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NCERT Class 11 Political Science Chapter 16 Citizenship
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Citizenship
Chapter: 16
| (PART-B) POLITICAL THEORY |
| TEXT BOOK QUESTIONS ANSWER |
1. Citizenship as full and equal membership of a political community involves both rights and obligations. Which rights should citizens expect to enjoy in most democratic states today? What kind of obligations will they have to their state and fellow citizens?
Ans: Rights of Citizens in Democratic States:
(i) Political Rights:
(a) Right to Vote: Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote).
(b) Right to Run for Office: Right to public offices means that no citizen should be prohibited to hold any public office under the State on the grounds of religion, caste, race, sex or language or any of them. It is a civil right.
(ii) Civil Liberties:
(a) Freedom of Speech and Expression: Freedom of speech and expression is the backbone of any democracy. It allows every citizen to express opinions freely without any restrictions imposed. Article 19 of the Indian Constitution provides this right as a fundamental right to all citizens. It ensures liberty of thought, belief, and opinion.
(b) Freedom of Assembly and Association: Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of association at all levels, in particular in political, trade union and civic matters, which implies the right of everyone to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his or her interests.
(c) Freedom of Religion: Article 25 says “all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess, practice, and propagate religion subject to public order, morality and health”. Further, Article 26 says that all denominations can manage their own affairs in matters of religion.
(d) Right to Privacy: The right of privacy is a fundamental right. It is a right which protects the inner sphere of the individual from interference from both State, and non-State actors and allows the individuals to make autonomous life choices.
(iii) Legal Rights:
(a) Right to a Fair Trial: The right to have a case heard by a judge who is qualified, independent, and unbiased is protected by Indian law under current international legal norms. Everyone must be treated equally before the court. Everyone is entitled to a fair trial before a lawfully created, independent court.
(b) Equality Before the Law: The Constitution says that the government shall not deny to any person in India equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws. It means that the laws apply in the same manner to all, regardless of a person’s status. This is called the rule of law.
(iv) Social and Economic Rights:
(a) Right to Education: The purpose of the Act is to enable the proper education of every child in India irrespective of family income, gender, caste, or creed.
(b) Right to Healthcare: The right to health is an inclusive right, extending not only to timely and appropriate health care, but also to the underlying determinants of health, such as access to safe and potable water and adequate sanitation, healthy occupational and environmental conditions, and access to health-related education and information, including on sexual and reproductive health.
(c) Right to Social Security: In this sense, social protection corresponds to a set of policies and programs that governments need to put in place to fulfil their obligations to realise a range of economic, social and cultural rights under all circumstances, such as the rights to education, health, and an adequate standard of living, which includes the rights to food, housing, water, and sanitation, among others.
Obligations of Citizens to Their State and Fellow Citizens:
(i) Legal Obligations:
(a) Obedience to Laws: Political obligation thus refers to the moral duty of citizens to obey the laws of their state. In cases where an act or forbearance that is required by law is morally obligatory on independent grounds, political obligation simply gives the citizen an additional reason for acting accordingly.
(b) Paying Taxes: The taxes the government collects provide it with funds to run the country, pay salaries and pensions to government officials, maintain infrastructure such as roads and healthcare, and, most importantly, cover defence expenses to guard the country’s borders.
(c) Jury Duty: A jury is a group of people empowered to make findings of fact and render a verdict for a trial. The judge decides questions of law, including whether particular items of evidence will be presented to the jury.
(ii) Civic Responsibilities:
(a) Respect for Public Institutions: The bodies which make up the whole mechanisms of modern Governments such as heads of state, legislatures and parties are known as political institutions. Political institutions are concerned with the distribution of power in society. Authority and power are critical to understanding political institutions.
(b) Participation in Democratic Processes: Joining political parties allows citizens to participate in democratic systems, but is not considered participatory democracy. Participatory democracy is primarily concerned with ensuring that citizens have the opportunity to be involved in decision-making on matters that affect their lives.
(c) Military Service: Military service is service by an individual or group in an army or other militia, air forces, and naval forces, whether as a chosen job (volunteer) or as a result of an involuntary draft (conscription).
(iii) Social Responsibilities:
(a) Respect for Others’ Rights: The obligation to respect means that States must refrain from interfering with or curtailing the enjoyment of human rights. The obligation to protect requires States to protect individuals and groups against human rights abuses.
(b) Promoting Social Cohesion: Social cohesion involves building shared values and communities of interpretation, reducing disparities in wealth and income, and generally enabling people to have a sense that they are engaged in a common enterprise, facing shared challenges, and that they are members of the same community.”
2. All citizens may be granted equal rights but all may not be able to equally exercise them. Explain.
Ans: The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution that would guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens, regardless of sex. If passed, legal rights would no longer be determined by gender.
(i) Social and economic disparities: Economic disparity is just a different way of saying economic inequality, which is the unequal distribution of income, wealth, and opportunities across different groups in society.
(ii) Systemic discrimination: Systemic discrimination can arise from disparities in the interactions of individuals or institutions over time, or across different domains within the same time period.
(iii) Lack of access to information: The right to access information is a fundamental right, protected by most constitutions worldwide. When citizens can access information about how their government is performing, they can exercise their right to freedom of expression more meaningfully
(iv) Political disenfranchisement: Disfranchisement, also disenfranchisement (which has become more common since 1982) or voter disqualification, is the restriction of suffrage (the right to vote) of a person or group of people, or a practice that has the effect of preventing someone from exercising the right to vote.
(v) Physical and social barriers: One way to overcome social barriers is by developing effective communication skills. This involves being clear and concise when speaking and actively listening to others. People may feel more comfortable expressing their opinions and participating in discussions when they feel that their opinions are valued.
3. Write a short note on any two struggles for full enjoyment of citizen rights which have taken place in India in recent years. Which rights were being claimed in each case?
Ans: Though the Indian Constitution adopted an essentially democratic and inclusive notion of citizenship, yet these provisions have given rise to struggles and movements. After independence, women started movements and their main demand was equal rights for both men and women. Women demanded equal pay for equal work for both men and women. Dalit movement also demanded social justice.
4. What are some of the problems faced by refugees? In what ways could the concept of global citizenship benefit from chem?
Ans: Problems Faced by Refugees:
(i) Safety and Security: The refugee protection regime was created by the international community to shelter those fleeing direct threats to their lives. But this very fact has meant that refugee protection has always been profoundly affected by larger security issues.
(ii) Legal and Administrative Challenges: The refugees are held responsible for spreading diseases, crime and polluting the area as they mostly live in slums and tents. They are constrained to do useful and necessary work but at low wages. Refugees face the problem of shelter, food and lack of employment.
(iii) Access to Basic Needs: The main conflict in the book Refugee by Alan Gratz is that between the three children and the regimes from which they’re trying to escape. Adults would find such a conflict difficult to resolve, but as children, Josef, Isabel, and Mahmoud find it especially hard.
(iv) Economic Challenges: Refugees are concentrated in the lower end of the income distribution and, even when they want to return, they frequently cannot afford the risky and costly return journey. An improvement in their conditions in exile can lead to more returns, as we observed in the case of Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan.
(v) Social Integration: Refugees are people forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as a result of who they are, what they believe in or say, or because of armed conflict, violence or serious public disorder.
Benefits of Global Citizenship for Refugees:
(i) Enhanced Support and Solidarity: They help enrich their local communities, creating a cultural diversity within the local population and helping nurture understanding and appreciation for social diversity. Years after their settlement, refugees continue to stimulate the economy, often boosting economic activity and increasing wages.
(ii) Improved Legal and Social Frameworks: International refugee law is premised on the need to provide protection to those whose home state cannot or does not extend them protection and instead persecutes them. Indeed, the grant of refuge to those fleeing persecution has been ‘one of humanity’s most long-standing traditions.
(iii) Economic and Educational Opportunities: A person who leaves their country of origin purely for economic reasons that are not in any way related to the refugee definition, in order to seek material improvements in their livelihood.
(iv) Cultural Exchange and Enrichment: Being an exchange student has numerous benefits. It allows you to experience a new culture, improve your language skills, make lifelong friendships, and gain a global perspective. It also helps you develop independence, adaptability, and a greater appreciation for diversity.
(v) Advocacy and Awareness: Effective advocacy can bring people together, improve services, achieve justice, alter values and attitudes, and build group and community confidence. Advocates are not always leaders, but any good leader should be a strong advocate.
5. Migration of people to different regions within the country is often resisted by the local inhabitants. What are some of the contributions that the migrants could make to the local economy?
Ans: Migrants can contribute significantly to the local economy in various ways:
(i) Labor Force: The labour force is defined as all the civilian workers along with the unemployed individuals who are actively looking for work. The major exclusions are military members, federal workers, and people who don’t work and are not looking to work.
(ii) Entrepreneurship: On this definition a political entrepreneur is a business entrepreneur who seeks to gain profit through subsidies, protectionism, government contracts, or other such favourable arrangements with government agents through political influence and lobbying (also referred to as corporate welfare).
(iii) Consumer Spending: Consumer spending refers to the total money spent on final goods and services by individuals and households in an economy. It is an important metric that directly impacts the GDP of a country. Items that qualify as consumer spending include durable and nondurable goods and services.
(iv) Cultural Diversity: Cultural diversity is about appreciating that society is made up of many different groups with different interests, skills, talents and. needs. It also means that you recognise that people in society can have differing religious beliefs and sexual orientations to you.
(v) Tax Revenue: Taxation is the imposition of compulsory levies on individuals or entities by governments in almost every country of the world. Taxation is used primarily to raise revenue for government expenditures, though it can serve other purposes as well.
(vi) Skills and Innovation: This involves gathering and analysing information from various sources to gain a comprehensive understanding of political phenomena. To develop this skill, Learn about qualitative and quantitative research methods, including surveys, interviews, case studies, and data analysis techniques.
6. “Democratic citizenship is a project rather than an accomplished fact even in countries like India which grant equal citizenship”. Discuss some of the issues regarding citizenship being raised in India today.
Ans: Here are some of the issues regarding citizenship currently being raised:
(i) Legal Frameworks and Amendments:
Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA): The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) aims to protect individuals who have sought refuge in India due to religious persecution. It offers them a shield against illegal migration proceedings. To be eligible for citizenship, applicants must have entered India on or before December 31, 2014.
(ii) National Register of Citizens (NRC):
Assam NRC: The National Register of Citizens for Assam is a registry (NRC) meant to be maintained by the Government of India for the state of Assam. It is expected to contain the names and certain relevant information for the identification of genuine Indian citizens in the state.
(iii) Statelessness and Marginalisation:
Impact of Citizenship Policies: Citizenship is important because being a citizen gives numerous benefits and rights such as the right to vote, the right to contest elections, the right to hold constitutional posts, the right to own land, etc.
(iv) Identity Politics and Social Cohesion:
Identity-Based Politics: Identity politics is politics based on a particular identity, such as ethnicity, race, nationality, religion, denomination, gender, sexual orientation, social background, caste, and social class.
(v) Inclusion and Exclusion Dynamics:
Legal and Social Definitions: Social inclusion is a process which ensures that those at risk of poverty and social exclu-sion gain the opportunities and resources necessary to participate fully in economic, social, political and cultural life and to enjoy a standard of living that is considered normal in the society in which they live.
(vi) International Relations:
Bilateral and Regional Implications: In international relations, regionalism is the expression of a common sense of identity and purpose combined with the creation and implementation of institutions that express a particular identity and shape collective action within a geographical region.
(vii) Legal Challenges and Judicial Review:
Court Interventions: judicial review, power of the courts of a country to examine the actions of the legislative, executive, and administrative arms of the government and to determine whether such actions are consistent with the constitution. Actions judged inconsistent are declared unconstitutional and, therefore, null and void.
