Democratic Politics Ii Chapter 4 Gender, Religion And Caste

(i) Sexual division of labour at home and public places.
(ii) Gender bias in distribution of income or remuneration.
(iii) Gender bias in share of patriarchal or ancestral property.
(iv) In the field of education and political representation.

Caste inequalities are still continuing in India through:
(i)Hereditary occupational division 
(ii)Marriages within the caste group
(iii)Exclusion of and discrimination against the 'outcast' groups

The reasons are :
(i) No parliamentary constituency in the country has a clear majority of one single caste.
(ii)Sitting MP or MLA frequently lose election in our country. That could not have happened if all caste and communities were frozen in their in their political preferences.

The percentage of elected women members  in Lok Sabha crossed 10% of its total strenght for the first time in 2009. Their share in state assemblies is less than 5 percent .
In the goverment, Cabinets are largely all male -even when women become the Chief Ministers or Prime Minister.

Following constitutional provisions make India a secular state:
(i) The Constitution provides for all individuals and communities freedom to profess, practise and propagate any religion or not to follow any.

(ii) There is no official religion in India. The Constitution prohibits discrimina-tion on grounds of religion.

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54%

The following methods should be followed to remove the inequality between men and women in India:

(i)Equal amount of resources should be spent on girl's education.
(ii) Equal remuneration should be paid for equal works.
(iii)Sex selective abortion should be stopped.

Boys and girls are brought up to believe that the main responsibility of women is housework and bringing up children. This is reflected in a sexual division of labour in most families. Women do all work inside the home such as cooking, cleaning, washing clothes, tailoring, looking after children, etc., and men do work outside the home. It is not that men cannot do house work; they simply think that it is for women to attend to these things.

The following factors are responsible for poor and miserable conditions of women in India:

(i) Illiteracy: Even after the independence of 62 years the female illiteracy rate in our country is 54% only. Smaller popuation of girl students go for higher studies.

(ii)Low sex ratio: Preference of boy over girl has led sex selective abortion. 

(iii) Lack of representation in politics: Even after constituting half of the country's population, women have lower representation in Parliament and State Assemblies.

The steps are:

(i) Female infanticide has been made a criminal ofence. 
(ii)The equal remuneration Act,1976 has been passed.
(iii) Under the Panchayati Raj system in India, one-third seats in the Panchayats and Municipalities have been reserved for the women.

(i) The religious diversity or difference means the social division based on religion. This division is not as universal as gender but is fairly widespread in the world today.
(ii) Many countries including India have in their population, followers of different religions. The diverse religious groups of India are — Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Buddhist, Jain, etc.

The provisions are:
(i) Unlike Buddhism in Sri Lanka or Islam in Pakistan, our Constitution does not give a special status to any religion.
(ii) The Constitution provides to all individuals and communities freedom to profess, practice and propagate any religion or not to follow any.
(iii) The Constitution prohibits discrimination on the grounds of religion.
(iv) The Constitution allows the State to intervene in the matters of religion in order to ensure equality within religious communities. For example, it bans untouchability 

Regional imbalances have greatly affected Indian democracy in following ways:

(i) Regional imbalances generate a psychological effects among the people of different regions. People belonging to various regions breed an attitude where they lay much stress on regional interests setting aside the national interest.

(ii)The voters cast their votes under the illusion of regionalism that too without any thought on national interest. Regionalism imposing a great threat to India's unity and it should be discarded for national security.

They are:
(i)It is based on the exclusion of and discrimination against the outcaste groups.
(ii)It is hereditary occupational division sanctioned by rituals.
(iii)One of the manifestation of the caste inequality is the practice of untouchability.

The reasons are:
(ii) In Indian caste system, the occupation was hereditary and was sanctioned by ritual. 
(ii) Indian caste system was based on exclusion of and discrimination against the ‘outcaste’ group.
(iii) Untouchability is prevalent

The movements which are aimed to provide equal rights and opportunities for men and women in all domains .
The social reformers were: Jotiba Phule, M.K. Gandhi and Dr. B.R. Ambedkar.

Because it diverts attention from other pressing issues like poverty, development and corruption. Both this two create division in the society on the basis of religion and caste which results in perpetrated violence against opposite camps.

Politics too influences the caste system and caste identities by bringing them into the political arena. Thus, it is not the politics that get caste-ridden, it is the caste that get politicised. Politics in caste takes the following forms:

(i) Each caste tries to widen its base to gain majority. Each caste group tries to become bigger by incorporating within it the neighbouring castes or sub-castes which were earlier excluded from it.

(ii)  Various caste groups are required to enter into a coalition with other castes or communities, and thus enter into a dialogue and negotiation. 

(iii) New kinds of caste groups have came up in the political arena like ‘backward’ and ‘forward’ caste groups.

The Government of India has taken the following three steps to remove illiteracy from India:
(i) The primary education has been made free and compulsory throughout the country.
(ii) Mid day meal scheme has been launched in schools to bring down drop rate.
(iii) Adult education centres have been setup to make the grown-ups literate in the largest possible numbers (Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan).

(i) The social inequality is based on caste. In such a society, the people belonging to the higher caste discriminate against the people of lower castes.
(ii) The economic inequality in the society means that some people in the society are very rich and most of the people are very poor. In this type of society the rich exploit the poor.

Women face disadvantage, discrimination and oppression in various ways:

(i)The literacy rate among women is only 54 per cent as compared to 76 per cent among men. This is because women are deprived of an equal access to education as the males in the society. Even a very small percentage of girls go for higher education and drop-out rate is also higher among the girls.

(ii)Proportion of women in highly paid jobs is very small. On an average Indian woman works an hours more than a man. Yet much of her work is not paid and therefore often not valued.

(iii)The preference to male child over the female child has led to sex selective abortion. This has lowered sex ratio in India.

(iv)Women are exploited and harassed at the workplace and at home. These are cases of harassment, exploitation in the urban areas as well. They are even subjected to domestic violence at homes.

The aspects are:
(1) For education, lesser resources are spent by parents on girl child. Thus, literacy among women is 54 per cent compared to 76 per cent among men. Similarly, a small proportion of girl students go for higher studies.

(2) The proportion of women among the highly paid and valuable jobs is still very small. Yet much of her work is not paid and, therefore, often not valued. On an average, an Indian women work one hour more than an average man every day.

(3) In many parts of India, parents prefer to have sons and find ways to have the girl child aborted before she is born, such sex-selective abortion led to a decline in child sex ratio.

(i) Women started to organize themselves in different parts of the world and demanded equal rights and extension of voting rights to women.
(ii) They organized movements so that more and more legal, educational and career opportunities could be given to them.
(iii) Many radical feminist movements were also started aimed at equality in personal and family life as well.

With the help of all these activities women were able to achieve gender equality.

The role played by women are:
(i) Women do all work inside the home such as cooking, cleaning, washing clothes, tailoring, looking after children etc.

(ii) In villages, women fetch water, collect fuel and work in the fields.

(iii) In urban areas, poor women work as domestic helper in middle class homes, while middle class women work in offices.

(iv) Now women are working as scientists, doctors, engineers, lawyers, managers and college and university teachers which were earlier not considered suitable for women.

The considerations are:
(i)According to Gandhiji 'Religion can never be separated from politics.' Here he meant by religion not a particular religion like Hinduism, or Islam but moral values that found in all religions.
Gandhiji believed the politics must be guided by ethics drawn from religion.

(ii)Human rights groups in our country have argued that most of the victims of communal riots are people from religious minorities. They have demanded that the government takes special steps to protect religious minorities.

(iii)Women's movement has argued that family laws of all religions discriminate against women. So they have demanded that government should change these laws to make them more equitable.

3.unequal roles assigned by the society to men and women

3.Secularlism

4.All of these

4.Caste has not dissappeared from contemporary India.

3.Patriachy

1.Sri Lanka

2.Some one who believes in equal rights and oppurtunities for women and men

4.All of the above

1.Scandinavian countries

2.Secular

3.Mahatama Gandhi

Feminist

(a) There is no official religion of India.
(b)The family laws are not same for all religions in India. In our country, different family laws apply to followers of different religions.

The Constitution of India has the following provisions to freedom of religion in the country:
1. There is no official religion for the Indian state. 
2. The constitution provides to all individuals and communities freedom to progress, practice and propagate any religion, or right to follow anyone.
3. The constitution prohibits discrimination on the grounds of religion.
4. At the same time, the constitution allows the state to intervene in the matters of religion in order to ensure equality within religious communities.