Political Systems and Governance

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.

'Tolerable state of balance' in the last sentence may mean _____________________.

Democratic societies from the earliest times have expected their governments to protect the weak against the strong. No ‘era of good feeling’ can justify discharging the police force or giving up the idea of public control over concentrated private wealth. On the other hand, it is obvious that a spirit of self – denial & moderation on the part of those who hold economic power will greatly soften the demand for absolute equality. Men are more interested in freedom & security than in an equal distribution of wealth. The extent to which government must interfere with business, therefore, is not
exactly measured by the by the extent to which economic power is concentrated into a few hands . The required degree of government interference depends mainly on weather economic powers are oppressively used, and on the necessity of keeping economic factors in a tolerable state of balance.
             But with the necessity of meeting all these dangers and threats to liberty, the power of government are unavoidably increased, whichever political party may be in office. The growth of government is a necessary result of

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.

A spirit of moderation on the economically sound people would make the less privileged _________________.

Democratic societies from the earliest times have expected their governments to protect the weak against the strong. No ‘era of good feeling’ can justify discharging the police force or giving up the idea of public control over concentrated private wealth. On the other hand, it is obvious that a spirit of self – denial & moderation on the part of those who hold economic power will greatly soften the demand for absolute equality. Men are more interested in freedom & security than in an equal distribution of wealth. The extent to which government must interfere with business, therefore, is not
exactly measured by the by the extent to which economic power is concentrated into a few hands . The required degree of government interference depends mainly on weather economic powers are oppressively used, and on the necessity of keeping economic factors in a tolerable state of balance.
             But with the necessity of meeting all these dangers and threats to liberty, the power of government are unavoidably increased, whichever political party may be in office. The growth of government is a necessary result of

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.

'Era of good feeling' in sentence 2 refers to _________________.

Democratic societies from the earliest times have expected their governments to protect the weak against the strong. No ‘era of good feeling’ can justify discharging the police force or giving up the idea of public control over concentrated private wealth. On the other hand, it is obvious that a spirit of self – denial & moderation on the part of those who hold economic power will greatly soften the demand for absolute equality. Men are more interested in freedom & security than in an equal distribution of wealth. The extent to which government must interfere with business, therefore, is not
exactly measured by the by the extent to which economic power is concentrated into a few hands . The required degree of government interference depends mainly on weather economic powers are oppressively used, and on the necessity of keeping economic factors in a tolerable state of balance.
             But with the necessity of meeting all these dangers and threats to liberty, the power of government are unavoidably increased, whichever political party may be in office. The growth of government is a necessary result of

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.

The advent of science and technology has increased the _________________.

Democratic societies from the earliest times have expected their governments to protect the weak against the strong. No ‘era of good feeling’ can justify discharging the police force or giving up the idea of public control over concentrated private wealth. On the other hand, it is obvious that a spirit of self – denial & moderation on the part of those who hold economic power will greatly soften the demand for absolute equality. Men are more interested in freedom & security than in an equal distribution of wealth. The extent to which government must interfere with business, therefore, is not
exactly measured by the by the extent to which economic power is concentrated into a few hands . The required degree of government interference depends mainly on weather economic powers are oppressively used, and on the necessity of keeping economic factors in a tolerable state of balance.
             But with the necessity of meeting all these dangers and threats to liberty, the power of government are unavoidably increased, whichever political party may be in office. The growth of government is a necessary result of

Directions: Read the following passage and answer the question.

The growth of government is necessitated to __________________.

Democratic societies from the earliest times have expected their governments to protect the weak against the strong. No ‘era of good feeling’ can justify discharging the police force or giving up the idea of public control over concentrated private wealth. On the other hand, it is obvious that a spirit of self – denial & moderation on the part of those who hold economic power will greatly soften the demand for absolute equality. Men are more interested in freedom & security than in an equal distribution of wealth. The extent to which government must interfere with business, therefore, is not
exactly measured by the by the extent to which economic power is concentrated into a few hands . The required degree of government interference depends mainly on weather economic powers are oppressively used, and on the necessity of keeping economic factors in a tolerable state of balance.
             But with the necessity of meeting all these dangers and threats to liberty, the power of government are unavoidably increased, whichever political party may be in office. The growth of government is a necessary result of

The author is most likely to disagree with the statement that

1. democracy provides the right to follow a particular view point and by this very definition, it also provides a legitimate existence to a contrary viewpoint, thereby creating paradoxes.
2. the use of force to propagate a viewpoint in a democratic nation is not only illegal but also restrictive in the sense that it disallows the basic rights to the opponents of the viewpoint.
3. direct action these days consists of non-violent gherao and bandhs.

While we have forgotten much of what Gandhi ji recommended regarding the use of Satyagraha against a foreign ruler, we see instances of it, day in and day out, in support of some cause or issue a group of people advocates. And this is happening 60 years after our country has had a fully democratic system with adult franchise. Whereas Satyagraha was intended to be peaceful, today's direct action is accompanied by threats and violence.

There have also been cases of direct action directed at private individuals or groups. Such action as practised today is openly coercive. A boycott of a play thought to be anti-Hindu or of a film thought to be obscene prevents those who disagree, from attending the performance and exposes the organisers to stone-throwing and arson, and, of course, financial loss. Gandhi ji was justified in breaking the salt law as it was passed by the British and we were powerless to rescind it. If we have a bad law today, the correct remedy can never be satyagraha or civil disobedience. The proper democratic course of action would be to campaign for its repeal. Similarly, if there is some evil which is rampant, the democratic course of action is to campaign for the enforcement of the law against it or, if there is no satisfactory law, for its enactment.

The right which democracy confers is to propound a particular view point; inherent in the right is the right of its opponents to disagree. The moment the proponents of a viewpoint adopt coercive tactics, not only are they acting unlawfully, they are also denying their opponents their democratic right to disagree. Every so often the morchas are organised by groups which either want disturbances or at least do not mind them. A morchais in these cases is accompanied by shattered windows, looted shops and smashed buses and cars. A more extreme form of such agitation is a bandh.  Even a peaceful bandh results in lakhs of people losing money.

No doubt the government ought to prevent such acts. But it is unsure of public support and afraid of the violence that often erupts if morchas or bandhs are sought to be prevented. It takes the easy path of inaction. At times, it is in sympathy with the cause and actively supports the agitation.

It is high time we woke up to what these pressure groups are doing and make them stop bullying the common man. If we keep on permitting interest groups to carry on as they have been doing, a day will come when we will witness the end of both the rule of law and democracy.

Directions: Answer the question based on the following passage.

To entertain any theory about revolution," writes John Dunn, "--and it is not even possible to identify just what events do constitute revolutions without assuming some theory about the meaning of revolution--is to assume a political posture.... The value-free study of revolutions is a logical impossibility for those who live in the real world" (Dunn, 1972: 1-2). For the student of revolutions the problem is complicated by the fact that the political postures assumed spontaneously by those who write or speak about them, and, if not careful, by himself or herself, are not necessarily coherent or consistent. We live in an era when rapid and fundamental change has become the norm in everyday life, so that the terms "revolution" and "revolutionary" extend far beyond the field of political science. Moreover, common discourse identifies them, much in the eighteenth-century manner, with progress and the improvement of life, so that, as advertising agencies understand only too well, the word "revolutionary," when attached to a new microwave oven as distinct from a political regime, will sell the product more effectively, even among those most passionately committed to the defense of the status quo against subversion.

Nevertheless, the primary political meaning of "revolution" remains profoundly controversial, as the historiography of the subject demonstrates, and as the debates surrounding the bicentenary of the French Revolution of 1789 demonstrate even more unmistakably. What usually happens to revolutions sufficiently distant from the present--and two centuries are, by the news agency standards that dominate our information, almost beyond the range of the remembered past--is that they are either transformed into nonrevolutions--that is, integrated into historical continuity or excluded from it as insignificant temporary interruptions--or else they are celebrated by public rites of passage suitable to the occasions that mark the birth of nations and/or regimes. They remain controversial only among historians. Thus the English Revolution or revolutions of the seventeenth century has been tacitly eliminated from political discourse: even in the tercentenary year of what used to be called the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 and the constituting event of British parliamentary sovereignty, its presence in public rhetoric has been subdued and marginal. On the other hand, a celebratory consensus has marked the various bicentenaries connected with the American Revolution, and even opponents of those aspects of it which are still--or again--highly controversial, such as its deliberate refusal to give public recognition to religion, would not dream of using this as an argument against it. Its public face, jubilees and centenaries apart, is that of a rite of passage in the life of the nation, independence (celebrated on the Fourth of July) taking its place after first settlement (celebrated on Thanksgiving).

Attempts to apply these two techniques of eliminating the controversial aspects of the French Revolution have been made, by republicans and by the political right respectively, and the contention that it achieved little or nothing other than what would have happened without it, and thus constitutes not a major transforming set of events but only a sort of stumble on the long path of French history, is one of the main weapons in the intellectual war against those who wish to celebrate its bicentenary. Yet these attempts have failed. On the one hand, the revolution never gained the general retrospective consensus without which such events cannot become harmless national birthdays, not even after World War II briefly eliminated from the political scene that French Right that defined itself by its rejection of 1789. On the contrary, since the revolution inspired not only the Left of the relatively remote past but also the contemporary Left, it could not but remain contentious. As is quite evident from the pre-bicentenary debates in France, the traditional opponents of 1789 have been reinforced by the opponents of 1917; by reactionaries who would not disclaim that label, by liberals who certainly would. Yet the antirevolutionary attempt to demote the revolution, or shunt it onto a sidetrack of French historical development, has also failed, since, if it had succeeded, it would no longer need to be seriously argued. Indeed, the mere project of trying to prove that the French Revolution is not an altogether major event in modern history must strike non-Frenchmen as brave and quixotic--that is, as absurd.