Class 10 NCERT Solutions Civics Chapter 3: Gender, Religion and Caste

Different aspects of life in which women are discriminated in India are as listed below:

• In society, the general perception is that all household works like cleaning, washing and dusting are done by women and men work outside the home. Therefore, while boys play outside the house during their leisurely time, girls are expected to help their mothers in completing household work.
• Household work done by women in their house does not have any economic value as they are not paid for the work done.
• For equal work done by both men and women outside their homes, women are usually paid less than men.
• Though women constitute half of the population, their contribution in political arena is considerably less.

Different forms of communal politics are as listed below:

1. Formation of Political Parties on Religious lines: When a political party identifies itself with the interests of one religious group, the politics is played on communal lines. For example, in British India, the Muslim League represented the Muslims and demanded a separated country for them. Eventually, Pakistan was created out of British India.
2. The desire to claim special status or form separate state: The population in majority in a particular state of a country demands special and independent recognition, e.g. Jammu and Kashmir.
3. Communalism in elections: Quite often, political parties field their candidates according to the caste or religion of the majority of people in a constituency. Most of the time, voting also takes place along communal lines. For example, a constituency where majority of people are Hindus, a Hindu candidate is generally voted in majority. Similarly, Muslim candidates are voted in majority in a Muslim dominated area.
4. Communalism takes an ugly form in the form of riots. The anti-Sikh riots in 1984 and Gujarat riots in 2002 are some examples.

Though our Constitution has established the principle of equality among the people and untouchability has been abolished from the country, caste inequalities still exist in India. Many people are still considered as untouchables in the country. Marriages usually take place within the caste norms.

In the elections, candidates are fielded in the constituencies according to the caste of the majority. People also vote on caste lines.

We also find that most of the 'rich section' belongs to higher castes, while people of lower castes are generally poor.

 Caste alone cannot determine election results in India because of the following reasons:

1. India has many constituencies where elections are contested. No constituency in India is habited by people of one caste only. Therefore, candidates need to win the confidence of people belonging to more than one caste.
2. Not all parties get votes of all people belonging to one particular caste. Voters now vote for a candidate who is expected to initiate several development programmes in their constituency.

The representation of women in India’s legislature is very low. The representation of women in Lok Sabha was only 10% in 2009. In Legislative assemblies, the share of women’s representation is even less. Their representation in the state assemblies is less than 5%. This is the reason that India is behind several developing countries of the world in the case of women’s representation.   
However, it is heartening to note that at the local level government in panchayat and municipal bodies, one-third of the seats are reserved for women.

Two constitutional provisions that make India a secular state are as listed below:

• India is a secular state. It means that the state neither promotes nor discourages the practise of any religion.
• Our Constitution has made discriminations based on religion as an offence punishable by law.

(b) Unequal roles assigned by the society to men and women

(d) Panchayati Raj bodies

(c) A and C

(b) Gives official status to one religion

Caste

(b) BADC