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NCERT Class 12 Political Science Textbook Chapter 7 With Answer PDF Free Download
Chapter 7: Rise of Popular Movements
The movement began in two or three villages of Uttarakhand when the forest department refused permission to the villagers to fell ash trees for making agricultural tools.
However, the forest department allotted the same patch of land to a sports manufacturer for commercial use. This enraged the villagers and they protested against the move of the government.
The struggle soon spread across many parts of the Uttarakhand region. Larger issues of ecological and economic exploitation of the region were raised.
The villagers demanded that no forest-exploiting contracts should be given to outsiders and that local communities should have effective control over natural resources like land, water, and forests.
They wanted the government to provide low-cost materials to small industries and ensure the development of the region without disturbing the ecological balance.
The movement took up economic issues of landless forest workers and asked for guarantees of minimum wage.
Women’s active participation in the Chipko agitation was a very novel aspect of the movement. The forest contractors of the region usually doubled up as suppliers of alcohol to men.
Women held sustained agitations against the habit of alcoholism and broadened the agenda of the movement to cover other social issues.
The movement achieved a victory when the government issued a ban on the felling of trees in the Himalayan regions for fifteen years until the green cover was fully restored.
But more than that, the Chipko movement, which started over a single issue, became a symbol of many such popular movements emerging in different parts of the country during the 1970s and later. In this chapter, we shall study some of these movements.
Popular movements may take the form of social movements or political movements and there is often an overlap between the two.
The nationalist movement, for example, was mainly a political movement.
But we also know that deliberations on social and economic issues during the colonial period gave rise to independent social movements like the anti-caste movement, the kisan sabhas and the trade union movement in early twentieth century.
These movements raised issues related to some underlying social conflicts.
Some of these movements continued in the post-independence period as well. The trade union movement had a strong presence among industrial workers in major cities like Mumbai, Kolkata and Kanpur.
All major political parties established their own trade unions to mobilise these sections of workers.
Peasants in the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh organized massive agitations under the
leadership of Communist parties in the early years of independence and demanded redistribution of land to cultivators.
Peasants and agricultural laborers in parts of Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar, and adjoining areas continued their agitations under the leadership of the Marxist-Leninist workers; who were known as the Naxalites (you have already read about the Naxalite movement in the last chapter).
The peasants’ and the workers’ movements mainly focussed on issues of economic injustice and inequality.
These movements did not participate in elections formally. And yet they retained connections with political parties, as many participants in these movements, as individuals and as organizations, were actively associated with parties.
These links ensured a better representation of the demands of diverse social sections in party politics.
| Author | NCERT |
| Language | English |
| No. of Pages | 20 |
| PDF Size | 2.1 MB |
| Category | Political Science |
| Source/Credits | ncert.nic.in |
NCERT Solutions Class 12 Political Science Chapter 7 Rise of Popular Movements
1. Assess any two positive aspects of the Chipko Movement.
Answer: (i) The Chipko Movement started in early 1973 in the state that is now Uttarakhand. The movement was unique in the sense that it presented a very unusual form of collective action in which men and women from a village in this state were engaged.
These villagers protested against the practices of commercial logging that the government had permitted.
They used a novel tactic for their protest— that of hugging the trees to prevent them from being cut down.
The struggle soon spread across many parts of the Uttarakhand region.
(ii) Women’s active participation in the Chipko agitation was a very novel aspect of the movement. The forest contractors of the region usually doubled up as suppliers of alcohol to men.
Women held sustained agitations against the habit of alcoholism and broadened the agenda of the movement to cover other social issues.
The movement achieved a victory when the government issued a ban on the felling of trees in the Himalayan region for fifteen years until the green cover was fully restored.
2. Where and when was the organization ‘Dalit Panthers’ formed? Describe any three of its activities.
Answer: Dalit Panthers denotes a militant organization of Dalit Youth to be formed in 1972 in Maharasthra.
Its activities can be summed up as follows:
1. These groups mainly fought against the perpetual caste-based inequalities and material injustices that Dalits faced in spite of constitutional guarantees of equality and justice.
2. Dalits faced collective atrocities over minor symbolic issues of caste pride.
3. They demanded effective implementation of reservations and other such policies of social justice.
3. What are popular movements? Explain any three issues related to women which brought social awareness to them.
Answer: Popular movements are the movements organized by Dalits and farmers under the banner of various social organizations to voice their demands.
Women in Nellore came together in spontaneous local initiatives to protest against arrack and forced the closure of wine shops.
And this movement spread slowly all over the state.
Issues relating to movements:
1. The Anti-Arrack movement aimed at prohibition on the sale of arrack.
2. Its demand touched upon a larger section of social, economic, and political issues which had established a close nexus between crime and politics.
3. Women openly discussed the issue of domestic violence like dowry, sexual violence, etc.
4. Anti-Arrack movement provided a platform to discuss private issues of domestic violence.
4. What is the Right to Information Act? When was it passed in India?
Answer: The ‘Right to Information Act is a law to empower the people to find out happenings in government and act as a watchdog of democracy:
1. It was passed in October 2005 by the Government of India.
2. This Act ensures its citizens all information about the functioning of the government machinery.
3. This right has been expanded to cover various services provided by the government i.e., if any purchased product is defective it can be -asked for a replacement.
4. This right gives political actors incentives to do good things to help to control corruption.
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