Gender and politics:
Sexual division of labour:
Under this division of labour women have been confined to do all household work and men do the outside work.
Men can also do house work but they believe that it is the responsibility of women.
The majority of women do more hard work but their work is not valued or recognised.
Feminist movement:
Movements which are organised by various women organisations to create equality for women in personal and family life have been termed as Feminist Movement.
They demanded equal rights for women in all spheres of life.
There were agitations in different countries for the extension of voting rights to women.
They demanded enhancing the political and legal status of women.
They demanded improvement in the educational and career opportunities for the women.
Political expression of gender division and political mobilisation on this question 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 some parts of the world, for example in Scandinavian countries such as Sweden,
Norway and Finland, the participation of women in public life is very high
Different aspects of life in which women are discriminated:
In our country, women still lag much behind men despite some improvement since Independence. Ours is still a male dominated, PATRIARCHAL society. Women face disadvantage, discrimination and oppression in various ways.
Literacy rate:
The literacy rate among women is only 54 percent as compared to 76 percent among men.
Similarly, a smaller proportion of girl students go for higher studies because parents prefer to spend their resources for their boys’ education than spending equally on their daughters.
Although women constitute half of the population of the world, their role in public life especially in politics is minimum in most of the societies.
Though the role of women in world politics is increasing but still it is male dominating.
Unpaid work:
The proportion of women among the highly paid and valued jobs is still very small.
Though on an average Indian woman works one hour more than an average man everyday but most of them are not paid equally and therefore, their work is often not valued.
The Equal Remuneration Act 1976 provides that equal wages should be paid to equal work.
However in almost all areas of work, from sports and cinema, to factories and fields, women are paid less than men. even when both do exactly the same work
Sex ratio:
In many parts of India, parents prefer to have sons and find ways to have the girl child aborted before she is born.
This has led to a decline in child sex-ratio to merely 914 girl child per thousand boys.
Domestic violence:
There are reports of various kinds of harassment, exploitation and violence against women.
Both urban as well as rural areas have become unsafe for women.
They are not safe even within their own home from beating, harassment and other forms of domestic violence.
Women’s political representation:
In India, the proportion of women in legislature has been very low.
In India the percentage of women in Lok sabha has crossed 10% for the first time in 2009 of its total strength and in state assemblies it is less than 5%.
India is among the bottom group of nations in the world.
India is behind the averages for several developing countries of Africa and Latin America.
One third of seats are reserved for women in local government in India, more than 10 lakh elected women representatives are there in Panchayat and Municipalities.
A bill regarding representation of women in Parliament is still pending
![STATUS OF WOMEN'S REPRESENTATION IN INDIA'S LEGISLATIVE BODIES - Edusaint]()
Religion, communalism and politics:
A. Different considerations about religion and politics:
Gandhiji view regarding religion and politics:
Gandhiji used to say that 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 form all religions.
He believed that politics must be guided by ethics drawn from religion.
Humans, rights and politics:
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 should take special steps to protect religious minorities.
Women, Religion and Politics:
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.
B. Conclusion:
All these instances involve a relationship between religion and politics.
But they do not seem very wrong or dangerous.
Ideas, ideals and values drawn from different religions can and perhaps should play a role in politics.
People should be able to express in politics their needs, interests and demands as a member of a religious community.
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
C. Communalism:
Communalism is a situation when a particular community tries to promote its own interest at the cost of other communities.
The communalism problem becomes acute when:
Religion is seen as the basis of the nation.
When one religion and its followers are discriminated against by another.
When people start believing that beliefs of one religion are superior to those of other religion.
When the demands of one religious group are formed in opposition to another.
When state power is used to establish domination of one religious group over the rest.
![Gender, Religion And Caste - Important Diagrams]()
D. Communalism and 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 the 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
E. Communalism can take various forms in politics:
The most common expression of Communalism is in everyday beliefs.
These routinely involve religious prejudices, stereotypes of religious communities and belief in the superiority of one’s religion over other religions.
This is so common that we often fail to notice it, even when we believe in it.
A communal mind often leads to a quest 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.
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.
Sometimes communalism takes it’s 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 scales communal violence.
F. Secular state:
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.
The Constitution provides to 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 Constitution allows the state to intervene in the matters of religion in order to ensure equality within religious communities.
For example, it bans untouchability.
Understood in this sense, secularism is not just an ideology of some parties or persons.
This idea constitutes one of the foundations of our country.
Caste and Politics:
A. Caste system:
It is one of the social divisions based on hereditary occupation which was sectioned by rituals.
B. Features of caste system prevailing in India:
Members of same caste form a social community.
They have same occupation.
Marriages take place within the same caste.
Members of one caste group earlier could not be the member of other caste groups.
Caste system was based on exclusion and discriminations against the ‘out caste group.
Many castes were subjected to untouchability.
C. Reasons for the changes in caste system in modern India:
Economic development
Large scale urbanisation.
Growth of literacy
Occupational mobility
Weakening of the position of landowners in the villages
Breakdown of caste hierarchy
Ban on untouchability
D. Caste in politics:
Casteism is rooted in the beliefs that caste is the sole basis of social community.
When parties choose candidates in election they keep in mind the caste composition and nominate candidates on the basis of caste.
Political parties and candidates in elections make appeal to caste sentiments to gather support.
Political parties are seen as a supporter of particular caste and represent their interest.
Universal Adult Franchise and the principle of one person one vote compelled political parties to gear up the task of securing more support.
Government sometimes favours a particular caste.
The focus on caste in politics can sometimes give an impression that elections are all about caste and nothing else. That is far from true. Just consider the following points:
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.
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.
Many political parties may put up candidates from the same caste (if that caste is believed to dominate the electorate in a particular constituency).
Some voters have more than one candidate from their caste while many voters have no candidate from their caste.
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.
E. Politics in caste:
It is not politics that gets caste ridden; it is the caste that gets politicised. This takes several forms:
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.
Thus, caste plays different kinds of roles in politics.
In some situations, expression of caste differences in politics gives many disadvantaged communities the space to demand their share of power.
Sex ratio –
It is defined as number of females per 1000 males in a country in a given period of time.
Sexual division of labour –
A system in which all work inside the home is either done by the women of the family or organised by them through the labour of domestic workers
Secular state –
A secular state provides equal status to all religions.
Communal politics –
The use of religion for political purpose where one religion is shown as superior to the other religions is called communal politics.
Communalism –
It means attempts to promote religious ideas between groups of people as identified by different communities.
Literacy rate –
Literacy rate is the ratio of educated people among the whole population of a country.
Feminism –
It is concerned with the empowerment of women and gives women equal status in the society as men.
Urbanisation –
Shift of population from rural areas to urban areas.
Feminist –
A person who believes in equal rights and opportunities for all human beings.
Patriarchy –
A system where father is the head of the family
Family laws –
Those laws that deal with family related matters such as marriage, divorce, adoption, inheritance, etc.
