to become bigger by incorporating with in the
neighbouring or sub caste.
 Various caste groups are entering into negotiation to make coalition with other
caste groups.
 New kinds of caste groups have come up in the political area like backward caste
groups and forward caste groups.
Sexual Division of Labour: A system in which all work inside the home is done by
the women of the family.
Feminist: A woman or a man who believes in equal rights and opportunities for
women and men.
Family Laws: Those laws that deal with family related matters such as marriages,
divorce, adoption, in heritance etc. In our country, different family laws apply to
followers of different religions.
Urbanisation: Shift of Population from rural areas to urban areas.
Occupational Mobility:Shift from one occupation to another, new generation takes
up occupation other than those practiced by their ancestors.
Caste Hierarchy: A ladder like formation in which all the caste groups are placed
from the Higher to the Lower castes.
=======================================================================

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4.Political Parties
1.What is a political party?
 A group of people who came together to contest elections.
 They agree on some policies and programs for the promotion of society.
 Parties try to persuade people why their policies are better than others.
 A political party has three components: 1.The leaders, 2.The active members
and 3. The followers
 Ex: All India National Congress

2.Functions of the political party?


 Contesting elections: Choosing candidates and contesting for the elections. In
U.S.A candidates are elected by the members whereas in India candidates are
elected by party leader.
 Framing the policies and programs from the vast multitude of opinions on
various issues.
 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.
 Running the government: Political party should train the leaders to run the
different ministries of the government.
 Role of opposition: 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.
 Shaping Public Opinion: Political parties highlights the issue and create public
awareness. They can launch movements for the resolution of the problem. Often
crystalize their opinion of the society in their party lines.
 Access the people with government‘s well fare programs: Connecting ordinary
people the well fare plans of the government, so that they get benefit.

3.Why do we need political parties?


 Without political parties, in an election all the candidates will be independent
candidates.
 No one can form a government in the assembly because independents find
difficult to show majority in the assembly.

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 Even though independent candidates form government it won’t be stable.
 No one will be able to make promises for the entire country.
 Political parties are accountable to the people.

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


 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.
 Two Party System:U.S.A, U.K both has two party system. Both parties have a
serious chances of winning the majority.
 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.
 For example, in India there were three such major alliances in 2004
parliamentary elections– the National Democratic Alliance, the United
Progressive Alliance and the Left Front.
 The multiparty system often appears very messy and leads to political instability.
At the same time, this system allows a variety of interests and opinions to enjoy
political representation.
 Party system is not something any country can choose. It evolves over a long
time, depending on the nature of society, its social and regional divisions, its
history of politics and its system of elections.
 Democracy is possible with any number but at least two.
 No system is ideal for all countries and all situations.

5. Classification of political parties (or) How political parties gets its recognition from
the election commission?
Regional Party / State Party
 The political party exist in one state or part of the country.
 The party gives importance to the issues of the particular state.
 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.
 The party which got recognition they can contest in common symbol in all over
the state.Ex:DMK
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National parties
 The political parties exist entire nation.
 The parties has national goals
 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.
 Ex:All India National Congress

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


 Lack of internal democracy:
1. One or few leaders at the top control the entire party.
2. Parties do not maintain fairness in the membership.
3. They do not hold meetings
4. Party Leader choosing candidates for the elections.
5. Those who disagree with party leadership find difficult to continue in the party.
6. Ordinary members of the party do not get sufficient information about
functioning of the party.
7. The leaders assume greater power to make decisions in the name of the party.
 Dynastic Succession:
1. Top positions are controlled by the family members of the party leader
2. Family members of the party leader get the most important post in the party.
3. There are very few ways for an ordinary worker to rise to the top in a party.
4. Members who are relatives of the family of the leader they get the seats easily.
5. In many parties, the top positions are always controlled by members of one
family. This is unfair to other members of that party. This is also bad for
democracy,
 Money and Muscle Power:
1. Political parties are focused only on winning elections, they tend to use short-
cuts to win elections.
2. They tend to nominate candidates who can raise lots of money.
3. Rich, and members with criminal background getting the tickets easily.
4. They come up in the party and ordinary member remains ordinary.
5. In some cases party support criminals to win the elections.

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6. Democrats all over the world are worried about the increasing role of rich
people and big companies in democratic politics.
 Political parties do not offer meaningful Choices:
1. In recent years, there has been a decline in the ideological differences among
parties
2. Political parties finds very difficult to differentiate their parties from other
parties.
3. Policies of different parties are very similar.
4. Ex: The difference between labour party and Conservative party is very little in
Britain
5. In our country too, the differences among all the major parties on the economic
policies have reduced.
6. Sometimes people do not get options to choose the party or leaders since they
are all same.

7.How can political parties be reformed?


Present laws:
 Anti Defection Law: According to this act any MLA,MP moving from one party to
another he/she will lose their post. At the same time, this has made any dissent
even more difficult. MPs and MLAs have to accept whatever the party leaders
decide.
 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.
 Election Commission Order: Election Commission has passed an order that
political parties should hold their organizational elections and file income tax
returns to the election commission.
Suggestions to Election Commission
Appointment of an authority
 A law should be made to regulate the internal affairs of political parties.
 It should be made compulsory for political parties to maintain a register of its
members and to follow its own constitution

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 An independent authority can be appointed to act as a judge in case of party
disputes, to hold open elections to the highest posts.
Women representation
 It should be made mandatory for political parties to give about one-third
tickets to women candidates.
 Similarly, there should be a quota for women in the decision making bodies
of the party
State funding
 There should be state funding of elections.
 The government should give parties money to support their election
expenses.
 This support could be given in kind: petrol, paper, telephone, etc. Or it could
be given in cash on the basis of the votes secured by the party in the last
election.
Other TWO ways to Reform Political Parties
One:
 People can put pressure on Political Parties, This can be done through petitions,
publicity and agitations.
 Ordinary citizens, pressure groups and movements and the media can play an
important role in this.
 If political parties feel that they would lose public support by not taking up
reforms, they would become more serious about reforms.
Two
 The quality of democracy depends on the degree of public participation. It is
difficult to reform politics if ordinary citizens do not take part in it and simply
criticise it from the outside.
 The problem of bad politics can be solved by more and better politics.

8.All India Trinamool Congress:


 Launched on 1998 by Mamta Banerjee.
 Recognised as national party in 2016
 Symbol is Flowers and grass.
 They are in power in West Bengal since 2011 and also party has votes in
Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Tripura.
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 2019 loksabha elections they won 22 seats and 4.07% of votes.

9.Bahyjan Samaj Party


 Formed in 1986 by Kansi Ram.
 Support Daliths, Adivasis and OBC
 Draws inspiration from Sahu Maharaj, Mahatma Phule and Periyar Ramasamy
and Ambedkhar.
 Party is having strong vote bank in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi,
Uttarkhand and Punjab.
 2019 Loksabha elections got 3.63% of votes and 10 seats in Loksabha.

10.Indian National Congress


 Indian National Congress was formed in 1885.
 This party was lead the freedom struggle of India.
 Most of the popular national leaders belong to this party.
Policy:
 This party is a centrist party.
 They take decisions according to the interest of the people.
 Congress party is a secular party. They keep away from the religious issues.
 They give privileges to weaker sections and minorities.
 They support New Economic Policies with human face.
 Rule: From 1947 to 1977, 1980 to 1989, 2004 to 2014
 Congress is leading the United Progressive Alliance.
 In 2019 loksabha elections the party secured 19.5% of votes and 52 seats.

11.Bharathiya Janata Party


 BJP was formed in 1980
 This party had roots with Bharthiya Jana Sang formed by Syama Prasad
Mukherjee in 1951.
 Deendayal Upadhyaya’s ideas of integral humanism and Antyodaya.
Policy:
 This party is a Rightist Party
 They receive inspirations from Ancient Indian traditions
 They want to establish cultural nationalism or Hinduthwa.
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 They want complete integration of Jammu and Kashmir
 BJP Support common civil code
 BJP Oppose Religious conversions
 They rule 1999 to 2004 and 2014 to till date
 2019 Laksabha elections won 303 seats.
 BJP Leads the NDA (National Democratic Alliance)

12.Communist Party of India and Communist Party of India – Marxist


 Communist Party of India was formed in 1925 – Secured 1% of vote and 2
seats in 2019 loksabha elections
 Communist Party of India – Marxist formed in 1964 – Secured 1.75% of votes
and 3 seats in loksabha elections.
Policy:
 Communist parties are leftist party.
 They are secularist
 They against of communalism.
 Communist parties oppose the New Economic policies and Foreign Direct
Investment.
 These parties has vote bank in Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura.
13.Nationalist Congress Party
 This party was formed in 1999 by Sharath Bhawar.
 This party is a secular party.
 They believe in Gandhian secularism, Federalism.
 They have a policy that only Indian origin people should hold high office.
 They have vote bank in Maharashtra, and North Eastern States.
 The party secured 1.5% of votes and 5 seats in 2019 loksabha elections.
Affidavit: A signed document submitted to an officer, where a person makes a
sworn statement regarding her personal information.
Ruling party: Political party that runs government
Partisan: A person who is strongly committed to a party, group or faction.
Partisanship is marked by a tendency to take a side and inability to take a balanced
view on an issue.
=======================================================================

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5.Outcomes of Democracy
1.Why democracy is better than other forms of government?
 Promotes equality among the citizens
 Enhances the dignity of the individual
 Improves the quality of decision making
 Provides a method to restore conflicts
 Allows room to correct mistakes
2.When people blame democracy?
 If some of our expectations are not met, we start blaming the idea of
democracy.
 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/Response
 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.
 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
 Democratic governments are accountable to the people but we cannot expect
this from non democratic systems.
 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/Legitimate
 In non democratic countries holding regular election nearly impossible even
though elections conducted the fairness will not be there.
 Ex: Military rule of Myanmer denied the victory of Aung Sun Su Ki in the
elections.

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 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
 Public expression of dissatisfaction is not possible in the non-democratic
countries.
 Debates never encourages in that system, authoritative rulers try to implement
their decisions, whereas 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


 Democracy is not an 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.
 Little bit of difference exist, it can be acceptable because the people in
democratic systems enjoy more privileges then others.
Observe the following data showing Growth Rate of Countries 1950 - 2000
 All democratic regimes achieved the growth of 3.95 %
 All nondemocratic regimes achieved the growth of 4.45%
 Poor countries under dictatorship 4.34%
 Poor countries under democracy 4.28%

8.Reduction of inequality and poverty:


 Democratic countries are not much successful in reduction of inequality and
poverty.
 Democracies are based on political equality.
 we find growing economic inequalities .
 Small number of ultra rich has plenty of wealth and large section of people
shares very little.
 Countries like Bangladesh nearly half of countries population is under poverty
line.
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 Countries  Top 20 %  Bottom 20%
 South Africa  68%  2.9%
 USA  50%  4%
 UK  45%  6%

9.Accomodation of social diversity


 The democratic systems are best suited to produce this outcome. Non
democratic systems try to suppress the minorities.
 The democratic systems not only accommodate the social differences but
appreciate the social differences.
 Democratic systems have the ability to handle the social differences in a better
manner than the non democratic governments.
 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.
 (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
 Democracies stand 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.
 There the guaranty through the constitution for the weaker section of the
society. The violations will be considered as the crime.
 Dignity of women, protect of minority religions and SC/ST people in India are
now protected through the constitution.
 There is legal base for them to protect their rights if they think that their rights
are denied.
 We made many laws to protect the dignity of every citizen. Ex: Eve Teasing Act,
Domestic violence Act, SC/ST act etc.,

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11.Examination never gets over in democracies
 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.
 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.
 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.
 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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All the Best

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