Social Empowerment, Communalism, Regionalism and Secularism

What the official syllabus says

General Studies-I (Paper III), Main Written Examination:

• Social empowerment, communalism, regionalism & secularism.

Topics in detail

Social empowerment

• Meaning: social, economic and political empowerment
• The groups concerned: Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, minorities, women, persons with disabilities, transgender persons, the elderly
• Constitutional provisions: Articles 15(4), 16(4), 17, 46; the National Commissions for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Backward Classes (Articles 338, 338A, 338B)
• Laws: the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act (1989), the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act (2016), the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act (2019)
• Tools: education, reservation, land rights, self-help groups, representation in local bodies

Communalism

• Meaning and forms
• Causes: historical (colonial policy, separate electorates), political, economic, social; the role of rumours and social media
• Effects: violence, distrust, threat to national unity
• Remedies: education, law and order, fair policing, inter-community dialogue, responsible media

Regionalism

• Meaning; regional identity compared with regionalism
• Forms: demands for statehood or autonomy, inter-state disputes (river water, boundaries), ‘sons of the soil’ movements
• Causes: uneven development, language and culture, historical grievances
• Positive and negative sides; regional parties

Secularism

• Western and Indian models: separation of religion and state compared with equal respect and ‘principled distance’
• Constitutional basis: ‘secular’ added to the Preamble by the 42nd Amendment (1976), Articles 25 to 30
• S.R. Bommai v. Union of India (1994): secularism as part of the basic structure
• Challenges to secularism in practice

More on each theme

• Empowerment through law: Articles 15(5) and 15(6), 16(4A) and 16(6); the reservation for economically weaker sections (103rd Amendment, 2019)
• Empowerment through economic means: credit, skills, land, stand-up and start-up support for disadvantaged groups
• Stages of communalism: communal identity, ‘liberal’ communalism, extreme communalism
• Communal violence in history: the riots of partition and later; the role of riot-prevention and investigation
• Examples of regional demands: Telangana, Gorkhaland, Vidarbha, Bodoland
• Inter-state river-water disputes (Cauvery, Krishna, Ravi-Beas) and the tribunals set up for them
• The Uniform Civil Code (Article 44) and the debate around it
• Sarva Dharma Sambhava as the Indian ideal of secularism

Overlaps

• Constitutional rights and welfare bodies: HCS Mains: General Studies II.
• Haryana’s regional issues (river water, Chandigarh): Haryana: Modern History, Freedom Struggle and Formation of the State.