Social Science

Social and Political Life - III

Textbook for Class VIII

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 0860 – SOCIAL AND POLITICAL LIFE - III ISBN 978-81-7450-825-6
Textbook for Class VIII

First Edition ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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Foreword
The National Curriculum Framework (NCF), 2005, recommends that children’s life at school
must be linked to their life outside the school. This principle marks a departure from the legacy
of bookish learning which continues to shape our system and causes a gap between the school,
home and community. The syllabi and textbooks developed on the basis of NCF signify an
attempt to implement this basic idea. They also attempt to discourage rote learning and the
maintenance of sharp boundaries between different subject areas. We hope these measures will
take us significantly further in the direction of a child-centred system of education outlined in
the National Policy on Education (1986).
The success of this effort depends on the steps that school principals and teachers will take
to encourage children to reflect on their own learning and to pursue imaginative activities and
questions. We must recognise that given space, time and freedom, children generate new
knowledge by engaging with the information passed on to them by adults. Treating the
prescribed textbook as the sole basis of examination is one of the key reasons why other resources
and sites of learning are ignored. Inculcating creativity and initiative is possible if we perceive
and treat children as participants in learning, not as receivers of a fixed body of knowledge.
These aims imply considerable change in school routines and mode of functioning. Flexibility
in the daily timetable is as necessary as rigour in implementing the annual calendar so that the
required number of teaching days is actually devoted to teaching. The methods used for teaching
and evaluation will also determine how effective this textbook proves for making children’s life
at school a happy experience, rather than a source of stress or boredom. Syllabus designers have
tried to address the problem of curricular burden by restructuring and reorienting knowledge
at different stages with greater consideration for child psychology and the time available for
teaching. The textbook attempts to enhance this endeavour by giving higher priority and space
to opportunities for contemplation and wondering, discussion in small groups, and activities
requiring hands-on experience.
The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) appreciates the
hard work done by the textbook development committee responsible for this book. We wish
to thank the Chairperson of the advisory group in Social Sciences, Professor Hari Vasudevan,
the Chief Advisor, Sarada Balagopalan and the Advisor, Dipta Bhog for guiding the work of
this committee. Several teachers contributed to the development of this textbook; we are grateful
to their principals for making this possible. We are indebted to the institutions and organisations
which have generously permitted us to draw upon their resources, material and personnel. We
are especially grateful to the members of the National Monitoring Committee, appointed by
the Department of Secondary and Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resources
Development under the Chairpersonship of Professor Mrinal Miri and Professor G.P.
Deshpande, for their valuable time and contribution. As an organisation committed to systemic
reform and continuous improvement in the quality of its products, NCERT welcomes comments
and suggestions which will enable us to undertake further revision and refinement.

Director
New Delhi National Council of Educational
30 November 2007 Research and Training

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iii
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Rationalisation of Content in the Textbooks
In view of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is imperative to reduce content load on
students. The National Education Policy 2020, also emphasises reducing the content
load and providing opportunities for experiential learning with creative mindset. In
this background, the NCERT has undertaken the exercise to rationalise the textbooks
across all classes. Learning Outcomes already developed by the NCERT across classes
have been taken into consideration in this exercise.
Contents of the textbooks have been rationalised in view of the following:
• Overlapping with similar content included in other subject areas in the same class
• Similar content included in the lower or higher class in the same subject
• Difficulty level
• Content, which is easily accessible to students without much interventions from
teachers and can be learned by children through self-learning or peer-learning
• Content, which is irrelevant in the present context

This present edition, is a reformatted version after carrying out the changes
given above.

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Textbook Development Committee
CHAIRPERSON, ADVISORY COMMITTEE FOR SOCIAL SCIENCE TEXTBOOKS AT THE UPPER
PRIMARY LEVEL
Hari Vasudevan, Professor, Department of History, University of Calcutta, Kolkata

CHIEF ADVISOR
Sarada Balagopalan, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Rajpur Road, Delhi

ADVISOR
Dipta Bhog, Nirantar – Centre for Gender and Education, New Delhi

MEMBERS
Arvind Sardana, Eklavya–Institute for Educational Research and Innovative Action,
Madhya Pradesh
Ashita Raveendran, Lecturer, DESSH, NCERT, New Delhi
Bhavna Mulani, Shishukunj International School, Indore, Madhya Pradesh
Krishna Menon, Reader, Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi
Krishna Nand Pandey, Government Middle School, Khodri, Dist. Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh
Latika Gupta, Consultant, Department of Elementary Education (DEE), NCERT
Malini Ghose, Nirantar – Centre for Gender and Education, New Delhi
Rajeev Bhargava, Senior Fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi
Ram Murti, Government Senior Secondary School, Deepsingwala, Dist. Faridkot, Punjab
Sukanya Bose, Eklavya Research Fellow, New Delhi
V. Geetha, Editor, Tara Publishing, Chennai
Vrinda Grover, Advocate, New Delhi

MEMBER-COORDINATOR
Malla V.S.V. Prasad, Lecturer, Department of Education in Social Sciences and Humanities
(DESSH), NCERT, New Delhi

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Acknowledgements
The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) acknowledges all those institutions
and individuals who contributed–directly or indirectly–to the development of this textbook.
Aditya Nigam, Alex George, Awadhendra Sharan, Azra Razzack, Farah Naqvi, Kai Friese, Kaushik
Ghosh, Kumkum Roy, M.V. Srinivasan, Radhika Singha, Rana Behal and Yogendra Yadav have given
valuable inputs on several issues raised in this book. In addition, we are grateful to the editor, Urvashi
Butalia for her incisive and indispensable inputs and Disha Mullick for editing and proofreading and the
ease with which she adjusted to the wavering schedules. Special thanks are due to Orijit Sen for his advice
on the storyboards. We would also like to thank members of the Lawyers Collective for helping with
the storyboard on domestic violence bill in Unit 2.
The Council gratefully acknowledges the contribution of the following institutions in various ways:
Lok Sabha Secretariat, Rajya Sabha Secretariat, Press Information Bureau, Photo Division of the Ministry
of Information and Broadcasting, Election Commission, National Informatics Centre, the Hindustan
Times, Outlook, Down to Earth and thanks are due to the staff in each of these organisations for their
assistance. We thank the Ministry of Consumer Affairs for granting the NCERT the permission to use
pictures of the Parliament and Judiciary under the Emblems and Names (Prevention of Improper Use)
Act, 1950. We would also like to thank the UNDP India for materials about the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs).
In addition, the following are thanked for providing photographs and posters: Sheeba Chachi,
Sambhavana Trust including Maude Dorr, Shalini Sharma, Ryan Bodanyi and Joe Athialy for photos on
Bhopal; Greenpeace, specially Jayashre Nandi for photos on Bhopal; and Members of the Right to
Food Campaign. We would also like to mention the services of Sondeep Shastri (Hindustan Times) and
Bhagwati (Sarai). The design of this book has been worked at with great devotion and skill by Shraboni
Roy. We are greatly appreciative of the patience and the enthusiasm shown by her at every step.
Several students at the Srijan School, Delhi and Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya, Delhi drew pictures
for the book on the theme of religious tolerance. We thank their teachers, Natasha Dutta and Jyoti Sethi
for facilitating this. We would also like to thank Farah Farooqi for sharing with us her daughter Ainee’s
essay and allowing us to use it in this book. Arundhati Rajesh, a Class VIII student at Sardar Patel
Vidyalaya also gave us feedback on our last Unit and we thank her for her inputs.
The Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Eklavya and Nirantar have, as always,
been steadfast in their support of this book. At Nirantar, we thank Prasanna and Anil for all their help.
We offer thanks to Professor Savtia Sinha, Head, DESSH for her support. We gratefully acknowledge
the efforts of the administrative staff of DESSH.
The Council acknowledges the valuable inputs for analysing syllabi, textbooks and the content proposed
to be rationalised for this edition by Kavita Jain, PGT, Political Science, SD Public School, Ashok Vihar;
Maneesha Pandey, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Hindu College, University of Delhi;
Shankaran Sharan, Professor, DESS, NCERT; Vanthangpui Khobung, Assistant Professor, DESS, NCERT;
and Sunita Kathuria, PGT, Political Science, MCL Saraswati Bal Mandir, Hari Nagar, New Delhi.
The production of the book benefited greatly from the efforts of the Publications Department.
Special thanks are due to Vandana Singh, Consultant Editor, NCERT for going through the book. Our
special thanks to Kanwar Singh, Copy Editor, Uttam Kumar and Neelam Walecha, DTP Operators.

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 Introductory Note for Teachers

This is the third and final textbook on Social and Political Life. In the higher classes, the students will
continue to learn some of what we have discussed within the subject areas of political science and
economics. In our ‘Introductory Note’ over the past two years, we had emphasised what this new
subject area was about. This year’s note is more personal as we write about what motivated us to
create these textbooks in this manner and the central role that teachers play in transacting them.
Often teachers feel overwhelmed by frequent revisions in the curriculum. These are revisions
that they seldom have any role in drafting but have to implement in the classroom space. Often
teachers do not understand the basis for the changes. This results in some amount of frustration
and cynicism about the effectiveness of any change. This skepticism can in some cases result in
teachers not taking the new subject area very seriously. It may also lead to teachers’ unwillingness to
adopt new teaching practices that the new subject area relies upon. We hope that through sharing
with you what has compelled us to develop these textbooks differently, over the past three years,
you will recognise the significant role that teachers have in realising the pedagogic goals of Social
and Political Life.
In hindsight, it appears we took up quite an exciting, though daunting, task three years ago
when we decided that we would help flesh out a new subject area in middle-school social science.
The task was exciting because quite a few of us had been involved with the teaching of Civics in
school and knew how tedious the subject was to students. Or, we had done an analysis of civics
textbooks and were dismayed by their limited understanding of Indian democracy. We were
particularly troubled by two factors: one, the textbook’s lack of any concrete examples to highlight
the functioning of democracy in people’s lives in India and two, its tendency to portray institutions
and processes as if they functioned exactly in the ways in which the Constitution intended.
In addition, some of us had been part of a research project that showed that students were
often confused between processes, institutions and individuals in government. For example, they
were often not able to distinguish between the legislature and the executive. As teachers, you probably

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often reflect upon such limitations of civics textbooks. We were also motivated by the fact that
contemporary social and political issues did not have any space in the middle-school curriculum.
Though civics had tried to raise these through a focus on the government, a new subject area was
an opportunity to enlarge this focus and make it more exciting to teach without losing sight of the
government’s role.
We were confronted by three different types of questions. The first of these was: how can we
get students to understand contemporary social and political concerns? The first question brought
forth the following tentative ideas: one, we would need content that was grounded in the lives of
students; two, students needed to understand that ‘democracy’ is not limited to the functioning of
government institutions but depends primarily on the role played by ordinary persons; and three,
change in content would simultaneously require a different pedagogic style.
The second question that struck us concerned the choice of themes within the subject area. Here
we have explored many new themes, trying to balance what is appropriate for the middle school with
a certain depth of analysis. It is unfortunate that social science has increasingly come to be viewed by
students a box full of general knowledge facts to be learnt by rote. This existing understanding is
completely opposed to what social science is meant to do, i.e. to provide a lens through which to
analyse the world around us. This ability to analyse social issues is increasingly being viewed as a
necessary and desirable skill to possess even amongst those who teach ‘Science’ in Universities. As
social science teachers, we should be proud of our subject area and the opportunity it provides to
build in the student a critical and informed way of looking at their contemporary world.
The third question related to the role that we expected teachers to play in this new subject area.
This was more within the realm of pedagogy and we had the following thoughts on this: one, that
as often as possible we would not provide definitions for concepts that we discussed, two, that we
would use stories and other forms of creative expression including storyboards to help the students
empathise with the issues being raised, and three, that the in-text and end-text questions we asked
would make students engage analytically with the material presented. The visuals that the book
used, whether they be storyboards, photos or photo essays, were integral to the content and could
be used for further analysis of issues. These should not be seen as decorative.
Quite naturally for all of these ideas to materialise within the space of the classroom, we had to
rely on more than the textbook. A national textbook, we recognised, would always fall short of
providing particular content that was grounded in the vast diversity of students’ lives in this country.
As far as possible, we have tried to spread the case studies across regions and social groups.
Secondly, since contemporary concerns would necessarily highlight the inequalities that were woven
into our social fabric, there was a need for mediation of information and opinion in the classroom
space. And, this role is best played by teachers. So your role is not just to transact the content of the
textbook but you have been expected from the start to bring in different, more local, examples
and help students develop their own analysis of important issues. These textbooks also mark a
departure from earlier ones precisely because they name and identify specific forms of inequality.
These caste, religious and gender distinctions are also realities that are present in the classroom and
therefore, our expectation is also that you will handle these situations with the necessary sensitivity.
Paulo Freire, the Brazilian educator (who characterised rote learning as akin to depositing
money in a bank) wrote that teachers should attempt to, “live part of their dreams within their
educational space (i.e. in schools)”. And, we hoped that the social and political life classroom
would serve quite easily as this space for teachers because the topics discussed in the textbooks

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were deeply connected to people’s struggles for justice, equality and dignity. We hoped that the
teachers’ strong identification with the topics discussed would allow them to guide students to
critically pose questions on contemporary issues.
We also realised that this critical lens we wanted students to develop would need to be linked
to a larger vision. This was needed for them to make a more informed analysis as well as not
develop a cynicism when confronted with stark realities of social and political life in India. We
wanted them to be critical and positive at the same time. And, although this might sound
contradictory to you, we were quite sure that we did not want one without the other. For students
to be confronted by only unequal realities without having any idea about how matters could be
better, would have been frustrating. And on the flip side, to have them to learn about India only as
an ideal democracy, in order that they remain positive, would have been misleading, given that their
everyday realities are constantly telling them a different story.
Luckily for us, the country has a visionary document as well as a history of people’s struggles.
It is these two tools that we deliberately decided to draw upon to help make a critical analysis
simultaneously a hopeful and positive experience for students. The Indian Constitution is a visionary
document and has been used as such by several individuals and social movements to address issues
of injustice and oppression. We have used the Constitution to serve as the moral compass for this
new subject area. In addition, the book also utilises social movements to meaningfully show students
that the existence of the Constitution does not in and of itself guarantee equality and dignity but
that people continuously struggle to realise these in their lives.
As we developed this last book, we were also aware that in the future changes will be made to
the social and political life curriculum as well as these textbooks. We hope that sharing the above
reasons – why we developed these texts as well as what we hope the teacher and student will bring
to the analyses presented – will allow you to deepen your commitment to this subject area. We
hope that it will allow you to recognise that as the only subject area that deals with contemporary
social and political issues in middle-school classes, Social and Political Life series provides you with a
great opportunity to explore the ways in which your students’ lives are tied to broader societal
issues. We would like for you to use this opportunity to begin to change the ways in which students
are forced to learn information by rote in the classroom space. Since the information provided in
these textbooks provides enough room to introduce connected local concerns and to develop an
analysis based on this, you need to exercise an active role in making the classroom space exciting as
well as safe for students of all backgrounds to air their opinions without feeling left out, ridiculed
or silenced.
The task of establishing a new subject area through a textbook is not easy. Social and Political Life
because of its focus on the contemporary will also be controversial at times. We can’t run away
from this. While you would allow a variety of opinions to be expressed, this would be based on a
large amount of trust in your sense of justice and dignity for all. If you believe that schools can
help build in the child a sense of a just society, then Social and Political Life provides you a great
opportunity to do this. It is our keen hope that you take up our offer.

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What are the issues included in the Class VIII book?

The Class VIII book has a focus on rule of law and social justice. The units are devoted to the following topics:
the Indian Constitution, the Parliament, the Judiciary, Social Marginalisation and the Economic Presence of
Government. Each unit consists of two chapters. In this book, students learn what law is and what is meant by
rule of law. They also learn that often laws are not enough and people continue to struggle to have their fundamental
rights realised long after laws have been passed to guarantee these. The book ends with a note on the ‘Constitution
as a Living Ideal’. This note serves the function of tying together the main ideas raised in the book.

What elements does the Class VIII book utilise to explain selected issues?

Storyboards: We have received feedback that the storyboards that we introduced last year worked well in the
classroom with both students and teachers. This year, we have continued to use this visual medium to discuss
narratives that are fictional but based on real events. We hope students will be drawn into the narrative and this
will help them better understand the concepts and processes that the storyboard depicts.

Anil, you will have to

stay back after school
today and write ‘I will
not disobey the class
monitor’ a 100 times.
Ma’am, while you were away,
Anil kept talking loudly and But … Ma’am … I
disturbing the class. He would did not do anything!
not listen to me.

Glossary: The glossary words are highlighted in the chapters. The glossary is not a dictionary. Instead, it explains
the context or sense in which the words or phrases have been used in the chapter. The glossary is a tool to be used
for understanding the text further and not something that needs to be memorised.

GLOSSARY

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Teacher’s Page: Again like we did
last year, each of the units begins with
a separate Teacher’s Page.This
highlights the main conceptual points
that the chapter raises with the teacher
in order to facilitate the teaching of
these in the classroom space.

In-text and End-text Questions:

As with the books in the two
previous years, this year’s book also
includes in-text and end-text
questions. These combine different
kinds of questions, testing the ability
to reason, to contrast and compare,
to infer and extrapolate, to analyse
and to read and create visual
material. The end-text questions
usually revise the main conceptual
points raised in the chapter in
addition to asking students to often
use their creative abilities. It is crucial
that students answer these questions
in their own words.

Photo Essay: Last year’s book had

a photo essay on the women’s
movement. This year, we have a
photo essay on the Bhopal gas
tragedy. A photo essay is to enable a
student to learn about a particular
situation through reading visuals.
Each of the photos have been chosen
with great care to mark particular
moments in the history of the issue
being highlighted. Students should be
encouraged to read and discuss the
photo essays and not gloss
over them.

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Contents

Foreword iii
Rationalisation of Content in the Textbooks v
Introductory Note For Teachers ix

Unit One: The Indian Constitution and Secularism 2

Chapter 1: The Indian Constitution 4
Chapter 2: Understanding Secularism 18

Unit Two: Parliament and the Making of Laws 28

Chapter 3: Parliament and the Making of Laws 30

Unit Three: The Judiciary 46

Chapter 4: Judiciary 48

Unit Four: Social Justice and the Marginalised 60

Chapter 5: Understanding Marginalisation 62
Chapter 6: Confronting Marginalisation 74

Unit Five: Economic Presence of the Government 84

Chapter 7: Public Facilities 86
Chapter 8: Law and Social Justice 100

References 114

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