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D.politics - 2024 - 25 Study Material
D.politics - 2024 - 25 Study Material
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.
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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
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.
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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.
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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.
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.
10.What is decentralization?
When power is taken away from the Central and State governments and given to
the Local government is called decentralization.
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The State government need to share its power and money to the local
government.
Local
Government
Rural Urban
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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
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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.
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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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