Gender, Religion and Caste by digraj sing rajput sir

Class 10th - Civics
Gender, Religion and Caste
Full Chapter Explanation
Gender, Religion and Caste

It’s not our differences that divides us, it’s our
inability to celebrate them that divides us
“

Diversity
Class 10th - Civics - Gender, Religion and Caste - Full Chapter Explanation
Democracy Differences
Social differences that can take the
form of social divisions and inequalities.
Gender Religion Caste
Photo
nahi mili

What we are going to study in this chapter?
● Gender and politics
➢ Public/Private division
➢ Women’s Political Representation
● Religion, Communalism and politics
➢ Communalism
➢ Secular state
● Caste and politics
➢ Caste inequalities
➢ Caste in politics
➢ Politics in caste

Gender and Politics
● The gender division tends to be understood
as natural and unchangeable.
● However, it is not based on biology but on
social expectations and stereotypes.
Gender division
Sex Gender
V/S

Public/Private division
● Boys and girls are brought up to believe that the
main responsibility of women is housework and
bringing up children.
● 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.
Sexual Division of Labour
Societal belief and reality

*Bhai me bhi
to teacher hu
Teacher
Farmer
Nurse

Sexual division of labour
● Women do all work inside the home such as cooking, cleaning, washing
clothes, tailoring, looking after children, etc., and men do all the work
outside the home.
● When these jobs are paid for, men are ready to take up these works.
● Women do some sort of paid work but along with that it is presumed
that it is their responsibility to do domestic labour but their work is not
valued and does not get recognition.
Impact

Sexual division of labour Reduction of women’s role in public life, especially politics.
● Earlier, only men were allowed to participate in
public affairs, vote and contest for public offices.
● Gradually the gender issue was raised in politics.
Demanding equality
Feminist movements
● There were agitations in different countries for the extension of
voting rights to women.
● These agitations demanded enhancing the political and legal status
of women and improving their educational and opportunities.
● More radical women's movements aimed at equality in personal
and family life as well.

Advantage of Political expression of gender division and political mobilisation.
● Helped to improve women's role in public life.
● We now find women working as scientists, doctors, engineers,
lawyers, managers and college and university teachers which
were earlier not considered suitable for women.
● In Scandinavian countries such as Sweden, Norway and
Finland, the participation of women in public life is very high.
Situation in our country?

Women face disadvantage, discrimination
and oppression in various ways:
Patriarchal Society
1. The literacy rate among women is only 54 percent compared with 76 per
cent among men. And the dropout rate among girls in high because
parents prefer to spend their resources for their ‘boys' education rather
than spending equally on their sons and daughters.
2. The proportion of women among the 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.

Such sex-selective abortion led to a decline in child sex
ratio (number of girl children per thousand boys) in
the country to merely 919. As the map shows, this
ratio has fallen below 850 or even 800 in some places.
3. The Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 provides that equal wages
should be paid to equal work. women are paid less than men,
even when both do exactly the same work.
4. In many parts of India parents prefer to have sons and find ways
to have the girl child aborted before she is born.
Impact

● Urban areas have become particularly unsafe for women.
● They are not safe even within their own home from
beating, harassment and other forms of domestic violence.
5. There are reports of various kinds of harassment, exploitation
and violence against women.

Women’s political representation
More women as elected representatives
Challenges
Solution
Explain
Problems
● The proportion of women in legislature has been very low.
● The percentage of elected women members in Lok Sabha has touched 12
percent of its total strength for the first time in 2014.
● Their share in the state assemblies is less than 5 per cent.
● Women's participation is among the bottom group of nations in the world
when compared for participation of the women in national parliament.
● Cabinets are largely all-male even when a woman becomes the Chief
Minister or the Prime Minister.

Solution to the problem of women’s political representation
1. One way to solve this problem is to make it legally binding to have a fair
proportion of women in the elected bodies
➢ One-third of seats in local government bodies - in panchayats and
municipalities - are now reserved for women.
➢ Now there are more than 10 lakh elected women representatives in
rural and urban local bodies.
Question
● Women's organisations and activists have been demanding a similar reservation of at least
one-third of seats in the Lok Sabha and State Assemblies for women.
● A bill with this proposal has been pending before the Parliament for more than a decade.
● There is no consensus over this among all the political parties. The bill has not been passed.

Shows that some form of social division needs to be
expressed in politics.
Gender division
This shows that disadvantaged groups do benefit when
social divisions become a political issue.
Why
Do you think that women could have made the gains we noted above if
their unequal treatment was not raised in the political domain?

This division is not as universal as gender, but religious
diversity is fairly widespread in the world today.
Religion, Communalism and Politics
Social division based on religion
India Northern ireland
Unlike gender differences, the religious differences are often expressed in the field of politics.

1. Gandhiji used to say that religion can never be separated from politics.
● By religion he does not mean 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.
Connection between religion and politics
2. 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.
Explain

3. Women's movement has argued that FAMILY LAWS of
all religions discriminate against women.
ஃ They have demanded that government should
change these laws to make them more equitable.
How

● Ideas, ideals and values drawn from different religions
can and perhaps should play a role in politics.
● Those who hold political power should sometimes be
able to regulate the practice of religion so as to prevent
discrimination and oppression.
● These political acts are not wrong as long as they treat
every religion equally.
Religion in Politics or Politics over Religion: Good or bad ?

Idea of communalism
Communalism
As a basis of nation
Religion
Question
People belonging to a same religion should form a nation and in the process the power
of state is used to establish domination of one religious group over the rest.

Communalism
Broad understanding of communalism
+
● Religion is expressed in politics in
exclusive and partisan terms, when one
religion and its followers are pitted
against another.
● Beliefs of one religion are presented as
superior to those of other religions.
● The demands of one religious group are
formed in opposition to another.
Communal politics
State power is used to
achieve this

Communalism
Different religion
● The followers of a particular religion must
belong to one community.
● Their fundamental interests are the same.
● It also follows that people who follow
different religions cannot belong to the
same social community.
Communal politics

Situation and understanding for different religion.
● If the followers of different religion 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.

Communalism This belief is fundamentally flawed.
● People of one religion do not have the same interests and
aspirations in every context.
● There are many voices inside every community. All these
voices have a right to be heard.
Any attempt to bring all followers of one religion together in
context other than religion is bound to suppress many voices
within that community.

Communalism can take various forms in politics?
1. The most common expression of communalism is in everyday beliefs. How
These routinely involve religious prejudices, stereotypes of religious
communities and belief in the superiority of one's religion over other religions.
2. A communal mind often leads to a quest for political dominance of one's
own religious community.
Major Community Minority Community
Communalism takes the form of
majoritarian dominance.
Communalism can takes the form
of desire to form a separate
political unit.

Communalism can take various forms in politics?
3. 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.
4. 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.

Secular state
Major challenge
Secularism is reflected in several constitutional provisions of our constitution
Communalism Solution Secularism
Secularism refers to the separation of religion from the state. It means
that the state should not discriminate among its citizens on the basis
of religion. It should neither encourage nor discourage the followers
of any religion.

Constitutional provisions in the Indian secularism which makes India a secular state:
1. 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.
2. The Constitution provides to all individuals and communities freedom to
profess, practice and propagate any religion, or not to follow any.

3. The Constitution prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion.
4. At the same time, the Constitution allows the state to intervene in the
matters of religion in order to ensure equality within religious communities.
For example, it bans untouchability
Explain

● Is not just an ideology of some
parties or persons.
● This idea constitutes one of the
foundations of our country.
Secularism Communalism
● Communalism should not be seen
as a threat to some people in India.
● It threatens the very idea of India.
ஃ Communalism needs to be combated
V/S

● A secular Constitution like ours is necessary but not
sufficient to combat communalism.
● Communal prejudices and propaganda need to be
countered in everyday life and religion based mobilisation
needs to be countered in the arena of politics.
How communalism can be combated?

Caste and Politics
Expression of social division in politics
Gender Positive Religion Negative
Caste Both Positive and Negative

Societies
Caste Inequalities
Have social inequality and some form of division of labour
Unlike gender and religion, caste division is special to India. Explain
In most societies, Occupations are passed on from one
generation to another.
Caste system is an extreme form of this. Hereditary occupational division

● In Indian society, hereditary occupational division was
sanctioned by rituals.
● Members of the same caste group were supposed to form
a social community that practiced the same or similar
occupation.
● Married within the caste group.
● Did not eat with members from other caste groups.
Caste system as the extreme form of social division

Based on exclusion of and discrimination against the 'outcaste' groups
Caste system
That is why political leaders and social reformers like Jyotiba Phule,
Gandhiji, B.R. Ambedkar and Periyar Ramaswami Naicker advocated and
worked to establish a society in which caste inequalities are absent.
They were subjected to the inhuman practice of untouchability Upliftment

● Social reformers
● Socio- economic changes
● Constitutional changes
Factors responsible for the breaking down of caste system
Explain

How the castes and caste system in modern india have
undergone great changes due to socio-economic development?
● Economic development
● Large scale URBANISATION
● Growth of literacy and education
● OCCUPATIONAL MOBILITY
● The weakening of the position of landlords in the villages
● The old notions of CASTE HIERARCHY are breaking down.
Constitution of India prohibited any caste-based discrimination and laid
the foundations of policies to reverse the injustices of the caste system.

Not yet disappeared
Caste continues to be closely linked to economic status
Caste system in contemporary india?
● Some of the older aspects of caste have persisted.
● Even now most people marry within their own caste or tribe.
● Untouchability has not ended completely, despite
constitutional prohibition,

Caste in Politics
Casteism Rooted in the belief that caste is the sole basis of social community.
● People belonging to the same caste belong to a natural social
community and have the same interests which they do not
share with anyone from another caste.
● Such a belief is not borne out by our experience.
● Caste is one aspect of our experience but it is not the only
relevant or the most important aspect.

Caste can take various forms in politics
1. 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.
2. 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.

3. 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.
Explain

The focus on caste in politics can sometimes give an impression that
elections are all about caste and nothing else.
Observation
1. No parliamentary constituency in the country has a clear majority of one
single caste
● So, every candidate and party needs to win the confidence of more
than one caste and community to win elections.
2. No party wins the votes of all the voters of a caste or community.
● When people say that a caste is a 'vote bank' of one party, it usually
means that a large proportion of the voters from that caste vote for
that party.
Not always

3. Many political parties may put up candidates from the same caste.
● Some voters have more than one candidate from their caste while many
voters have no candidate from their caste.
4. The ruling party and the sitting MP or MLA frequently lose elections in our
country.
● That could not have happened if all castes and communities were frozen
in their political preferences.

Caste in politics
● While caste matters in electoral politics, so do many other factors.
● The voters have strong attachment to political parties which is often
stronger than their attachment to their caste or community.
● 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.
● People's assessment of the performance of the government and the
popularity rating of the leaders matter and are often decisive in elections.
Conclusion

Politics in Caste
What caste does to politics
How politics influences the
caste system and caste
identities by bringing them
into the political arena
V/S
Explain
It is not politics that gets caste ridden, it is the caste that gets politicised.

Caste gets politicised in several ways
● Each caste group tries to become bigger by incorporating within it
neighbouring castes or sub-castes which were earlier excluded from it.
● Various caste groups are required to enter into a coalition with other
castes or communities and thus enter into a dialogue and negotiation.
● New kinds of caste groups have come up in the political arena like
backward' and 'forward' caste groups.
Good or Bad

Caste plays different kinds of roles in politics.
Positive Negative
● 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.
● Several 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.
● As in the case of religion, politics
based on caste identity alone is not
very healthy in a democracy.
● It can divert attention from other
pressing issues like poverty,
development and corruption.
● In some cases caste division leads
to tensions, conflict and even
violence.

Gender, Religion and Caste by digraj sing rajput sir

Gender, Religion and Caste by digraj sing rajput sir

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