Class 10 Political Science · Chapter 3 NotesGender, Religion and Caste

Gender division is a form of hierarchical social division seen everywhere, but it is rarely recognised in the study of politics. It is not based on biology but on social expectations and stereotypes. Boys and girls are brought up to believe that the main responsibility of women is housework and bringing up children. This creates a sexual division of labour in most families: women do work inside the home such as cooking, cleaning, washing, tailoring and looking after children, while men do work outside the home. This division is not natural. Men do take up cooking or tailoring when these jobs are paid for, and women do a great deal of work outside the home — fetching water, collecting fuel, working in fields, or as domestic helpers. Yet much of women's work remains unpaid, invisible and undervalued.

• Sexual division of laboura system in which work inside the home is done by women of the family or organised by them through domestic helpers
• Patriarchyliterally rule by father; a system that values men more and gives them power over women
• Feminista woman or a man who believes in equal rights and opportunities for women and men

Women in different parts of the world organised and agitated for equal rights, especially for the extension of voting rights. These agitations demanded better political and legal status, and improved educational and career opportunities. More radical women's movements aimed at equality in personal and family life as well, and are called feminist movements. Political expression of gender division helped improve women's role in public life, and women now work as scientists, doctors, engineers, lawyers and managers. In Scandinavian countries such as Sweden, Norway and Finland, women's participation in public life is very high. In India, however, women still lag behind men. The literacy rate among women is only 54 per cent compared with 76 per cent among men, and a smaller proportion of girl students go for higher studies. Parents often prefer to spend on their sons' education, and in many parts of India they prefer sons and use sex-selective abortion, which pushed the child sex ratio down to 919 girl children per thousand boys.

• Equal Remuneration Act, 1976 provides that equal wages should be paid to equal work
• Women are paid less than men in almost all areas of work, even when both do exactly the same work
• Urban areas have become particularly unsafe for women, with reports of harassment, exploitation and domestic violence

Issues related to women's well-being do not get adequate attention, which led many feminists and women's movements to conclude that unless women control power, their problems will not be addressed. One way to ensure this is to have more women as elected representatives. In India, the proportion of women in the legislature has been very low. The percentage of elected women members in the Lok Sabha touched 14.36 per cent of its total strength for the first time in 2019, and their share in state assemblies is less than 5 per cent. India is among the bottom group of nations in the world in this respect, behind the averages for several developing countries of Africa and Latin America. Cabinets are largely all-male even when a woman becomes Chief Minister or Prime Minister. The Panchayati Raj has done better: one-third of seats in local government bodies are reserved for women, and there are now more than 10 lakh elected women representatives in rural and urban local bodies. In 2023, the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam (Women's Reservation Act, 2023) was passed, which will give 33 per cent reservation of seats for women in the Lok Sabha, State Legislative Assemblies and the Delhi Assembly.

• Panchayati Rajone-third of seats in panchayats and municipalities reserved for women
• Women's Reservation Act, 202333 per cent reservation of seats for women in Lok Sabha, State Legislative Assemblies and Delhi Assembly

Religious diversity is fairly widespread in the world, and religious differences are often expressed in politics. This is not always wrong. Gandhiji said that religion can never be separated from politics, meaning moral values that inform all religions. Human rights groups have demanded that the government prevent communal riots and protect religious minorities. The women's movement has argued that family laws of all religions discriminate against women and should be made more equitable. The problem begins when religion is seen as the basis of the nation, and becomes acute when religion is expressed in politics in exclusive and partisan terms. Communal politics is based on the idea that religion is the principal basis of social community. It assumes that followers of one religion belong to one community with the same interests, that any difference among them is irrelevant, and that people of different religions cannot belong to the same social community. In its extreme form, communalism leads to the belief that people of different religions cannot live as equal citizens within one nation.

• Communalismusing religion in politics in exclusive and partisan terms, pitting one religion against another
• Family lawslaws that deal with marriage, divorce, adoption, inheritance and other family matters

Communalism takes various forms in politics. The most common is everyday beliefs — religious prejudices, stereotypes of religious communities and belief in the superiority of one's own religion. A communal mind often leads to a quest for political dominance of one's own religious community: for the majority community this takes the form of majoritarian dominance, and for the minority community it can take the form of a desire to form a separate political unit. Political mobilisation on religious lines uses sacred symbols, religious leaders, emotional appeal and fear to bring followers of one religion together in the political arena. In its ugliest form, communalism leads to communal violence, riots and massacre. India and Pakistan suffered some of the worst communal riots at the time of Partition, and the post-Independence period has also seen large-scale communal violence. The makers of our Constitution chose the model of a secular state to meet this challenge.

• There is no official religion for the Indian state
• The Constitution gives 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
• The state can intervene in matters of religion to ensure equality, for example by banning untouchability

Caste division is special to India. All societies have some social inequality and division of labour, and in most societies occupations are passed on from one generation to another. The caste system is an extreme form of this: hereditary occupational division was sanctioned by rituals. Members of the same caste group were supposed to practise the same or similar occupation, marry within the caste group and not eat with members of other caste groups. The system was based on exclusion of and discrimination against the 'outcaste' groups, who were subjected to untouchability. Leaders and reformers like Jotiba Phule, Gandhiji, B.R. Ambedkar and Periyar Ramaswami Naicker worked to establish a society without caste inequalities. Due to their efforts and to economic development, urbanisation, growth of literacy, occupational mobility and the weakening of landlords' position in villages, old notions of caste hierarchy are breaking down. Yet caste has not disappeared: most people still marry within their own caste or tribe, untouchability has not ended completely, and caste remains strongly linked to economic status. The Scheduled Castes were 16.6 per cent and the Scheduled Tribes 8.6 per cent of the population in 2011, and the National Sample Survey of 2004-05 estimated Other Backward Classes at around 41 per cent.

• Caste hierarchya ladder-like formation in which all caste groups are placed from the highest to the lowest
• Scheduled Castes (Dalits)those previously regarded as outcaste in the Hindu social order and subjected to exclusion and untouchability
• Scheduled Tribes (Adivasis)communities that led a secluded life usually in hills and forests

Casteism is rooted in the belief that caste is the sole basis of social community, but this belief is not borne out by experience. Caste takes several forms in politics. Parties keep the caste composition of the electorate in mind when choosing candidates, and take care that representatives of different castes and tribes find a place in government. Parties and candidates make appeals to caste sentiment, and some parties are seen as representatives of particular castes. Universal adult franchise and the principle of one-person-one-vote brought new consciousness among castes that were earlier treated as inferior. Yet elections are not only about caste. No parliamentary constituency has a clear majority of one single caste, no party wins all the votes of a caste, many voters have no candidate from their caste, and ruling parties and sitting MPs or MLAs frequently lose elections. Politics also influences caste: each caste group tries to become bigger by incorporating neighbouring castes, caste groups enter into coalitions, and new groups like 'backward' and 'forward' castes have come up. Caste politics has helped Dalits and OBCs gain better access to decision making, but exclusive attention to caste can divert attention from poverty, development and corruption, and can lead to tension and violence.

• Vote bankwhen a large proportion of voters from a caste or community vote for one party
• Politics does not get caste-ridden; it is caste that gets politicised