Class 6-7-8-9-10-11 - 12 Political Science

CHAPTER-1 : CLASS-6 : POLITICAL SCIENCE
● “Jana Gana Mana” was translated by Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore from Bengali to English in
February 1919 at Madanapalle in the District of Chittoor.
● Inequality comes about when a person does not have the resources and opportunities that are
available to other persons.
● The caste system is another example of inequality.
● India is a country of many diversities. We speak different languages, have various types of food,
celebrate different festivals, practise different religions.
● In Manipur women wear a phanek.
● In Jharkhand many adivasis say “johar” to greet each other.
● Historical and geographical factors influence the diversity of a region.
● Ladakh is a desert in the mountains in the east of Jammu and Kashmir. Very little agriculture is
possible here since this region does not receive any rain and is covered in snow for a large part
of the year. There are very few trees that can grow in the region. For drinking water, people
depend on the melting snow during the summer months. People here keep sheep and goats.
● Pashmina shawls are chiefly woven in Kashmir.
● dzos (yak-cows).
● Ladakh had many passes through which caravans travelled to what is today called Tibet. These
caravans carried textiles and spices, raw silk and carpets.
● Buddhism reached Tibet via Ladakh. Ladakh is also called Little Tibet.
● Islam was introduced in this region more than four hundred years ago and there is a significant
Muslim population here.
● Ladakh has a very rich oral tradition of songs and poems.
● Local versions of the Tibetan national epic the Kesar Saga are performed and sung by both
Muslims and Buddhists.
● Kerala is a state in the south-west corner of India. It is surrounded by the sea on one side and
hills on the other. A number of spices like pepper, cloves and cardamoms are grown on the hills.
It is spices that made this region an attractive place for traders.
● Jewish and Arab traders were the first to come here. The Apostle of Christ, St. Thomas is
believed to have come here nearly 2000 years ago and he is credited with bringing Christianity
to India.
● Many Arab traders also came and settled down here. Ibn Battuta, who travelled here a little less
than seven hundred years ago, wrote a travelogue in which he describes the lives of Muslims and
says that they were a highly respected community.
● Because of all these various historical influences, people in Kerala practise different religions
such as Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism.
● The fishing nets used here look exactly like the Chinese fishing nets and are called cheena-vala.
● Even the utensil used for frying is called the cheenachatti, and it is believed that the word cheen
could have come from China.
● The fertile land and climate are suited to growing rice and a majority of people here eat rice, fish
and vegetables.
● THE BOAT RACE IS AN IMPORTANT PART OF THE ‘ONAM’ FESTIVAL CELEBRATED IN
KERALA.
● While Kerala and Ladakh are quite different in terms of their geographical features, the history
of both regions has seen similar cultural influences. Both regions were influenced by Chinese
and Arab traders.
● In his book The Discovery of India Jawaharlal Nehru says that Indian unity is not something
imposed from the outside but rather, “It was something deeper and within its fold, the widest
tolerance of belief and custom was practised and every variety acknowledged and even
encouraged.”
● It was Nehru, who coined the phrase, “unity in diversity” to describe the country.
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● Therefore, poverty, not religion, is the cause for non-attendance of Muslim girls in school.
● Koregaon which is now in Maharashtra.
● DR. BHIM RAO AMBEDKAR (1891-1956) was born into the Mahar caste.
● Later in life he converted to Buddhism in his search for a religion that treated all members
equally.
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● Some examples of institutions that are part of the government: The Supreme Court, The Indian
Railways and Bharat Petroleum.
● MAPS : PAGE-5 & PAGE-6.
● American women got the right to vote in 1920 while women in the UK got to vote on the same
terms as men some years later, in 1928.
● Journal “Young India” by LALA LAJPAT RAI & M.K. GANDHI.
FIND OUT
● Names of the neighbours of India ?
● Names of your State or Union Territory and its neighbours ?
● Names of your District and its neighbours.
● Routes from your District to the National Capital.
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● Apartheid means separation on the basis of race.

● ZULU- A LANGUAGE (AFRICAN).
● Cauvery water dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
● The water stored in Krishna Raja Sagara dam in Karnataka is used for irrigating a number of
districts and for meeting the needs of the city of Bengaluru.
● The water stored in Mettur dam in Tamil Nadu is used for crops grown in the delta region of that
state.
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● The Gram Sabha is a meeting of all adults who live in the area covered by a Panchayat.
This could be only one village or a few villages. In some states, as in the example above,
a village meeting is held for each village. Anyone who is 18 years old or more and who
has the right to vote is a member of the Gram Sabha.
● Every village Panchayat is divided into wards, i.e. smaller areas. Each ward elects a
representative who is known as the Ward Member (Panch).
● All the members of the Gram Sabha also elect a Sarpanch who is the Panchayat
President.
● The Ward Panchs and the Sarpanch form the Gram Panchayat. The Gram Panchayat is
elected for five years.
● The Gram Panchayat has a Secretary who is also the Secretary of the Gram Sabha.This
person is not an elected person but is appointed by the government.
● The Secretary is responsible for calling the meeting of the Gram Sabha and Gram
Panchayat and keeping a record of the proceedings.
● Panchayati Raj is a three-tier system; consisting of ;
○ District Panchayat / ZILA PARISHAD
○ Janpad Panchayat / PANCHAYAT SAMITI
○ GRAM PANCHAYAT
● The GRAM PANCHAYAT is further divided into ; GRAM SABHA & NYAYA PANCHAYAT.
● THE PANCHAYATI RAJ SYSTEM WAS CONSTITUTIONALIZED THROUGH THE 73rd
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT ACT OF 1992 WHICH CAME INTO EFFECT ON APRIL 24,
1993.
● The Gram Sabha is a key factor in making the Gram Panchayat play its role and be responsible.
It is the place where all plans for the work of the Gram Panchayat are placed before the people.
● The Gram Sabha prevents the Panchayat from doing wrong things like misusing money or
favouring certain people. It plays an important role in keeping an eye on the elected
representatives and in making them responsible to the persons who elected them.
● The work of the Gram Panchayat has to be approved by the Gram Sabha.
● In some states, Gram Sabhas form committees like construction and development committees.
These committees include some members of the Gram Sabha and some from the Gram
Panchayat who work together to carry out specific tasks.
● The work of a Gram Panchayat includes ;
○ 1. The construction and maintenance of water sources, roads, drainage, school buildings
and other common property resources.
○ 2. Levying and collecting local taxes.
○ 3. Executing government schemes related to generating employment in the village.
● Sources of funds for the Panchayat ;
Collection of taxes on houses, market places etc.
Government scheme funds received through various departments of the government –
through the Janpad and Zila Panchayats.
Donations for community works etc.
● The Zila Parishad actually makes developmental plans at the district level. With the help of
Panchayat Samitis, it also regulates the money distribution among all the Gram Panchayats.
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● The Patwari is known by different names in different states - in some villages such officers are
called Lekhpal, in others Kanungo or Karamchari or Village Officer etc.
● The subdivisions of a district are known by different names such as tehsil, taluka, etc.
● The Tehsildar’s office is where land disputes are also heard.
● (Hindu Succession Amendment Act, 2005) ;
○ In the new law ‘sons, daughters and their mothers in Hindu families can get an equal
share in the land’.
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● The city is divided into different wards and ward councillors get elected.
● While the Councillor’s Committees and the councillors decide on issues, the Commissioner and
the administrative staff implement these.
● The Commissioner and the administrative staff are appointed. Councillors are elected.
● The city of Surat had a plague scare in 1994. Surat was one of the dirtiest cities in India.
● The Government of India launched the Swachh Bharat Mission on 2 October 2014 to promote
cleanliness in both rural and urban areas all over the nation.
● Under the “Swachh Bharat, Swachh Vidyalaya” campaign, many activities are also being carried
out in schools to generate awareness on sanitation and hygiene amongst students.
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● Kalpattu is a village that’s close to the sea coast in Tamil Nadu.

● Terrace Farming in Nagaland : This is a village called Chizami which is in Phek district in
Nagaland. The people of this village belong to the Chakhesang community. They do ‘terrace’
cultivation.
● This means that the land on a hill slope is made into flat plots and carved out in steps. The
sides of each plot are raised in order to retain water. This allows water to stand in the field,
which is best for rice cultivation.
● The people of Chizami have their own individual fields. But, they also work collectively in
each other’s fields. They form groups of six or eight and take an entire mountainside to
clean the weeds on it.
● Pudupet, a village close to Kalpattu.
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● Profits for Permanent Workers 😀

○ Medical facilities.
○ Old age Pension : Savings for Old Age.
○ Holidays.
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REFERENCES :
● CHAPTER - 3 : PAGE 5 & PAGE 6 : 2 MAPS.
● CHAPTER - 5 : KEYWORD :
○ 1) WATERSHED DEVELOPMENT
○ 2) BLOCK DEVELOPMENT OFFICER (BDO)
● CHAPTER - 6 : HINDU SUCCESSION AMENDMENT ACT, 2005.
● CHAPTER - 7 : MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS.
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● Dalit means ‘Broken’.

● OMPRAKASH VALMIKI (1950-2013) WAS A FAMOUS DALIT WRITER. IN HIS
AUTOBIOGRAPHY “JOOTHAN” , HE WROTE ABOUT THE INEQUALITIES HE FACED IN HIS
SCHOOL TIME.
● WHEN THE PERSONS ARE TREATED UNEQUALLY , THEIR DIGNITY IS VIOLATED.
● EVERY PERSON IS EQUAL BEFORE THE LAW.
● NO PERSON CAN BE DISCRIMINATED AGAINST ON THE BASIS OF THEIR RELIGION, RACE,
CASTE, PLACE OF BIRTH OR WHETHER THEY ARE FEMALE OR MALE.
● EVERY PERSON HAS ACCESS TO ALL PUBLIC PLACES, INCLUDING PLAYGROUNDS, HOTELS,
SHOPS, & MARKETS. ALL PERSONS CAN USE PUBLICLY AVAILABLE WELLS, ROADS, &
BATHING GHATS.
● UNTOUCHABILITY HAS BEEN ABOLISHED.
● TAMIL NADU WAS THE FIRST STATE TO START THE MID-DAY MEAL SCHEME.
● IN 2001, THE SUPREME COURT ASKED ALL STATE GOVERNMENTS TO BEGIN THIS
PROGRAMME IN THEIR SCHOOLS WITHIN 6 MONTHS.
● RIGHTS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES ACT, 2016.
● CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT : A MOVEMENT THAT BEGAN IN USA IN 1950s IN WHICH
AFRICAN-AMERICAN PEOPLE DEMANDED EQUAL RIGHTS & AN END TO RACIAL
DISCRIMINATION.
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●
● REGISTERED MEDICAL PRACTITIONER (RMP).
● SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL (SDG).
● OPD : THIS IS THE SHORT FORM FOR “OUT PATIENT DEPARTMENT”. THIS IS WHERE
PEOPLE ARE FIRST BROUGHT IN & TREATED IN A HOSPITAL WITHOUT BEING ADMITTED
TO ANY SPECIAL WARD.
● GENERIC NAMES : THESE ARE CHEMICAL NAMES OF THE DRUGS. THEY HELP IN
IDENTIFYING THE INGREDIENTS. THEY ARE GLOBALLY RECOGNIZED. FOR EXAMPLE :
ACETYL SALICYLIC ACID IS THE GENERIC NAME OF ‘ASPIRIN’.
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● A POLITICAL PARTY WHOSE MLAs HAVE WON MORE THAN HALF THE NUMBER OF
CONSTITUENCIES IN A STATE CAN BE IN A MAJORITY. THE POLITICAL PARTY THAT HAS
THE MAJORITY IS CALLED THE “RULING PARTY”, & ALL OTHER MEMBERS ARE CALLED
“THE OPPOSITION”.
● THE HEAD OF THE STATE IS THE GOVERNOR. SHE/HE IS APPOINTED BY THE CENTRAL
GOVERNMENT TO ENSURE THAT THE STATE GOVERNMENT WORKS WITHIN THE RULES &
REGULATIONS OF THE CONSTITUTION.
● IN COMMON USAGE THE WORD ‘GOVERNMENT’ REFERS TO “GOVERNMENT
DEPARTMENTS” , & VARIOUS ‘MINISTRIES’ WHO HEAD THEM.
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● The Samoan islands are part of a large group of small islands in the southern part of the Pacific
Ocean.
● CENTRAL STATISTICAL ORGANIZATION OF INDIA.
● Crèche : A place where small children are looked after while their parents are working,
shopping, etc.
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● RAMABAI GOT THE TITLE OF “PANDITA” FOR HER SPECIAL EXCELLENCE IN SANSKRIT.
● RASHSUNDARI DEVI (1800-1890), WHO WAS BORN IN WEST BENGAL, AT THE AGE OF
60, SHE WROTE HER AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN BANGLA. HER BOOK TITLED “AMAR JIBAN”
IS THE FIRST KNOWN AUTOBIOGRAPHY WRITTEN BY AN INDIAN WOMAN.
● ROKEYA SAKHAWAT HOSSAIN (1880-1932) WROTE “SULTANA’S DREAM” IN 1905.
● THE VISHAKA GUIDELINES WERE A SET OF PROCEDURAL GUIDELINES FOR USE IN
INDIA IN CASES OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT. THEY WERE PROMULGATED BY THE
INDIAN SUPREME COURT IN 1997 & WERE SUPERSEDED IN 2013 BY THE SEXUAL
HARASSMENT OF WOMEN AT WORKPLACE (PREVENTION, PROHIBITION &
REDRESSAL) ACT.
● INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY : 8th MARCH.
● WOMEN’S MOVEMENT :
○ CAMPAIGNING
○ RAISING AWARENESS
○ PROTESTING
○ SHOWING SOLIDARITY
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● Kurnool : Andhra Pradesh.

● Cotton from farm to consumer :-
○ The trader sells the cotton at the Kurnool cotton market.
○ Ginning mill buys the cotton.
○ Ginning mill removes the seeds & presses the cotton into bales.
○ Spinning mill buys the bales.
○ Spinning mill spins the cotton into yarn.
○ Spinning mill sells the yarn to yarn dealers.
● Erode’s bi-weekly cloth market in Tamil Nadu is one of the largest cloth markets in the
world.
● Putting-Out-System — Here the merchant supplies the Raw Material to the weaver &
receives the finished product.
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● Poverty & Lack of Resources continue to be a key reason why so many people’s lives in India
are highly unequal.
● Discrimination on the basis of a Person’s Religion, caste & sex is another significant factor
for why people are treated unequally in India.
● Tawa Matsya Sangh (Madhya Pradesh) : An Organization fighting for the rights of the
displaced forest dwellers of the Satpura forest in Madhya Pradesh.
● Originating in the Mahadeo hills of Chhindwara district, the Tawa flows through Betul,
before joining the Narmada in Hoshangabad. The Tawa dam began to be built in 1958 and
was completed in 1978. It submerged large areas of forest and agricultural land. The forest
dwellers were left with nothing. Some of the displaced people settled around the reservoir
and apart from their meagre farms found a livelihood in fishing. They earned very little.
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● INTER-COMMUNITY-DOMINATION V/S INTRA-COMMUNITY-DOMINATION.
👍
● B.R. AMBEDKAR IS KNOWN AS THE FATHER OF INDIAN CONSTITUTION.
● KEY FEATURES OF INDIAN CONSTITUTION :-
○ FEDERALISM
○ PARLIAMENTARY FORM OF GOVERNMENT
○ UNIVERSAL ADULT SUFFRAGE
○ SEPARATION OF POWERS
○ FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS
● The Fundamental Rights in the Indian Constitution include:
○ 1. Right to Equality: All persons are equal before the law. This means that all persons
shall be equally protected by the laws of the country. It also states that no citizen can
be discriminated against on the basis of their religion, caste or sex. Every person has
access to all public places including playgrounds, hotels, shops etc. The State cannot
discriminate against anyone in matters of employment. But there are exceptions to
this. The practice of untouchability has also been abolished.
○ 2. Right to Freedom: This includes the right to freedom of speech and expression,
the right to form associations, the right to move freely and reside in any part of the
country, and the right to practise any profession, occupation or business.
○ 3. Right against Exploitation: The Constitution prohibits human trafficking, forced
labour, and employment of children under 14 years of age.
○ 4. Right to Freedom of Religion: Religious freedom is provided to all citizens. Every
person has the right to practise, profess and propagate the religion of their choice.
○ 5. Cultural and Educational Rights: The Constitution states that all minorities,
religious or linguistic, can set up their own educational institutions in order to
preserve and develop their own culture.
○ 6. Right to Constitutional Remedies: This allows citizens to move the court if they
believe that any of their Fundamental Rights have been violated by the State.
○ MINISTER & MINISTRIES ALLOTTED TO THEM (24 JANUARY 1950) :-
■ PRIME MINISTER : J.L. NEHRU.
■ PRESIDENT : RAJENDRA PRASAD.
■ MINISTER FOR FOOD & AGRICULTURE : SHRI JAIRAMDAS DAULATRAM
■ HEALTH MINISTER : RAJKUMARI AMRIT KAUR.
■ FINANCE MINISTER : DR JOHN MATHAI.
■ DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER : SARDAR VALLABH BHAI PATEL
■ LABOUR MINISTER : SHRI JAGJIVAN RAM.
● Arbitrary: When nothing is fixed and is instead left to one’s judgement or choice. This can be
used to refer to rules that are not fixed, or decisions that have no basis etc.
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● What is Indian Secularism?

● The Indian Constitution mandates that the Indian State be secular. According to the
Constitution, only a secular State can realise its objectives to ensure the following:
● 1. that one religious community does not dominate another;
● 2. that some members do not dominate other members of the same religious community;
● 3. that the State does not enforce any particular religion nor take away the religious freedom of
individuals.
● Coercion: To force someone to do something. In the context of this chapter, it refers to the force
used by a legal authority like the State.
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● The Parliament, while in Session, begins with a Question Hour.

● The National Plan of Action for Children 2016 categorizes children's rights under four key
priority areas;
○ (i) Survival, Health and Nutrition,
○ (ii) Education and Development,
○ (iii) Protection and
○ (iv) Participation.
● It identifies key programmes, schemes and policies as well as stakeholders for the
implementation of different strategies.
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● The Rowlatt act came into effect on 10 March 1919.

● DR SATYAPAL & DR SAIFUDDIN KITCHLEW WERE ARRESTED, DURING PROTEST IN
PUNJAB.
● SEDITION ACT 1870 : ANY PERSON PROTESTING OR CRITICISING THE BRITISH
GOVERNMENT COULD BE ARRESTED WITHOUT DUE TRIAL.
● THERE ARE 17 SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (SDGs).
● THE PROTECTION OF WOMEN FROM DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ACT CAME INTO EFFECT IN
2006.
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● ARTICLE 21 WHICH PROVIDES EVERY CITIZEN THE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT TO LIFE

ALSO INCLUDES RIGHT TO HEALTH.
● THE ABOVE WAS AN OUTCOME OF (PASCHIM BANGA KHET MAZDOOR SAMITY V/S
STATE OF WEST BENGAL ,1996).
● HIGH COURTS WERE FIRST ESTABLISHED IN THREE PRESIDENCIES OF CALCUTTA,
BOMBAY, & MADRAS IN 1862.THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI CAME UP IN 1966.
● CURRENTLY THERE ARE 25 HIGH COURTS.
● PUNJAB & HARYANA SHARE A COMMON HIGH COURT AT CHANDIGARH.
● ASSAM, NAGALAND, MIZORAM, & ARUNACHAL PRADESH HAVE A COMMON HIGH
COURT AT GUWAHATI.
● ANDHRA PRADESH (AMARAVATI) & TELANGANA (HYDERABAD) HAVE SEPARATE HIGH
COURTS FROM 1 JANUARY 2019.
● The Subordinate court is more commonly known by many different names. These include the
Trial Court or the Court of the District Judge, the Additional Sessions Judge, Chief Judicial
Magistrate, Metropolitan Magistrate, Civil Judge.
● Public Interest Litigation (PIL) : INTRODUCED IN 1980s.
● ARTICLE 21 OF THE CONSTITUTION ON THE RIGHT TO LIFE TO INCLUDE THE RIGHT TO
FOOD.
● The judgement of the Olga Tellis vs Bombay Municipal Corporation established the Right to
Livelihood as part of the Right to Life.
● Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014.
● Acquit: This refers to the court declaring that a person is not guilty of the crime which he/she
was tried for by the court.
●
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● According to Article 22 of the Constitution, every person has a Fundamental Right to be defended by
a lawyer. Article 39A of the Constitution places a duty upon the State to provide a lawyer to any
citizen who is unable to engage one due to poverty or other disability.
● Cognizable: In the context of this chapter this refers to an offence for which the police may arrest a
person without the permission of the court.
● Detention: In the context of this chapter this refers to the act of being kept in illegal custody by the
police.
● Article 22 of the Constitution and criminal law guarantee to every arrested person the following
Fundamental Rights:
○ The Right to be informed at the time of arrest of the offence for which the person is being
arrested.
○ The Right to be presented before a magistrate within 24 hours of arrest.
○ The Right not to be ill treated or tortured during arrest or in custody.
○ Confessions made in police custody cannot be used as evidence against the accused.
○ A boy under 15 years of age and women cannot be called to the police station only for
questioning.
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● Niyamgiri hill located in Kalahandi district of Odisha. This area is inhabited by Dongarra
konds, an Adivasi community.
● Sachar Committee Report :-
Recognising that Muslims in India were lagging behind in terms of various development
indicators, the government set up a high-level committee in 2005. Chaired by Justice Rajindar
Sachar, the committee examined the social, economic and educational status of the Muslim
community in India. The report discusses in detail the marginalisation of this community. It
suggests that on a range of social, economic and educational indicators the situation of the
Muslim community is comparable to that of other marginalised communities like Scheduled
Castes and Scheduled Tribes. For example, according to the Report the average years of
schooling for Muslim children between the ages of 7-16 is much lower than that of other socio-
religious communities.
● Ghettoisation: A ghetto is an area or locality that is populated largely by members of a particular
community. Ghettoisation refers to the process that leads to such a situation. This may occur
due to various social, cultural and economic reasons. Fear or hostility may also compel a
community to group together as they feel more secure living amongst their own. Often a
‘ghettoised’ community has few options of moving out, which may lead to them becoming
alienated from the rest of the society.
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● The term Dalit, which means ‘broken’ is used deliberately and actively by groups to highlight the
centuries of discrimination they have experienced within the caste system.
● Soyrabai, the wife of the well-known Bhakti poet Chokhamela from fourteenth century Maharashtra.
They belonged to the Mahar caste, which was at that time considered untouchable.
● SCHEDULED CASTES AND THE SCHEDULED TRIBES (PREVENTION OF ATROCITIES) ACT,
1989.
● Kabir was a fifteenth century poet and weaver who also belonged to the Bhakti tradition.
● Manual scavengers in different parts of the country, the Bhangis in Gujarat, Pakhis in Andhra
Pradesh and the Sikkaliars in Tamil Nadu.
● In 1993, the government passed the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry
Latrines (Prohibition) Act. This law prohibits the employment of manual scavengers as well as the
construction of dry latrines.
● In 2003, the Safai Karamchari Andolan and 13 other organisations and individuals, including seven
scavengers, filed a PIL in the Supreme Court. The petitioners complained that manual scavenging
still existed and it continued in government undertakings like the railways. The petitioners sought
enforcement of their Fundamental Rights. The court observed that the number of manual scavengers
in India had increased since the 1993 law. It directed every department/ministry of the union
government and state governments to verify the facts within six months. If manual scavenging was
found to exist, then the government department has to actively take up a time-bound programme for
their liberation and rehabilitation. The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their
Rehabilitation Act came into force on 6 December 2013.
● The Central government passed the Scheduled Tribes & Other Traditional Forest Dwellers
(Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006.
○ The introduction to the final Act states that this Act is meant to undo the historical injustices
meted out to forest dwelling populations by not recognizing their rights to land & resources.
○ This Act recognises their right to homestead, cultivable & grazing land & to non-timber forest
produce.
○ The act also points out that the rights of forest dwellers includes conservation of forests &
bio-diversity.
● C.K. JANU : AN ADIVASI ACTIVIST.
● Ostracise: This means to exclude or banish an individual or a group. In the context of this chapter, it
refers to a social boycott of an individual and his family.
● Morally reprehensible: This refers to an act that violates all norms of decency and dignity that a
society believes in. It usually refers to a hideous and repugnant act that goes against all the values
that a society has accepted.
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● THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA RECOGNIZES THE RIGHT TO WATER AS BEING A PART OF THE
RIGHT TO LIFE UNDER ARTICLE 21.
● PUBLIC FACILITIES NEED TO BE PROVIDED :
○ WATER, HEALTHCARE, SANITATION, ELECTRICITY, PUBLIC TRANSPORT, SCHOOLS, &
COLLEGES.
● TAXES : CUSTOMS, NON-DEBT CAPITAL RECEIPTS, GST, BORROWINGS & OTHER LIABILITIES,
CORPORATION TAX, NON-TAX REVENUE, UNION EXCISE DUTIES.
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● MINIMUM WAGES ACT.

● NATIONAL CHILD LABOUR PROJECT (NCLP).
● PLATEFORM FOR EFFECTIVE ENFORCEMENT FOR NO CHILD LABOUR (PENCIL).
● IN SUBHASH KUMAR V/S STATE OF BIHAR (1991), THE SUPREME COURT HELD THAT THE
RIGHT TO LIFE IS A FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT UNDER ARTICLE 21 OF THE CONSTITUTION &
IT INCLUDES THE RIGHT TO THE ENJOYMENT OF POLLUTION-FREE WATER & AIR FOR
FULL ENJOYMENT OF LIFE.
● The courts have also ruled to include the right to education and the right to shelter within this
expanded understanding of Article 21.
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● A DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT RULES WITHIN LIMITS SET BY CONSTITUTIONAL LAW &

CITIZENS’ RIGHTS.
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● THE “LONG WALK TO FREEDOM” IS THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF NELSON MANDELA.

● As far back as in 1928, Motilal Nehru and eight other Congress leaders drafted a
constitution for India. In 1931, the resolution at the Karachi session of the Indian National
Congress dwelt on how independent India's constitution should look like. Both these
documents were committed to the inclusion of universal adult franchise, right to freedom
and equality and to protecting the rights of minorities in the constitution of independent
India. Thus some basic values were accepted by all leaders much before the Constituent
Assembly met to deliberate on the Constitution.
● Vallabhbhai Jhaverbhai Patel (1875-1950) born: Gujarat. Minister of Home, Information and
Broadcasting in the Interim Government. Lawyer and leader of Bardoli peasant satyagraha.
Played a decisive role in the integration of the Indian princely states. Later: Deputy Prime
Minister.
● Abul Kalam Azad (1888-1958) born: Saudi Arabia. Educationist, author and theologian;
scholar of Arabic. Congress leader, active in the national movement. Opposed Muslim
separatist politics. Later: Education Minister in the first union cabinet.
● T.T.Krishnamachari (1899-1974) born: Tamil Nadu. Member, Drafting Committee.
Entrepreneur and Congress leader. Later: Finance Minister in the Union Cabinet.
● Rajendra Prasad (1884-1963) born: Bihar. President of the Constituent Assembly. Lawyer,
known for his role in the Champaran satyagraha. Three times the president of Congress.
Later: the first President of India.
● Jaipal Singh (1903-1970) born: Jharkhand. A sportsman and educationist. Captain of the
first national Hockey team. Founder President of Adivasi MahaSabha. Later: founder of
Jharkhand Party.
● H. C. Mookherjee (1887-1956) born: Bengal. Vice-Chairman of the Constituent Assembly.
Reputed author and educationist. Congress leader. Member of All India Christian Council
and Bengal Legislative Assembly. Later: Governor of West Bengal.
● G. Durgabai Deshmukh (1909-1981) born: Andhra Pradesh. Advocate and public activist for
women's emancipation. Founder of Andhra Mahila Sabha. Congress leader. Later: Founder
Chairperson of Central Social Welfare Board.
● Baldev Singh (1901-1961) born: Haryana. A successful entrepreneur and leader of the
Panthic Akali Party in the Punjab Assembly. A nominee of the Congress in the Constituent
Assembly. Later: Defence Minister in the Union Cabinet.
● Kanhaiyalal Maniklal Munshi (1887-1971) born:Gujarat. Advocate, historian and linguist,
Congress leader and Gandhian. Later: Minister in the Union Cabinet. Founder of the
Swatantra Party.
● Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891-1956) born: Madhya Pradesh. Chairman of the Drafting
Committee. Social revolutionary thinker and agitator against caste divisions and caste
based inequalities. Later: Law minister in the first cabinet of post-independence India.
Founder of Republican Party of India.
● Shyama Prasad Mukherjee (1901-1953) born: West Bengal. Minister for Industry and
Supply in the Interim Government. Educationist and lawyer. Active in Hindu Mahasabha.
Later: Founder President of Bharatiya Jan Sangh.
● Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964) born: Uttar Pradesh. Prime Minister of the interim
government. Lawyer and Congress leader. Advocate of socialism, democracy and
anti-imperialism. Later: First Prime Minister of India.
● Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949) born: Andhra Pradesh. Poet, writer and political activist. Among
the foremost women leaders in the Congress. Later: Governor of Uttar Pradesh.
● Somnath Lahiri (1901-1984) born: West Bengal. Writer and editor. Leader of the Communist
Party of India. Later: Member of West Bengal Legislative Assembly.
● ELECTIONS TO THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY WERE HELD IN JULY 1946.
● ITS FIRST MEETING WAS HELD IN DECEMBER 1946.
● THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY THAT WROTE THE INDIAN CONSTITUTION HAD 299
MEMBERS.
● YOUNG INDIA WAS A WEEKLY PAPER OR JOURNAL IN ENGLISH FOUNDED BY LALA
LAJPAT RAI IN 1916 & LATER PUBLISHED BY MAHATMA GANDHI.
__________________________________________________________________________________
● MR. CHAUDHARY DEVI LAL FORMED LOK DAL & STARTED “NYAYA YUDH” (STRUGGLE
FOR JUSTICE) UNDER THE BANNER OF HARYANA SANGHARSH SAMITI.
● HE PROMISED TO WAIVE OF THE LOANS OF THE FARMERS & SMALL BUSINESSMEN IF
HIS PARTY WILL WIN.
● THE STATE HAD BEEN RULED BY A CONGRESS PARTY LED GOVERNMENT SINCE 1982.
● IN 1987 ELECTION, LOK DAL & ITS ALLIES WON 76 OUT OF 90 SEATS IN THE STATE
ASSEMBLY (60+16 SEATS). THE CONGRESS COULD WON ONLY 5 SEATS. DEVI LAL
BECAME THE NEW CHIEF MINISTER.
● ELECTIONS ARE HELD IN ALL CONSTITUENCIES AT THE SAME TIME, EITHER ON THE
SAME DAY OR WITHIN A FEW DAYS. THIS IS CALLED A “GENERAL ELECTION”.
● SOMETIMES ELECTION IS HELD ONLY FOR ONE CONSTITUENCY TO FILL THE
VACANCY CAUSED BY DEATH OR RESIGNATION OF A MEMBER. THIS IS CALLED A
“BY-ELECTION”.
● LOK SABHA SEATS : 412 FOR GENERAL, 84 SEATS RESERVED FOR SCHEDULED CASTES,
47 SEATS RESERVED FOR SCHEDULED TRIBES. AS PER THE ORDER ISSUED BY THE
DELIMITATION COMMISSION IN 2008.
● ONE-THIRD OF THE SEATS ARE RESERVED IN RURAL & URBAN LOCAL BODIES FOR
WOMEN CANDIDATES.
● ELECTION PHOTO IDENTITY CARD (EPIC).
● Every candidate has to make a legal declaration, giving full details of:
■Serious criminal cases pending against the candidate;
■ Details of the assets and liabilities of the candidate and his or her family; and
■ Educational qualifications of the candidate.
This information has to be made public. This provides an opportunity to the voters to make
their decision on the basis of the information provided by the candidates.
● The Congress party led by Indira Gandhi gave the slogan of Garibi Hatao (Remove
poverty) in the Lok Sabha elections of 1971.
● Save Democracy was the slogan given by Janata Party under the leadership of
Jayaprakash Narayan, in the Lok Sabha election held in 1977. The party promised to undo
the excesses committed during the Emergency and restore civil liberties.
● The Left Front used the slogan of Land to the Tiller in the West Bengal Assembly elections
held in 1977.
● 'Protect the Self-Respect of the Telugus' was the slogan used by N. T. Rama Rao, the
leader of the Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh Assembly elections in 1983.
● THE CHIEF ELECTION COMMISSIONER IS APPOINTED BY THE PRESIDENT OF INDIA.
●
__________________________________________________________________________________
● OFFICE MEMORANDUM
● MANDAL COMMISSION – SEBC TO GIVE 27% RESERVATION.
● INDIRA SAWHNEY & OTHER V/S UNION OF INDIA & OTHERS.
● The President is the head of the state and is the highest formal authority in the country.
● The Prime Minister is the head of the government and actually exercises all governmental
powers. He takes most of the decisions in the Cabinet meetings.
● Parliament consists of the President and two Houses, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. The
Prime Minister must have the support of a majority of Lok Sabha members.
● The Government of India had appointed the Second Backward Classes Commission in 1979. It
was headed by B.P. Mandal. Hence it was popularly called the Mandal Commission. It was
asked to determine the criteria to identify the socially and educationally backward classes in
India and recommend steps to be taken for their advancement. The Commission gave its
Report in 1980 and made many recommendations. One of these was that 27 per cent of
government jobs be reserved for the socially and educationally backward classes. The Report
and recommendations were discussed in the Parliament.
● Then came the Lok Sabha election of 1989. In its election manifesto, the Janata Dal promised
that if voted to power, it would implement the Mandal Commission report. The Janata Dal did
form the government after this election. Its leader V. P. Singh became the Prime Minister.
● Several developments took place after that:
○ The President of India in his address to the Parliament announced the intention of the
government to implement the recommendations of the Mandal Commission.
○ On 6 August 1990, the Union Cabinet took a formal decision to implement the
recommendations.
○ Next day Prime Minister V.P. Singh informed the Parliament about this decision through
a statement in both the Houses of Parliament.
○ The decision of the Cabinet was sent to the Department of Personnel and Training. The
senior officers of the Department drafted an order in line with the Cabinet decision and
took the minister's approval. An officer signed the order on behalf of the Union
Government. This was how O.M. No. 36012/31/90 was born on 13 August 1990.
● Some persons and associations opposed to this order filed a number of cases in the courts.
They appealed to the courts to declare the order invalid and stop its implementation. The
Supreme Court of India bunched all these cases together. This case was known as the 'Indira
Sawhney and others Vs Union of India case'. Eleven judges of the Supreme Court heard
arguments of both sides. By a majority, the Supreme Court judges in 1992 declared that this
order of the Government of India was valid. At the same time the Supreme Court asked the
government to modify its original order. It said that well-to- do persons among the backward
classes should be excluded from getting the benefit of reservation.
● Accordingly, the Department of Personnel and Training issued another Office Memorandum
on 8 September 1993. The dispute thus came to an end and this policy has been followed
since then.
● The Prime Minister and the Cabinet are institutions that take all important policy decisions.
● The Civil Servants, working together, are responsible for taking steps to implement the
ministers' decisions.
● The Supreme Court is an institution where disputes between citizens and the government
are finally settled.
● ROLE OF PARLIAMENT :-
● 1 Parliament is the final authority for making laws in any country. This task of law making or
legislation is so crucial that these assemblies are called legislatures. Parliaments all over
the world can make new laws, change existing laws, or abolish existing laws and make new
ones in their place.
● 2 Parliaments all over the world exercise some control over those who run the government.
In some countries like India this control is direct and full. Those who run the government
can take decisions only so long as they enjoy support of Parliament.
● 3 Parliaments control all the money that governments have. In most countries the public
money can be spent only when Parliament sanctions it.
● 4 Parliament is the highest forum of discussion and debate on public issues and national
policy in any country. Parliament can seek information about any matter.
● LOK SABHA :-
● 1 Any ordinary law needs to be passed by both the Houses. But if there is a difference
between the two Houses, the final decision is taken in a joint session in which members of
both the Houses sit together. Because of the larger number of members, the view of the Lok
Sabha is likely to prevail in such a meeting.
● 2 Lok Sabha exercises more powers in money matters. Once the Lok Sabha passes the
budget of the government or any other money related law, the Rajya Sabha cannot reject it.
The Rajya Sabha can only delay it by 14 days or suggest changes in it. The Lok Sabha may
or may not accept these changes.
● 3 Most importantly, the Lok Sabha controls the Council of Ministers. Only a person who
enjoys the support of the majority of the members in the Lok Sabha is appointed the Prime
Minister. If the majority of the Lok Sabha members say they have 'no confidence' in the
Council of Ministers, all ministers including the Prime Minister, have to quit. The Rajya
Sabha does not have this power.
●
●
● EXECUTIVE :-
○ Council of Ministers is the official name for the body that includes all the ministers. It
usually has 60 to 80 Ministers of different ranks.
○ ■ Cabinet Ministers are usually top- level leaders of the ruling party or parties who are
in charge of the major ministries. Usually the Cabinet Ministers meet to take decisions in
the name of the Council of Ministers. Cabinet is thus the inner ring of the Council of
Ministers. It comprises about 25 ministers.
○ ■ Ministers of State with independent charge are usually in-charge of smaller
Ministries. They participate in the Cabinet meetings only when specially invited.
○ ■ Ministers of State are attached to and required to assist Cabinet Ministers.
● All laws and major policy decisions of the government are issued in her name. All major
appointments are made in the name of the President. These include the appointment of the
Chief Justice of India, the Judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts of the states, the
Governors of the states, the Election Commissioners, ambassadors to other countries, etc. All
international treaties and agreements are made in the name of the President. The President is
the supreme commander of the defence forces of India.
● The president, Shri Ram nath kovind administered the oath of office of the Prime minister to
Shri Narendra Modi, at a Swearing-in Ceremony, at Rashtrapati Bhavan on 30 May 2019.
●
● When no party or coalition gets a majority in the Lok Sabha, the President exercises her
discretion. The President appoints a leader who in her opinion can muster majority support
in the Lok Sabha. In such a case, the President can ask the newly appointed Prime Minister
to prove majority support in the Lok Sabha within a specified time.
● Any one can approach the courts if the public interest is hurt by the actions of the
government. This is called public interest litigation. The courts intervene to prevent the
misuse of the government's power to make decisions. They check malpractices on the part
of public officials. That is why the judiciary enjoys a high level of confidence among the
people.
● The Chief Justice of India, Shri Justice J.S. Khehar administered the oath of the office of the
President of India to Shri Ram Nath Kovind, at a swearing-in ceremony in the Central Hall
of Parliament in New Delhi on 25 July 2017.
●
● POLITICAL V/S PERMANENT EXECUTIVE.
__________________________________________________________________________________
● GUANTANAMO BAY : DETENTION CAMP IN CUBA.

● WHAT IS ARCHIPELAGO ?
● RIGHTS ARE REASONABLE CLAIMS OF PERSONS RECOGNIZED BY SOCIETY &
SANCTIONED BY LAW.
● The Constitution says that the government shall not deny to any person in India equality before the
law or the equal protection of the laws. It means that the laws apply in the same manner to all,
regardless of a person's status. This is called the rule of law. Rule of law is the foundation of any
democracy. It means that no person is above the law. There cannot be any distinction between a
political leader, government official and an ordinary citizen.
● BONDED LABOUR V/S BEGAR (FORCED LABOUR).
● IRON ORE MINES IN HOSPET, SANDUR, ILKAL IN KARNATAKA.
●
● The Supreme Court & High Courts have the power to issue directions, orders or writs for the
enforcement of the Fundamental Rights.
● RIGHT TO INFORMATION COMES UNDER RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF THOUGHT &
EXPRESSION.
● RIGHT TO LIFE INCLUDE RIGHT TO FOOD ALSO.
● The Constitution provides many more rights, which may not be Fundamental Rights. For
example the right to property is not a Fundamental Right but it is a constitutional right. Right
to vote in elections is an important constitutional right.
● International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights :- This international
covenant recognises many rights that are not directly a part of the Fundamental Rights in
the Indian Constitution. This has not yet become an international treaty. But human right
activists all over the world see this as a standard of human rights. These include:
○ right to work: opportunity to everyone to earn livelihood by working
○ right to safe and healthy working conditions, fair wages that can provide decent
standard of living for the workers and their families
○ right to adequate standard of living including adequate food, clothing and housing
○ right to social security and insurance
○ right to health: medical care during illness, special care for women during childbirth
and prevention of epidemics
○ right to education: free and compulsory primary education. equal access to higher
education.
● Amnesty International: An international organisation of volunteers who campaign for
human rights. This organisation brings out independent reports on the violation of human
rights all over the world.
● Claim: Demand for legal or moral entitlements a person makes on fellow citizens, society or
the government.
● Covenant: Promise made by individuals, groups or countries to uphold a rule or principle. It
is legally binding on the signatories to the agreement or statement.
● Ethnic group: An ethnic group is a human population whose members usually identify with
each other on the basis of a common ancestry. People of an ethnic group are united by
cultural practices, religious beliefs and historical memories.
● Summon: An order issued by a court asking a person to appear before it.
● Writ: A formal document containing an order of the court to the government issued only by
High Court or the Supreme Court.
__________________________________________________________________________________
● Ethnic: A social division based on shared culture. People belonging to the same ethnic
group believe in their common descent because of similarities of physical type or of culture
or both. They need not always have the same religion or nationality.
● Majoritarianism: A belief that the majority community should be able to rule a country in
whichever way it wants, by disregarding the wishes and needs of the minority.
● Prudential : Based on prudence, or on careful calculation of gains & losses. Prudential
decisions are usually contrasted with decisions based purely on moral considerations.
● WHY POWER SHARING IS DESIRABLE ?

● Firstly, power sharing is good because it helps to reduce the possibility of conflict between
social groups. Since social conflict often leads to violence and political instability, power
sharing is a good way to ensure the stability of political order.
● There is a second, deeper reason why power sharing is good for democracies. Power
sharing is the very spirit of democracy. A democratic rule involves sharing power with those
affected by its exercise, and who have to live with its effects. People have a right to be
consulted on how they are to be governed. A legitimate government is one where citizens,
through participation, acquire a stake in the system.
● Let us call the first set of reasons PRUDENTIAL and the second MORAL. While prudential
reasons stress that power sharing will bring out better outcomes, moral reasons emphasise
the very act of power sharing as valuable.
● DIFFERENT FORMS OF POWER SHARING IN MODERN DEMOCRACIES :
● 1 Power is shared among different organs of government, such as the legislature, executive
and judiciary.
● 2 Power can be shared among governments at different levels - a general government for
the entire country and governments at the provincial or regional level.
● 3 Power may also be shared among different social groups such as the religious and
linguistic groups.
● 4 Power sharing arrangements can also be seen in the way political parties, pressure
groups and movements control or influence those in power.
__________________________________________________________________________________
● Federalism is a system of government in which the power is divided between a central

authority and various constituent units of the country. Usually, a federation has two levels of
government. One is the government for the entire country that is usually responsible for a
few subjects of common national interest. The others are governments at the level of
provinces or states that look after much of the day-to-day administering of their state. Both
these levels of governments enjoy their power independent of the other.
● In this sense, federations are contrasted with unitary governments. Under the unitary
system, either there is only one level of government or the sub-units are subordinate to the
central government. The central government can pass on orders to the provincial or the
local government. But in a federal system, the central government cannot order the state
government to do something. State government has powers of its own for which it is not
answerable to the central government. Both these governments are separately answerable
to the people.
● Let us look at some of the key features of federalism:-
● 1 There are two or more levels (or tiers) of government.
● 2 Different tiers of government govern the same citizens, but each tier has its own
JURISDICTION in specific matters of legislation, taxation and administration.
● 3 The jurisdictions of the respective levels or tiers of government are specified in the
constitution. So the existence and authority of each tier of government is constitutionally
guaranteed.
● 4 The fundamental provisions of the constitution cannot be unilaterally changed by one level of
government. Such changes require the consent of both the levels of government.
● 5 Courts have the power to interpret the constitution and the powers of different levels of
government. The highest court acts as an umpire if disputes arise between different levels of
government in the exercise of their respective powers.
● 6 Sources of revenue for each level of government are clearly specified to ensure its financial
autonomy.
● 7 The federal system thus has dual objectives: to safeguard and promote unity of the country,
while at the same time accommodate regional diversity. Therefore, two aspects are crucial for
the institutions and practice of federalism. Governments at different levels should agree to some
rules of power-sharing. They should also trust that each would abide by its part of the
agreement. An ideal federal system has both aspects · mutual trust and agreement to live
together.
______________________________________________________
● 'Coming together' federations include the USA, Switzerland and Australia. In this first
category of federations, all the constituent States usually have equal power and are strong
vis-à-vis the federal government.
● The second route is where a large country decides to divide its power between the
constituent States and the national government. India, Spain and Belgium are examples of
this kind of 'holding together' federations. In this second category, the central
government tends to be more powerful vis-à-vis the States. Very often different constituent
units of the federation have unequal powers. Some units are granted special powers.
__________________
● THE INDIAN UNION IS BASED ON THE PRINCIPLES OF FEDERALISM.
● The Union List includes subjects of national importance, such as defence of the country,
foreign affairs, banking, communications and currency. They are included in this list
because we need a uniform policy on these matters throughout the country. The Union
Government alone can make laws relating to the subjects mentioned in the Union List
● State List contains subjects of State and local importance, such as police, trade, commerce,
agriculture and irrigation. The State Governments alone can make laws relating to the
subjects mentioned in the State List.
● Concurrent List includes subjects of common interest to both the Union Government as well
as the State Governments, such as education, forest, trade unions, marriage, adoption and
succession. Both the Union as well as the State Governments can make laws on the subjects
mentioned in this list. If their laws conflict with each other, the law made by the Union
Government will prevail.
● According to our constitution, the Union Government has the power to legislate on
‘residuary’ subjects.
● States such as Assam, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram enjoy special powers
under certain provisions of the Constitution of India (Article 371) due to their peculiar
social and historical circumstances. These special powers are especially enjoyed in relation
to the protection of land rights of indigenous peoples, their culture and also preferential
employment in government services. Indians who are not permanent residents of this State
cannot buy land or house here. Similar special provisions exist for some other States of
India as well.
● The sharing of power between the Union Government and the State Governments is basic to
the structure of the Constitution. It is not easy to make changes to this power sharing
arrangement. The Parliament cannot on its own change this arrangement. Any change to it
has to be first passed by both the Houses of Parliament with at least two-thirds majority.
Then it has to be ratified by the legislatures of at least half of the total States.
● MAP ON PAGE 6.
● The real success of federalism in India can be attributed to the nature of democratic politics
in our country. This ensured that the spirit of federalism, respect for diversity and desire for
living together became shared ideals in our country.
● Some States were created not on the basis of language but to recognise differences based
on culture, ethnicity or geography. These include States like Nagaland, Uttarakhand and
Jharkhand.
● The report of the States Reorganisation Commission (SRC) was implemented on
NOVEMBER 1 , 1956.
● When power is taken away from Central and State governments and given to local
governments, it is called decentralisation.
● A major step towards decentralisation was taken in 1992. The Constitution was
amended to make the third-tier of democracy more powerful and effective.
○ Now it is constitutionally mandatory to hold regular elections to local
government bodies.
○ Seats are reserved in the elected bodies and the executive heads of these
institutions for the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward
Classes.
○ At least one-third of all positions are reserved for women.
○ An independent institution called the State Election Commission has been
created in each State to conduct panchayat and municipal elections.
○ The State governments are required to share some powers and revenue with local
government bodies. The nature of sharing varies from State to State.
● Rural local government is popularly known by the name panchayati raj. Each village, or
a group of villages in some States, has a gram panchayat. This is a council consisting of
several ward members, often called panch, and a president or sarpanch. They are
directly elected by all the adult population living in that ward or village. It is the
decision-making body for the entire village. The panchayat works under the overall
supervision of the gram sabha. All the voters in the village are its members. It has to
meet at least twice or thrice in a year to approve the annual budget of the gram
panchayat and to review the performance of the gram panchayat.
● The local government structure goes right up to the district level. A few gram
panchayats are grouped together to form what is usually called a panchayat samiti or
block or mandal. The members of this representative body are elected by all the
panchayat members in that area. All the panchayat samitis or mandals in a district
together constitute the zilla (district) parishad. Most members of the zilla parishad are
elected. Members of the Lok Sabha and MLAs of that district and some other officials of
other district level bodies are also its members. Zilla parishad chairperson is the
political head of the zilla parishad.
● Similarly, local government bodies exist for urban areas as well. Municipalities are set
up in towns. Big cities are constituted into municipal corporations. Both municipalities
and municipal corporations are controlled by elected bodies consisting of people’s
representatives. Municipal chairperson is the political head of the municipality. In a
municipal corporation, such an officer is called the mayor.
● A city called Porto Alegre in Brazil.
● Local governments Before 1992 :
○ Elections were controlled by the state and not held regularly.
○ Local governments did not have any powers or resources of their own.
● Local governments After 1992 :
○ An independent State Election Commission is responsible to conduct elections
regularly.
○ The State governments are required to share some powers and revenue with local
government bodies.
● The distinguishing feature of a federal government is power is divided between different
levels of government.
● In a federation, the powers of the federal and provincial governments are clearly
demarcated.
● India is a federation because the powers of the Union and State Governments are
specified in the Constitution and they have exclusive jurisdiction on their respective
subjects.
_____________________________________________________________________
● People identify themselves and relate with others on the basis of their physical
appearance, class, religion, gender, caste, tribe, linguistic and regional diversities, etc.
● Civil Rights Movement in the USA (1954-1968) refers to a set of events and reform
movements aimed at abolishing legal racial discrimination against African-Americans.
Led by Martin Luther King Jr., this movement practiced non-violent methods of civil
disobedience against racially discriminatory laws and practices.
● The Black Power movement emerged in 1966 and lasted till 1975, which was a more
militant anti-racist movement, advocating even violence if necessary to end racism in
the US.
● Homogeneous society: A society that has similar kinds of people, especially where
there are no significant ethnic differences.
● Three factors that determine the outcomes of politics of social division :
○ The people's perception of their identities: When this is singular, the
accommodation of other identities becomes difficult.
○ Representation of a community by political leaders: While representing a
community, if politicians raise demands that are constitutional, then it is
easier to accommodate those demands.
○ The government's reaction: If the reasonable demands of a community are
suppressed by the government, then it leads to social divisions, which in turn
threaten the integrity of the country.
● Social division takes place when some social difference overlaps with other
differences. Situations of this kind produce social divisions when one kind of social
difference becomes more important than the other, and people start feeling that they
belong to different communities. The differences that turn into social divisions are
called overlapping differences.
_____________________________________________________________________
● Feminist: A woman or a man who believes in equal rights and opportunities for women
and men.
● Patriarchy: Literally, ruled by father, this concept is used to refer to a system that values
men more and gives them power over women.
● The Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 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.
● Communal politics is based on the idea that religion is the principal basis of social
community. Communalism involves thinking along the following lines. 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. If the followers of different religions have some commonalities that are
superficial and immaterial, their interests are bound to be different and involve a
conflict. In its extreme form, 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.
● Communalism can take various forms in politics:
○ The most common expression of communalism is in everyday beliefs.
These routinely involve religious prejudices, stereotypes of religious
communities and belief in the superiority of one’s religion over other
religions. This is so common that we often fail to notice it, even when we
believe in it.
○ A communal mind often leads to a quest for political dominance of one’s
own religious community. For those belonging to the majority community,
this takes the form of majoritarian dominance. For those belonging to the
minority community, it can take the form of a desire to form a separate
political unit.
○ Political mobilisation on religious lines is another frequent form of
communalism. This involves the use of sacred symbols, religious leaders,
emotional appeal and plain fear in order to bring the followers of one
religion together in the political arena. In electoral politics, this often
involves special appeal to the interests or emotions of voters of one religion
in preference to others.
○ Sometimes communalism takes its most ugly form of communal violence,
riots and massacre. India and Pakistan suffered some of the worst
communal riots at the time of the Partition. The post-Independence period
has also seen large-scale communal violence.
● Family laws: Those laws that deal with family related matters such as marriage,
divorce, adoption, inheritance, etc. In our country, different family laws apply to
followers of different religions.
● SECULARISM IN INDIA :
○ There is no official religion for the 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.
○ The Constitution provides to all individuals and communities freedom to
profess, practice and propagate any religion, or not to follow any.
○ The Constitution prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion.
○ At the same time, the Constitution allows the state to intervene in the
matters of religion in order to ensure equality within religious
communities. For example, it ban’s untouchability.
● Political leaders and social reformers like Jotiba Phule, Gandhiji, B.R. Ambedkar
and Periyar Ramaswami Naicker advocated and worked to establish a society in
which caste inequalities are absent.
● Partly due to their efforts and partly due to other socio-economic changes, castes
and caste system in modern India have undergone great changes. With economic
development , large scale urbanisation, growth of literacy and education,
occupational mobility and the weakening of the position of landlords in the
villages, the old notions of caste hierarchy are breaking down.
● Sachar Committee.
● The Scheduled Castes, commonly known as Dalits, include those that were
previously regarded as ‘outcaste’ in the Hindu social order and were subjected to
exclusion and untouchability.
● The Scheduled Tribes, often referred to as Adivasis, include those communities
that led a secluded life usually in hills and forests and did not interact much with
the rest of society.
● Caste can take various forms in politics:
○ When parties choose candidates in elections, they keep in mind the caste
composition of the electorate and nominate candidates from different
castes so as to muster necessary support to win elections. When
governments are formed, political parties usually take care that
representatives of different castes and tribes find a place in it.
○ Political parties and candidates in elections make appeals to caste
sentiment to muster support. Some political parties are known to favour
some castes and are seen as their representatives.
○ Universal adult franchise and the principle of one-person-one-vote

compelled political leaders to gear up to the task of mobilising and
securing political support. It also brought new consciousness among the
people of castes that were hitherto treated as inferior and low.
● Occupational mobility: Shift from one occupation to another, usually when a new
generation takes up occupations other than those practiced by their ancestors.
● Caste hierarchy: A ladder-like formation in which all the caste groups are placed
from the ‘highest’ to the ‘lowest’ castes.
● Different aspects of life in which women are discriminated against or

disadvantaged in India :
○ They are not provided adequate education. Thus, the literacy rate among
women is just 54%.
○ Most of the labour done by them is unpaid. Where they are paid for their
work, they receive lesser wages than men.
○ Due to the preference for the boy child, female foeticide is practiced in
many parts of the country.
○ Sex Ratio : In many parts of India, parents prefer to have sons and find
ways to have the girl child aborted before she is born. This has led to a
decline in the child sex ratio (the number of girl children per thousand
boys) in the country to merely 927.
○ Domestic Violence : There are reports of various kinds of harassment,
exploitation, and violence against women. Both urban, as well as rural
areas, have become unsafe for women. They are not safe even within their
own homes from beating and other forms of domestic violence.
● Social divisions based on caste are peculiar to India.
____________________________________________________________
● Eucalyptus trees : Could be used for making paper pulp.

● In 1987 , a movement called Kittiko-Hachchiko (meaning, pluck & plant) started a
non-violent protest, where people plucked the eucalyptus plants & planted saplings of
trees that were useful to the people.
● There are many indirect ways in which people can get governments to listen to their
demands or their points of view. They could do so by forming an organisation and
undertaking activities to promote their interests or their viewpoints. These are called
interest groups or pressure groups. Sometimes people decide to act together without
forming organisations.
● Special Economic Zones (SEZs).
● Resident Welfare Association (RWA).
● Pressure groups are organisations that attempt to influence government policies. But
unlike political parties, pressure groups do not aim to directly control or share political
power. These organisations are formed when people with common occupation, interest,
aspirations or opinions come together in order to achieve a common objective.
● Capital of Indonesia : Jakarta.
● SECTIONAL INTEREST GROUPS :-
● Usually interest groups seek to promote the interests of a particular section or group of
society. Trade unions, business associations and professional (lawyers, doctors, teachers,
etc.) bodies are some examples of this type. They are sectional because they represent a
section of society: workers, employees, business- persons, industrialists, followers of a
religion, caste group, etc. Their principal concern is the betterment and well-being of their
members, not society in general.
● PUBLIC INTEREST GROUPS :-
● Sometimes these organisations are not about representing the interest of one section of
society. They represent some common or general interest that needs to be defended. The
members of the organisation may not benefit from the cause that the organisation
represents. These second types of groups are called promotional groups or public interest
groups. They promote collective rather than selective good. They aim to help groups other
than their own members. For example, a group fighting against bonded labour fights not for
itself but for those who are suffering under such bondage. In some instances the members
of a public interest group may undertake activity that benefits them as well as others too.
For example, BAMCEF (Backward and Minority Communities Employees Federation) is an
organisation largely made up of government employees that campaigns against caste
discrimination. It addresses the problems of its members who suffer discrimination. But its
principle concern is with social justice and social equality for the entire society.
● MOVEMENT GROUPS :-
● NARMADA BACHAO ANDOLAN : TO STOP CREATING SARDAR SAROVAR DAM ON
NARMADA RIVER.
● ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT.
● WOMEN’S MOVEMENT.
● RTI ACT, 2005.
● Pressure groups and movements exert influence on politics in a variety of ways:
● 1. They try to gain public support and sympathy for their goals and their activities by
carrying out information campaigns, organising meetings, filing petitions, etc. Most of these
groups try to influence the media into giving more attention to these issues.
● 2. They often organise protest activity like strikes or disrupting government programmes.
Workers' organisations, employees' associations and most of the movement groups often
resort to these tactics in order to force the government to take note of their demands.
● 3. Business groups often employ professional lobbyists or sponsor expensive
advertisements. Some persons from pressure groups or movement groups may participate
in official bodies and committees that offer advice to the government.
● 4. In some instances, the pressure groups are either formed or led by the leaders of political
parties or act as extended arms of political parties. For example, most trade unions and
students' organisations in India are either established by, or affiliated to one or the other
major political party. Most of the leaders of such pressure groups are usually activists and
leaders of the party.
● 5. Sometimes political parties grow out of movements. For example, when the Assam
movement led by students against the 'foreigners' came to an end, it led to the formation of
the Asom Gana Parishad. The roots of parties like the DMK and the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu
can be traced to a long-drawn social reform movement during the 1930s and 1940s.
● 6. In most cases the relationship between parties and interest or movement groups is not so
direct. They often take positions that are opposed to each other. Yet they are in dialogue
and negotiation. Movement groups have raised new issues that have been taken up by
political parties. Most of the new leadership of political parties comes from interest or
movement groups.
________________
● Mewat is one of the most backward areas in Haryana. It used to be a part of two
districts, Gurgaon and Faridabad. The people of Mewat felt that the area would get
better attention if it were to become a separate district. But political parties were
indifferent to this sentiment. The demand for a separate district was raised by Mewat
Educational and Social Organisation and Mewat Saksharta Samiti in 1996. Later,
Mewat Vikas Sabha was founded in 2000 and carried out a series of public awareness
campaigns. This forced both the major parties, Congress and the Indian National Lok
Dal, to announce their support for the new district before the assembly elections held in
February 2005. The new district came into existence in July 2005.
_________________________________________________________________
● A political party is a group of people who come together to contest elections and hold
power in the government. They agree on some policies and programmes for the society
with a view to promote the collective good.
● 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.
● A political party has three components:
○ the leaders,
○ the active members and
○ the followers
● FUNCTIONS of the Political Parties :-
○ Contest elections
○ Put forward different policies and programmes
○ Making laws
○ Form and run governments
○ Those parties that lose in the elections play the role of opposition
○ Shape public opinion
○ Parties provide people access to government machinery and welfare schemes
● Three major alliances in 2004 parliamentary elections– the National Democratic
Alliance, the United Progressive Alliance and the Left Front.
● A party that secures at least six per cent of the total votes in an election to the Legislative
Assembly of a State and wins at least two seats is recognised as a State party.
● A party that secures at least six per cent of the total votes in Lok Sabha elections or
Assembly elections in four States and wins at least four seats in the Lok Sabha is
recognised as a National party.
● All India Trinamool Congress (AITC): Launched on 1 January 1998 under the
leadership of Mamata Banerjee.
● Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP): Formed in 1984 under the leadership of Kanshi Ram.
● Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP): Founded in 1980 by reviving the erstwhile Bharatiya Jana
Sangh, formed by Syama Prasad Mukherjee in 1951.
● Communist Party of India (CPI): Formed in 1925. Believes in Marxism-Leninism,
secularism and democracy.
● Communist Party of India - Marxist (CPI-M): Founded in 1964. Believes in
Marxism-Leninism. Supports socialism, secularism and democracy and opposes
imperialism and communalism.
● Indian National Congress (INC): Popularly known as the Congress Party. One of the
oldest parties of the world. Founded in 1885 and has experienced many splits.
● Nationalist Congress Party (NCP): Formed in 1999 following a split in the Congress
party. Espouses democracy, Gandhian secularism, equity, social justice and federalism.
● The Aam Aadmi Party founded in November 2012 by Arvind Kejriwal and his
then-companions, following the 2011 Indian anti-corruption movement.
● The National People's Party is a national-level political party in India, though its
influence is mostly concentrated in the state of Meghalaya. The party was founded by P.
A. Sangma after his expulsion from the NCP in July 2012. It was accorded national
party status on 7 June 2019. It is the first political party from Northeastern India to
have attained this status.
● MAP ON PAGE 11.
● Defection: Changing party allegiance from the party on which a person got elected (to
a legislative body) to a different party.
● Recent efforts and suggestions in our country to reform political parties and its leaders:-
● 1. The Constitution was amended to prevent elected MLAs and MPs from changing
parties. This was done because many elected representatives were indulging in defection
in order to become ministers or for cash rewards. Now the law says that if any MLA or
MP changes parties, he or she will lose the seat in the legislature. This new law has
helped bring defection down. At the same time, this has made any dissent even more
difficult. MPs and MLAs have to accept whatever the party leaders decide.
● 2. The Supreme Court passed an order to reduce the influence of money and criminals.
Now, it is mandatory for every candidate who contests elections to file an affidavit
giving details of his property and criminal cases pending against him. The new system
has made a lot of information available to the public. But there is no system to check if
the information given by the candidates is true. As yet we do not know if it has led to
decline in the influence of the rich and the criminals.
● 3. The Election Commission passed an order making it necessary for political parties to
hold their organisational elections and file their income tax returns. The parties have
started doing so but sometimes it is mere formality. It is not clear if this step has led to
greater internal democracy in political parties.
● Besides these, many suggestions are often made to reform political parties:-
● 1. 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, to follow its
own constitution, to have an independent authority, to act as a judge in case of party
disputes, to hold open elections to the highest posts.
● 2. It should be made mandatory for political parties to give a minimum number of
tickets, about one-third, to women candidates. Similarly, there should be a quota for
women in the decision making bodies of the party.
● 3. 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.
● Affidavit: A signed document submitted to an officer, where a person makes a sworn
statement regarding her personal information.
_________________________________________________________________
● We felt that democracy was better because it:-

● Promotes equality among citizens;
● Enhances the dignity of the individual;
● Improves the quality of decision-making;
● Provides a method to resolve conflicts; and
● Allows room to correct mistakes.
● Conditions Under Which Democracies Accommodate Social Diversities :-
● Minority and majority views do not last.
● Minority and majority must collaborate to ensure that government operations represent
general opinions.
● It must be realised that just governing by majority vote is not democracy.
● It's also essential that majority control doesn’t become majority community rule in
provisions of linguistic group, colour, or religion, among other things.
● If someone is prevented from being in the majority due to birth, democratic governance
no longer accommodates that group or person.
● Different groups and individuals can and may form a majority in any election or
decision, which is what the term “rule by majority” means.
_________________________________________________________________
● CASE STUDY - 1 :-
Doctors' absenteeism
Challenge:
● The Uttar Pradesh government got a survey done and found out that most of the doctors
posted in the rural Primary Health Centres are simply not there. They live in a town,
carry out private practice and visit the village where they are posted only once or twice
in the entire month. Villagers have to travel to towns and pay very high fees to private
doctors even for common ailments.
● Reform proposals:
○ The government should make it compulsory for the doctors to live in the village
where they are posted, otherwise their service should be terminated.
○ District administration and police should carry out surprise raids to check the
attendance of the doctors.
○ Village panchayats should be given the power to write the annual report of the
doctor which should be read out in the Gram Sabha meeting.
○ Problems like this can be solved only if Uttar Pradesh is split into several smaller
states which can be administered more efficiently.
● CASE STUDY - 2 :-
Political funding
Challenge:
● On an average, every candidate who contested the last Lok Sabha elections owned a
property of more than Rs one crore. There is a fear that only wealthy people or those
with their support can afford to fight elections. Most of the political parties are
dependent on money given by big business houses. The worry is that the role of money
in politics will reduce whatever little voice the poor have in our democracy.
● Reform proposals:
○ The financial accounts of every political party should be made public. These
accounts should be examined by government auditors.
○ There should be state funding of elections. Parties should be given some money
by the government to meet their election expenditure.
○ Citizens should be encouraged to give more donations to parties and to political
workers. Such donations should be exempt from income tax.
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
CHAPTER-1 : CLASS-11 : POLITICAL SCIENCE :

INDIAN CONSTITUTION AT WORK
● Functions of a constitution :-
● The first function of a constitution is to provide a set of basic rules that allow for
minimal coordination amongst members of a society.
● The second function of a constitution is to specify who has the power to make decisions
in a society. It decides how the government will be constituted.
● The third function of a constitution is to set some limits on what a government can
impose on its citizens. These limits are fundamental in the sense that the government
may never trespass them.
● The fourth function of a constitution is to enable the government to fulfil the aspirations
of a society and create conditions for a just society.
● A constitution is a body of fundamental principles according to which a state is
constituted or governed.
● Constituent Assembly held its first sitting on 9 December1946 and reassembled as
Constituent Assembly for divided India on 14 August 1947.
● Its members were chosen by indirect election by the members of the Provincial
Legislative Assemblies that had been established under the Government of India Act,
1935.
● Cabinet Mission Plan :-
● Each Province and each Princely State or group of States were allotted seats
proportional to their respective population roughly in the ratio of 1:10,00,000. As a
result the Provinces (that were under direct British rule) were to elect 292 members
while the Princely States were allotted a minimum of 93 seats.
● The seats in each Province were distributed among the three main communities,
Muslims, Sikhs and general, in proportion to their respective populations.
● Members of each community in the Provincial Legislative Assembly elected their own
representatives by the method of proportional representation with single transferable
vote.
● The method of selection in the case of representatives of Princely States was to be
determined by consultation.
● Social democracy means a way of life, which recognises liberty, equality and
fraternity as the principles of life. These principles of liberty, equality and fraternity are
not to be treated as separate items in a trinity.
● The Constitution was adopted on 26 November 1949. 284 members were actually
present on 24 January 1950 and appended their signature to the Constitution as finally
passed.
● The Constituent Assembly had eight major Committees on different subjects. Usually,
Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, Sardar Patel or B.R. Ambedkar chaired these
Committees.
● Objectives Resolution (the resolution that defined the aims of the Assembly) moved by
Nehru in 1946.
● Main points of the Objectives Resolution :-
● India is an independent, sovereign, republic;
● India shall be a Union of erstwhile British Indian territories, Indian States, and other
parts outside British India and Indian States as are willing to be a part of the Union;
● Territories forming the Union shall be autonomous units and exercise all powers and
functions of the Government and administration, except those assigned to or vested in
the Union;
● All powers and authority of sovereign and independent India and its constitution shall
flow from the people;
● All people of India shall be guaranteed and secured social, economic and political
justice; equality of status and opportunities and equality before law; and fundamental
freedoms - of speech, expression, belief, faith, worship, vocation, association and action
- subject to law and public morality;
● The minorities, backward and tribal areas, depressed and other backward classes shall
be provided adequate safeguards;
● The territorial integrity of the Republic and its sovereign rights on land, sea and air shall
be maintained according to justice and law of civilized nations;
● The land would make a full and willing contribution to the promotion of world peace
and welfare of mankind.
● Provisions adapted from constitutions of different countries :-
● British Constitution :
○ First Past the Post
○ Parliamentary Form of Government
○ The idea of the rule of law
○ Institution of the Speaker and her/his role
○ Law-making procedure
● Irish Constitution :
○ Directive Principles of State Policy
● French Constitution :
○ Principles of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity
● United States Constitution :
○ Charter of Fundamental Rights
○ Power of Judicial Review and independence of the judiciary
● Canadian Constitution :
○ A quasi-federal form of government (a federal system with a strong central
government)
○ The idea of Residual Powers
_________________________________________________________________

● The constitution is a document that sets limits on the powers of the government and
ensures a democratic system in which all persons enjoy certain rights.
● Our Constitution gives every citizen the right to ‘life and liberty’: this means that every
citizen must also have the right to fair and speedy trial.
● It is often a practice in most democratic countries to list the rights of the citizens in the
constitution itself. Such a list of rights mentioned and protected by the constitution is
called the ‘bill of rights’.
● The Motilal Nehru committee had demanded a bill of rights as far back as in 1928.
● While ordinary legal rights are protected and enforced by ordinary law, Fundamental
Rights are protected and guaranteed by the constitution of the country.
● Ordinary rights may be changed by the legislature by ordinary process of law making,
but a fundamental right may only be changed by amending the Constitution itself.
● However, fundamental rights are not absolute or unlimited rights. Government can put
reasonable restrictions on the exercise of our fundamental rights.
● Bill of rights in the South African Constitution :-

○ Right to Dignity
○ Right to Privacy
○ Right to fair labour practices
○ Right to healthy environment and right to protection of environment
○ Right to adequate housing
○ Right to health care, food, water and social security
○ Children’s rights
○ Right to basic and higher education
○ Right of cultural, religious and linguistic communities
○ Right to information
● FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS (PART-III) IN THE INDIAN CONSTITUTION :-
● Right to Equality
○ √ Equality before law – equal protection of laws
○ √ Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of
birth
– equal access to shops, hotels, wells, tanks, bathing ghats, roads etc.
○ √ Equality of opportunity in public employment
○ √ Abolition of Untouchability
○ √ Abolition of titles
● Right to Freedom
○ √ Protection of Right to
– freedom of speech and expression;
– assemble peacefully;
– form associations/unions;
– move freely throughout the territory of India;
– reside and settle in any part of India;
– practise any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business.
○ √ Protection in respect of conviction for offences
○ √ Right to life and personal liberty
○ √ Right to education
○ √ Protection against arrest and detention in certain cases
● Right against Exploitation
○ √ Prohibition of traffic in human beings and forced labour
○ √ Prohibition of employment of children in hazardous jobs
● Right to Freedom of Religion
○ √ Freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of
religion
○ √ Freedom to manage religious affairs
○ √ Freedom to pay taxes for promotion of any particular religion
○ √ Freedom to attend religious instruction or worship in certain educational
institutions
● Cultural and Educational Rights
○ √ Protection of language, culture of minorities
○ √ Right of minorities to establish educational institutions
● Right to Constitutional Remedies
○ √ Right to move the courts to issue directions/orders/writs for enforcement of
rights
● Right to life and personal liberty also includes the right to live with human dignity,
free from exploitation.
● The court has held that the right to shelter and livelihood is also included in the right to
life because no person can live without the means of living, that is, the means of
livelihood.
● Preventive Detention : It means that if the government feels that a person
can be a threat to law and order or to the peace and security of the nation, it
can detain or arrest that person. This preventive detention can be extended
only for three months. After three months such a case is brought before an
advisory board for review.
● To ensure a fair trial in courts, the Constitution has provided three rights:
○ No person would be punished for the same offence more than once,
○ No law shall declare any action as illegal from a backdate, and
○ No person shall be asked to give evidence against himself or herself.
● The government can impose restrictions on the practice of freedom of religion in order
to protect public order, morality and health. This means that the freedom of religion is
not an unlimited right.
● The government can interfere in religious matters for rooting out certain social evils.
For example in the past, the government has taken steps banning practices like sati,
bigamy or human sacrifice. Such restrictions cannot be opposed in the name of
interference in the right to freedom of religion.
● Somnath Lahiri , Sardar Hukam Singh.
● Dr. Ambedkar considered the right to constitutional remedies as ‘heart and
soul of the constitution’. It is so because this right gives a citizen the right to
approach a High Court or the Supreme Court to get any of the fundamental
rights restored in case of their violation. The Supreme Court and the High
Courts can issue orders and give directives to the government for the
enforcement of rights.
● The courts can issue various special orders known as writs.
● Habeas corpus: A writ of habeas corpus means that the court orders that the arrested
person should be presented before it. It can also order to set free an arrested person if
the manner or grounds of arrest are not lawful or satisfactory.
● Mandamus: This writ is issued when the court finds that a particular office holder is not
doing legal duty and thereby is infringing on the right of an individual.
● Prohibition: This writ is issued by a higher court (High Court or Supreme Court) when a
lower court has considered a case going beyond its jurisdiction.
● Quo Warranto: If the court finds that a person is holding office but is not entitled to
hold that office, it issues the writ of quo warranto and restricts that person from acting
as an office holder.
● Certiorari: Under this writ, the court orders a lower court or another authority to
transfer a matter pending before it to the higher authority or court.
● Independent organisations like the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) or People’s
Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) have been working as watchdogs against the
violations of rights.
● The government established in 1993 an institution, the National Human Rights

Commission.
● The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) is composed of a former chief justice
of the Supreme Court of India, a former judge of the Supreme Court, a former chief
justice of a High Court and two other members who have knowledge and practical
experience in matters relating to human rights.
● The Commission’s functions include inquiry at its own initiative or on a petition
presented to it by a victim in complaint of violation of human rights; visit to jails to
study the condition of the inmates; undertaking and promoting research in the field of
human rights, etc.
● The Commission receives complaints in thousands every year. These relate to custodial
death, custodial rape, disappearances, police excesses, failure in taking action, indignity
to women, etc. Its most significant intervention has been on disappeared youth in
Punjab and investigation and trial of Gujarat riot cases where its intervention proved
effective.
● The Commission does not have the power of prosecution. It can merely make
recommendations to the government or recommend to the courts to initiate
proceedings based on the inquiry that it conducts.
● DPSPs are ‘non-justiciable’ i.e., parts of the Constitution that cannot be enforced by the
judiciary.
● The governments from time to time tried to give effect to some Directive Principles of
State Policy. They passed several zamindari abolition bills, nationalised banks, enacted
numerous factory laws, fixed minimum wages, cottage and small industries were
promoted and provisions for reservation for the uplift of the scheduled castes and
scheduled tribes were made.
● Such efforts to give effect to the Directive Principles include the right to education,
formation of panchayati raj institutions all over the country, partial right to work under
employment guarantee programme and the mid-day meal scheme etc.
● Fundamental Duties of citizens :-
○ In 1976, the 42nd amendment to the Constitution was passed. Among other
things, this amendment inserted a list of Fundamental Duties of Citizens. In all,
ten duties were enumerated. However, the Constitution does not say anything
about enforcing these duties.
○ As citizens, we must abide by the Constitution, defend our country, promote
harmony among all citizens, and protect the environment.
○ However, it must be noted that our Constitution does not make the enjoyment of
rights dependent or conditional upon fulfilment of duties. In this sense, the
inclusion of fundamental duties has not changed the status of our fundamental
rights.
● RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND DIRECTIVE

PRINCIPLES :-
● It is possible to see both Fundamental Rights and Directive Principles as
complementary to each other. Fundamental Rights restrain the government from doing
certain things while Directive Principles exhort the government to do certain things.
Fundamental Rights mainly protect the rights of individuals while directive principles
ensure the well-being of the entire society.
● GOALS OF DIRECTIVE PRINCIPLES :-
○ Welfare of the people; Social, economic and political justice;
○ Raising the standard of living; equitable distribution of resources;
○ Promotion of international peace
● Policies of DIRECTIVE PRINCIPLES :-
○ Uniform civil code;
○ Prohibition of consumption of alcoholic liquor;
○ Promotion of cottage industries;
○ Prevention of slaughter of useful cattle;
○ Promotion of village panchayats
● Non-justiciable rights :-
○ Adequate livelihood;
○ Equal pay for equal work for men and women;
○ Right against economic exploitation;
○ Right to work;
○ Early childhood care and education to children below the age of six years
● In 1973, the Supreme Court gave a decision that the right to property was not part of the
basic structure of the Constitution and therefore, parliament had power to abridge this
right by an amendment. In 1978, the 44th amendment to the Constitution removed the
right to property from the list of Fundamental Rights and converted it into a simple
legal right under article 300 A.
_________________________________________________________________

● In our country we follow a special method of elections. Under this system:

○ The entire country is divided into 543 constituencies;
○ Each constituency elects one representative; and
○ The candidate who secures the highest number of votes in that constituency is
declared elected.
● It is important to note that in this system whoever has more votes than all other
candidates, is declared elected. The winning candidate need not secure a majority of the
votes. This method is called the First Past the Post (FPTP) system. In the electoral
race, the candidate who is ahead of others, who crosses the winning post first of all, is
the winner. This method is also called the Plurality System. This is the method of
election prescribed by the Constitution.
● Once the votes are counted, each party is allotted the share of seats in the parliament in
proportion to its share of votes. Each party fills its quota of seats by picking those many
of its nominees from a preference list that has been declared before the elections. This
system of elections is called the Proportional Representation (PR) system. In this
system a party gets the same proportion of seats as its proportion of votes.
● Our Constitution prescribes a third and complex variation of the PR system for the
election of President, Vice President, and for the election to the Rajya Sabha and Vidhan
Parishads.
●
●
●
●
● Of the 543 elected seats in the Lok Sabha, 84 are reserved for Scheduled Castes and
47 are reserved for Scheduled Tribes (as on 26 January 2019).
● The Delimitation Commission is appointed by the President of India and works in
collaboration with the Election Commission of India. It is appointed for the purpose of
drawing up the boundaries of constituencies all over the country. A quota of
constituencies to be reserved in each State is fixed depending on the proportion of SC or
ST in that State. After drawing the boundaries, the Delimitation Commission looks at
the composition of population in each constituency. Those constituencies that have the
highest proportion of Scheduled Tribe population are reserved for ST. In the case of
Scheduled Castes, the Delimitation Commission looks at two things. It picks
constituencies that have a higher proportion of Scheduled Caste population. But it also
spreads these constituencies in different regions of the State. This is done because the
Scheduled Caste population is generally spread evenly throughout the country. These
reserved constituencies can be rotated each time the Delimitation exercise is
undertaken.
● Until 1989, an adult Indian meant an Indian citizen above the age of 21. An amendment
to the Constitution in 1989, reduced the eligibility age to 18.
● Article 324: (1) : The superintendence, direction and control of the preparation of the
electoral rolls for, and the conduct of, all elections to Parliament and to the Legislature
of every State and of elections to the offices of President and VicePresident held under
this Constitution shall be vested in a Commission (referred to in this Constitution as the
Election Commission).
● Article 324 of the Indian Constitution provides for an independent Election Commission
for the ‘superintendence, direction and control of the electoral roll and the conduct of
elections’ in India.
● The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and the two Election Commissioners have
equal powers to take all decisions relating to elections as a collective body. They are
appointed by the President of India on the advice of the Council of Ministers, the leader
of opposition and the Chief Justice of India.
● The Constitution ensures the security of the tenure of the CEC and Election
Commissioners. They are appointed for a six year term or continue till the age of 65,
whichever is earlier. The CEC can be removed before the expiry of the term, by the
President if both Houses of Parliament make such a recommendation with a special
majority. This is done to ensure that a ruling party cannot remove a CEC who refuses to
favour it in elections. The Election Commissioners can be removed by the President of
India.
● Special majority
Special majority means:
● Two-thirds majority of those present and voting, and
● Simple majority of the total membership of the House.
● The Election Commission of India has a wide range of functions :
● It supervises the preparation of up-to-date voters’ lists. It makes every effort to ensure
that the voters’ list is free of errors like nonexistence of names of registered voters or
existence of names of those non-eligible or non-existent.
● It also determines the timing of elections and prepares the election schedule. The
election schedule includes the notification of elections, date from which nominations
can be filed, last date for filing nominations, last date of scrutiny, last date of
withdrawal, date of polling and date of counting and declaration of results.
● During this entire process, the Election Commission has the power to take decisions to
ensure a free and fair poll. It can postpone or cancel the election in the entire country or
a specific State or constituency on the grounds that the atmosphere is vitiated and
therefore, a free and fair election may not be possible. The Commission also implements
a model code of conduct for parties and candidates. It can order a re-poll in a specific
constituency. It can also order a recount of votes when it feels that the counting process
has not been fully fair and just.
● The Election Commission accords recognition to political parties and allots symbols to
each of them.
● Proposals for electoral reform :
● Our system of elections should be changed from the FPTP to some variant of the PR
system. This would ensure that parties get seats, as far as possible, in proportion to the
votes they get.
● There should be a special provision to ensure that at least one-third women are elected
to the parliament and assemblies.
● There should be stricter provisions to control the role of money in electoral politics. The
election expenses should be paid by the government out of a special fund.
● Candidates with any criminal case should be barred from contesting elections, even if
their appeal is pending before a court.
● There should be a complete ban on the use of caste and religious appeals in the
campaign.
● There should be a law to regulate the functioning of political parties and to ensure that
they function in a transparent and democratic manner.
● The success of India’s election system can be gauged from a number of factors :
● Our election system has allowed the voters not only to freely choose representatives, but
also to change governments peacefully both at the State and national level.
● Secondly, voters have consistently taken a keen interest in the election process and
participated in it. The number of candidates and parties that contest elections is on the
rise.
● Thirdly, the system of election has proved to be accommodative and inclusive. The
social composition of our representatives has changed gradually. Now our
representatives come from many different social sections, though the number of women
legislators has not increased satisfactorily.
● Fourthly, the election outcome in most parts of the country does not reflect electoral
malpractices and rigging. Of course, many attempts at rigging do take place. You must
have read about violence, about complaints that voters’ names disappear from the
voters’ list, about intimidation, and so on. Yet, such instances rarely directly affect the
outcome of the election.
● Finally and most importantly, elections have become a part and parcel of our
democratic life. No one can imagine a situation where a government would disrespect
the verdict of an election. Similarly, no one can imagine that a government would be
formed without holding elections. In fact, regularity and periodicity of elections has
earned fame for India as a great democratic experiment.
_________________________________________________________________

● The word executive means a body of persons that looks after the implementation of
rules and regulations in actual practice.
● The organ of government that primarily looks after the function of implementation and
administration is called the executive.
● Executive is the branch of government responsible for the implementation of laws and
policies adopted by the legislature. The executive is often involved in framing policy.
● While the heads of government and their ministers, saddled with the overall
responsibility of government policy, are together known as the political executive,
those responsible for day to day administration are called the permanent executive.
● In a presidential system, the president is the Head of state as well as head of
government. In this system the office of president is very powerful, both in theory and
practice. Countries with such a system include the United States, Brazil and most
nations in Latin America.
● In a parliamentary system, the prime minister is the head of government. Most
parliamentary systems have a president or a monarch who is the nominal Head of
state. In such a system, the role of president or monarch is primarily ceremonial and
prime minister along with the cabinet wields effective power. Countries with such a
system include Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom as well as Portugal.
● A semi-presidential system has both a president and a prime minister but unlike the
parliamentary system the president may possess significant day-to-day powers. In this
system, it is possible that sometimes the president and the prime minister may belong
to the same party and at times they may belong to two different parties and thus, would
be opposed to each other. Countries with such a system include France, Russia, Sri
Lanka, etc.
● The makers of the Indian Constitution wanted a government that would have a strong
executive branch, but at the same time, enough safeguards should be there to check
against the personality cult. In the parliamentary form there are many mechanisms that
ensure that the executive will be answerable to and controlled by the legislature or
people’s representatives. So the Constitution adopted the parliamentary system of
executive for the governments both at the national and State levels.
● According to this system, there is a President who is the formal Head of the state of
India and the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers, which run the government at
the national level. At the State level, the executive comprises the Governor and the Chief
Minister and Council of Ministers.
● Constitutionally, the President has a right to be informed of all important matters and
deliberations of the Council of Ministers. The Prime Minister is obliged to furnish all the
information that the President may call for. The President often writes to the Prime
Minister and expresses his views on matters confronting the country.
● Discretionary Powers of the President of India :
● The President can send back the advice given by the Council of Ministers and ask the
Council to reconsider the decision.
● The President also has veto power by which he can withhold or refuse to give assent to
Bills (other than Money Bill) passed by the Parliament.
○ This ‘veto’ power is limited because, if the Parliament passes the same bill again
and sends it back to the President, then, the President has to give assent to that
bill. However, there is no mention in the Constitution about the time limit within
which the President must send the bill back for reconsideration. This means that
the President can just keep the bill pending with him without any time limit. This
gives the President an informal power to use the veto in a very effective manner.
This is sometimes referred to as ‘pocket veto’.
● When after an election, no leader has a clear majority in the Lok Sabha, the President
has to decide whom to appoint as the Prime Minister. In such a situation, the President
has to use his own discretion in judging who really may have the support of the majority
or who can actually form and run the government.
● The Vice President of India :
● The Vice President is elected for five years. His election method is similar to that of the
President, the only difference is that members of State legislatures are not part of the
electoral college. The Vice President may be removed from his office by a resolution of
the Rajya Sabha passed by a majority and agreed to by the Lok Sabha. The Vice
President acts as the ex-officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha and takes over the office of
the President when there is a vacancy by reasons of death, resignation, removal by
impeachment or otherwise. The Vice President acts as the President only until a new
President is elected.
● 91st Amendment Act (2003) : The Council of Ministers shall not exceed 15 percent of
the total number of members of the House of the People (or Assembly, in the case of the
States).
● The most important feature of parliamentary executive is that the executive is routinely
under the control and supervision of the legislature.
● The Council of Ministers is collectively responsible to the Lok Sabha. This provision
means that a Ministry which loses confidence of the Lok Sabha is obliged to resign.
● The principle indicates that the ministry is an executive committee of the Parliament
and it collectively governs on behalf of the Parliament. Collective responsibility is based
on the principle of the solidarity of the cabinet. It implies that a vote of no confidence
even against a single minister leads to the resignation of the entire Council of Ministers.
It also indicates that if a minister does not agree with a policy or decision of the cabinet,
he or she must either accept the decision or resign. It is binding on all ministers to
pursue or agree to a policy for which there is collective responsibility.
● The Prime Minister acts as a link between the Council of Ministers on the one hand and
the President as well as the Parliament on the other.
● It is this role of the Prime Minister which led Pt. Nehru described him as ‘the linchpin of
Government’.
● The Governor of the State is appointed by the President (on the advice of the central
government).
_________________________________________________________________

● The Parliament in India has two houses. When there are two houses of the legislature, it
is called a bicameral legislature.
● The Constitution has given the States the option of establishing either a unicameral or
bicameral legislature. At present only six States have a bicameral legislature.
● States having a bicameral legislature are given below:
○ (i) Andhra Pradesh (ii) Bihar (iii) Karnataka
○ (iv) Maharashtra (v) Telangana (vi) Uttar Pradesh
● A bicameral legislature makes it possible to have every decision reconsidered. Every
decision taken by one house goes to the other house for its decision. This means that
every bill and policy would be discussed twice. This ensures a double check on every
matter.
● Each of the two Houses of Parliament has different bases of representation. The Rajya
Sabha represents the States of India. It is an indirectly elected body. Residents of the
State elect members to the State Legislative Assembly. The elected members of the State
Legislative Assembly in turn elect the members of the Rajya Sabha.
● The number of members to be elected from each State has been fixed by the fourth
schedule of the Constitution.
● The Rajya Sabha is never fully dissolved. Therefore, it is called the permanent House of
the Parliament.
● Apart from the elected members, Rajya Sabha also has twelve nominated members. The
President nominates these members. These nominations are made from among those
persons who have made their mark in the fields of literature, science, art and social
service.
● List of the functions of the Parliament:

● Legislative Function: The Parliament enacts legislation for the country. Despite being
the chief law making body, the Parliament often merely approves legislations. The
actual task of drafting the bill is performed by the bureaucracy under the supervision of
the minister concerned. The substance and even the timing of the bill are decided by the
Cabinet. No major bill is introduced in the Parliament without the approval of the
Cabinet. Members other than ministers can also introduce bills but these have no
chance of being passed without the support of the government.
● Control of Executive and ensuring its accountability: Perhaps the most vital function of
the Parliament is to ensure that the executive does not overstep its authority and
remains responsible to the people who have elected them.
● Financial Function: Government is about spending a lot of money on various matters.
Every government raises resources through taxation. However, in a democracy, the
legislature controls taxation and the way in which money is used by the government. If
the Government of India proposes to introduce any new tax, it has to get the approval of
the Lok Sabha. The financial powers of the Parliament involve grant of resources to the
government to implement its programmes. The government has to give an account to
the legislature about the money it has spent and resources that it wishes to raise. The
legislature also ensures that the government does not misspend or overspend. This is
done through the budget and annual financial statements.
● Representation: Parliament represents the divergent views of members from different
regional, social, economic, religious groups of different parts of the country.
● Debating Function: The Parliament is the highest forum of debate in the country. There
is no limitation on its power of discussion. Members are free to speak on any matter
without fear. This makes it possible for the Parliament to analyse any or every issue that
faces the nation. These discussions constitute the heart of democratic decision making.
● Constituent Function: The Parliament has the power of discussing and enacting changes
to the Constitution. The constituent powers of both the houses are similar. All
constitutional amendments have to be approved by a special majority of both Houses.
● Electoral functions: The Parliament also performs some electoral functions. It elects the
President and Vice President of India.
● Judicial functions: The judicial functions of the Parliament include considering the
proposals for removal of President, Vice-President and Judges of High Courts and
Supreme Court.
Powers of the Lok Sabha Powers of Rajya Sabha
Makes Laws on matters included in Union Considers and approves non money bills
List and Concurrent List. Can introduce and suggests amendments to money bills.
and enact money and non money bills.
Approves proposals for taxation, budgets Approves constitutional amendments.

and annual financial statements.
Controls the executive by asking questions, Exercises control over the executive by
supplementary questions, resolutions and asking questions, introducing motions and
motions and through no confidence resolutions.
motion.
Amends the Constitution. Participates in the election and removal of

the President, Vice President, Judges of
Supreme Court and High Court.It can alone
initiate the procedure for removal of the
Vice President.
Approves the Proclamation of emergency. Can give the Union parliament power to
make laws on matters included in the State
list.
Elects the President and Vice President and

removes Judges of the Supreme Court and
High Court.
Establishes committees and commissions

and considers their reports.
● Powers exercised only by the Lok Sabha: There are powers that only the Lok Sabha
exercises. The Rajya Sabha cannot initiate, reject or amend money bills. The Council of
Ministers is responsible to the Lok Sabha and not Rajya Sabha. Therefore, Rajya Sabha can
criticise the government but cannot remove it.
● In all other spheres, including passing of non-money bills, constitutional amendments, and
impeaching the President and removing the Vice President, the powers of Lok Sabha and
Rajya Sabha are co-equal.
● A bill is a draft of the proposed law. There can be different types of bills. When a
non-minister proposes a bill, it is called private member’s Bill. A bill proposed by a minister
is described as a Government Bill.
Process of Making a Bill into Law :
● The draft of any bill is prepared by the concerned ministry. For instance a bill raising the
marriageable age of girls from 18 to 21 will be prepared by the law ministry. The ministry of
women and child welfare may also be involved in it.
● Within the Parliament, a bill may be introduced in the Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha by a
member of the House (but often a minister responsible for the subject introduces the bill).
● A money bill can be introduced only in Lok Sabha. Once passed there, it is sent to the Rajya
Sabha.
● A large part of the discussion on the bills takes place in the committees. The
recommendation of the committee is then sent to the House. That is why committees are
referred to as miniature legislatures. This is the second stage in the lawmaking process.
● In the third and final stage, the bill is voted upon. If a non-money bill is passed by one
House, it is sent to the other House where it goes through exactly the same procedure.
● A bill has to be passed by both Houses for enactment. If there is disagreement between the
two Houses on the proposed bill, an attempt is made to resolve it through the Joint Session
of Parliament. In the few instances when joint sessions of the parliament were called to
resolve a deadlock, the decision has always gone in favour of the Lok Sabha.
● If it is a money bill, the Rajya Sabha can either approve the bill or suggest changes but
cannot reject it. If it takes no action within 14 days the bill is deemed to have been passed.
Amendments to the bill, suggested by Rajya Sabha, may or may not be accepted by the Lok
Sabha.
● When a bill is passed by both Houses, it is sent to the President for his assent. The assent of
the President results in the enactment of a bill into a law.
● Article 109 : Special procedure in respect of Money Bills.—(1) A Money Bill shall not be
introduced in the Council of States.
Instruments of Parliamentary Control :

● The legislature in the parliamentary system ensures executive accountability at various
stages: policy making, implementation of law or policy and during and
post-implementation stage. The legislature does this through the use of a variety of
devices:
○ Deliberation and discussion
○ Approval or Refusal of laws
○ Financial control
○ No confidence motion
● Deliberation and discussion: The Question Hour, which is held every day during
the sessions of Parliament, where Ministers have to respond to searching questions
raised by the members; Zero Hour where members are free to raise any matter that they
think is important (though the ministers are not bound to reply), half-an-hour
discussion on matters of public importance, adjournment motion, etc., are some
instruments of exercising control. The discussions during the question hour are so
heated that it is not uncommon to see members raise their voice, walk to the well of the
house or walk out in protest to make their point. This results in considerable loss of
legislative time. At the same time, we must remember that many of these actions are
political techniques to gain concessions from the government and in the process force
executive accountability.
● Approval and ratification of laws: Parliamentary control is also exercised through
its power of ratification. A bill can become a law only with the approval of the
Parliament. A government that has the support of a disciplined majority may not find it
difficult to get the approval of the Legislature. Many bills, such as the Lok Pal Bill have
failed enactment, Prevention of Terrorism bill (2002) was rejected by the Rajya Sabha.
● Financial control: Financial resources to implement the programmes of the
government are granted through the budget. Preparation and presentation of the budget
for the approval of the legislature is a constitutional obligation of the government. This
obligation allows the legislature to exercise control over the purse strings of the
government. The legislature may refuse to grant resources to the government. This
seldom happens because the government ordinarily enjoys support of the majority in
the parliamentary system. Nevertheless, before granting money the Lok Sabha can
discuss the reasons for which the government requires money. It can enquire into cases
of misuse of funds on the basis of the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and
Public Accounts committees. But the legislative control is not only aimed at financial
propriety. The legislature is concerned about the policies of the government that are
reflected in the budget. Through financial control, the legislature controls the policy of
the government.
● No Confidence Motion: The most powerful weapon that enables the Parliament to
ensure executive accountability is the no-confidence motion. As long as the government
has the support of its party or coalition of parties that have a majority in the Lok Sabha,
the power of the House to dismiss the government is fictional rather than real. However,
after 1989, several governments have been forced to resign due to lack of confidence of
the house. Each of these governments lost the confidence of the Lok Sabha because they
failed to retain the support of their coalition partners.
● Standing Committees supervise the work of various departments, their budget, their
expenditure and bills that come up in the house relating to the department.
● Apart from standing committees, the Joint Parliamentary Committees have occupied a
position of eminence in our country. Joint Parliamentary Committees (JPCs) can be set
up for the purpose of discussing a particular bill, like the joint committee to discuss
bills, or for the purpose of investigating financial irregularities. Members of these
committees are selected from both Houses.
● An amendment to the Constitution was made (52nd amendment act) in 1985. This is
known as the anti-defection amendment. It has also been subsequently modified by the
91st amendment.
● If a member remains absent in the House when asked by the party leadership to remain
present or votes against the instructions of the party or voluntarily leaves the
membership of the party, it is deemed as defection.
_________________________________________________________________

● The principal role of the judiciary is to protect rule of law and ensure supremacy of law.
● The Constitution provides that the salaries and allowances of the judges are
not subjected to the approval of the legislature.
● Parliament cannot discuss the conduct of the judges except when the proceeding to
remove a judge is being carried out. This gives the judiciary independence to adjudicate
without fear of being criticised.
● Appointment of Judges :
● Council of Ministers, Governors and Chief Ministers and Chief Justice of India — all
influence the process of judicial appointment.
● As far as the appointment of the Chief Justice of India (CJI) is concerned, over the
years, a convention had developed whereby the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court
was appointed as the Chief Justice of India. This convention was however broken twice.
In 1973 A. N. Ray was appointed as CJI superseding three senior Judges. Again, Justice
M.H. Beg was appointed superseding Justice H.R. Khanna (1975).
● The other Judges of the Supreme Court and the High Court are appointed by the
President after ‘consulting’ the CJI. This, in effect, meant that the final decisions in
matters of appointment rested with the Council of Ministers. What then, was the status
of the consultation with the Chief Justice?
● This matter came up before the Supreme Court again and again between 1982 and
1998. Initially, the court felt that the role of the Chief Justice was purely consultative.
Then it took the view that the opinion of the Chief Justice must be followed by the
President. Finally, the Supreme Court has come up with a novel procedure: it has
suggested that the Chief Justice should recommend names of persons to be appointed in
consultation with four senior-most judges of the Court. Thus, the Supreme Court has
established the principle of collegiality in making recommendations for appointments.
At the moment therefore, in matters of appointment the decision of the group of senior
judges of the Supreme Court carries greater weight. Thus, in matters of appointment to
the judiciary, the Supreme Court and the Council of Ministers play an important role.
● Removal of Judges :
● A judge of the Supreme Court or High Court can be removed only on the ground of
proved misbehaviour or incapacity.
● A motion containing the charges against the judge must be approved by special majority
in both Houses of the Parliament.
● Unless there is a general consensus among Members of the Parliament, a judge cannot
be removed.
● It should also be noted that while making appointments, the executive plays a crucial
role; the legislature has the powers of removal.
● This has ensured both balance of power and independence of the judiciary.
● So far, only one case of removal of a judge of the Supreme Court came up for
consideration before Parliament. In that case, though the motion got two-thirds
majority, it did not have the support of the majority of the total strength of the House
and therefore, the judge was not removed.
● Unsuccessful Attempt to Remove a Judge :
● In 1991 the first-ever motion to remove a Supreme Court Justice was signed by 108
members of Parliament. Justice V. Ramaswami, during his tenure as the Chief Justice of
the Punjab and Haryana High Court was accused of misappropriating funds.
● In 1992, a year after Parliament had started the removal proceedings, a high-profile
inquiry commission consisting of Judges of the Supreme Court found Justice V.
Ramaswami “guilty of wilful and gross misuses of office . . . and moral turpitude by
using public funds for private purposes and reckless disregard of statutory rules” while
serving as the Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
● Despite this strong indictment, Ramaswami survived the parliamentary motion
recommending removal. The motion recommending his removal got the required
two-thirds majority among the members who were present and voting, but the Congress
party abstained from voting in the House. Therefore, the motion could not get the
support of one-half of the total strength of the House.
● Jurisdiction of Supreme Court :
● The functions and responsibilities of the Supreme Court are defined by the Constitution.
The Supreme Court has specific jurisdiction or scope of powers :
● Original Jurisdiction.
● Writ Jurisdiction :
○ Any individual, whose fundamental right has been violated, can directly move the
Supreme Court for remedy.
○ The Supreme Court can give special orders in the form of writs.
○ The High Courts can also issue writs, but the persons whose rights are violated have
the choice of either approaching the High Court or approaching the Supreme Court
directly.
○ Through such writs, the Court can give orders to the executive to act or not to act in a
particular way.
● Appellate Jurisdiction :
○ In criminal cases, if the lower court has sentenced a person to death then an appeal can
be made to the High Court or Supreme Court.
○ The High Courts too, have appellate jurisdiction over the decisions given by courts
below them.
● Advisory Jurisdiction :
○ In addition to original and appellate jurisdiction, the Supreme Court of India possesses
advisory jurisdiction also. This means that the President of India can refer any matter
that is of public importance or that involves interpretation of the Constitution to the
Supreme Court for advice.
○ However, the Supreme Court is not bound to give advice on such matters and the
President is not bound to accept such an advice.
●
● Article 137 …….. the Supreme Court shall have power to review any judgement
pronounced or order made by it.
● Article 144 …… All authorities, civil and judicial, in the territory of India shall act in aid
of the Supreme Court.
● Decisions made by the Supreme Court are binding on all other courts within the
territory of India.
● Orders passed by it are enforceable throughout the length and breadth of the country.
● The Supreme Court itself is not bound by its decision and can at any time review it.
● Besides, if there is a case of contempt of the Supreme Court, then the Supreme Court
itself decides such a case.
___________________
● STRUCTURE OF THE JUDICIARY :
● Judicial activism.
● Public Interest Litigation.
● JUDICIAL ACTIVISM :
● The chief instrument through which judicial activism has flourished in
India is Public Interest Litigation (PIL) or Social Action Litigation (SAL).
● In normal course of law, an individual can approach the courts only if he/she has been
personally aggrieved. That is to say, a person whose rights have been violated, or who is
involved in a dispute, could move the court of law. This concept underwent a change
around 1979.
● In 1979, the Court set the trend when it decided to hear a case where the case was filed
not by the aggrieved persons but by others on their behalf. As this case involved a
consideration of an issue of public interest, it and such other cases came to be known as
public interest litigations.
● Around the same time, the Supreme Court also took up the case about rights of
prisoners. This opened the gates for a large number of cases where public spirited
citizens and voluntary organisations sought judicial intervention for protection of
existing rights, betterment of life conditions of the poor, protection of the environment,
and many other issues in the interest of the public. PIL has become the most important
vehicle of judicial activism.
● Judiciary, which is an institution that is traditionally confined to responding to cases
brought before it, began considering many cases merely on the basis of newspaper
reports and postal complaints received by the court. Therefore, the term judicial
activism became the more popular description of the role of the judiciary.
● Through the PIL, the court has expanded the idea of rights. Clean air, unpolluted water,
decent living, etc., are rights for the entire society. Therefore, it was felt by the courts
that individuals as parts of the society must have the right to seek justice wherever such
rights were violated.
● Secondly, through PIL and judicial activism of the post-1980 period, the judiciary has
also shown readiness to take into consideration rights of those sections who cannot
easily approach the courts. For this purpose, the judiciary allowed public spirited
citizens, social organisations and lawyers to file petitions on behalf of the needy and the
deprived.
● It must be remembered that the problems of the poor …are qualitatively different from
those which have hitherto occupied the attention of the Court and they need ….a
different kind of judicial approach. If we blindly follow the adversarial procedure in
their case, they would never be able to enforce their fundamental rights. — Justice
Bhagwati in Bandhua Mukti Morcha vs. Union of India, 1984.
● Some Early PILs :
● In 1979, newspapers published reports about ‘under trials’. There were many prisoners
in Bihar who had spent long years in jail, longer than what they would have spent if they
had been punished for the offences for which they were arrested. This report prompted
an advocate to file a petition. The Supreme Court heard this case. It became famous as
one of the early Public Interest Litigations (PILs). This was the Hussainara Khatoon vs.
Bihar case.
● In 1980, a prison inmate of the Tihar jail managed to send a scribbled piece of paper to
Justice Krishna Iyer of the Supreme Court narrating physical torture of the prisoners.
The judge got it converted into a petition. Though later on, the Court abandoned the
practice of considering letters, this case, known as Sunil Batra vs. Delhi Administration
(1980) also became one of the pioneers of public interest litigation.
● The court asked candidates contesting elections to file affidavits indicating their assets
and income along with educational qualifications so that the people could elect their
representatives based on accurate knowledge.
● There is however a negative side to the large number of PILs and the idea of a proactive
judiciary.
● In the first place it has overburdened the courts.
● Secondly, judicial activism has blurred the line of distinction between the executive and
legislature on the one hand and the judiciary on the other.
● The court has been involved in resolving questions which belong to the executive.
● Thus, for instance, reducing air or sound pollution or investigating cases of corruption
or bringing about electoral reform is not exactly the duty of the Judiciary. These are
matters to be handled by the administration under the supervision of the legislatures.
● Therefore, some people feel that judicial activism has made the balance among the three
organs of government very delicate.
● Democratic government is based on each organ of government respecting the powers
and jurisdiction of the others. Judicial activism may be creating strains on this
democratic principle.
● JUDICIARY AND RIGHTS :

● The judiciary is entrusted with the task of protecting the rights of individuals. The
Constitution provides two ways in which the Supreme Court can remedy the violation of
rights.
○ First it can restore fundamental rights by issuing writs of Habeas Corpus; mandamus
etc. (article 32). The High Courts also have the power to issue such writs (article 226).
○ Secondly, the Supreme Court can declare the concerned law as unconstitutional and
therefore non-operational (article 13).
● Perhaps the most important power of the Supreme Court is the power of judicial review.
Judicial Review means the power of the Supreme Court (or High Courts) to examine the
constitutionality of any law if the Court arrives at the conclusion that the law is
inconsistent with the provisions of the Constitution, such a law is declared as
unconstitutional and inapplicable.
● The term judicial review is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution.
● However, the fact that India has a written constitution and the Supreme Court can
strike down a law that goes against fundamental rights, implicitly gives the Supreme
Court the power of judicial review.
● JUDICIARY AND PARLIAMENT :

● Apart from taking a very active stand on the matter of rights, the court has been active
in seeking to prevent subversion of the Constitution through political practice. Thus,
areas that were considered beyond the scope of judicial review such as powers of the
President and Governor were brought under the purview of the courts.
● There are many other instances in which the Supreme Court actively involved itself in
the administration of justice by giving directions to executive agencies. Thus, it gave
directions to CBI to initiate investigations against politicians and bureaucrats in the
hawala case, the Narasimha Rao case, illegal allotment of petrol pumps case etc.
● The Indian Constitution is based on a delicate principle of limited separation of powers
and checks and balances.
● This means that each organ of the government has a clear area of functioning.
● Thus, the Parliament is supreme in making laws and amending the Constitution, the
executive is supreme in implementing them while the judiciary is supreme in settling
disputes and deciding whether the laws that have been made are in accordance with the
provisions of the Constitution.
● Despite such clear cut division of power the conflict between the Parliament and
judiciary, and executive and the judiciary has remained a recurrent theme in Indian
politics.
● Immediately after the implementation of the Constitution began, a controversy arose
over the Parliament’s power to restrict the right to property. The Parliament wanted to
put some restrictions on the right to hold property so that land reforms could be
implemented.
● The Court held that the Parliament cannot thus restrict fundamental rights. The
Parliament then tried to amend the Constitution. But the Court said that even through
an amendment, a fundamental right cannot be abridged.
● During the period 1967 and 1973, this controversy became very serious. Apart from
land reform laws, laws enforcing preventive detention, laws governing reservations in
jobs, regulations acquiring private property for public purposes, and laws deciding the
compensation for such acquisition of private property were some instances of the
conflict between the legislature and the judiciary.
● In 1973, the Supreme Court gave a decision that has become very important in
regulating the relations between the Parliament and the Judiciary since then. This case
is famous as the Kesavananda Bharati case. In this case, the Court ruled that there is a
basic structure of the Constitution and nobody—not even the Parliament (through
amendment)—can violate the basic structure. The Court did two more things. First, it
said that right to property (the disputed issue) was not part of basic structure and
therefore could be suitably abridged. Secondly, the Court reserved to itself the right to
decide whether various matters are part of the basic structure of the Constitution. This
case is perhaps the best example of how the judiciary uses its power to interpret the
Constitution.
● The right to property was taken away from the list of fundamental rights in 1979.
● In the parliamentary system, the legislature has the power to govern itself and regulate
the behaviour of its members. Thus, the legislature can punish a person who the
legislature holds guilty of breaching privileges of the legislature.
● The Constitution provides that the conduct of judges cannot be discussed in the
Parliament. There have been several instances where the Parliament and State
legislatures have cast aspersions on the functioning of the judiciary. Similarly, the
judiciary too has criticised the legislatures and issued instructions to the legislatures
about the conduct of legislative business. The legislatures see this as violating the
principle of parliamentary sovereignty.
● Thermal stations cause Sulphur emissions.

● What are the different provisions in the constitution in order to maintain the
independence of the judiciary?
● The different provisions in the constitution in order to maintain the
independence of judiciary are:
● The conduct of the judges cannot be discussed in the parliament.
● The legislature is not involved in the process of appointment of judges.
● The judges have fixed tenure that ensures that they can work fearlessly. They can be
removed only in exceptional cases.
● The removal of judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts is extremely difficult.
● The approval of the legislature is not required for salaries and allowances of the judges.
● The authority of the judges protects them from any unfair criticism and the judiciary
can penalise those who are guilty of contempt of court.
● The instructions of the judiciary have to be followed by the legislature and executive of
the country.
_________________________________________________________________

● Few key ideas and concepts associated with federalism :

○ Essentially, federalism is an institutional mechanism to accommodate two sets of
polities—one at the regional level and the other at the national level. Each
government is autonomous in its own sphere. In some federal countries, there is even
a system of dual citizenship. India has only a single citizenship.
○ The people likewise, have two sets of identities and loyalties—they belong to the
region as well as the nation, for example we are Gujaratis or Jharkhandis as well as
Indians. Each level of the polity has distinct powers and responsibilities and has a
separate system of government.
○ The details of this dual system of government are generally spelt out in a written
constitution, which is considered to be supreme and which is also the source of the
power of both sets of government. Certain subjects, which concern the nation as a
whole, for example, defence or currency, are the responsibility of the union or central
government. Regional or local matters are the responsibility of the regional or State
government.
○ To prevent conflicts between the centre and the State, there is an independent
judiciary to settle disputes. The judiciary has the powers to resolve disputes between
the central government and the States on legal matters about the division of power.
● The most important feature of the federal system adopted by the Indian Constitution is
the principle that relations between the States and the centre would be based on
cooperation.
● Thus, while recognising diversity, the Constitution emphasised unity.
● One of the important aspects of this division of powers is that economic and financial
powers are centralised in the hands of the central government by the Constitution. The
States have immense responsibilities but very meagre revenue sources.
● Residuary powers : Residuary powers are special powers given to the Union
Government by the Constitution. These powers are not mentioned in the subject of the
Constitution. The Parliament can make any law based on any matter that is not a part
of the State List or Concurrent List.
● T.T. Krishnamachari.
● In normal circumstances, the Governor has the power to reserve a bill passed by the
State legislature, for the assent of the President. This gives the central government an
opportunity to delay the State legislation and also to examine such bills and veto them
completely.
● There may be occasions when the situation may demand that the central government
needs to legislate on matters from the State list. This is possible if the move is ratified
by the Rajya Sabha. The Constitution clearly states that executive powers of the centre
are superior to the executive powers of the States. Furthermore, the central
government may choose to give instructions to the State government.
● We have an integrated administrative system. The all-India services are common to
the entire territory of India and officers chosen for these services serve in the
administration of the States. Thus, an IAS officer who becomes the collector or an IPS
officer who serves as the Commissioner of Police, are under the control of the central
government. States can neither take disciplinary action nor can they remove these
officers from service.
● Articles 33 and 34 authorise the Parliament to protect persons in the service of the
union or a state in respect of any action taken by them during martial law to maintain
or restore order. This provision further strengthens the powers of the union
government. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act has been made on the basis
of these provisions. This Act has created tensions between the people and the armed
forces on some occasions.
●
● Since the 1990s, Congress dominance has largely ended and we have entered an era of
coalition politics especially at the centre. In the States too, different parties, both
national and regional, have come to power. This has resulted in a greater say for the
States, a respect for diversity and the beginning of a more mature federalism. Thus, it
is in the second phase that the issue of autonomy became very potent politically.
● ‘Autonomy’ refers to different things for different States and parties :
● Sometimes, these demands expect that the division of powers should be changed in
favour of the States and more powers and important powers be assigned to the States.
Many States (Tamil Nadu, Punjab, West Bengal) and many parties (DMK, Akali Dal,
CPI-M) have made demands of autonomy from time to time.
● Another demand is that States should have independent sources of revenue and
greater control over the resources. This is also known as financial autonomy. In 1977,
the Left Front Government in West Bengal brought out a document demanding a
restructuring of centre-State relations in India. In the autonomy demands of Tamil
Nadu and Punjab also, there was implicit support to the idea of greater financial
powers.
● The third aspect of the autonomy demands relates to administrative powers of the
States. States resent the control of the centre over the administrative machinery.
● Fourthly, autonomy demands may also be related to cultural and linguistic issues. The
opposition to the domination of Hindi (in Tamil Nadu) or demand for advancing the
Punjabi language and culture are instances of this. Some States also feel that there is a
domination of the Hindi-speaking areas over the others. In fact, during the decade of
1960s, there were agitations in some States against the imposition of the Hindi
language.
● Role of Governors and President’s Rule :

● Besides, the Governor is appointed by the central government and therefore, actions of
the Governor are often viewed as interference by the Central government in the
functioning of the State government.
● When two different parties are in power at the centre and the State, the role of the
Governor becomes even more controversial.
● The Sarkaria Commission that was appointed by the central government (1983; it
submitted its report in 1988) to examine the issues relating to centre-State relations,
recommended that appointments of Governors should be strictly non-partisan.
● President’s rule can be extended till three years.
● The Governor has the power to recommend the dismissal of the State government and
suspension or dissolution of the State assembly. This has led to many conflicts.
● In some cases, State governments were dismissed even when they had a majority in the
legislature, as had happened in Kerala in 1959 or without testing their majority, as
happened in several other States after 1967.
● Some cases went to the Supreme Court and the Court has ruled that constitutional
validity of the decision to impose President’s rule can be examined by the judiciary.
● Article 356 was very sparingly used till 1967. After 1967 many States had nonCongress
governments and the Congress was in power at the centre. The centre has often used
this provision to dismiss State governments or has used the office of the Governor to
prevent the majority party or coalition from assuming office. For instance, the central
government removed elected governments in Andhra Pradesh and Jammu and
Kashmir in the decade of 1980s.
● Demands for New States :
● In December 1953, the States Reorganisation Commission was set up and it
recommended the creation of linguistic States, at least for the major linguistic groups.
In 1956, reorganisation of some States took place. This saw the beginning of the
creation of linguistic States and the process is still continuing.
● Gujarat and Maharashtra were created in 1960; Punjab and Haryana were separated
from each other in 1966. Later, the North Eastern region was reorganised and new
States like Manipur, Tripura, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh were
created.
● In 2000, some of the larger States were further divided both to meet the demands for a
separate State as well as to meet the need for greater administrative efficiency. Thus
Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar were divided to create three new States.
They are: Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand respectively.
● In 2014, the State of Telangana was formed by dividing Andhra Pradesh.
● Some regions and linguistic groups are still struggling for separate Statehood like
Vidarbha in Maharashtra.
● Interstate Conflicts :
● Cauvery water dispute : This is a major issue between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
Farmers in both the States are dependent on Cauvery waters. Though there is a river
water tribunal to settle water disputes, this dispute has reached the Supreme Court.
● In another similar dispute Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra are battling
over sharing the waters of Narmada river.
● Rivers are a major resource and therefore, disputes over river waters test the patience
and cooperative spirit of the States.
● SPECIAL PROVISIONS :
● The Constitution has some special provisions for some States given their peculiar
social and historical circumstances. Most of the special provisions pertain to the north
eastern States (Assam, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, etc.) largely due to
their sizable indigenous tribal population with a distinct history and culture.
● Special provisions also exist for hilly States like Himachal Pradesh and some other
States like Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Gujarat, Maharashtra Sikkim and Telangana.
● Jammu and Kashmir :
● Immediately after independence in October, 1947 Pakistan sent tribal infiltrators
from its side to capture Kashmir. This forced the Maharaja Hari Singh to ask for
Indian help and acceded to the Indian Union.
● By the Jammu and Kashmir reorganisation Act 2019, the State has been bifurcated
into two Union Territories viz., (i) Jammu and Kashmir and (ii) Ladakh. The new
arrangement has come into effect from 31 October, 2019.
● Federalism celebrates both unity as well as diversity.
_________________________________________________________________
● Constitutional status was accorded to local government institutions in 1993.

● In modern times, elected local government bodies were created after 1882. Lord Rippon, who
was the Viceroy of India at that time, took the initiative in creating these bodies. They were
called the local boards. However, due to slow progress in this regard, the Indian National
Congress urged the government to take necessary steps to make all local bodies more effective.
Following the Government of India Act 1919, village panchayats were established in a
number of provinces. This trend continued after the Government of India Act of 1935.
● Ananthasayanam Ayyangar.
● Local Governments in Independent India :

● Some States (like Gujarat, Maharashtra) adopted the system of elected local bodies around
1960.
● But in many States those local bodies did not have enough powers and functions to look after the
local development. They were very much dependent on the State and central governments for
financial assistance.
● After 1987, a thorough review of the functioning of local government institutions was initiated.
In 1989 the P.K.Thungon Committee recommended constitutional recognition for the local
government bodies. A constitutional amendment to provide for periodic elections to local
government institutions, and enlistment of appropriate functions to them, along with funds, was
recommended.
● 73RD AND 74TH AMENDMENTS :

● In 1989, the central government introduced two constitutional amendments. These
amendments aimed at strengthening local governments and ensuring an element of
uniformity in their structure and functioning across the country.
● Later in 1992, the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments were passed by the
Parliament. The 73rd Amendment is about rural local governments (which are also
known as Panchayati Raj Institutions or PRIs) and the 74th amendment made the
provisions relating to urban local government (Nagarpalikas). The 73rd and 74th
Amendments came into force in 1993.
● We have noticed earlier that local government is a ‘State subject‘. States are free to make
their own laws on this subject. But once the Constitution was amended, the States had
to change their laws about local bodies in order to bring these in conformity with the
amended Constitution. They were given one year’s time for making necessary changes in
their respective State laws in the light of these amendments.
● 73rd Amendment : Let us now examine the changes brought about by the 73rd
amendment in Panchayati Raj institutions :
● Three Tier Structure : All States now have a uniform three tier Panchayati Raj
structure. At the base is the ‘Gram Panchayat‘. A Gram Panchayat covers a village
or group of villages. The intermediary level is the Mandal (also referred to as
Block or Taluka). These bodies are called Mandal or Taluka Panchayats. The
intermediary level body need not be constituted in smaller States. At the apex is the
Zilla Panchayat covering the entire rural area of the District. The amendment also
made a provision for the mandatory creation of the Gram Sabha. The Gram Sabha
would comprise all the adult members registered as voters in the Panchayat area. Its
role and functions are decided by State legislation.
● Elections : All the three levels of Panchayati Raj institutions are elected directly by
the people. The term of each Panchayat body is five years. If the State government
dissolves the Panchayat before the end of its five year term, fresh elections must be
held within six months of such dissolution. This is an important provision that
ensures the existence of elected local bodies. Before the 73rd amendment, in many
States, there used to be indirect elections to the district bodies and there was no
provision for immediate elections after dissolution.
● Reservations : One third of the positions in all panchayat institutions are reserved
for women. Reservations for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are also
provided for at all the three levels, in proportion to their population. If the States
find it necessary, they can also provide for reservations for the other backward
classes (OBCs). It is important to note that these reservations apply not merely to
ordinary members in Panchayats but also to the positions of Chairpersons or
‘Adhyakshas‘ at all the three levels. Further, reservation of one-third of the seats for
women is not merely in the general category of seats but also within the seats
reserved for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and backward castes. This means
that a seat may be reserved simultaneously for a woman candidate and one
belonging to the Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes. Thus, a Sarpanch would
have to be a Dalit woman or an Adivasi woman.
● Transfer of Subjects : Twenty-nine subjects, which were earlier in the State list
of subjects, are identified and listed in the Eleventh Schedule of the Constitution.
These subjects are to be transferred to the Panchayati Raj institutions. These
subjects were mostly linked to development and welfare functions at the local level.
The actual transfer of these functions depends upon the State legislation. Each State
decides how many of these twenty-nine subjects would be transferred to the local
bodies.
● The provisions of the 73rd amendment were not made applicable to the areas
inhabited by the Adivasi populations in many States of India.
● In 1996, a separate act was passed extending the provisions of the Panchayat
system to these areas. Many Adivasi communities have their traditional customs
of managing common resources such as forests and small water reservoirs, etc.
Therefore, the new act protects the rights of these communities to manage their
resources in ways acceptable to them.
● For this purpose, more powers are given to the Gram Sabhas of these areas and
elected village panchayats have to get the consent of the Gram Sabha in many
respects.
● The idea behind this act is that local traditions of self government should be
protected while introducing modern elected bodies. This is only consistent with
the spirit of diversity and decentralisation.
● State Election Commissioners : The State government is required to appoint a
State Election Commissioner who would be responsible for conducting elections to
the Panchayati Raj institutions. Earlier, this task was performed by the State
administration which was under the control of the State government. Now, the
office of the State Election Commissioner is autonomous like the Election
Commissioner of India. However, the State Election Commissioner is an
independent officer and is not linked to nor is this officer under the control of the
Election Commission of India.
● State Finance Commission : The State government is also required to appoint a
State Finance Commission once in five years. This Commission would examine the
financial position of the local governments in the State. It would also review the
distribution of revenues between the State and local governments on the one hand
and between rural and urban local governments on the other. This innovation
ensures that allocation of funds to the rural local governments will not be a political
matter.
● 74th Amendment : As we mentioned earlier, the 74th amendment dealt with urban
local bodies or Nagarpalikas :
● The Census of India defines an urban area as having: (i) a minimum population of
5,000; (ii) at least 75 percent of male working population engaged in
non-agricultural occupations and (iii) a density of population of at least 400 persons
per sq. km.
● In many ways the 74th amendment is a repetition of the 73rd amendment, except
that it applies to urban areas. All the provisions of the 73rd amendment relating to
direct elections, reservations, transfer of subjects, State Election Commission and
State Finance Commission are incorporated in the 74th amendment also and thus
apply to Nagarpalikas. The Constitution also mandated the transfer of a list of
functions from the State government to the urban local bodies. These functions have
been listed in the Twelfth Schedule of the Constitution.
● IMPLEMENTATION OF 73RD AND 74TH AMENDMENTS :

● All States have now passed legislation to implement the provisions of the 73rd and 74th
amendments. During the ten years since these amendments came into force (1994-
2004) most States have had at least two rounds of elections to the local bodies. States
like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and a few others have in fact held three elections so far.
● Local bodies have very little funds of their own. The dependence of local bodies on the
State and central governments for financial support has greatly eroded their capacity to
operate effectively.
● While rural local bodies raise 0.24% of the total revenues collected, they account for 4%
of the total expenditure made by the government. So they earn much less than they
spend. That makes them dependent on those who give them grants.
_________________________________________________________________

● Special Majority :
● Amendment to the Constitution requires two different kinds of special majorities: in
the first place, those voting in favour of the amendment bill should constitute at
least half of the total strength of that House. Secondly, the supporters of the
amendment bill must also constitute two-thirds of those who actually take part in
voting.
● Both Houses of the Parliament must pass the amendment bill separately in this
same manner (there is no provision for a joint session). For every amendment bill,
this special majority is required.
●
● Ratification by States :
● For some articles of the Constitution, special majority is not sufficient. When an
amendment aims to modify an article related to distribution of powers between the
States and the central government, or articles related to representation, it is necessary
that the States must be consulted and that they give their consent.
● Legislatures of half the States have to pass the amendment bill before the amendment
comes into effect.
● This provision also respects the States and gives them participation in the process of
amendment.
● Contents of Amendments made so far :

● Amendment that increased the age of retirement of High Court judges from 60 to 62
years (15th amendment).
● Salaries of judges of High Courts and the Supreme Court were increased by an
amendment (54th amendment).
● The anti-defection amendments (52nd and 91st).
● 61st amendment bringing down the minimum age for voting from 21 to 18 years.
● Controversial Amendments :
● The 38th, 39th and 42nd amendments have been the most controversial
amendments so far. These three amendments were made in the background of an
internal emergency declared in the country from June 1975. They sought to make
basic changes in many crucial parts of the Constitution.
● The 42nd amendment was particularly seen as a wide ranging amendment affecting
large parts of the Constitution. It was also an attempt to override the ruling of the
Supreme Court given in the Kesavananda case.
● Even the duration of the Lok Sabha was extended from five to six years.
● Fundamental Duties : They were included in the Constitution by the 42nd
amendment act.
● The 42nd amendment also put restrictions on the review powers of the Judiciary.
● This amendment made changes to the Preamble, to the seventh schedule of the
Constitution and to 53 articles of the Constitution.
● Many MPs belonging to the opposition parties were in jail when this amendment
was passed in Parliament.
● In this backdrop, elections were held in 1977 and the ruling party (Congress) was
defeated.
● The new government thought it necessary to reconsider these controversial
amendments and through the 43rd and 44th amendments, cancelled most of the
changes that were affected by the 38th, 39th and the 42nd amendments. The
constitutional balance was restored by these amendments.
● Right to education (RTE) and the Goods and Services Tax (GST).
● BASIC STRUCTURE AND EVOLUTION OF THE CONSTITUTION :

● One thing that has had a long lasting effect on the evolution of the Indian Constitution is
the theory of the basic structure of the Constitution. You already know that the Judiciary
advanced this theory in the famous case of Kesavananda Bharati. This ruling has
contributed to the evolution of the Constitution in the following ways:
● It has set specific limits to Parliament’s power to amend the Constitution. It says
that no amendment can violate the basic structure of the Constitution;
● It allows Parliament to amend any and all parts of the Constitution (within this
limitation); and
● It places the Judiciary as the final authority in deciding if an amendment violates
basic structure and what constitutes the basic structure.
● The Supreme Court gave the Kesavananda ruling in 1973. In the past four decades, this
decision has governed all interpretations of the Constitution and all institutions in the
country have accepted the theory of basic structure.
● In fact, the theory of basic structure is itself an example of a living constitution. There is
no mention of this theory in the Constitution. It has emerged from judicial
interpretation. Thus, the Judiciary and its interpretation have practically amended the
Constitution without a formal amendment.
● In many decisions the Supreme Court had held that reservations in jobs and
educational institutions cannot exceed fifty per cent of the total seats.
● Review of the Constitution :

● In the late nineties, efforts were made to review the entire Constitution. In the year 2000
a commission to review the working of the Constitution was appointed by the
Government of India under the chairmanship of a retired Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court, Justice Venkatachaliah. Opposition parties and many other organisations
boycotted the commission. While a lot of political controversy surrounded this
commission, the commission stuck to the theory of basic structure and did not suggest
any measures that would endanger the basic structure of the Constitution. This shows
the significance of the basic structure doctrine in our constitutional practice.
● Democracy is not only about votes and people’s representation. It is also

about the principle of rule of law. Democracy is also about developing
institutions and working through these institutions. All the political
institutions must be responsible to the people and maintain a balance with
each other.
● After the Supreme Court gave the ruling in the Kesavananda case some attempts were
made to ask the Court to reconsider its ruling. When these failed, the 42nd amendment
was made and parliamentary supremacy was asserted. But the Court again repeated its
earlier stand in the Minerva Mills case (1980).
● Lakshminarayan Sahu.
● The President cannot send back an amendment bill for reconsideration of Parliament.
● The Judiciary cannot initiate the process of constitutional amendment but can
effectively change the Constitution by interpreting it differently.
_________________________________________________________________

● Some people believe that a constitution merely consists of laws and that laws are one
thing, values and morality, quite another. Therefore, we can have only a legalistic, not a
political philosophy approach to the Constitution. It is true that all laws do not have a
moral content, but many laws are closely connected to our deeply held values. For
example, a law might prohibit discrimination of persons on grounds of language or
religion. Such a law is connected to the idea of equality. Such a law exists because we
value equality. Therefore, there is a connection between laws and moral values.
● POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF OUR CONSTITUTION :

● It is hard to describe this philosophy in one word. It resists any single label because it is
liberal, democratic, egalitarian, secular, and federal, open to community values,
sensitive to the needs of religious and linguistic minorities as well as historically
disadvantaged groups, and committed to building a common national identity.
● In short, it is committed to freedom, equality, social justice, and some form of national
unity. But underneath all this, there is a clear emphasis on peaceful and democratic
measures for putting this philosophy into practice.
● Individual freedom : The first point to note about the Constitution is its commitment
to individual freedom. As early as the beginning of the nineteenth century, Rammohan
Roy protested against curtailment of the freedom of the press by the British colonial
state.
● Social Justice.
● Respect for diversity and minority rights.
● Universal franchise : The idea of universal franchise lay securely within the heart of
nationalism.
● Federalism : By introducing the article concerning North-East (Art. 371), the Indian
Constitution anticipates the very important concept of asymmetric federalism. Under
Article 371A, the privilege of special status was also accorded to the North-Eastern State
of Nagaland. This Article not only confers validity on pre-existing laws within Nagaland,
but also protects local identity through restrictions on immigration. Although the
Constitution did not originally envisage this, India is now a multi-lingual federation.
Each major linguistic group is politically recognised and all are treated as equals. Thus,
the democratic and linguistic federalism of India has managed to combine claims to
unity with claims to cultural recognition. A fairly robust political arena exists that allows
for the play of multiple identities that complement one another.
● National identity.
● Secularism : Secular states are widely seen as treating religion as only a private
matter. That is to say, they refuse to give religion public or official recognition. Though
the term ‘secular’ was not initially mentioned, the Indian Constitution has always been
secular. The mainstream, western conception, of secularism means mutual exclusion of
state and religion in order to protect values such as individual freedom and citizenship
rights of individuals. Conditions in India were different and to respond to the challenge
they posed, the makers of the Constitution had to work out an alternative conception of
secularism. They departed from the western model in two ways and for two different
reasons :
○ Rights of Religious Groups : First, as mentioned already, they recognised that
intercommunity equality was as necessary as equality between individuals. This
was because a person’s freedom and sense of self-respect was directly dependent
upon the status of her community.
○ State’s Power of Intervention : Second, separation in India could not mean
mutual exclusion. Because, religiously sanctioned customs such as untouchability
deprived individuals of the most basic dignity and self-respect. Such customs were
so deeply rooted and pervasive that without active state intervention, there was no
hope of their dissolution. The state simply had to interfere in the affairs of religion.
Such intervention was not always negative. The state could also help religious
communities by giving aid to educational institutions run by them. Thus, the state
may help or hinder religious communities depending on which mode of action
promotes values such as freedom and equality.
____________
● We have hitherto mentioned three core features — these can also be seen as the
achievements — of our Constitution.
○ First, our Constitution reinforces and reinvents forms of liberal individualism. This
is an important achievement because this is done in the backdrop of a society where
community values are often indifferent or hostile to individual autonomy.
○ Second, our Constitution upholds the principle of social justice without
compromising on individual liberties. The constitutional commitment to
caste-based affirmative action programmes shows how much ahead India was
compared to other nations.
○ Third, against the background of inter-communal strife, the Constitution upholds
its commitment to group rights (the right to the expression of cultural particularity).
This indicates that the framers of the Constitution were more than willing to face
the challenges of what more than four decades later has come to be known as
multiculturalism.
● Indian liberalism has two streams. The first stream began with Rammohan Roy. He
emphasised individual rights, particularly the rights of women. The second stream
included thinkers like K.C. Sen, Justice Ranade and Swami Vivekananda. They
introduced the spirit of social justice within orthodox Hinduism. For Vivekananda,
such a reordering of Hindu society could not have been possible without liberal
principles. — K.M. Panikkar.
● “But in the long run, it would be in the interest of all to forget that there is
anything like majority or minority in this country and that in India there is
only one community…” –Sardar Patel.
● CRITICISMS :
● The Indian Constitution can be subjected to many criticisms of which three may be
briefly mentioned: first, that it is unwieldy; second, that it is unrepresentative and third,
that it is alien to our conditions.
● Let us briefly mention the limitations of the Constitution :
● First, the Indian Constitution has a centralised idea of national unity.
● Second, it appears to have glossed over some important issues of gender justice,
particularly within the family.
● Third, it is not clear why in a poor developing country, certain basic socio-economic
rights were relegated to the section on Directive Principles rather than made an
integral feature of our fundamental rights.
● K. Hanumanthaiya.
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________

POLITICAL THEORY
● In modern times, Rousseau first argued for freedom as a fundamental right of

humankind.
● Karl Marx argued that equality was as crucial as freedom.
● Mahatma Gandhi discussed the meaning of genuine freedom or swaraj in his book
Hind Swaraj.
● Rule of law, separation of powers, judicial review.
● Netizens (citizens of the internet).
_________________________________________________________________

POLITICAL THEORY
● The autobiography of one of the greatest persons of the twentieth century, Nelson
Mandela, is titled Long Walk to Freedom.
● In this book he talks about his personal struggle against the apartheid regime in South
Africa, about the resistance of his people to the segregationist policies of the white
regime, about the humiliations, hardships and police brutalities suffered by the black
people of South Africa.
● Freedom is said to exist when external constraints on the individual are absent.
● An individual could be considered free if he/she is not subject to external controls or
coercion and is able to make independent decisions and act in an autonomous way.
● However, absence of constraints is only one dimension of freedom. Freedom is also about
expanding the ability of people to freely express themselves and develop their potential.
Freedom in this sense is the condition in which people can develop their creativity and
capabilities.
● A free society would be one which enables all its members to develop their potential with
the minimum of social constraints.
● To be free, a society must widen the area in which individuals, groups, communities or
nations, will be able to charter their own destiny and be what they wish to be.
● Freedom, in this sense, allows the full development of the individual’s creativity,
sensibilities and capabilities: be it in sports, science, art, music or exploration.
● Freedom is considered valuable because it allows us to make choices and to exercise our
judgement.
● It permits the exercise of the individual’s powers of reason and judgement.
● Tilak’s famous statement — “Swaraj is my birth right and I shall have it.”
● Swaraj is not just freedom but liberation in redeeming one’s self-respect,
self-responsibility, and capacities for self-realisation from institutions of
dehumanisation.
● Gandhiji wrote the Hind Swaraj in 1909.
● NETAJI SUBHAS CHANDRA BOSE ON FREEDOM :

● By freedom I mean all round freedom, i.e. Freedom for the individual as well as for
society; freedom for the rich as well as for the poor; freedom for men as well as for
women; freedom for all individuals and for all classes.
● This freedom implies not only emancipation from political bondage but also equal
distribution of wealth, abolition of caste barriers and social iniquities and destruction of
communalism and religious intolerance.
● This is an ideal which may appear Utopian to hard-headed men and women, but this
ideal alone can appease the hunger in the soul.”
● LIBERALISM :
● As a political ideology, liberalism has been identified with tolerance as a value.
● Liberals tend to give priority to individual liberty over values like equality. They also
tend to be suspicious of political authority.
● Historically, liberalism favoured free market and minimal role to the state.
However, present day liberalism acknowledges a role for the welfare state and accepts
the need for measures to reduce both social and economic inequalities.
● In the constitutional discussions in India, the term used for justifiable constraints is
‘reasonable restrictions’. The restrictions may be there but they must be reasonable,
i.e., capable of being defended by reason, not excessive, not out of proportion to the
action being restricted, since then it would impinge on the general condition of freedom
in society.
● Positive liberty recognises that one can be free only in society (not outside it) and
hence tries to make that society such that it enables the development of the individual
whereas negative liberty is only concerned with the inviolable area of
non-interference and not with the conditions in society, outside this area, as such.
_________________________________________________________________

POLITICAL THEORY
● Socialism, Marxism, Liberalism and Feminism.

● The industrial countries of the first world account for nearly two-thirds of the global
emissions of carbon dioxide from the combustion of fossil fuels. They also
account for three-quarters of emissions of sulphur and nitrogen oxide that
cause acid rain. Many industries known for their high rate of pollution are being
shifted from the developed countries to the less developed countries.
● Human Development Report : UNDP.
● When people are treated differently just because they are born in a particular religion or
race or caste or gender, we regard it as an unacceptable form of inequality.
● Equality of Opportunities :
● The concept of equality implies that all people, as human beings, are entitled to the
same rights and opportunities to develop their skills and talents, and to pursue their
goals and ambitions.
● THREE DIMENSIONS OF EQUALITY :

● Three main dimensions of equality namely, political, social and economic :
● Political Equality : In democratic societies political equality would normally
include granting equal citizenship to all the members of the state. Basic rights such
as the right to vote, freedom of expression, movement and association and freedom
of belief. These are rights which are considered necessary to enable citizens to
develop themselves and participate in the affairs of the state. But they are legal
rights, guaranteed by the constitution and laws.
● Social Equality :
○ Political equality or equality before the law is an important first step in the
pursuit of equality but it often needs to be supplemented by equality of
opportunities. It is necessary to minimise the effects of social and economic
inequalities and guarantee certain minimum conditions of life to all the members
of the society — adequate health care, the opportunity for good education,
adequate nourishment and a minimum wage, among other things.
○ Where equality of opportunity does not exist a huge pool of potential talent tends
to be wasted in society.
○ In India, a special problem regarding equal opportunities comes not just from
lack of facilities but from some of the customs which may prevail in different
parts of the country, or among different groups. Women, for instance, may not
enjoy equal rights of inheritance in some groups, or there may be social
prohibitions regarding their taking part in certain kinds of activities.
○ The state has a significant role in such matters. It should make policies to prevent
discrimination or harassment of women in public places or employment, to
provide incentives to open up education or certain professions to women, and
other such measures.
○ But social groups and individuals also have a role to play in raising awareness
and supporting those who want to exercise their rights.
● Economic Equality : At the simplest level, we would say that economic inequality
exists in a society if there are significant differences in wealth, property or income
between individuals or classes.
● Feminism is a political doctrine of equal rights for women and men. Feminists are
those men and women who believe that many of the inequalities we see in society
between men and women are neither natural nor necessary and can be altered so that
both women and men can lead free and equal lives.
● For liberals the principle of competition is the most just and efficient way of
selecting candidates for jobs or admission to educational institutions.
● SOCIALISM :
● Socialism refers to a set of political ideas that emerged as a response to the inequalities
present in, and reproduced by, the industrial capitalist economy.
● The main concern of Socialism is how to minimise existing inequality and distribute
resources justly.
● Although advocates of socialism are not entirely opposed to the market, they favour
some kind of government regulation, planning and control over certain key areas such
as education and health care.
● In India the eminent socialist thinker Rammanohar Lohia, identified five kinds of
inequalities that need to be fought against simultaneously: inequality between man and
woman, inequality based on skin colour, caste-based inequality, colonial rule of some
countries over others, and, of course, economic inequality.
● Revolution for civil liberties against unjust encroachments on private life and revolution
for non-violence, for renunciation of weapons in favour of Satyagraha.
● These were the seven revolutions or Sapta Kranti which for Lohia was the ideal of
socialism.
● The first step towards bringing about equality is, of course, ending the
formal system of inequality and privileges.
● Egalitarian : (used about a person, system, society, etc.) following the principle that
everyone should have equal rights.
● Maternity leave and crèches in the workplace.
● Differential treatment does not yield new structures of dominance and oppression, or
become a means for some dominant groups to reassert special privileges and power in
society.
● Differential treatment is intended and justified only as a means to promote a just and
egalitarian society.
● Affirmative action : Banks offer higher rates of interest to senior citizens.

● Equality of opportunity : Every child should get free education.
● Equal Rights : Every adult citizen has a right to vote.
_________________________________________________________________

POLITICAL THEORY
● In ancient Indian society, justice was associated with dharma and maintaining dharma
or a just social order, was considered to be a primary duty of kings.
● According to the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, human beings possess
dignity. If all persons are granted dignity then what is due to each of them is that they
have the opportunity to develop their talents and pursue their chosen goals. Justice
requires that we give due and equal consideration to all individuals.
● Physical disabilities, age or lack of access to good education or health care, are some of
the factors which are considered grounds for special treatment in many countries.
● Three principles of justice which have been discussed — equal treatment for equals,
recognition of different efforts and skills while determining rewards and burdens, and
provision of minimum standard of living and equal opportunities to the needy.
● A just society should provide people with the basic minimum conditions to enable
them to live healthy and secure lives and develop their talents as well as equal
opportunities to pursue their chosen goals in society.
● It is agreed that the basic amount of nourishment needed to remain healthy, housing,
supply of clean drinking water, education and a minimum wage would constitute an
important part of these basic conditions.
● A Just society is that society in which an ascending sense of reverence and descending
sense of contempt is dissolved into the creation of a compassionate society – B.R.
Ambedkar.
● Supporters of free markets maintain that as far as possible, individuals should be free to
own property and enter into contracts and agreements with others regarding prices and
wages and profits. They should be free to compete with each other to gain the greatest
amount of benefit. This is a simple description of a free market.
● Justice implies something which it is not only right to do and wrong not to do; but
which some individual person can claim from us as his moral right. – J. S. Mill.
_________________________________________________________________

POLITICAL THEORY
● Three natural rights of man: the right to life, liberty and property.
● KINDS OF RIGHTS :
● Political rights give to the citizens the right to equality before law and the right to
participate in the political process. They include such rights as the right to vote and elect
representatives, the right to contest elections, the right to form political parties or join
them. Political rights are supplemented by civil liberties.
● The latter refers to the right to a free and fair trial, the right to express one’s views
freely, the right to protest and express dissent.
_____________________
● On 10 December 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and
proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Following this historic
act the Assembly called upon all Member countries to publicise the text of the
Declaration and “to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded
principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on
the political status of countries or territories.”
_________________________________________________________________

POLITICAL THEORY
● Citizenship has been defined as full and equal membership of a political community.
● Palestinian refugees in the Middle East.
● Equality of rights and status is one of the basic rights of citizenship.
● CITIZENSHIP, EQUALITY AND RIGHTS :
● Citizenship is not merely a legal concept. It is also closely related to larger notions of
equality and rights.
● Civil rights protect the individual’s life, liberty and property. Political rights enable
the individual to participate in the process of governance. Social rights give the
individual access to education and employment. Together they make it possible for the
citizen to lead a life of dignity.
● The Supreme Court gave an important decision regarding the rights of
slum-dwellers in Bombay in response to a Public Interest Litigation filed by a social
activist, Olga Tellis against Bombay Municipal Corporation in 1985. The petition
claimed the right to live on pavements or in slums because there was no alternative
accommodation available close to their place of work. If they were forced to move they
would lose their livelihood as well. The Supreme Court said, “Article 21 of the
Constitution which guaranteed the right to life included the right to livelihood.
Therefore if pavement dwellers were to be evicted they should first be provided
alternative accommodation under the right to shelter.”
● Awareness about the condition of the urban poor is growing among governments,
N.G.O’s and other agencies, and among the slum-dwellers themselves. For instance, a
national policy on urban street vendors was framed in January 2004.
● The concept of equal citizenship would mean that providing equal rights and
protection to all citizens should be one of the guiding principles of government policies.
● The street vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act,
2014.
● CITIZEN AND NATION :

● The concept of nation state evolved in the modern period. One of the earliest assertions
regarding the sovereignty of the nation state and democratic rights of citizens was made
by the revolutionaries in France in 1789.
● The provisions about citizenship in the Constitution can be found in Part Two and in
subsequent laws passed by Parliament.
● The Constitution adopted an essentially democratic and inclusive notion of citizenship.
● In India, citizenship can be acquired by birth, descent, registration, naturalisation, or
inclusion of territory.
● The rights and obligations of citizens are listed in the Constitution.
● The rights of religious and linguistic minorities are also protected.
● UNIVERSAL CITIZENSHIP :
● Refugees in the Darfur region of Sudan, Palestinians, Burmese or Bangladeshis.
● The U.N. has appointed a High Commissioner for Refugees to try to help them.
● India prides itself on providing refuge to persecuted peoples, as it did with the Dalai
Lama and his followers in 1959.
_________________________________________________________________
POLITICAL THEORY
● A nation is to a great extent an ‘imagined’ community, held together by the collective

beliefs, aspirations and imaginations of its members. It is based on certain assumptions
which people make about the collective whole with which they identify.
● Shared Beliefs : First, a nation is constituted by belief.
● History : Second, people who see themselves as a nation also embody a sense of
continuing historical identity. Jawaharlal Nehru, for instance, wrote in his book The
Discovery of India, “Though outwardly there was diversity and infinite variety among
the people, everywhere there was that tremendous impress of oneness, which held all of
us together in ages past, whatever political fate or misfortune had befallen us”.
● Territory : Third, nations identify with a particular territory.
● Shared Political Ideals : Fourth, while territory and shared historical identity play an
important role in creating a sense of oneness, it is a shared vision of the future and the
collective aspiration to have an independent political existence that distinguishes
groups from nations.
● Common Political Identity.
● NATIONAL SELF-DETERMINATION : Nations, unlike other social groups, seek

the right to govern themselves and determine their future development. They seek, in
other words, the right to self-determination. In making this claim a nation seeks
recognition and acceptance by the international community of its status as a distinct
political entity or state. Most often these claims come from people who have lived
together on a given land for a long period of time and who have a sense of common
identity. In some cases such claims to self-determination are linked also to the desire to
form a state in which the culture of the group is protected if not privileged.
● The Indian constitution has an elaborate set of provisions for the protection of
religious, linguistic and cultural minorities.
● TAGORE’S CRITIQUE OF NATIONALISM :

● ”Patriotism cannot be our final spiritual shelter; my refuge is humanity. I will not buy
glass for the price of diamonds, and I will never allow patriotism to triumph over
humanity as long as I live.” This was said by Rabindranath Tagore.
● A critique of what he called ‘patriotism’ is a persistent theme in his writings.
● He was very critical of the narrow expressions of nationalism that he found at work in
parts of our independence movement.
● In particular, he was afraid that a rejection of the west in favour of what looked like
Indian traditions was not only limiting in itself; it could easily turn into hostility to other
influences from abroad, including Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism and Islam
which have been present in our 108 countries.
_________________________________________________________________
POLITICAL THEORY
● Secularism is first and foremost a doctrine that opposes all forms of inter-religious
domination. This is however only one crucial aspect of the concept of secularism. An
equally important dimension of secularism is its opposition to intra-religious
domination.
● When religion is organised, it is frequently taken over by its most conservative faction,
which does not tolerate any dissent.
● A state governed directly by a priestly order is called theocratic.
● If we value peace, freedom and equality, religious institutions and state
institutions must be separated.
● THE WESTERN MODEL OF SECULARISM :
● All secular states have one thing in common: they are neither theocratic nor do they
establish a religion.
● In most commonly prevalent conceptions, inspired mainly by the American model,
separation of religion and state is understood as mutual exclusion: the state will not
intervene in the affairs of religion and, in the same manner, religion will not interfere in
the affairs of the state.
● Each has a separate sphere of its own with independent jurisdiction. No policy of the
state can have an exclusively religious rationale. No religious classification can be the
basis of any public policy. If this happens there is illegitimate intrusion of religion in the
state.
● Similarly, the state cannot aid any religious institution. It cannot give financial support
to educational institutions run by religious communities. Nor can it hinder the activities
of religious communities, as long as they are within the broad limits set by the law of the
land.
● For example, if a religious institution forbids a woman from becoming a priest, then the
state can do little about it.
● If a religious community excommunicates its dissenters, the state can only be a silent
witness.
● If a particular religion forbids the entry of some of its members in the sanctum of its
temple, then the state has no option but to let the matter rest exactly where it is.
● On this view, religion is a private matter, not a matter of state policy or law.
● NEHRU ON SECULARISM :
● ‘Equal protection by the State to all religions’.
● Nehru did not practise any religion, nor did he believe in God.
● But for him secularism did not mean hostility to religion.
● At the same time Nehru was not in favour of a complete separation between religion and
state.
● A secular state can interfere in matters of religion to bring about social reform.
● Nehru himself played a key role in enacting laws abolishing caste discrimination, dowry and
sati, and extending legal rights and social freedom to Indian women.
● Secularism for him meant a complete opposition to communalism of all kinds.
● Nehru was particularly severe in his criticism of the communalism of the majority
community, which posed a threat to national unity.
● Secularism for him was not only a matter of principles, it was also the only guarantee of the
unity and integrity of India.
● THE INDIAN MODEL OF SECULARISM :
● Indian secularism is fundamentally different from Western secularism.
● Indian secularism does not focus only on church-state separation, and the idea of
inter-religious equality is crucial to the Indian conception.
● Indian secularism took on a distinct form as a result of an interaction between what
already existed in a society that had religious diversity and the ideas that came from the
west.
● Indian secularism equally opposed the oppression of dalits and women within
Hinduism, the discrimination against women within Indian Islam or Christianity, and
the possible threats that a majority community might pose to the rights of the minority
religious communities. This is its first important difference from mainstream western
secularism.
● Indian secularism deals not only with religious freedom of individuals but also with
religious freedom of minority communities. Within it, an individual has the right to
profess the religion of his or her choice. Likewise, religious minorities also have a right
to exist and to maintain their own culture and educational institutions.
● A third difference is this. Since a secular state must be concerned equally with
intra-religious domination, Indian secularism has made room for and is compatible
with the idea of state-supported religious reform. Thus, the Indian constitution bans
untouchability. The Indian state has enacted several laws abolishing child marriage and
lifting the taboo on inter-caste marriage sanctioned by Hinduism.
● The secular character of the Indian state is established by virtue of the fact that it is
neither theocratic nor has it established any one or multiple religions. Beyond that it has
adopted a very sophisticated policy in pursuit of religious equality. This allows it either
to disengage with religion in American style, or engage with it if required.
● The Indian state may engage with religion negatively to oppose religious tyranny. This is
reflected in such actions as the ban on untouchability. It may also choose a positive
mode of engagement. Thus, the Indian Constitution grants all religious minorities the
right to establish and maintain their own educational institutions which may receive
assistance from the state. All these complex strategies can be adopted by the state to
promote the values of peace, freedom and equality.
● Indian secularism allows for principled state intervention in all religions.
● Such intervention betrays disrespect to some aspects of every religion. For example,
religiously sanctioned caste-hierarchies are not acceptable within Indian secularism.
The secular state does not have to treat every aspect of every religion with equal respect.
It allows equal disrespect for some aspects of organised religions.
● CRITICISMS OF INDIAN SECULARISM :

● Anti-religious.
● Western Import : In the west, it was the Church-state separation which was central
and in countries such as India, the idea of peaceful coexistence of different religious
communities has been important.
● Minoritism.
● Interventionist.
● Vote Bank Politics.
● Impossible Project.
___________________________________________________________
POLITICAL THEORY
● The nineteenth century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was one of those
who glorified war.
● The Italian social theorist, Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923), argued that people who
were able and willing to use force to achieve their goals constituted the governing elites in
most societies. He described them as ‘lions’.
● Peace is often defined as the absence of war.
● Peace would be to see it as the absence of violent conflict of all kinds including war, riot,
massacre, assassination, or simply physical attack.
● Patriarchy entails a form of social organisation that results in the systematic
subordination of, and discrimination against, women. Its manifestations include selective
abortion of female foetuses, denial of adequate nourishment and education to the girl-child,
childmarriage, wife battering, dowry-related crimes, sexual harassment at the workplace,
rape, and honour killing.
● Palestinian struggle against Israeli domination.
● “All wrong-doing arises because of the mind. If the mind is transformed can wrong-doing
remain?” – Gautam Buddha.
● “I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the
evil it does is permanent” – Mahatma Gandhi.
● Components for the Creation of Terrorism :

● FANATICISM ● INTOLERANCE ● HUNGER
● WAR ● INEQUALITY ● MISERY
● Peace is not an end-state, but a process involving an active pursuit of the moral and material
resources needed to establish human welfare in the broadest sense of the term.
● Supra-national : Having power or influence that transcends national boundaries or
governments.
● PACIFISM : Pacifism preaches opposition to war or violence as a means of settling

disputes. It covers a spectrum of views ranging from a preference for diplomacy in resolving
international disputes to absolute opposition to the use of violence, or even force, in any
circumstance. Pacifism may be based on principle or pragmatism.
● The rise of terrorism is partly a response to the self-serving and ham-handed conduct of
the aggressive states. Terrorists currently pose a great threat to peace through an adroit
and ruthless use of modern weapons and advanced technology more generally. The
demolition of the World Trade Centre (New York, USA) by Islamic militants on 11
September 2001 was a striking manifestation of this sinister reality. The use of
biological/chemical/nuclear weapons of mass destruction by these forces remains a
frightening possibility.
● Several parts of the world have witnessed the creation of nuclear -weapon-free
zones where the use, development or deployment of nuclear weapons is banned
through an internationally recognised treaty. Today there are six such zones which
have been achieved or are in the process of acceptance, covering the Antarctic
territory, Latin America and the Caribbean, South-East Asia, Africa, the
South Pacific, and Mongolia.
_________________________________________________________________
POLITICAL THEORY
● In the broadest sense of the term, development conveys the ideas of improvement,
progress, well-being and an aspiration for a better life.
● THE CHALLENGE OF DEVELOPMENT :
● The concept of development gained importance after the second half of the twentieth
century.
● In the 1950s and 1960s when most countries of Asia and Africa had achieved independence
from colonial rule, the most urgent task in front of them was to solve the pressing problems
of poverty, malnourishment, unemployment, illiteracy and the lack of basic amenities that a
majority of their populations faced.
● The concept of development has undergone many changes over the years. In the initial
years the focus was on catching up with the west in terms of economic growth and
modernisation of societies.
● Developing countries adopted goals like faster economic growth through industrialisation,
modernisation of agriculture and extending and modernising education.
● It was believed at the time that the state was the only agency capable of initiating this kind
of social and economic change.
● Many countries embarked upon ambitious projects of development, often with the help of
loans and aid from the developed countries.
● In India a series of Five Year Plans for development were made starting from the 1950s,
and these included a number of mega projects such as the Bhakra Nangal Dam, setting up
steel plants in different parts of the country, mining, fertiliser production and improving
agricultural techniques.
● It was hoped that a multipronged strategy would have an impact on the economy and
significantly increase the wealth of the country.
● It was also hoped that the emerging prosperity would gradually ‘trickle down’ to the poorest
sections of society and help to reduce inequality.
● A great deal of faith was placed in adopting the latest discoveries of science and state of the
art technologies.
● New educational institutions like the Indian Institutes of Technology were set up and
collaboration with advanced countries in order to have access to their knowledge became a
top priority.
● It was believed that the process of development would make the society more modern and
forward looking and set it on the path of growth.
● However, the model of development adopted by India and other countries has come under a
great deal of criticism over the years and this has led to some rethinking about the goals and
processes of development today.
● CRITICISMS OF DEVELOPMENT MODELS :
● The Social Costs of Development :
○ This model of development has also had high social costs. A large number of people
have been displaced from their homes and localities due to the construction of big
dams, industrial activities and mining activities, or other projects.
○ Loss of culture because when people are relocated they lose a whole way of
community life.
○ ‘Narmada Bachao Andolan’ which has been leading a movement against the Sardar
Sarovar Dam on the river Narmada for many years.
● Environmental Costs of Development :
○ Development has indeed caused a high degree of environmental degradation in many
countries and not just the displaced people but all of the population is beginning to feel
the consequences.
○ When the ‘tsunami’ hit the South and South-East Asian coasts in 2004, it was observed
that the destruction of mangroves and the building of commercial enterprises along the
shore line was the reason for the greater extent of the damage caused.
○ You must have read about global warming. The ice in the Arctic and Antarctic is melting
because of increased emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and this has
the potential to cause floods and actually submerge low lying areas like Bangladesh and
the Maldives.
○ Air pollution is already a problem which does not discriminate between the rich and the
poor.
○ Loss of forests affects the poor who use forest resources for a variety of subsistence
needs like firewood, medicinal herbs or food. Drying up of rivers and ponds and falling
groundwater levels means that women have to walk longer in order to procure water.
● ENVIRONMENTALISM :
● Pollution, waste management, sustainable development, protection of endangered species
and global warming.
● Environmentalists maintain that human beings should learn to live in harmony with the
rhythms of the ecosystem and not manipulate the natural environment to serve their
immediate interests. They believe that mankind is using up and destroying natural
resources to such an extent that we will bequeath only a barren earth, poisoned rivers and
polluted air to future generations.
● The roots of environmentalism can be traced back to the nineteenth-century revolt against
industrialisation.
● Today, the environmental movement has become a worldwide phenomenon with thousands
of non-governmental groups and even some ‘green’ political parties.
● Some well-known environmental groups include GreenPeace and the World Wildlife Fund
and in India we have the Chipko Movement which emerged to protect the Himalayan
forests. Such groups try to pressurise governments to modify their industrial and
developmental policies in the light of environmental goals.
● Assessing Development :
● It could not of course be said that development has had only negative effects for the world.
● Some countries have had some success in increasing their rate of economic growth and even
in reducing poverty.
● But overall, inequalities have not been seriously reduced and poverty continues to be a
problem in the developing world.
● There is now a search for alternative ways of measuring development. One such attempt is
the Human Development Report which is annually brought out by the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP).
● This report ranks countries on the basis of their performance in social indicators like
literacy and education levels, life expectancy and maternal mortality rates.
● This measure is called the Human Development Index.
● According to this conception, development should be a process which allows more and more
people to make meaningful choices and the precondition for this is the fulfilment of basic
needs like food, education, health and shelter. This is called the basic needs approach.
● Development thus became a process designed and implemented by the ruling sections
in the country who have also often been the major beneficiaries of development
projects.
● At one level, efforts should be made to conserve natural resources and use
renewable sources of energy as far as possible. Efforts such as rain-water
harvesting, solar and biogas plants, micro-hydel projects, compost pits to generate
manure out of organic waste are examples in this direction.
● Conclusion :
● The idea of development refers to the desire for a better life. This is a very powerful
desire and the hope of improvement is a driving force of human action.
● There is a multi-pronged search for a more equitable, sustainable and
democratic model of development. In the process, a number of concepts of
political theory such as equality, democracy and rights, have been reinterpreted.
● The issues that have arisen while pursuing the goal of development reveal that the
choices we make have an impact upon others — other human beings and other species
in the world.
● We must therefore see ourselves as part of the larger universe for our fates are linked
together.
● Besides, my actions not only affect others, they also have an impact upon my own future
possibilities.
● We need therefore to choose carefully, keeping in mind not just our present needs but
also our long-term interests.
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
CHAPTER-1 : CLASS-12 : POLITICAL SCIENCE : PART - 1
● COLD WAR :
● The end of the Second World War is a landmark in contemporary world politics.
● In 1945, the Allied Forces, led by the US, Soviet Union, Britain and France defeated the
Axis Powers led by Germany, Italy and Japan, ending the Second World War (1939-
1945).
● The war had involved almost all the major powers of the world and spread out to regions
outside Europe including Southeast Asia, China, Burma (now Myanmar) and parts of
India’s northeast.
● The war devastated the world in terms of loss of human lives and civilian property.
● The First World War had earlier shaken the world between 1914 and 1918.
● The end of the Second World War was also the beginning of the Cold War.
● The world war ended when the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the
Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, causing Japan to surrender.
● Critics of the US decision to drop the bombs have argued that the US knew that Japan
was about to surrender and that it was unnecessary to drop the bombs.
● Most countries of western Europe sided with the US and those of eastern Europe joined
the Soviet camp. That is why these were also called the ‘western’ and the ‘eastern’
alliances.
● The western alliance was formalised into an organisation, the North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation (NATO), which came into existence in April 1949.
● The eastern alliance, known as the Warsaw Pact, was led by the Soviet Union. It was
created in 1955 and its principal function was to counter NATO’s forces in Europe.
● In East and Southeast Asia and in West Asia (Middle East), the United States built an
alliance system called — the Southeast Asian Treaty Organisation (SEATO) and the
Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO). The Soviet Union and communist China
responded by having close relations with regional countries such as North Vietnam,
North Korea and Iraq.
● Communist China quarrelled with the USSR towards the late 1950s, and, in 1969, they
fought a brief war over a territorial dispute. The other important development was the
Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which gave the newly independent countries a way of
staying out of the alliances.
● The smaller states were helpful for the superpowers in gaining access to :
● (i) vital resources, such as oil and minerals,
● (ii) territory, from where the superpowers could launch their weapons and troops,
● (iii) locations from where they could spy on each other, and
● (iv) economic support, in that many small allies together could help pay for military
expenses.
● The US and USSR decided to collaborate in limiting or eliminating certain kinds of

nuclear and non-nuclear weapons.
● A stable balance of weapons, they decided, could be maintained through ‘arms control’.
Starting in the 1960s, the two sides signed three significant agreements within a decade.
These were the Limited Test Ban Treaty, Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty and the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
● The idea of a New International Economic Order (NIEO) originated with this
realisation. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
brought out a report in 1972 entitled Towards a New Trade Policy for Development.
_________________________________________________________________
● The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) came into being after the socialist
revolution in Russia in 1917.
● Three Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania become UN members (later join
NATO in March 2004).
● Russia, Belarus and Ukraine decide to annul the 1922 Treaty on the Creation of the
USSR and establish the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS); Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan
join the CIS (Georgia joins later in 1993); Russia takes over the USSR seat in the United
Nations.
● INDIA AND POST-COMMUNIST COUNTRIES :
● India has maintained good relations with all the postcommunist countries.
● But the strongest relations are still those between Russia and India.
● India’s relations with Russia are an important aspect of India’s foreign policy.
● Indo-Russian relations are embedded in a history of trust and common interests
and are matched by popular perceptions.
● Russia and India share a vision of a multipolar world order.
● What they mean by a multipolar world order is the coexistence of several powers in
the international system, collective security (in which an attack on any country is
regarded as a threat to all countries and requires a collective response), greater
regionalism, negotiated settlements of international conflicts, an independent
foreign policy for all countries, and decision making through bodies like the UN that
should be strengthened, democratised, and empowered.
● More than 80 bilateral agreements have been signed between India and Russia as
part of the Indo-Russian Strategic Agreement of 2001.
● India stands to benefit from its relationship with Russia on issues like Kashmir,
energy supplies, sharing information on international terrorism, access to Central
Asia, and balancing its relations with China.
● Russia stands to benefit from this relationship because India is the second largest
arms market for Russia.
● The Indian military gets most of its hardware from Russia.
● Since India is an oil importing nation, Russia is important to India and has
repeatedly come to the assistance of India during its oil crises.
● India is seeking to increase its energy imports from Russia and the republics of
Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.
● Cooperation with these republics includes partnership and investment in oilfields.
● Russia is important for India’s nuclear energy plans and assisted India’s space
industry by giving, for example, the cryogenic rocket when India needed it.
● Russia and India have collaborated on various scientific projects.
● INDIA & THE USSR :

● Economic: The Soviet Union assisted India’s public sector companies at a time when
such assistance was difficult to get. It gave aid and technical assistance for steel plants
like Bhilai, Bokaro, Visakhapatnam, and machinery plants like Bharat Heavy Electricals
Ltd., etc. The Soviet Union accepted Indian currency for trade when India was short of
foreign exchange.
● Political: The Soviet Union supported India’s positions on the Kashmir issue in the
UN. It also supported India during its major conflicts, especially during the war with
Pakistan in 1971. India too supported Soviet foreign policy in some crucial but indirect
ways.
● Military: India received most of its military hardware from the Soviet Union at a time
when few other countries were willing to part with military technologies. The Soviet
Union entered into various agreements allowing India to jointly produce military
equipment.
● Culture: Hindi films and Indian culture were popular in the Soviet Union. A large
number of Indian writers and artists visited the USSR.
_________________________________________________________________
● Geneva Convention.
● INDIA’S RELATIONSHIP WITH THE US :
● During the Cold War years, India found itself on the opposite side of the divide from the
US.
● India’s closest friendship during those years was with the Soviet Union.
● After the collapse of the Soviet Union, India suddenly found itself friendless in an
increasingly hostile international environment.
● However, these were also the years when India decided to liberalise its economy and
integrate it with the global economy.
● This policy and India’s impressive economic growth rates in recent years have made the
country an attractive economic partner for a number of countries including the US.
● It is important that we do not lose sight of the fact that two new factors have emerged in
Indo-US relations in recent years.
● These factors relate to the technological dimension and the role of the Indian-American
diaspora.
● Indeed, these two factors are interrelated. Consider the following facts:
● The US absorbs about 65 per cent of India’s total exports in the software sector.
● 35 percent of the technical staff of Boeing is estimated to be of Indian origin.
● 300,000 Indians work in Silicon Valley.
● 15 percent of all high-tech start-ups are by Indian-Americans.
_________________________________________________________________
● One member of the EU, France, holds a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
● Militarily, the EU’s combined armed forces are the second largest in the world. Its total
spending on defence is second after the US.
● ASSOCIATION OF SOUTH-EAST ASIAN NATIONS (ASEAN) :
● ASEAN was established in 1967 by five countries of this region — Indonesia, Malaysia,
the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand — by signing the Bangkok Declaration.
● The objectives of ASEAN were primarily to accelerate economic growth and through
that ‘social progress and cultural development’.
● A secondary objective was to promote regional peace and stability based on the rule of
law and the principles of the United Nations Charter.
● Over the years, Brunei Darussalam, Vietnam, Lao PDR, Myanmar (Burma) and
Cambodia joined ASEAN taking its strength to ten.
● With some of the fastest growing economies in the world, ASEAN broadened its
objectives beyond the economic and social spheres.
● In 2003, ASEAN moved along the path of the EU by agreeing to establish an ASEAN
Community comprising three pillars, namely, the ASEAN Security Community, the
ASEAN Economic Community and the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community.
● By 2003, ASEAN had several agreements in place by which member states promised to
uphold peace, neutrality, cooperation, non-interference, and respect for national
differences and sovereign rights.
● The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), which was established in 1994, is the organisation
that carries out coordination of security and foreign policy.
● ASEAN has focused on creating a Free Trade Area (FTA) for investment, labour, and
services.
● The US and China have already moved fast to negotiate FTAs with ASEAN.
● The current economic strength of ASEAN, especially its economic relevance as a trading
and investment partner to the growing Asian economies such as India and China, makes
this an attractive proposition.
● The ASEAN-India FTA came into effect in 2010.
● India’s ‘Look East’ Policy since the early 1990s and ‘Act East’ Policy since 2014 have led
to greater economic interaction with the East Asian nations (ASEAN, China, Japan and
South Korea).
● INDIA – CHINA RELATIONS :

● India and China were great powers in Asia before the advent of Western imperialism.
● After India regained its independence from Britain, and China expelled the foreign
powers, there was hope that both would come together to shape the future of the
developing world and of Asia particularly.
● For a brief while, the slogan of ‘Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai’ was popular.
● However, military conflict over a border dispute between the two countries marred that
hope.
● Soon after independence, both states were involved in differences arising from the
Chinese takeover of Tibet in 1950 and the final settlement of the Sino-Indian border.
● China and India were involved in a border conflict in 1962 over competing territorial
claims principally in Arunachal Pradesh and in the Aksai Chin region of Ladakh.
● The conflict of 1962, in which India suffered military reverses, had long-term
implications for India–China relations.
● Diplomatic relations between the two countries were downgraded until 1976.
● Thereafter, relations between the two countries began to improve slowly.
● After the change in China’s political leadership from the mid to late 1970s, China’s
policy became more pragmatic and less ideological.
● So it was prepared to put off the settlement of contentious issues while improving
relations with India.
● A series of talks to resolve the border issue were also initiated in 1981.
● Since the end of the Cold War, there have been significant changes in India– China
relations.
● Their relations now have a strategic as well as an economic dimension.
● Both view themselves as rising powers in global politics, and both would like to play a
major role in the Asian economy and politics.
● With India– China trade growing at 30 percent per year since 1999, a more positive
perspective on relations with China has emerged.
● More recently, both countries have agreed to cooperate with each other in areas that
could otherwise create conflict between the two, such as bidding for energy deals
abroad.
● At the global level, India and China have adopted similar policies in international
economic institutions like the World Trade Organisation.
● Increasing transportation and communication links, common economic interests and
global concerns should help establish a more positive and sound relationship between
the two most populous countries of the world.
● Recently the relation between the two countries has taken a downslide.
● Border disputes, China-Pakistan economic corridor and China’s support to Pakistan in
UN against India’s move to counter terrorism are some of the factors for it.
● Japan :
● Japan became a member of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD) in 1964.
● In 2017, it is the third largest economy in the world.
● It is the only Asian member of the G-7.
● It is the eleventh most populous nation in the world.
● Japan is the only nation that suffered the destruction caused by nuclear bombs.
● It is the second largest contributor to the regular budget of the UN, contributing almost
10 percent of the total.
● Japan has had a security alliance with the US since 1951.
● As per Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, “the Japanese people forever renounce
war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling
international disputes.”
● Although Japan’s military expenditure is only one percent of its GDP, it is the seventh
largest in the world.
_________________________________________________________________
● The expression ‘South Asia’ usually includes the following countries: Bangladesh,
Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
● The mighty Himalayas in the north and the vast Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea and the
Bay of Bengal in the south, west and east respectively provide a natural insularity to the
region, which is largely responsible for the linguistic, social and cultural distinctiveness
of the subcontinent.
● In 2008, the monarchy was abolished and Nepal emerged as a democratic republic.
● 1960: India and Pakistan sign the Indus Waters Treaty

● 1962: Border conflict between India and China
● 1966:
● India and Pakistan sign the Tashkent Agreement;
● Six-point proposal of Sheikh Mujib-ur Rahman for greater autonomy to East
Pakistan
● 1971 March: Proclamation of Independence by leaders of Bangladesh
● August : Indo-Soviet Treaty of Friendship signed for 20 years
● December : Indo-Pak War, Liberation of Bangladesh
● 1972 July: India and Pakistan sign the Shimla Agreement
● 1974 May: India conducts nuclear test
● 1976: Pakistan and Bangladesh establish diplomatic ties
● 1985 December: South Asian leaders sign the SAARC Charter at the first summit in
Dhaka
● 1987: Indo-Sri Lanka Accord; Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) operation in Sri
Lanka (1987-90)
● 1988:
● India sends troops to the Maldives to foil a coup attempt by mercenaries
● India and Pakistan sign the agreement not to attack nuclear installations and
facilities of each other
● 1988-91: Democracy restoration in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal
● 1996 December: India and Bangladesh sign the Farakka Treaty for sharing of the
Ganga Waters
● 1998 May: India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests
● December: India and Sri Lanka sign the Free Trade Agreement (FTA)
● 1999 February: Indian PM Vajpayee undertakes bus journey to Lahore to sign a Peace
Declaration
● June-July: Kargil conflict between India and Pakistan
● 2001 July: Vajpayee - Musharraf Agra Summit unsuccessful
● 2004 January: SAFTA signed at the 12th SAARC Summit in Islamabad
● 2007: Afghanistan joined SAARC
● 2014 November: The 18th SAARC Summit in Kathmandu, Nepal.
● INDIA-PAKISTAN CONFLICTS :
● The 1947-48 war resulted in the division of the province into Pakistan-occupied
Kashmir and the Indian province of Jammu and Kashmir divided by the Line of Control.
● In 1971, India won a decisive war against Pakistan but the Kashmir issue remained
unsettled.
● India’s conflict with Pakistan is also over strategic issues like the control of the Siachen
glacier and over acquisition of arms.
● The arms race between the two countries assumed a new character with both states
acquiring nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver such arms against each other in the
1990s.
● In 1998, India conducted a nuclear explosion in Pokaran.
● Pakistan responded within a few days by carrying out nuclear tests in the Chagai Hills.
● Since then India and Pakistan seem to have built a military relationship in which the
possibility of a direct and full-scale war has declined.
● India and Pakistan also have had problems over the sharing of river waters.
● Until 1960, they were locked in a fierce argument over the use of the rivers of the Indus
basin.
● Eventually, in 1960, with the help of the World Bank, India and Pakistan signed the
Indus Waters Treaty which has survived to this day in spite of various military conflicts
in which the two countries have been involved.
● INDIA AND ITS OTHER NEIGHBOURS :

● The governments of India and Bangladesh have had differences over several issues
including the sharing of the Ganga and Brahmaputra river waters.
● The Indian government has been unhappy with Bangladesh’s denial of illegal
immigration to India, its support for anti-Indian Islamic fundamentalist groups,
Bangladesh’s refusal to allow Indian troops to move through its territory to northeastern
India, and its decision not to export natural gas to India or allow Myanmar to do so
through Bangladeshi territory.
● Bangladeshi governments have felt that the Indian government behaves like a regional
bully over the sharing of river waters, encouraging rebellion in the Chittagong Hill
Tracts, trying to extract its natural gas and being unfair in trade.
● The two countries could not resolve their boundary dispute for a long while.
● Despite their differences, India and Bangladesh do cooperate on many issues.
● Economic relations have improved considerably in the last 20 years.
● Bangladesh is a part of India’s Look East (Act East since 2014) policy that wants to link
up with Southeast Asia via Myanmar.
● On disaster management and environmental issues, the two states have cooperated
regularly.
● In 2015, they exchanged certain enclaves.
● Efforts are on to broaden the areas of cooperation further by identifying common
threats and being more sensitive to each other’s needs.
● Nepal and India enjoy a very special relationship that has very few parallels in the
world.
● A treaty between the two countries allows the citizens of the two countries to travel to
and work in the other country without visas and passports.
● Despite this special relationship, the governments of the two countries have had trade
related disputes in the past.
● The Indian government has often expressed displeasure at the warm relationship
between Nepal and China and at the Nepal government’s inaction against anti-Indian
elements.
● Indian security agencies see the Maoist movement in Nepal as a growing security threat,
given the rise of Naxalite groups in various Indian states from Bihar in the north to
Andhra Pradesh in the south.
● Many leaders and citizens in Nepal think that the Indian government interferes in its
internal affairs, has designs on its river waters and hydro-electricity, and prevents
Nepal, a landlocked country, from getting easier access to the sea through Indian
territory.
● Nevertheless, Indo-Nepal relations are fairly stable and peaceful.
● Despite differences, trade, scientific cooperation, common natural resources, electricity
generation and interlocking water management grids hold the two countries together.
● There is a hope that the consolidation of democracy in Nepal will lead to improvements
in the ties between the two countries.
● The difficulties in the relationship between the governments of India and Sri Lanka are
mostly over ethnic conflict in the island nation.
● Indian leaders and citizens find it impossible to remain neutral when Tamils are
politically unhappy and are being killed.
● After the military intervention in 1987, the Indian government now prefers a policy of
disengagement vis-à-vis Sri Lanka’s internal troubles.
● India signed a free trade agreement with Sri Lanka, which strengthened relations
between two countries.
● India’s help in post-tsunami reconstruction in Sri Lanka has also brought the two
countries closer.
● India enjoys a very special relationship with Bhutan too and does not have any major
conflict with the Bhutanese government.
● The efforts made by the Bhutanese monarch to weed out the guerrillas and militants
from northeastern India that operate in his country have been helpful to India.
● India is involved in big hydroelectric projects in Bhutan and remains the Himalayan
kingdom’s biggest source of development aid.
● India’s ties with the Maldives remain warm and cordial.

● In November 1988, when some Tamil mercenaries from Sri Lanka attacked the
Maldives, the Indian air force and navy reacted quickly to the Maldives’ request to help
stop the invasion.
● India has also contributed towards the island’s economic development, tourism and
fisheries.
● PEACE AND COOPERATION :

● The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is a major regional
initiative by the South Asian states to evolve cooperation through multilateral means.
● It began in 1985.
● Unfortunately, due to persisting political differences, SAARC has not had much success.
● SAARC members signed the South Asian Free Trade (SAFTA) agreement which
promised the formation of a free trade zone for the whole of South Asia.
● The Agreement was signed in 2004 and came into effect on 1 January 2006.
● SAFTA aims at lowering trade tariffs. But some of our neighbours fear that SAFTA is a
way for India to ‘invade’ their markets and to influence their societies and politics
through commercial ventures and a commercial presence in their countries.
● India thinks that there are real economic benefits for all from SAFTA and that a region
that trades more freely will be able to cooperate better on political issues.
● Some in India think that SAFTA is not worth the trouble since India already has
bilateral agreements with Bhutan, Nepal and Sri Lanka.
● The US has had good relations with both India and Pakistan since the end of the Cold
War and increasingly works as a moderator in India-Pakistan relations.
● However, whether South Asia will continue to be known as a conflict prone zone or will
evolve into a regional bloc with some common cultural features and trade interests will
depend more on the people and the governments of the region than any other outside
power.
_________________________________________________________________
● IMF.
● 1945 October 30: India joins the UN.
● The UN was founded as a successor to the League of Nations. It was established in 1945
immediately after the Second World War.
● In the UN General Assembly, all members have one vote each.
● In the UN Security Council, there are five permanent members. These are: the United
States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China.
● The UN’s most visible public figure, and the representative head, is the
Secretary-General.
● World Health Organisation (WHO), the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP), the United Nations Human Rights Commision (UNHRC), the United Nations
High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations Children’s Fund
(UNICEF), and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation
(UNESCO).
● In the Security Council, there are five permanent members and ten non-permanent
members.
● World Bank :
● The World Bank was created during the Second World War in 1944.
● Its activities are focused on developing countries.
● It works for human development (education, health), agriculture and rural development
(irrigation, rural services), environmental protection (pollution reduction, establishing
and enforcing regulations), infrastructure (roads, urban regeneration, electricity) and
governance (anti-corruption, development of legal institutions).
● It provides loans and grants to the member-countries.
● In this way, it exercises enormous influence on the economic policies of developing
countries.
● It is often criticised for setting the economic agenda of the poorer nations, attaching
stringent conditions to its loans and forcing free market reforms.
● WTO : The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is an international organisation which

sets the rules for global trade. This organisation was set up in 1995 as the successor to
the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) created after the Second World
War.
● IAEA : The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was established in 1957. It
seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and to prevent its use for military
purposes. IAEA teams regularly inspect nuclear facilities all over the world to ensure
that civilian reactors are not being used for military purposes.
● Amnesty International : Amnesty International is an NGO that campaigns for the
protection of human rights all over the world. It promotes respect for all the human
rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It believes that human rights are
interdependent and indivisible. It prepares and publishes reports on human rights.
Governments are not always happy with these reports since a major focus of Amnesty is
the misconduct of government authorities.
● Human Rights Watch : Human Rights Watch is another international NGO involved
in research and advocacy on human rights. It is the largest international human rights
organisation in the US. It draws the global media’s attention to human rights abuses. It
helped in building international coalitions like the campaigns to ban landmines, to stop
the use of child soldiers and to establish the International Criminal Court.
_________________________________________________________________
● The 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and the 1992 Chemical Weapons
Convention (CWC) banned the production and possession of these weapons.
● More than 155 states acceded to the BWC and 181 states acceded to the CWC.
● Both conventions included all the great powers.
● But the superpowers — the US and Soviet Union — did not want to give up the third
type of weapons of mass destruction, namely, nuclear weapons, so they pursued arms
control.
● Arms control regulates the acquisition or development of weapons.
● The Anti-ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 1972 tried to stop the United States and
Soviet Union from using ballistic missiles as a defensive shield to launch a nuclear
attack.
● The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968 was an arms control treaty in the
sense that it regulated the acquisition of nuclear weapons: those countries that had
tested and manufactured nuclear weapons before 1967 were allowed to keep their
weapons; and those that had not done so were to give up the right to acquire them.
● The NPT did not abolish nuclear weapons; rather, it limited the number of countries
that could have them.
● The idea of global security emerged in the 1990s in response to the global nature of
threats such as global warming, international terrorism, and health epidemics like AIDS
and bird flu and so on.
● Terrorism refers to political violence that targets civilians deliberately and

indiscriminately .
● International terrorism involves the citizens or territory of more than one country.
● Terrorist groups seek to change a political context or condition that they do not like by
force or threat of force.
● Civilian targets are usually chosen to terrorise the public and to use the unhappiness of
the public as a weapon against national governments or other parties in conflict.
● The classic cases of terrorism involve hijacking planes or planting bombs in trains,
cafes, markets and other crowded places.
● Human rights have come to be classified into three types. The first type is political
rights such as freedom of speech and assembly. The second type is economic and social
rights. The third type is the rights of colonised people or ethnic and indigenous
minorities.
● Global poverty is a source of insecurity.

● Health epidemics such as HIV-AIDS, bird flu, and severe acute respiratory syndrome
(SARS) have rapidly spread across countries through migration, business, tourism and
military operations. One country’s success or failure in limiting the spread of these
diseases affects infections in other countries. Other new and poorly understood diseases
such as ebola virus, hantavirus, and hepatitis C have emerged, while old diseases like
tuberculosis, malaria, dengue fever and cholera have mutated into drug resistant forms
that are difficult to treat.
● INDIA’S SECURITY STRATEGY :
● India has faced traditional (military) and non-traditional threats to its security that have
emerged from within as well as outside its borders.
● Its security strategy has four broad components, which have been used in a varying
combination from time to time.
● The first component was strengthening its military capabilities because India has been
involved in conflicts with its neighbours — Pakistan in 1947–48, 1965, 1971 and 1999;
and China in 1962.
● Since it is surrounded by nuclear-armed countries in the South Asian region, India’s
decision to conduct nuclear tests in 1998 was justified by the Indian government in
terms of safeguarding national security.
● India first tested a nuclear device in 1974.
● The second component of India’s security strategy has been to strengthen international
norms and international institutions to protect its security interests.
● India joined 160 countries that have signed and ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which
provides a roadmap for reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases to check global
warming.
● Indian troops have been sent abroad on UN peacekeeping missions in support of
cooperative security initiatives.
● The third component of Indian security strategy is geared towards meeting security
challenges within the country.
● Several militant groups from areas such as Nagaland, Mizoram, Punjab, and Kashmir
among others have, from time to time, sought to break away from India.
● India has tried to preserve national unity by adopting a democratic political system,
which allows different communities and groups of people to freely articulate their
grievances and share political power.
● Finally, there has been an attempt in India to develop its economy in a way that the vast
mass of citizens are lifted out of poverty and misery and huge economic inequalities are
not allowed to exist.
● The attempt has not quite succeeded; we are still a very poor and unequal country.
● Yet democratic politics allows spaces for articulating the voice of the poor and the
deprived citizens.
_________________________________________________________________
● Around the Aral Sea, thousands of people have had to leave their homes as the toxic
waters have totally destroyed the fishing industry. The shipping industry and all related
activities have collapsed. Rising concentrations of salt in the soil have caused low crop
yields.
● A steady decline in the total amount of ozone in the Earth’s stratosphere (commonly
referred to as the ozone hole) poses a real danger to ecosystems and human health.
● Although environmental concerns have a long history, awareness of the environmental

consequences of economic growth acquired an increasingly political character from the
1960s onwards.
● The Rio Summit produced conventions dealing with climate change, biodiversity,
forestry, and recommended a list of development practices called ‘Agenda 21’.
● Global commons. They include the earth’s atmosphere, Antarctica, the ocean floor, and
outer space.
● Cooperation over the global commons is not easy. There have been many path-breaking
agreements such as the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, the 1987 Montreal Protocol, and
the 1991 Antarctic Environmental Protocol.
● Kyoto Protocol.
● ANTARCTICA :
● The Antarctic continental region extends over 14 million square kilometres and
comprises 26 per cent of the world’s wilderness area, representing 90 percent of all
terrestrial ice and 70 percent of planetary fresh water.
● The Antarctic also extends to a further 36 million square kilometres of ocean.
● It has a limited terrestrial life and a highly productive marine ecosystem, comprising a
few plants (e.g. microscopic algae, fungi and lichen), marine mammals, fish and hordes
of birds adapted to harsh conditions, as well as the krill, which is central to marine food
chain and upon which other animals are dependent.
● The Antarctic plays an important role in maintaining climatic equilibrium, and deep ice
cores provide an important source of information about greenhouse gas concentrations
and atmospheric temperatures of hundreds and thousands of years ago.
● The Antarctic and the Arctic polar regions.
● The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) also
provides that the parties should act to protect the climate system “on the basis of equity
and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective
capabilities.”
● The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement setting targets for industrialised
countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.
● Certain gases like Carbon dioxide, Methane, Hydro-fluoro carbons etc. are considered at
least partly responsible for global warming - the rise in global temperature which may
have catastrophic consequences for life on Earth.
● The protocol was agreed to in 1997 in Kyoto in Japan, based on principles set out in
UNFCCC.
● INDIA’S STAND ON ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES :

● India signed and ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol in August 2002.
● India, China and other developing countries were exempt from the requirements of the
Kyoto Protocol because their contribution to the emission of greenhouse gases during
the industrialisation period (that is believed to be causing today’s global warming and
climate change) was not significant.
● However, the critics of the Kyoto Protocol point out that sooner or later, both India and
China, along with other developing countries, will be among the leading contributors to
greenhouse gas emissions.
● At the G-8 meeting in June 2005, India pointed out that the per capita emission rates of
the developing countries are a tiny fraction of those in the developed world.
● Following the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, India is of the
view that the major responsibility of curbing emission rests with the developed
countries, which have accumulated emissions over a long period of time.
● The Indian government is already participating in global efforts through a number of
programmes.
● For example, India’s National Auto-fuel Policy mandates cleaner fuels for vehicles.
● The Energy Conservation Act, passed in 2001, outlines initiatives to improve energy
efficiency.
● Similarly, the Electricity Act of 2003 encourages the use of renewable energy.
● Recent trends in importing natural gas and encouraging the adoption of clean coal
technologies show that India has been making real efforts.
● The government is also keen to launch a National Mission on Biodiesel, using about 11
million hectares of land to produce biodiesel by 2011–2012.
● India ratified the Paris Climate Agreement on 2 October 2016.
● And India has one of the largest renewable energy programmes in the world.
● A review of the implementation of the agreements at the Earth Summit in Rio was
undertaken by India in 1997.
● One of the key conclusions was that there had been no meaningful progress with respect
to transfer of new and additional financial resources and environmentally-sound
technology on concessional terms to developing nations.
● India finds it necessary that developed countries take immediate measures to provide
developing countries with financial resources and clean technologies to enable them to
meet their existing commitments under UNFCCC.
● India is also of the view that the SAARC countries should adopt a common position on
major global environmental issues, so that the region’s voice carries greater weight.
● In India, the description ‘indigenous people’ is usually applied to the Scheduled Tribes
who constitute nearly eight percent of the population of the country.
● With the exception of small communities of hunters and gatherers, most indigenous
populations in India depend for their subsistence primarily on the cultivation of land.
● Issues related to the rights of the indigenous communities have been neglected in
domestic and international politics for very long.
● The World Council of Indigenous Peoples was formed in 1975.
● The Council became subsequently the first of 11 indigenous NGOs to receive
consultative status in the UN.
_________________________________________________________________
● Globalisation as a concept fundamentally deals with flows.

● These flows could be of various kinds — ideas moving from one part of the world to
another , capital shunted between two or more places, commodities being traded across
borders, and people moving in search of better livelihoods to different parts of the
world.
● The crucial element is the ‘worldwide interconnectedness’ that is created and sustained
as a consequence of these constant flows.
● Globalisation is a multidimensional concept.
● It has political, economic and cultural manifestations, and these must be adequately
distinguished.
● While globalisation is not caused by any single factor, technology remains a critical
element.
● There is no doubt that the invention of the telegraph, the telephone, and the microchip
in more recent times has revolutionised communication between different parts of the
world.
● When printing initially came into being it laid the basis for the creation of nationalism.
● So also today we should expect that technology will affect the way we think of our
personal but also our collective lives.
● At the most simple level, globalisation results in an erosion of state capacity, that is, the
ability of the government to do what they do.
● All over the world, the old ‘welfare state’ is now giving way to a more minimalist state
that performs certain core functions such as the maintenance of law and order and the
security of its citizens.
● What is often called economic globalisation usually involves greater economic flows
among different countries of the world.
● The World Social Forum (WSF) is another global platform, which brings together a wide
coalition composed of human rights activists, environmentalists, labour, youth and
women activists opposed to neo-liberal globalisation.
● The first WSF meeting was organised in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2001.
● The fourth WSF meeting was held in Mumbai in 2004.
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
● Amrita Pritam (1919–2005): A prominent Punjabi poet and fiction writer. Recipient
of Sahitya Akademi Award, Padma Shree and Jnanpith Award. After Partition she made
Delhi her second home. She was active in writing and editing ‘Nagmani’ a Punjabi
monthly magazine till her last.
● Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan, the undisputed leader of the North Western Frontier
Province and known as ‘Frontier Gandhi’, was staunchly opposed to the two-nation
theory. Eventually, his voice was simply ignored and the NWFP was made to merge with
Pakistan.
● Ahimsa (non-violence) and satyagraha (active but non-violent resistance).

● On 30 January 1948, one extremist, Nathuram Vinayak Godse, walked up to Gandhiji
during his evening prayer in Delhi and fired three bullets at him, killing him instantly.
● The Government of India cracked down on organisations that were spreading
communal hatred.
● Organisations like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh were banned for some time.
● Integration 0f Princely States :

● British India was divided into what were called the British Indian Provinces and the
Princely States.
● The British Indian Provinces were directly under the control of the British government.
● On the other hand, several large and small states ruled by princes, called the Princely
States, enjoyed some form of control over their internal affairs as long as they accepted
British supremacy.
● This was called the paramountcy or suzerainty of the British crown.
● Princely States covered one-third of the land area of the British Indian Empire and one
out of four Indians lived under princely rule.
● The problem :
● Just before Independence it was announced by the British that with the end of their
rule over India, the paramountcy of the British crown over Princely States would
also lapse.
● This meant that all these states, as many as 565 in all, would become legally
independent.
● The British government took the view that all these states were free to join either
India or Pakistan or remain independent if they so wished.
● This decision was left not to the people but to the princely rulers of these states.
● This was a very serious problem and could threaten the very existence of a united
India.
● The problems started very soon.
● First of all, the ruler of Travancore announced that the state had decided on
Independence.
● The Nizam of Hyderabad made a similar announcement the next day.
● Rulers like the Nawab of Bhopal were averse to joining the Constituent Assembly.
● Government’s approach :
● Sardar Patel was India’s Deputy Prime Minister and the Home Minister during the
crucial period immediately following Independence.
● He played a historic role in negotiating with the rulers of princely states firmly but
diplomatically and bringing most of them into the Indian Union.
● It may look easy now. But it was a very complicated task which required skilful
persuasion.
● For instance, there were 26 small states in today’s Orissa.
● Saurashtra region of Gujarat had 14 big states, 119 small states and numerous
other different administrations.
● The government’s approach was guided by three considerations.
● Firstly, the people of most of the princely states clearly wanted to become part of the
Indian union.
● Secondly, the government was prepared to be flexible in giving autonomy to some
regions. The idea was to accommodate plurality and adopt a flexible approach in
dealing with the demands of the regions.
● Thirdly, in the backdrop of Partition which brought into focus the contest over
demarcation of territory, the integration and consolidation of the territorial
boundaries of the nation had assumed supreme importance.
● Before 15 August 1947, peaceful negotiations had brought almost all states whose
territories were contiguous to the new boundaries of India, into the Indian Union.
● The rulers of most of the states signed a document called the ‘Instrument of
Accession’ which meant that their state agreed to become a part of the Union of
India.
● Accession of the Princely States of Junagadh, Hyderabad, Kashmir and Manipur
proved more difficult than the rest.
● The issue of Junagarh was resolved after a plebiscite confirmed people’s desire to
join India.
● Hyderabad :
● Hyderabad, the largest of the Princely States, was surrounded entirely by Indian
territory.
● Some parts of the old Hyderabad state are today parts of Maharashtra, Karnataka
and Andhra Pradesh.
● Its ruler carried the title, ‘Nizam’, and he was one of the world’s richest men.
● The Nizam wanted an independent status for Hyderabad.
● He entered into what was called the Standstill Agreement with India in November
1947 for a year while negotiations with the Indian government were going on.
● In the meantime, a movement of the people of Hyderabad State against the Nizam’s
rule gathered force.
● The peasantry in the Telangana region in particular, was the victim of Nizam’s
oppressive rule and rose against him.
● Women who had seen the worst of this oppression joined the movement in large
numbers.
● Hyderabad town was the nerve centre of this movement.
● The Communists and the Hyderabad Congress were in the forefront of the
movement.
● The Nizam responded by unleashing a para-military force known as the Razakars on
the people.
● The atrocities and communal nature of the Razakars knew no bounds.
● They murdered, maimed, raped and looted, targeting particularly the non-Muslims.
● The central government had to order the army to tackle the situation.
● In September 1948, Indian army moved in to control the Nizam’s forces.
● After a few days of intermittent fighting, the Nizam surrendered.
● This led to Hyderabad’s accession to India.
● Manipur :
● A few days before Independence, the Maharaja of Manipur, Bodhachandra Singh,
signed the Instrument of Accession with the Indian government on the assurance
that the internal autonomy of Manipur would be maintained.
● Under the pressure of public opinion, the Maharaja held elections in Manipur in
June 1948 and the state became a constitutional monarchy.
● Thus Manipur was the first part of India to hold an election based on universal adult
franchise.
● In the Legislative Assembly of Manipur there were sharp differences over the
question of merger of Manipur with India.
● While the state Congress wanted the merger, other political parties were opposed to
this.
● The Government of India succeeded in pressurising the Maharaja into signing a
Merger Agreement in September 1949, without consulting the popularly elected
Legislative Assembly of Manipur. This caused a lot of anger and resentment in
Manipur, the repercussions of which are still being felt.
● Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (1875-1950): Leader of the freedom movement; Congress
leader; follower of Mahatma Gandhi; Deputy Prime Minister and first Home Minister of
independent India; played an important role in the integration of Princely States with
India; member of important committees of the Constituent Assembly on Fundamental
Rights, Minorities, Provincial Constitution, etc.
● Potti Sriramulu (1901-1952): Gandhian worker; left government job to participate in
Salt Satyagraha; also participated in individual Satyagraha; went on a fast in 1946
demanding that temples in Madras province be opened to dalits; undertook a fast unto
death from 19 October 1952 demanding separate state of Andhra; died during the fast
on 15 December 1952.
● Reorganisation of the states :

● The Vishalandhra movement (as the movement for a separate Andhra was called)
demanded that the Telugu speaking areas should be separated from the Madras
province of which they were a part and be made into a separate Andhra province.
● Nearly all the political forces in the Andhra region were in favour of linguistic
reorganisation of the then Madras province.
● The movement gathered momentum as a result of the Central government’s vacillation.
● Potti Sriramulu, a Congress leader and a veteran Gandhian, went on an indefinite fast
that led to his death after 56 days.
● This caused great unrest and resulted in violent outbursts in Andhra region.
● People in large numbers took to the streets.
● Many were injured or lost their lives in police firing.
● In Madras, several legislators resigned their seats in protest.
● Finally, the Prime Minister announced the formation of a separate Andhra state in
December 1952.
● The formation of Andhra spurred the struggle for making other states on linguistic lines
in other parts of the country.
● These struggles forced the Central Government into appointing a States Reorganisation
Commission in 1953 to look into the question of redrawing of the boundaries of states.
● The Commission in its report accepted that the boundaries of the state should reflect the
boundaries of different languages.
● On the basis of its report the States Reorganisation Act was passed in 1956.
● This led to the creation of 14 states and six union territories.
● Democracy, in other words, was associated with a plurality of ideas and ways of life.
● After a popular agitation, the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat were created in 1960.
● In Punjab also, there were two linguistic groups: Hindi-speaking and Punjabi-speaking.
The Punjabi-speaking people demanded a separate state. But it was not granted with the
other states in 1956. Statehood for Punjab came ten years later, in 1966, when the
territories of today’s Haryana and Himachal Pradesh were separated from the larger
Punjab state.
● Another major reorganisation of states took place in the north-east in 1972. Meghalaya
was carved out of Assam in 1972. Manipur and Tripura too emerged as separate states
in the same year. The states of Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh came into being in
1987. Nagaland had become a state much earlier in 1963.
● In later years sub-regions raised demands for separate states on the basis of a separate
regional culture or complaints of regional imbalance in development.
● Three such states, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand, were created in 2000.
Telangana emerged as a new state on 2 June, 2014.
● There are many regions in the country where there are movements demanding separate
and smaller states. These include Vidarbha in Maharashtra, Harit Pradesh in the
western region of Uttar Pradesh and the northern region of West Bengal.
_________________________________________________________________
● The Constitution was adopted on 26 November 1949 and signed on 24 January 1950
and it came into effect on 26 January 1950.
● The Election Commission of India was set up in January 1950. Sukumar Sen became
the first Chief Election Commissioner. The country’s first general elections were
expected sometime in 1950 itself.
● Towards the end of 1990s the Election Commission started using the EVM.
● By 2004 the entire country had shifted to the EVM.
● Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (1888-1958): original name — Abul Kalam Mohiyuddin
Ahmed; scholar of Islam; freedom fighter and Congress leader; proponent of
Hindu-Muslim unity; opposed to Partition; member of Constituent Assembly;
Education Minister in the first cabinet of free India.
● Rajkumari Amrit Kaur (1889-1964): A Gandhian and Freedom fighter; belonged to
the royal family of Kapurthala; inherited Christian religion from her mother; member of
Constituent Assembly; Minister for Health in independent India’s first ministry;
continued as Health Minister till 1957.
● Acharya Narendra Dev (1889-1956): Freedom fighter and founding President of the
Congress Socialist Party; jailed several times during the freedom movement; active in
peasants’ movement; a scholar of Buddhism; after independence led the Socialist Party
and later the Praja Socialist Party.
● Babasaheb Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891-1956): Leader of the anti-caste
movement and the struggle for justice to the Dalits; scholar and intellectual; founder of
Independent Labour Party; later founded the Scheduled Castes Federation; planned the
formation of the Republican Party of India; Member of Viceroy’s Executive Council
during the Second World War; Chairman, Drafting Committee of the Constituent
Assembly; Minister in Nehru’s first cabinet after independence; resigned in 1951 due to
differences over the Hindu Code Bill; adopted Buddhism in 1956, with thousands of
followers.
● Rafi Ahmed Kidwai (1894-1954): Congress leader from U.P.; Minister in U.P. in 1937
and again in 1946; Minister for Communications in the first ministry of free India; Food
and Agriculture Minister, 1952-54.
● A.K. Gopalan (1904-1977): Communist leader from Kerala, worked as a Congress
worker initially; joined the Communist Party in 1939; after the split in the Communist
Party in 1964, joined the CPI (M) and worked for strengthening the party; respected as
a parliamentarian; Member of Parliament from 1952.
● Deen Dayal Upadhyaya (1916-1968): full time RSS worker since 1942; founder
member of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh; General Secretary and later President of
Bharatiya Jana Sangh; initiated the concept of integral humanism.
● Shyama Prasad Mukherjee (1901-1953): Leader of Hindu Mahasabha; founder of
Bharatiya Jana Sangh; Minister in Nehru’s first cabinet after independence; resigned in
1950 due to differences over relations with Pakistan; Member of Constituent Assembly
and later, the first Lok Sabha; was opposed to India’s policy of autonomy to Jammu &
Kashmir; arrested during Jana Sangh’s agitation against Kashmir policy; died during
detention.
● Communist victory in Kerala :

● As early as in 1957, the Congress party had the bitter taste of defeat in Kerala.
● In the assembly elections held in March 1957, the Communist Party won the largest
number of seats in the Kerala legislature.
● The party won 60 of the 126 seats and had the support of five independents.
● The governor invited E. M. S. Namboodiripad, the leader of the Communist
legislature party, to form the ministry.
● For the first time in the world, a Communist party government had come to power
through democratic elections.
● In 1959 the Congress government at the Centre dismissed the Communist
government in Kerala under Article 356 of the Constitution.
● This decision proved very controversial and was widely cited as the first instance of
the misuse of constitutional emergency powers.
● E.M.S. Namboodiripad, leading a procession of Communist Party workers, after his
ministry was dismissed from office in Trivandrum in August 1959.
● Socialist Party :
● The Congress Socialist party (CSP) was formed within the Congress in 1934 by a
group of young leaders who wanted a more radical and egalitarian Congress.
● In 1948, the Congress amended its constitution to prevent its members from having
a dual party membership.
● This forced the Socialists to form a separate Socialist Party in 1948.
● The Party’s electoral performance caused much disappointment to its supporters.
● Although the Party had presence in most of the states of India, it could achieve
electoral success only in a few pockets.
● The Socialist Party went through many splits and reunions leading to the formation
of many socialist parties.
● These included the Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party, the Praja Socialist Party and
Samyukta Socialist Party.
● Jayaprakash Narayan, Achyut Patwardhan, Asoka Mehta, Acharya Narendra Dev,
Rammanohar Lohia and S.M. Joshi was among the leaders of the socialist parties.
● Many parties in contemporary India, like the Samajwadi Party, the Rashtriya Janata
Dal, Janata Dal (United) and the Janata Dal (Secular) trace their origins to the
Socialist Party.
● The Communist Party of India :
● In the early 1920s communist groups emerged in different parts of India taking
inspiration from the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and advocating socialism as the
solution to problems affecting the country.
● From 1935, the Communists worked mainly from within the fold of the Indian
National Congress.
● A parting of ways took place in December 1941, when the Communists decided to
support the British in their war against Nazi Germany.
● Unlike other non-Congress parties the CPI had a well-oiled party machinery and
dedicated cadre at the time of independence.
● However, independence raised different voices in the party.
● Soon after independence, the party thought that the transfer of power in 1947 was
not true independence and encouraged violent uprisings in Telangana.
● The Communists failed to generate popular support for their position and were
crushed by the armed forces.
● This forced them to rethink their position.
● In 1951 the Communist Party abandoned the path of violent revolution and decided
to participate in the approaching general elections.
● In the first general election, CPI won 16 seats and emerged as the largest opposition
party.
● The party’s support was more concentrated in Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar
and Kerala.
● A. K. Gopalan, S.A. Dange, E.M.S. Namboodiripad, P.C. Joshi, Ajay Ghosh and P.
Sundarayya were among the notable leaders of the CPI.
● The Party went through a major split in 1964 following the ideological rift between
the Soviet Union and China.
● The pro-Soviet faction remained as the CPI, while the opponents formed the
CPI(M).
● Both these parties continue to exist to this day.
● Bharatiya Jana Sangh :
● The Bharatiya Jana Sangh was formed in 1951 with Shyama Prasad Mukherjee as
its founder President.
● Its lineage however can be traced back to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)
and the Hindu Mahasabha before independence.
● The Jana Sangh was different from other parties in terms of ideology and
programmes.
● It emphasised the idea of one country, one culture and one nation and believed that
the country would become modern, progressive and strong on the basis of Indian
culture and traditions.
● In the 1950s Jana Sangh remained on the margins of electoral politics and was able
to secure only 3 Lok Sabha seats in 1952 elections and 4 seats in 1957 general
elections to Lok Sabha.
● In the early years its support came mainly from the urban areas in the Hindi
speaking states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.
● The party’s leaders included Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya and
Balraj Madhok.
● The Bharatiya Janata Party traces its roots to the Bharatiya Jana Sangh.
_________________________________________________________________
● As the global demand for steel increases, Orissa, which has one of the largest reserves of
untapped iron ore in the country, is being seen as an important investment destination.
● The iron ore resources lie in some of the most underdeveloped and predominantly tribal
districts of the state.
● The tribal population fears that the setting up of industries would mean displacement
from their home and livelihood.
● The environmentalists fear that mining and industry would pollute the environment.
● The central government feels that if the industry is not allowed it would set a bad
example and discourage investments in the country.
● Left often refers to those who are in favour of the poor, downtrodden sections and
support government policies for the benefit of these sections.
● The Right refers to those who believe that free competition and market economy alone
ensure progress and that the government should not unnecessarily intervene in the
economy.
● ‘Development’ was about becoming more ‘modern’ and modern was about becoming
more like the industrialised countries of the West.
● This is how common people as well as the experts thought.
● It was believed that every country would go through the process of modernisation as in
the West, which involved the breakdown of traditional social structures and the rise of
capitalism and liberalism.
● Modernisation was also associated with the ideas of growth, material progress and
scientific rationality.
● This kind of idea of development allowed everyone to talk about different countries as
developed, developing or underdeveloped.
● On the eve of Independence, India had before it, two models of modern development:
the liberal-capitalist model as in much of Europe and the US and the socialist model as
in the USSR.
● There were many in India then who were deeply impressed by the Soviet model of
development.
● These included not just the leaders of the Communist Party of India, but also those of
the Socialist Party and leaders like Nehru within the Congress.
● There were very few supporters of the American style capitalist development.
● The Planning Commission was set up in March, 1950 by a simple resolution of the
Government of India.
● It has an advisory role and its recommendations become effective only when the Union
Cabinet approves these.
● Niti Aayog : The Government of India replaced the Planning Commission with a new
institution named NITI Aayog (National Institution for Transforming India). This came
into existence on 1 January 2015.
● A section of the big industrialists got together in 1944 and drafted a joint proposal for
setting up a planned economy in the country.
● It was called the Bombay Plan.
● The Bombay Plan wanted the state to take major initiatives in industrial and other
economic investments.
● Thus, from left to right, planning for development was the most obvious choice for the
country after Independence.
● Soon after India became independent, the Planning Commission came into being.
● The Prime Minister was its Chairperson.
● It became the most influential and central machinery for deciding what path and
strategy India would adopt for its development.
● The draft of the First Five Year Plan and then the actual Plan Document, released in
December 1951, generated a lot of excitement in the country.
● The excitement with planning reached its peak with the launching of the Second Five
Year Plan in 1956 and continued somewhat till the Third Five Year Plan in 1961.
● The Fourth Plan was due to start in 1966.
● By this time, the novelty of planning had declined considerably, and moreover, India
was facing an acute economic crisis.
● The government decided to take a ‘plan holiday’.
● Though many criticisms emerged both about the process and the priorities of these
plans, the foundation of India’s economic development was firmly in place by then.
● The First Five Year Plan :

● The First Five Year Plan (1951–1956) sought to get the country’s economy out of the
cycle of poverty.
● K.N. Raj, a young economist involved in drafting the plan, argued that India should
‘hasten slowly’ for the first two decades as a fast rate of development might
endanger democracy.
● The First Five Year Plan addressed, mainly, the agrarian sector including
investment in dams and irrigation.
● Agricultural sector was hit hardest by Partition and needed urgent attention.
● Huge allocations were made for large scale projects like the Bhakra Nangal Dam.
● The Plan identified the pattern of land distribution in the country as the principal
obstacle in the way of agricultural growth.
● It focused on land reforms as the key to the country’s development.
● One of the basic aims of the planners was to raise the level of national income,
which could be possible only if the people saved more money than they spent.
● As the basic level of spending was very low in the 1950s, it could not be reduced any
more.
● So the planners sought to push savings up.
● That too was difficult as the total capital stock in the country was rather low
compared to the total number of employable people.
● Nevertheless, people’s savings did rise in the first phase of the planned process until
the end of the Third Five Year Plan.
● But, the rise was not as spectacular as was expected at the beginning of the First
Plan.
● Later, from the early 1960s till the early 1970s, the proportion of savings in the
country actually dropped consistently.
● Rapid Industrialisation :
● The Second FYP stressed on heavy industries.
● It was drafted by a team of economists and planners under the leadership of P. C.
Mahalanobis.
● If the first plan had preached patience, the second wanted to bring about quick
structural transformation by making changes simultaneously in all possible
directions.
● Before this plan was finalised, the Congress party at its session held at Avadi near
the then Madras city, passed an important resolution.
● It declared that ‘socialist pattern of society’ was its goal.
● This was reflected in the Second Plan.
● The government imposed substantial tariffs on imports in order to protect domestic
industries. Such a protected environment helped both public and private sector
industries to grow.
● As savings and investment were growing in this period, a bulk of these industries
like electricity, railways, steel, machineries and communication could be developed
in the public sector.
● Indeed, such a push for industrialisation marked a turning point in India’s
development.
● The Third Plan was not significantly different from the Second.
● Critics pointed out that the plan strategies from this time around displayed an
unmistakable “urban bias”.
● Others thought that industry was wrongly given priority over agriculture.
● There were also those who wanted to focus on agriculture-related industries rather
than heavy ones.
● P.C. Mahalanobis (1893-1972): Scientist and statistician of international repute;

founder of Indian Statistical Institute (1931); architect of the Second Plan; supporter of
rapid industrialisation and active role of the public sector.
_________________________________________________________________
● Non-Aligned Movement.
● The Constitutional principles Article 51 of the Indian Constitution lays down some
Directive Principles of State Policy on ‘Promotion of international peace and security’.
● “The State shall endeavour to –
● (a) Promote international peace and security
● (b) Maintain just and honourable relations between nations
● (c) Foster respect for international law and treaty obligations in the dealings of
organised people with one another; and
● (d) Encourage settlement of international disputes by arbitration.”
● The creation of the Indian National Army (INA) by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose during
the Second World War was the clearest manifestation of the linkages established
between India and overseas Indians during the freedom struggle.
● Nehru’s role :
● The first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru played a crucial role in setting the
national agenda.
● He was his own foreign minister.
● Thus both as the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister, he exercised profound
influence in the formulation and implementation of India’s foreign policy from 1946
to 1964.
● The three major objectives of Nehru’s foreign policy were to preserve the
hard-earned sovereignty, protect territorial integrity, and promote rapid economic
development.
● Nehru wished to achieve these objectives through the strategy of non-alignment.
● There were, of course, parties and groups in the country that believed that India
should be more friendly with the bloc led by the US because that bloc claimed to be
pro-democracy.
● Among those who thought on these lines were leaders like Dr Ambedkar.
● Some political parties, which were opposed to communism, also wanted India to
follow a pro-US foreign policy.
● These included the Bharatiya Jan Sangh and later the Swatantra Party.
● But Nehru possessed considerable leeway in formulating foreign policy.
● During the Cold War, the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the
Soviet-led Warsaw Pact.
● The Afro-Asian conference held in the Indonesian city of Bandung in 1955, commonly
known as the Bandung Conference, marked the zenith of India’s engagement with the
newly independent Asian and African nations.
● The Bandung Conference later led to the establishment of the NAM.
● The First Summit of the NAM was held in Belgrade in September 1961.
● Nehru was a co-founder of the NAM.
● V.K. Krishna Menon (1897-1974): Diplomat and minister; active in the Labour Party in
UK between 1934- 1947; Indian High Commissioner in UK and later head of India’s
delegation to UN; Rajya Sabha MP and later Lok Sabha MP; member of the Union
Cabinet from 1956; Defence Minister since 1957; considered very close to Nehru;
resigned after the India-China war in 1962.
_________________________________________________________________
● Lal Bahadur Shastri (1904-1966): Prime Minister of India; participated in the freedom
movement since 1930; minister in UP cabinet; General Secretary of Congress; Minister
in Union Cabinet from 1951 to 1956 when he resigned taking responsibility for the
railway accident and later from 1957 to 1964; coined the famous slogan ‘Jai Jawan-Jai
Kisan’.
● Indira Gandhi (1917-1984): Prime Minister of India from 1966 to 1977 and 1980 to
1984; daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru; participated in the freedom struggle as a young
Congress worker; Congress President in 1958; minister in Shastri’s cabinet from
1964-66; led the Congress party to victory in 1967, 1971 and 1980 general elections;
credited with the slogan ‘garibi hatao’, victory in 1971 war and for policy initiatives like
abolition of Privy Purse, nationalisation of banks, nuclear test and environmental
protection; assassinated on 31 October 1984.
● C. Natarajan Annadurai (1909-1969): Chief Minister of Madras (Tamil Nadu) from
1967; a journalist, popular writer and orator; initially associated with the Justice Party in
Madras province; later joined Dravida Kazagham (1934); formed DMK as a political
party in 1949; a proponent of Dravid culture, he was opposed to imposition of Hindi and
led the anti-Hindi agitations; supporter of greater autonomy to States.
● Ram Manohar Lohia (1910-1967): Socialist leader and thinker; freedom fighter and
among the founders of the Congress Socialist Party; after the split in the parent party,
the leader of the Socialist Party and later the Samyukta Socialist Party; Member, Lok
Sabha, 1963- 67; founder editor of Mankind and Jan, known for original contribution to a
non-European socialist theory; as political leader, best known for sharp attacks on
Nehru, strategy of non-Congressism, advocacy of reservation for backward castes and
opposition to English.
● K. Kamaraj (1903-1975): Freedom fighter and Congress President; Chief Minister of
Madras (Tamil Nadu); having suffered educational deprivation, made efforts to spread
education in Madras province; introduced mid-day meal scheme for school children; in
1963 he proposed that all senior Congressmen should resign from office to make way
for younger party workers—this proposal is famous as the ‘Kamaraj plan.’
● S. Nijalingappa (1902-2000): Senior Congress leader; Member of Constituent
Assembly; member of Lok Sabha; Chief Minister of the then Mysore (Karnataka) State;
regarded as the maker of modern Karnataka; President of Congress during 1968-71.
● Karpoori Thakur (1924-1988): Chief Minister of Bihar between December 1970 and
June 1971 and again between June 1977 and April 1979; Freedom Fighter and socialist
leader; active in labour and peasant movements; staunch follower of Lohia; participated
in the movement led by JP; known for his decision to introduce reservations for the
backward classes in Bihar during his second Chief Ministership; strong opponent of the
use of English Language.
● V.V. Giri (1894-1980): President of India from 1969 to 1974; Congress worker and
labour leader from Andhra Pradesh; Indian High Commissioner to Ceylon (Sri Lanka);
Labour Minister in Union cabinet; Governor of U.P., Kerala, Mysore (Karnataka);
Vice-President (1967-1969) and acting President after the death of President Zakir
Hussain; resigned and contested presidential election as independent candidate;
received support from Indira Gandhi for his election as President.
● Defection : Another important feature of politics after the 1967 election was the role
played by defections in the making and unmaking of governments in the States.
Defection means an elected representative leaves the party on whose symbol he/she was
elected and joins another party. After the 1967 general election, the breakaway Congress
legislators played an important role in installing non-Congress governments in three
States - Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. The constant realignments and
shifting political loyalties in this period gave rise to the expression ‘Aya Ram, Gaya
Ram’.
_________________________________________________________________
● Gujarat and Bihar movements :

● In January 1974 students in Gujarat started an agitation against rising prices of
food grains, cooking oil and other essential commodities, and against corruption in
high places. The students’ protest was joined by major opposition parties and
became widespread leading to the imposition of President’s rule in the state.
● In March 1974 students came together in Bihar to protest against rising prices, food
scarcity, unemployment and corruption.
● After a point they invited Jayaprakash Narayan (JP), who had given up active
politics and was involved in social work, to lead the student movement.
● He accepted it on the condition that the movement will remain non-violent and will
not limit itself to Bihar.
● Thus the students’ movement assumed a political character and had national
appeal.
● People from all walks of life now entered the movement.
● Jayaprakash Narayan demanded the dismissal of the Congress government in Bihar
and gave a call for total revolution in the social, economic and political spheres in
order to establish what he considered to be true democracy.
● In 1975, JP led a peoples’ march to the Parliament.
● This was one of the largest political rallies ever held in the capital.
● He was now supported by the non-Congress opposition parties like the Bharatiya
Jana Sangh, the Congress (O), the Bharatiya Lok Dal, the Socialist Party and others.
● These parties were projecting JP as an alternative to Indira Gandhi.
● However, there were many criticisms about his ideas and about the politics of mass
agitations that he was employing.
● Both the Gujarat and Bihar agitations were seen as anti-Congress and rather than
opposing the State governments, they were seen as protests against the leadership
of Indira Gandhi.
● She believed that the movement was motivated by personal opposition to her.
● Immediately after the Supreme Court’s decision in 1973 in the Keshavananda Bharati
case, a vacancy arose for the post of the Chief Justice of India.
● It had been a practice to appoint the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court as the
Chief Justice. But in 1973, the government set aside the seniority of three judges and
appointed Justice A. N. Ray as the Chief Justice of India.
● The appointment became politically controversial because all the three judges who were
superseded had given rulings against the stand of the government.
● Thus, constitutional interpretations and political ideologies were getting mixed up
rapidly.
● People close to the Prime Minister started talking of the need for a judiciary and the
bureaucracy ‘committed’ to the vision of the executive and the legislature.
● The climax of the confrontation was of course the ruling of the High Court declaring
Indira Gandhi’s election invalid.
● Declaration of Emergency :
● On 12 June 1975, Justice Jagmohan Lal Sinha of the Allahabad High Court passed
a judgement declaring Indira Gandhi’s election to the Lok Sabha invalid.
● This order came on an election petition filed by Raj Narain, a socialist leader and a
candidate who had contested against her in 1971.
● The petition challenged the election of Indira Gandhi on the ground that she had
used the services of government servants in her election campaign.
● The judgement of the High Court meant that legally she was no more an MP and
therefore, could not remain the Prime Minister unless she was once again elected
as an MP within six months.
● On June 24, the Supreme Court granted her a partial stay on the High Court order –
till her appeal was decided, she could remain an MP but could not take part in the
proceedings of the Lok Sabha.
● In the background of the ruling of the Allahabad High Court in the Indira Gandhi case,
an amendment was made declaring that elections of Prime Minister, President and
Vice-President could not be challenged in the Court.
● Morarji Desai (1896-1995): Freedom fighter; a Gandhian leader; Proponent of Khadi,

naturopathy and prohibition; Chief Minister of Bombay State; Deputy Prime Minister
(1967- 1969); joined Congress (O) after the split in the party; Prime Minister from 1977
to 1979—first Prime Minister belonging to a non-Congress party.
● Chaudhary Charan Singh (1902-1987): Prime Minister of India between July 1979 -
January 1980; freedom fighter; active in the politics of Uttar Pradesh; proponent of rural
and agricultural development; left Congress party and founded Bharatiya Kranti Dal in
1967; twice Chief Minister of U.P.; later he was one of the founders of the Janata Party
in 1977 and became Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister (1977-79); founder of
Lok Dal.
● Jagjivan Ram (1908–1986): Freedom fighter and Congress leader from Bihar; Deputy
Prime Minister of India (1977-79); member of Constituent Assembly; also a Member of
Parliament since 1952 till his death; Labour Minister in the first ministry of free India;
held various other ministries from 1952 to 1977; a scholar and astute administrator.
● In an indirect manner the issue of welfare of the backward castes also began to
dominate politics since 1977.
● The issue of reservations for ‘other backward classes’ became very controversial in Bihar
and following this, the Mandal Commission was appointed by the Janata Party
government at the centre.
_________________________________________________________________
● Chipko movement :
● The movement began in two or three villages of Uttarakhand when the forest
department refused permission to the villagers to fell ash trees for making
agricultural tools.
● Chipko movement in Chamoli, Uttarakhand.
● Women’s active participation in the Chipko agitation was a very novel aspect of the
movement.
● The movement achieved a victory when the government issued a ban on felling of
trees in the Himalayan regions for fifteen years, until the green cover was fully
restored.
● But more than that, the Chipko movement, which started over a single issue,
became a symbol of many such popular movements emerging in different parts of
the country during the 1970s and later.
● The model of planned development that we adopted after Independence was based on
twin goals of growth and distribution.
● Dalit Panthers :
● Dalit Panthers, a militant organisation of the Dalit youth, was formed in Maharashtra
in 1972.
● Political parties supported by the Dalits, like the Republican Party of India, were not
successful in electoral politics. These parties always remained marginal; had to ally
with some other party in order to win elections and faced constant splits. Therefore
the Dalit Panthers resorted to mass action for assertion of Dalits’ rights.
● Bharatiya Kisan Union :

● In January 1988, around twenty thousand farmers had gathered in the city of
Meerut, Uttar Pradesh. They were protesting against the government decision to
increase electricity rates.
● These agitating farmers were members of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU), an
organisation of farmers from western Uttar Pradesh and Haryana regions. The BKU
was one of the leading organisations in the farmers’ movement of the eighties.
● Haryana, Punjab and western Uttar Pradesh had benefited in the late 1960s from
the state policies of ‘green revolution’.
● Sugar and wheat became the main cash crops in the region since then.
● The cash crop market faced a crisis in the mid-eighties due to the beginning of the
process of liberalisation of the Indian economy.
● The BKU demanded higher government floor prices for sugarcane and wheat,
abolition of restrictions on the inter-state movement of farm produce, guaranteed
supply of electricity at reasonable rates, waiving of repayments due on loans to
farmers and the provision of a government pension for farmers.
● Shetkari Sanghatana of Maharashtra declared the farmers’ movement as a war of
Bharat (symbolising rural, agrarian sector) against forces of India (urban industrial
sector).
● Until the early nineties, the BKU distanced itself from all political parties.
● It operated as a pressure group in politics with its strength of sheer numbers.
● The organisation, along with the other farmers’ organisations across States, did
manage to get some of their economic demands accepted.
● The farmers’ movement became one of the most successful social movements of the
’eighties in this respect.
● Unlike most of the Indian farmers who engage in agriculture for subsistence,
members of the organisations like the BKU grew cash crops for the market.
● Like the BKU, farmers’ organisations across States recruited their members from
communities that dominated regional electoral politics.
● Shetkari Sanghatana of Maharashtra and Rayata Sangha of Karnataka, are
prominent examples of such organisations of the farmers.
● Anti-Arrack Movement :
● When the BKU was mobilising the farmers of the north, an altogether different kind
of mobilisation in the rural areas was taking shape in the southern State of Andhra
Pradesh. It was a spontaneous mobilisation of women demanding a ban on the sale
of alcohol in their neighbourhoods.
● The slogan of the anti-arrack movement was simple — prohibition on the sale of
arrack. But this simple demand touched upon larger social, economic and political
issues of the region that affected women’s life.
● Narmada Bachao Aandolan :

● An ambitious developmental project was launched in the Narmada valley of central
India in the early ’eighties.
● The project consisted of 30 big dams, 135 medium sized and around 3,000 small
dams to be constructed on the Narmada and its tributaries that flow across three
states of Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra.
● Sardar Sarovar Project in Gujarat and the Narmada Sagar Project in Madhya
Pradesh were two of the most important and biggest, multi-purpose dams planned
under the project.
● Narmada Bachao Aandolan, a movement to save Narmada, opposed the
construction of these dams and questioned the nature of ongoing developmental
projects in the country.
● A comprehensive National Rehabilitation Policy formed by the government in 2003
can be seen as an achievement of the movements like the NBA.
● Narmada Bachao Aandolan continued a sustained agitation for more than twenty
years. It used every available democratic strategy to put forward its demands.
_________________________________________________________________
● India adopted a democratic approach to the question of diversity. Democracy allows the
political expressions of regional aspirations and does not look upon them as
anti-national. Besides, democratic politics allows parties and groups to address the
people on the basis of their regional identity, aspiration and specific regional problems.
● DRAVIDA MOVEMENT.
● Jammu and Kashmir comprises three social and political regions — Jammu, Kashmir
and Ladakh.
● The Jammu region is a mix of foothills and plains. It is predominantly inhabited by the
Hindus. Muslims, Sikhs and people of other denominations also reside in this region.
● The Kashmir region mainly comprises the Kashmir valley. It is inhabited mostly by
Kashmiri Muslims with the remaining being Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and others.
● The Ladakh region is mainly mountainous. It has very little population which is almost
equally divided between Buddhists and Muslims.
● E.V. Ramasami Naicker (1879-1973): Known as Periyar (the respected); strong
supporter of atheism; famous for his anti-caste struggle and rediscovery of Dravidian
identity; initially a worker of the Congress party; started the self-respect movement
(1925); led the anti-Brahmin movement; worked for the Justice party and later founded
Dravidar Kazhagam; opposed to Hindi and domination of north India; propounded the
thesis that north Indians and Brahmins are Aryans.
● Dravidian movement :
● This was one of the first regional movements in Indian politics.
● Though some sections of this movement had ambitions of creating a Dravida
nation, the movement did not take to arms.
● It used democratic means like public debates and the electoral platform to achieve
its ends.
● This strategy paid off as the movement acquired political power in the State and
also became influential at the national level.
● The Dravidian movement led to the formation of Dravidar Kazhagam [DK] under the
leadership of Tamil social reformer E.V. Ramasami ‘Periyar’.
● The organisation strongly opposed the Brahmins’ dominance and affirmed regional
pride against the political, economic and cultural domination of the North.
● The DMK made its entry into politics with a three pronged agitation in 1953-54.
● It also agitated against making Hindi the country’s official language.
● The success of the anti-Hindi agitation of 1965 added to the DMK’s popularity.
● Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah (1905-1982): Leader of Jammu and Kashmir; proponent

of autonomy and secularism for Jammu and Kashmir; led the popular struggle against
princely rule; opposed to Pakistan due to its non-secular character; leader of the
National Conference; Prime Minister of J&K immediately after its accession with India in
1947; dismissed and jailed by Government of India from 1953 to 1964 and again from
1965 to 1968; became Chief Minister of the State after an agreement with Indira Gandhi
in 1974.
● Master Tara Singh (1885-1967): Prominent Sikh religious and political leader; one of
the early leaders of the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC); leader
of the Akali movement; supporter of the freedom movement but opposed to Congress’
policy of negotiating only with the Muslims; after Independence, he was the senior most
advocate of formation of separate Punjab State.
● Sant Harchand Singh Longowal (1932-1985): Sikh political and religious leader;
began his political career in mid-sixties as an Akali leader; became president of Akali
Dal in 1980; reached an agreement with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on key demands
of Akalis; assassinated by unidentified Sikh youth.
● On 5 August 2019, Article 370 was abolished by the Jammu & Kashmir Reorganisation
Act 2019 and the state was constituted into two Union Territories, viz., Jammu &
Kashmir and Ladakh.
● Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh are living examples of plural society in India.
● Not only are there diversities of all kinds (religious, cultural, linguistic, ethnic and
tribal) but there are also divergent political and developmental aspirations, which have
been sought to be achieved by the latest Act.
● Punjab :
● The decade of 1980s also witnessed major developments in the State of Punjab.
● The social composition of the State changed first with Partition and later on after
the carving out of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh.
● While the rest of the country was reorganised on linguistic lines in the 1950s,
Punjab had to wait till 1966 for the creation of a Punjabi speaking State.
● The Akali Dal, which was formed in 1920 as the political wing of the Sikhs, had led
the movement for the formation of a ‘Punjabi suba’.
● The Sikhs were now a majority in the truncated State of Punjab.
● After the reorganisation, the Akalis came to power in 1967 and then in 1977.
● It was in this context that during the 1970s a section of Akalis began to demand
political autonomy for the region.
● This was reflected in a resolution passed at their conference at Anandpur Sahib in
1973.
● The Anandpur Sahib Resolution asserted regional autonomy and wanted to redefine
centre-state relationships in the country.
● The Resolution had a limited appeal among the Sikh masses.
● A few years later, after the Akali government had been dismissed in 1980, the Akali
Dal launched a movement on the question of the distribution of water between
Punjab and its neighbouring States.
● A section of the religious leaders raised the question of autonomous Sikh identity.
● The more extreme elements started advocating secession from India and the
creation of ‘Khalistan’.
● In June 1984, the Government of India carried out ‘Operation Blue Star’, code name
for army action in the Golden Temple.
_________________________________________________________________
● The Mandal Commission.

● CENTRAL VIGILANCE COMMISSION.
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________

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CHAPTER-1 : CLASS-6 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

CHAPTER-3 : CLASS-6 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

CHAPTER-4 : CLASS-6 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

● Apartheid means separation on the basis of race.

CHAPTER-5 : CLASS-6 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

CHAPTER-6 : CLASS-6 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

CHAPTER-7 : CLASS-6 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

● Kalpattu is a village that’s close to the sea coast in Tamil Nadu.

CHAPTER-9 : CLASS-6 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

● Profits for Permanent Workers 😀

CHAPTER-1 : CLASS-7 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

● Dalit means ‘Broken’.

CHAPTER-3 : CLASS-7 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

CHAPTER-4 : CLASS-7 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

CHAPTER-8 : CLASS-7 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

● Kurnool : Andhra Pradesh.

CHAPTER-9 : CLASS-7 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

● INTER-COMMUNITY-DOMINATION V/S INTRA-COMMUNITY-DOMINATION.

CHAPTER-2 : CLASS-8 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

● What is Indian Secularism?

● The Parliament, while in Session, begins with a Question Hour.

CHAPTER-4 : CLASS-8 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

● The Rowlatt act came into effect on 10 March 1919.

CHAPTER-5 : CLASS-8 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

● ARTICLE 21 WHICH PROVIDES EVERY CITIZEN THE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT TO LIFE

CHAPTER-6 : CLASS-8 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

CHAPTER-8 : CLASS-8 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

CHAPTER-9 : CLASS-8 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

CHAPTER-10 : CLASS-8 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

● MINIMUM WAGES ACT.

CHAPTER-1 : CLASS-9 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

● A DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT RULES WITHIN LIMITS SET BY CONSTITUTIONAL LAW &

CHAPTER-2 : CLASS-9 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

● THE “LONG WALK TO FREEDOM” IS THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF NELSON MANDELA.

CHAPTER-3 : CLASS-9 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

CHAPTER-4 : CLASS-9 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

CHAPTER-5 : CLASS-9 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

● GUANTANAMO BAY : DETENTION CAMP IN CUBA.

● WHY POWER SHARING IS DESIRABLE ?

CHAPTER-2 : CLASS-10 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

● Federalism is a system of government in which the power is divided between a central

CHAPTER-3 : CLASS-10 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

○ Universal adult franchise and the principle of one-person-one-vote

● Different aspects of life in which women are discriminated against or

CHAPTER-5 : CLASS-10 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

● Eucalyptus trees : Could be used for making paper pulp.

CHAPTER-6 : CLASS-10 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

CHAPTER-7 : CLASS-10 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

● We felt that democracy was better because it:-

CHAPTER-8 : CLASS-10 : POLITICAL SCIENCE

CHAPTER-1 : CLASS-11 : POLITICAL SCIENCE :

CHAPTER-2 : CLASS-11 : POLITICAL SCIENCE :

● Bill of rights in the South African Constitution :-

● The government established in 1993 an institution, the National Human Rights

● RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND DIRECTIVE

CHAPTER-3 : CLASS-11 : POLITICAL SCIENCE :

● In our country we follow a special method of elections. Under this system:

CHAPTER-4 : CLASS-11 : POLITICAL SCIENCE :