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Class 10 Civics Chapter 4 Extra Questions and Answers Gender Religion and Caste
Gender Religion and Caste Class 10 Extra Questions and Answer Civics Chapter 4 Very Short Answers Type
Question 1.
What is the term used for a person who believes in equal rights and opportunities for women and men?
Answer:
The term used for such a person is ‘feminist’.
Question 2.
What is sexual division of labour?
Answer:
It is a term referring to the specialised gender roles of male bread winner and female housewife. In other woods, it is a system in which all work inside the home is either done by the women of the family or organised by them through the domestic helpers and men do all the work outside the home.
Question 3.
Which types of movements are called feminist movements?
Answer:
The movements demanding enhancement in the political and legal status of women and improvement in their educational and career opportunities are called feminist movements.
Question 4.
Mention two factors that helped to improve women’s role in public life.
Answer:
- Political expression of gender division.
- Political mobilisation on this issue.
Question 5.
Name the countries where the participation of women in public life is very high. (Imp)
Answer:
Sweden, Norway and Finland.
Question 6.
What is the Equal Remuneration (Wages) Act? (Imp)
Answer:
The Equal Remuneration Act was passed in 1976. This Act provides that equal wages should be paid to equal work regardless of gender status.
Question 7.
Is the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 successfully implemented?
Answer:
No. In spite of this Act, women are not paid equally. In almost all areas of work, women are paid less than men, even when both do exactly the same work.
Question 8.
What is the share of women in the state assemblies?
Answer:
The share of women in the state assemblies is below 5 percent.
Question 9.
What does the concept of patriarchy refer to? (Imp)
Answer:
Patriarchy is a concept which is based on male domination. It refers to a system that values men more and gives them power over women. As a result, women face disadvantage, discrimination and oppression in various ways.
Question 10.
How did Gandhiji view religion and politics?
Answer:
According to Gandhiji, religion can never be separated from politics. What he meant by religion was not any particular religion like Hinduism or Islam but moral values that inform all religions. He believed that politics must be guided by ethics drawn from religion.
Question 11.
What are family laws?
OR
What do family laws deal with?
Answer:
Family laws are those laws that deal with family related matters such as marriage, divorce, adoption, inheritance, etc.
Question 12.
Why do women want the government to change family law?
OR
What argument is given by women’s movement regarding family laws? What do they demand?
Answer:
Women’s movement argues that family laws of all religions discriminate against women. So they demand that government should change these laws to make them more equitable.
Question 13.
What idea is communal politics based on?
Answer:
Communal politics is based on the idea that religion is the principal basis of social community.
Question 14.
What is needed to combat communalism?
Answer:
Communal prejudices and propaganda need to be countered in everyday life and religion-based mobilisation needs to be countered in the political domain.
Question 15.
Why did the makers of our Constitution choose the model of a secular state?
Answer:
Communalism was one of the major challenges to democracy in India. The Constitution makers were aware of this challenge. Therefore, they made India a secular state in which no religion was given special status.
Question 16.
What was caste system in India based on?
Answer:
Caste system in India was based on exclusion of and discrimination against the outcast groups which included dalits and adivasis. These people were subjected to inhuman treatment by the upper castes.
Question 17.
Name some of the political leaders and social reformers who worked to establish a society sans caste inequalities.
Answer:
Jotiba Phule, Gandhiji, B.R. Ambedkar and Periyar Ramaswami Naicker.
Question 18.
What do you mean by occupational mobility?
Answer:
Occupational mobility means shift from one occupation to another, usually when a new generation takes up occupations other than those practised by their ancestors.
Question 19.
What is caste hierarchy?
Answer:
Caste hierarchy is a ladder like formation in which all the caste groups are placed from the highest to the lowest castes.
Question 20.
What is communal politics? (Imp)
Answer:
When beliefs of one religion are presented as superior to those of other religions, when the demands of one religious group are formed in opposition to another and when state power is used to establish domination of one religious group over the rest, this manner of using religion in politics is communal politics.
Question 21.
What does it mean when people say that a caste is a ‘vote bank’ of one party?
Answer:
It usually means that a large proportion of the voters from that caste vote for that party.
Question 22.
Which new kinds of caste groups have come in today’s political domain?
Answer:
Backward and forward caste groups have come in today’s political domain.
Question 23.
What proportion of the country’s population do the SCs, STs and OBCs together account for? (Imp)
Answer:
They account for about two-third of the country’s population.
Question 24.
What is the literacy rate among men and women in India?
Answer:
The literacy rate among men and women is 76 percent and 54 percent respectively.
Question 25.
What is the male/female ratio in India, as per the census of 2011?
Answer:
It is 1000 males and 914 females.
Gender Religion and Caste Class 10 Extra Questions and Answer Civics Chapter 4 Short Answers Type
Question 1.
‘Political expression of gender division and political mobilisation on this question helped to improve women’s role in public life?’ Support the statement.
Answer:
- Yes, these factors have definitely improved women’s status in public domain. They can be seen in almost all fields.
- We now find women working as scientists, doctors, engineers, lawyers, managers and colleges and university teachers which were earlier not considered suitable for women.
- In some parts of the world such as Sweden, Norway and Finland, the participation of women in public life is very high.
Question 2.
How can the status of women representation in India’s legislative bodies be improved?
Answer:
It is unfortunate that in our country, the proportion of women in legislature has been very low. For example, the percentage of elected women members in Lok Sabha is just 10 percent. Their share in the state assemblies is below 5 percent. One way to solve this problem is to make it legally binding to have a fair proportion of women in the elected bodies.
Women’s organisations and activists are trying their best in this direction. They have been demanding reservation of at least one-third of seats in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies for women just as it is in the Panchayati Raj. Let’s see when it converts into a reality.
Question 3.
Give two instances that involve a relationship between religion and politics.
Answer:
(i) Human rights groups in our country have argued that most of the victims of communal riots in our country are people from religious minorities. They have demanded that the government take special steps to protect religious minorities.
(ii) Women’s movement has argued that family laws of all religions discriminate against women. So they have demanded that government should change these laws to make them more equitable.
Question 4.
What factors contribute to the breaking down of age-old caste hierarchy?
Answer:
The old notions of caste hierarchy are now breaking down. The factors that have contributed to it are given below-
(i) Many political leaders and social reformers like Jotiba Phule, Mahatma Gandhi, B.R. Ambedkar, Periyar Ramaswami Naicker, etc. raised voice against this evil and advocated and worked to establish a society in which caste inequalities are absent.
(ii) The contribution of socio-economic changes is worth-mentioning. With economic development, large scale urbanisation, growth of literacy and education, occupational mobility and the weakening position of landlords in the villages, the caste hierarchy is breaking down.
(iii) The Constitution of India has made provisions that prohibit any caste-based discrimination. It has also laid the foundations of policies to reverse the injustices of the caste system. These developments have considerably weakened the caste system in India.
Question 5.
Mention the factors other than caste that matter in electoral politics.
Answer:
Caste matters in electoral politics, no doubt, but other factors equally play important role in election results in India-
(i) The voters have strong attachment to political parties which is often stronger than their attach-ment to their caste or community.
(ii) People within the same caste or community have different interests depending on their economic condition. Rich and poor or men and women from the same caste often vote very differently.
(iii) People’s assessment of the performance of the government and the popularity rating of the lenders matter and often determine the election results.
Gender Religion and Caste Class 10 Extra Questions and Answer Civics Chapter 4 Long Answers Type
Question 1.
‘Gender division is not based on biology but on social expectations and stereotypes’. Explain.
Answer:
It is a fact which can be reflected through the following arguments-
(i) Boys and girls are brought up to believe that the main responsibility of women is house work and bringing up children.
(ii) Women do all work inside the home such as cooking, washing clothes, etc. and men do all the work outside the home. This is reflected in the sexual division of labour in most families.
(iii) It is not that men cannot do house work, they simply think that it is for women to do these things. Similarly, it is not that women do not work outside their home.
(iv) In fact majority of women do some sort of paid work in addition to domestic labour. But their work is not valued.
(v) We see a smaller proportion of girl students go for higher studies. When we look at school results, girls perform as well as boys, if not better in some places. But they drop out because their parents prefer to spend their resources on their boys’ education rather than spending equally on their sons and daughters. The motives of the parents behind this are clear. They think that girls will go to husband’s house after marriage while boys will stay back with them.
Question 2.
Mention various forms of casteism in Indian politics.
OR
What role does caste play in Indian politics?
Answer:
Caste can take various forms in Indian politics-
(i) 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.
(ii) When governments are formed, political parties usually take care that representatives of different castes and tribes find a place in it.
(iii) Political parties and candidates in elections make appeals to caste sentiment to win voters’ support. Some political parties favour some castes and are seen as their representatives.
(iv) Universal adult franchise and the principle of one-person-one-vote made political leaders to gear up to the task of mobilising and securing political support.
(v) It also brought new consciousness among the people of castes that were treated as inferior and low until this time.
Question 3.
Explain various forms that communalism can take in politics.
Answer:
Different forms of communal politics are
(i) The most common expression of communal politics is in everyday beliefs. These involve religious prejudices, stereotypes of religious communities and belief in the superiority of one’s religion over other religions. Example Militant religious groups.
(ii) A communal mind aspires for political dominance of one’s own religious community. For those belonging to 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. Example Separatist leaders in Jammu and Kashmir desire to form a separate state.
(iii) Political mobilisation on religious lines is also a form of communal politics. This involves the use of religious symbols and leaders, emotional appeal and fear in order to bring the followers of one religion together in the political domain.
Example— Many of our politicians apply this technique to influence voters from major religious communities.
(iv) Communal politics sometimes takes the form of communal violence, riots and massacre. Example The riots in India at the time of the partition in 1947, the riots of Gujarat in 2002, in Muzaffarnagar in 2013, etc.
Question 4.
What factors have brought about a change in the Indian caste system in modern times? Explain.
OR
Explain the factors that have led to the weakening of the caste system in India.
Answer:
(i) Spread of education has broadened people’s outlook and has changed their mindset especially in urban areas where it does not matter much who is walking along next to us on a street or eating at the next table in a restaurant.
(ii) People in general are becoming more tolerant regarding caste issue. They don’t let caste factor come in between their friendship. They have many things more important than caste to think over.
The old notions of caste hierarchy are now breaking down. The factors that have contributed to it are given below-
(i) Many political leaders and social reformers like Jotiba Phule, Mahatma Gandhi, B.R. Ambedkar, Periyar Ramaswami Naicker, etc. raised voice against this evil and advocated and worked to establish a society in which caste inequalities are absent.
(ii) The contribution of socio-economic changes is worth-mentioning. With economic development, large scale urbanisation, growth of literacy and education, occupational mobility and the weakening position of landlords in the villages, the caste hierarchy is breaking down.
(iii) The Constitution of India has made provisions that prohibit any caste-based discrimination. It has also laid the foundations of policies to reverse the injustices of the caste system. These developments have considerably weakened the caste system in India.
Question 5.
What is communal politics? Describe the idea behind such politics.
Answer:
When beliefs of one religion are presented as superior to those of other religions, when the demands of one religious group are formed in opposition to another and when state power is used to establish domination of one religious group over the rest, this manner of using religion in politics is communal politics.
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 these 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.
Question 6.
Describe how women in India still face discrimination in various ways.
OR
“Women in India continue to be discriminated leading to their unequal position in the society”. Justify the statement.
Answer:
Ours is a patriarchal society in which women face disadvantage, discrimination and oppression in various ways
(i) The literacy rate among women is only 54 percent compared with 76 percent among men. Similarly, a smaller proportion of girl students go for higher studies. The reason is that they drop out because parents prefer to spend their resources for their boys’ education rather than spending equally on their sons and daughters.
(ii) The proportion of women among highly paid and valued jobs is still very small. On an average an Indian woman works one hour more than an average man every day. Yet much of her work is not paid and therefore often not valued.
(iii) In almost all areas of work, women are paid less than men, even when both do exactly the same work.
(iv) Parents’ preference for sons also undermines girls’ existence. In many parts of India parents do not welcome girl child and find ways to have the girl child aborted before she is born. Such sex selective abortion has led to a decline in child sex ratio in the country to merely 914.
(v) Women are not safe even within their own home. They are often beaten and harassed by their husbands and thus become prey to domestic violence.
Question 7.
What are the positive and negative aspects of relationship between caste and politics?
Answer:
Positive aspects
(i) In some situations, expression of caste differences in politics gives many disadvantaged communities the space to demand their share of power. In this sense, caste politics has helped people from Dalits and OBC castes to gain better access to decision making.
(ii) Many political and non-political organisations have been demanding and agitating for an end to discrimination against particular castes, for more dignity and more access to land, resources and opportunities. These efforts have brought many low caste people in the mainstream of the country.
Negative Aspects
- Politics based on caste identity is not healthy in a democracy because it can disturb social harmony.
- It can divert attention from other grave issues like poverty, development and corruption.
- In some cases, caste division leads to tensions, conflict and even violence.
Gender Religion and Caste Class 10 Extra Questions and Answer Civics Chapter 4 Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) Questions
Question 1.
In what ways does politics influence caste system in India?
Answer:
If caste influences politics, politics too influences caste system and caste identities by bringing them into the political domain. Thus, it is not politics that gets caste-ridden, it is the caste that gets politicised. This takes several forms-
(i) Each caste group tries to become bigger by incorporating within it neighbouring castes or sub-castes which were earlier excluded from it.
(ii) Various caste groups are required to enter into a coalition with other castes or communities and thus enter into a dialogue and negotiation.
(iii) New kinds of caste groups have come up in the political area such as ‘backward’ and ‘forward’ caste groups.
Question 2.
Enlist some problems faced by Indian women which affect their social status.
Answer:
Indian women face several problems which affect their career and social status
(i) Women are considered less important than men every where be it home or public space.
(ii) Although they constitute half of the humanity, their role in public life, especially in politics, is minimal in Indian society.
(iii) They are not given equal opportunities in education and career. They are forced to drop out because their parents do not want to spend much on their education.
(iv) On an average an Indian woman works one hour more than an average man everyday. Yet much of her work is not paid and therefore often not valued.
(v) Women are paid less than men, even when both do exactly the same work.
(vi) Women also face the problem of safety even within the wall of the houses. They are often beaten, harassed and exploited by their husbands.
Question 3.
Mention some measures to eliminate inequalities between men and women. v-
OR
Suggest measures to eliminate inequality of women.
Answer:
The following measures can be taken to eliminate inequality of women-
(i) Education need to be spread among women. For this, government should give more attention to their rights from their childhood.
(ii) Vocational training is also important for them. Such training will empower them in various ways and bring them in the mainstream with men.
(iii) The number of women as elected representatives in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies should be increased. This would be a grand step towards bridging the gap between men and women.
(iv) The government should ensure a safe environment for women so that they may participate in public affairs without any fear or hesitation.
Gender Religion and Caste Class 10 Extra Questions and Answer Civics Chapter 4 Value-based Questions (VBQs)
Question 1.
Which values are associated with feminist movements?
Answer:
Although women constitute half of the humanity, their role in public life, especially in politics, is very small in most societies. Earlier, only men were allowed to participate in public affairs, vote and contest for public offices. Women duties and responsibilities were restricted to home and hearth only.
Gradually, the gender issue was raised in politics. Women in different parts of the world organised and agitated for equal rights. They got support from men also. All these resulted in the emergence of feminist movements. The following values are associated with such movements-
- Equal rights for women in all spheres of life.
- Extension of voting rights to all women.
- Enhancement in the political and legal status of women.
- Improvement in their educational and career opportunities.
- Equality in personal and family life. However, in broader sense, feminist movements aim at politi¬cal, social and economic equality of all people regardless of gender.
Question 2.
Why did the Constitution makers of India choose the model of a secular state? Which values are associated with Indian secularism?
Answer:
Our Constitution makers wanted to protect all religions equally. We know India is a country where people from all religions live together. There are Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Parsis, etc. Followers of each religion are free to follow their beliefs and worship as they like. The Indian Constitution does not give a special status to any religion. It prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion.
But Indian secularism means more than that. It does not protect individual’s religious freedom by maintaining a strict separation from religion as happens in other democratic countries. In fact, our Constitution allows the state to intervene in the matters of religion in order to ensure equality within religious communities.
We can give example of the practice of untouchability. The Indian Constitution bans this practice. In this instance, the State intervened in religion in order to end a social practice that it believes discriminates and excludes and that violates the fundamental rights of the people belonging to lower castes. A Secular Constitution like ours is necessary to combat communalism. Although it is not sufficient, it plays an important role in strengthening Indian democracy.