The Story of Indian Democracy

CBSE Class-12 Sociology Test Paper-01

Part-2 (Ch-03 Story of Indian Democracy)

General Instruction:

Question 1-5 carries two marks each.
Question 6-8 carries four marks each.
Question 9-10 carries six marks each.

Define ‘democracy’. What are the basic categories that democracy fall into?
Explain the functioning of participatory democracy.
What does the Preamble of the Indian Constitution seek to ensure?
What are some of the basic objectives laid down in the Constitution?
Differentiate between law and justice.
Identify the key ideas that existed in the Karachi Resolution of the Indian National Congress.
Write in brief the contents of the Constituent Assembly debates.
How do the Constitutional norms work as an interpretation to aid social justice?
Describe the core values of Indian democracy.
Elaborate on some snippets of the Constituent Assembly debate.

CBSE Class-12 Sociology Test Paper-01
Part-2 (Ch-03 Story of Indian Democracy)

Democracy is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Democracies fall into two basic categories, direct and representative. In a direct democracy, all citizens, without the intermediary of elected or appointed officials, can participate in making public decisions. In a representative democracy, citizens elect officials to make political decisions, formulate laws, and administer programmes for the public good.
There has increasingly been a feeling that democracy ought to involve people more regularly and should not just mean casting a vote every five years. Both the concepts of participatory democracy and decentralised governance have thus become popular.
Participatory democracy is thus a system of democracy in which the members of a group or community participate collectively in the taking of major decisions. Panchayati raj system is an example of a major initiative towards decentralised and grassroots democracy.
The Preamble of the Indian Constitution seeks to ensure not just political justice but also social and economic justice. Accordingly, equality is not just about equal political rights but also of status and opportunity.
Some of the basic objectives laid down in the Constitution and which are generally agreed in the Indian political world as being obviously just would be: empowerment of the poor and marginalised, poverty alleviation, ending of caste and positive steps to treat all groups equally.
The essence of law is its force. Law is law because it carries the means to coerce or force obedience. The power of the state is behind it. The essence of justice on the other hand is fairness. It emphasises that the Courts and authorities should interpret rights and principles in keeping with contemporary understanding of social justice.
The Karachi resolution was passed in 1931, at the Karachi session of the INC.
The key ideas that existed in the resolution dwelt on how independent India’s constitution should look like. The Karachi Resolution reflects a vision of democracy that meant not just formal holding of elections but a substantive reworking of the Indian social structure in order to have a genuine democratic society. The Karachi Resolution clearly spells out the vision of democracy that the nationalist movement in India had. It articulates the values that were further given full expression in the Indian Constitution.
The popular demand in 1939 for a Constituent Assembly was, after several ups and downs conceded by Imperialist Britain in 1945.
In July 1946, the elections were held. In August 1946, The Indian National Congress’ Expert Committee moved a resolution in the Constituent Assembly. This contained the declaration that India shall be a Republic where the declared social, economic and political justice will be guaranteed to all the people of India. On matters of social justice, there were lively debates on whether government functions should be prescribed and the state should be bound down to them. Issues debated ranged from right to employment, to social security, land reforms to property rights, to the organisation of Panchayats.
The Constitution is not just a ready reference of do’s and don’ts for social justice. It has the potential for the meaning of social justice to be extended.
Social movements have also aided the Courts and authorities to interpret the contents of rights and principles in keeping with the contemporary understanding on social justice.
Law and Courts are sites where competing views are debated. The Constitution remains a means to channelise and civilise political power towards social welfare.
The Constitution has the capacity to help people because it is based on basic norms of social justice.
For instance, the Directive Principle on village Panchayats was moved as an amendment in the Constituent Assembly by K. Santhanam. After forty odd years it became a Constitutional imperative after the 73rd Amendment in 1992.
The values that form Indian democracy have developed over the long years of India’s anti-colonial struggle.
The democratic values and democratic institutions are a combination as well as reinterpretation of western and Indian ideas.
In colonial India the undemocratic and discriminatory administrative practice of British colonialism contrasted sharply with the vision of freedom which western theories of democracy espoused and which the western educated Indians read about.
The scale of poverty and intensity of social discrimination within India also led to deeper questioning of the meaning of democracy. Is democracy just about political freedom? Or is it also about economic freedom and social justice? Is it also about equal rights to all irrespective of caste, creed, race and gender? And if that is so how can such equality be realised in an unequal society?
Diverse intellectual ideas from the west and from India were being used to interrogate and construct new models of democracy. For instance, society has been aiming to lay a new foundation as was summarised by the French revolution in three words, fraternity, liberty and equality.
The French Revolution was welcomed because of this slogan. It failed to produce equality. We welcomed the Russian revolution because it aims to produce equality. But in producing equality, society cannot afford to sacrifice fraternity or liberty. Equality will be of no value without fraternity or liberty.
The following are some snippets of the Constituent Assembly debate:
1. K.T. Shah said that the right to useful employment could and should be made real by a categorical obligation on the part of the state to provide useful work to every citizen who was able and qualified.
2. B. Das spoke against classifying the functions of the government as justiciable and non-justiciable, He considered that it should be the primary duty of Government to remove hunger and render social justice to every citizen and to secure social security.
3. Ambedkar stated that the Draft Constitution as framed only provides a machinery for the government of the country. It is not a mechanism to install any particular party in power as has been done in some countries. Who should be in power is left to be determined by the people, as it must be, if the system is to satisfy the tests of democracy.
4. On land reform Nehru said, that the social forces were such that law could not stand in the way of reform, an interesting reflection on the dynamics between the two.
5. On the protection of the tribal people and their interests, leaders like Jaipal Singh were assured by Nehru by mentioning that it will be the intention of the government to help them as possible; in as efficient a way as possible to protect them from possibly their rapacious neighbours occasionally and to make them advance.
6. Even as the Constituent Assembly adopted the title Directive Principles of State Policy to the rights that courts could not enforce, additional principles were added with unanimous acceptance. These included K. Santhanam’s clause that the state shall organise village panchayats and endow them with the powers and authority to be effective units of local self-government.
7. T. A. Ramalingam Chettiar added the clause for promotion of cottage industries on co-operative lines in rural areas. Veteran parliamentarian Thakurdas Bhargava added that the state should organise agriculture and animal husbandry on modern lines.

The Story of Indian Democracy - Test Papers