NCERT Class 6 Social Science Chapter 10 Questions and Answers Grassroots Democracy Part 1 Governance

Grassroots Democracy Part 1 Governance NCERT Class 6th SST Chapter 10 Question Answer

Grassroots Democracy Part 1 Governance Class 6 Questions and Answers

The Big Questions (Page 149)

Question 1.
What is the meaning of ‘governance’?
Answer:Governance is the process of managing the affairs of society for the betterment of people through institutions like elected leaders, police, civils servants, army, etc. Different sets of rules, regulations and laws are made by government and authorities for an organised social order. One of the basic principle of democracy is better and honest governance for the welfare of people.

Question 2.
Why do we need a government?
Answer:
Government is the most important institution in maintaining a peaceful society. Here are some of key functions:

• Maintaining law and order: The primary task of government is to make laws for proper social order and avoid conflict in society.
• Providing public services: It has another important role in providing basic and essential services like hospitals (AIIMS), education (government schools, IITs, IIMs), etc.
• Taking care of people by providing foodgrains, Medical services, education at an affordable price etc.
  Protecting environmental, forest, animals, birds and other species.
• Providing security to country from foreign enemy attacks and against terrorism.

Question 3.
What is the meaning of ‘democ¬racy’? Why is it important?
Answer:
Democracy is a system of government in which people choose their own rulers. The word ‘democracy’ comes from two Greek words—demos meaning ‘people’, and kratos meaning ‘rule’ or ‘power’; so ‘democracy’ literally means the ‘rule of the people’.

Importance of Democracy:

• Democracy ensures that all are treated equally and no one is discriminated.
• Every people have an equal chance to attain the highest post like Prime Minister, the President, the Chief Justice and Army Chief.
• Every one has freedom, right to, express their opinion, choose their religion, etc.
• Democracy gives power to people to choose, change and criticise their own government.

Let’s Explore

Question 1.
Describe the two pictures given in Fig. 10.1 on page 151 — what differences do you see between them? (Page 150)


Answer:
The two pictures in Fig 10.1 on page 151 describes the Traffic scene on a busy road in urban place (City). However both the pictures are contrasting in nature in which Picture 1 depicts smooth flow of vehicles and 2 reflects complete breakdown, chaos, with no rules and regulations.

Let us see the differences in Picture 1 and Picture 2.

	Picture 1	Picture 2
Vehicles	Cars, cycle and bikes (Limited number)	Cars, cycles, bikes, (Large numbers).
Rules and Regulations	Proper rules and regulations are followed	Chaos, disor­der and viola­tion of all traffic rules.
Comfort in driving	Provides better experience of driving	May lead to stress and frequent acci­dents.

Question 2.
How do you connect this with our discussion on rules? (Page 150)
Answer:
Rules are essential for social order and better life. Rules made once can be changed. In school and home we also have rules.

Question 3.
What are some of the rules in your school? Who made them? (Page 150)
Answer:
Every school has some rules and regulation for students, teaching staff and non-teaching staff. These are made for safe, better and productive learning environment.

Common School Rules

• Attendance: It is mandatory for students to attend school regularly.
• Discipline: Students are expected to follow certain discipline for orderly functioning of the classes.
• Uniform: Students are expected to wear a neat school uniform and maintain a proper hygiene.
• Classroom Behaviour: There are certain conduct of conduct in classroom for better learning process.
  • No use of electronic devices like mobiles and laptops.
  • Bullying, teasing, commenting, and discriminating others are strictly not allowed.

Or
Who Make the School Rules?
Answer:
The school rules are made by the School Administration including the Principal and Vice-Principals, along with the suggestions from parents and teachers.

Question 4.
Can you identify the categories of public service or other activities that are represented in the ten pictures in Fig. 10.2 on page 152? (Page 153)

Answer:

• Picture 1: Public development and infrastructure services.
• Picture 2: Transport service.
• Picture 3: Security and safety services.
• Picture 4: Healthcare services
• Picture 5: Disaster management and relief services.
• Picture 6: Road traffic safety (Traffic – Police)
• Picture 7: Judicial services.
• Picture 8: Educational services.
• Picture 9: Postal services.
• Picture 10: Banking services.

Question 5.
What role do you think the government plays in each of these activities? (Page 153)
Answer:
Government is directly involved in providing all kind of public service. It ensures that these services are provided to all people with minimum hindrance and on time. It creates adequate infrastructure, employs trained manpower and ensures free flow of service. All levels of government from union to state and local authorities are involved in providing these services.

Question 6.
Can you think of other aspects of your daily life where the government plays an important role? (Page 153)
Answer:
There are others areas of our daily life where the government plays an important role, for example:

• Checking and ensuring quality and prices of food articles, milk etc.
• Helping to preserve forest cover, environment and reduction of pollution.
• Ensuring regular supply of water and electricity.
• Maintenance of parks, cleaning of roads, providing, streets lamps etc.
• Providing health and education services.

Question 7.
Explain how the three government organs are at work in the case of the cyber criminals described above. How do they intervene? (Page 154)
Answer:
Digital technologies have eased the life of people and at the same time created a new class of criminals who, finds digital ways of stealing people’s money.
To prevent cybercrime government (legislative) has pass new laws in order to fight such criminal activities. Many criminals, who have been involved in robbing innocent people of their hard-earned money, have been arrested (executive) and convicted in court (judiciary). They are usually fined as well as jailed for some years.

Question 8.
As a class activity, can you imagine the sort of disorder we might witness if all three organs were under the control of the same group of people? Can you describe any such real-life situation you may have heard of? (Page 155)
Answer:
If all three organs of the government—executive, legislative, and judicial were under the control of the same group of people, then it will create imbalances in social order and society.
It will lead to discrimination and rise of injustice to common people. This may lead to corruption and inefficient administration. A news system of undemocratic government may come in place of people’s rule.

Real-life situation

• Saudi Arabia— Monarchical Rule
• North Korea— Military Rule
• Germany— Under Adolf Hitler

For instance, Germany during 1933-1942 was under Nazi rule led by the military dictator Adolf Hitler. He took all the decisions regarding the running of the government. All the other organs of the government were under military rule.
He had special forces, security services and specialised military team to create fear and havoc. Hitler and his supporters, just to enhance their personal ego killed many people in gas chambers. They also created conditions that led to World War II affecting and killings millions of people worldwide.

Question 9.
Observe the table (Fig. 10.5).

Highlight the functions and responsibilities that affect your life the most. (Page 156)
Answer:
The functions and responsibilities that affect our life the most are as follows:
Central Government

1. Defence
2. Currency
3. Education
4. Communications: railways, roadways.

State Government

1. Police, law and order
2. Public health
3. Education
4. Agriculture
5. Local government

Question 10.
Ask.two or three adults about their connection or interaction with the government—at what levels does it take place and for what purpose? (Page 156)
Answer:
Brother PRAYAN (age 9 years helped by his father): Interaction with local government-Municipalities – Purpose to get the park and playing area clean and free of garbage. Prayan interacted with local authorities through help line and registered his complained. After few days, his complain was sorted. The park and playing area was cleaned and garbage was removed.

Sister Saanvi (age 10 years helped by her father): Making of passport – Saanvi was suppose to go to USA along with her father. She applied for Passport. This interaction started with central government – who is authorised to make and issue passport. The verification was done by local police (comes under state government). After few weeks of formalities she received her passport through registered post (Central government).
Neighbour: Police and Advocate—Theft of bike (Interaction with State government).

There was a theft of bike in our locality. The bike belonged to our neighbour Antony. He registered an FIR and approached police along with his advocate to nearby police station. After two months of intense search police was able trace the bike from 70 km from our residence area. The policed handed over the bike to uncle Antony after all formalities.

Questions, Activities and Projects (Page 161)

Question 1.
Test yourself – What is the meaning of democracy? What is the difference between direct democracy and representative democracy?
Answer:
Democracy is a system of government in which people choose their own rulers. The word ‘democracy’ comes from two Greek words — demos meaning ‘people’, and kratos meaning ‘rule’ or ‘power’; so ‘democracy’ means the ‘rule of the people’.
Direct and representative are part of democratic government and they mainly differs on the process of decision making.

	Direct Democracy	Representative Democracy
Definition	In a direct democracy, common people participate directly in the decision-making process.	In a representative democracy, common people elect their representatives through election. In turn the elected representatives takes the decision on the behalf of people.
Suitability	Generally, it is suitable in small countries with less diversity.	Suitable in all countries but preferred in large countries.
Examples	Switzerland.	India, USA, UK, Germany etc.
Advantage	Make citizens more active towards their duty and responsibilities. Keeps a direct check on the functioning of the government.	Decisions are taken by expert in their filed. It saves time and resources.

Question 2.
Recall the three organs of government. What are their different roles?
Answer:
The three organs of government are:

• Legislature, Executive and Judiciary. Their different roles are as follows:
• Legislature: Makes for laws for the running of the government and country or state. (The Parliament).
• Executive: To implement rules and laws (Civil servants like IAS and IPS officers) which are made by the legislatures.
• Judiciary: To uphold the constitutional laws and solve disputes. (District Courts, High Courts and the Supreme Court).
• All the three organs of the government works together for smooth functioning of the society.
• They also keep a checks and balances on each other.

Question 3.
Why do we need three tiers of government?
Answer:
India has three tiers of government to manage its vast and diverse population spreading across length and breadth. It enhances the efficiency of government and delivery of services, as each tier has different set of roles and responsibilities.

• Central Government: The central government takes decisions which are important at national level like foreign affairs, defence, management of railways. This requires huge resources and expertise, may not be possible for state government.
• State Government: The state government look after the state specific need like law and order through police.
• Local Government: Whereas the local government takes care of local issues like garbage and sanitation, primary health etc.
• It encourages participation of people and strengthens the grassroot democracy.

Question 4.
Project: Many of you will remember the lockdown that took place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Make a list of all the actions that were taken at that time? Which tiers of government were involved in managing the situation? What was the role of each of the organs of government?
Answer:
COVID-19 was a pandemic which affected almost entire section of the society and created havoc on lives of millions of people not only in India but across the globe.
It was the first major pandemiq for people and government with almost no experience to deal with the new VIRUS. All the three tiers of government were actively involved in dealing this crisis.

Some important actions taken were:
By the Central Government:

• Lockdown: The central government declared nationwide lock down to control the spread of virus.
• Quarantine and isolation: The people who were affected by the virus were quarantined and isolated to minimise the spread of virus.
• Testing facilities: At government hospitals, free testing of virus was provided to detect the symptoms.

Research and vaccine: Parallelly government started to do research on large scale on the virus symptoms, mode of infection, transmission and methods to control its spread. It also took the support of private sectors to develop the vaccine.

Upgradation of Hospitals, Clinics, Availability of medicines: Government took special care to upgrade the existing health infrastructure:

• Providing vaccination awareness and campaigns.
• Closing down of schools and other educational infrastructure.
• By the State Government: State government in coordination with central government provided new infrastructure, equipments, medicines, gloves, masks, sanitizer etc. in hospitals to check and control covid.
• They also developed new makeshift hospitals on priority.

Local Government: Local Government made sure that lockdown is followed strictly. Local Government also did a great effort in co-ordination with the Central and Sate Governments to make sure that all their policies are implemented at the ground level.

The role of the organs of government
Each organ of government made tireless effort to fight against the COVID-19 pandemics. For examples:

• Legislatures: At central level laws were made to give emergency powers to executive to deal with the crisis.
• Executive: Police, Doctors, Nurses, Teachers, Defence personnel’s etc., played important role in implementing the laws and helping vaccination drive.
• Judiciary: The Supreme and other courts too played an important role in ensuring justice and upholding the Indian vaccine as safe.

Class 6 Social Science Question Answer

• Chapter 1 Locating Places on the Earth
• Chapter 2 Oceans and Continents
• Chapter 3 Landforms and Life
• Chapter 4 Timeline and Sources of History
• Chapter 5 India, That is Bharat
• Chapter 6 The Beginnings of Indian Civilisation
• Chapter 7 India’s Cultural Roots
• Chapter 8 Unity in Diversity, or ‘Many in the One’
• Chapter 9 Family and Community
• Chapter 10 Grassroots Democracy Part 1 Governance
• Chapter 11 Grassroots Democracy Part 2 Local Government in Rural Areas
• Chapter 12 Grassroots Democracy Part 3 Local Government in Urban Areas
• Chapter 13 The Value of Work
• Chapter 14 Economic Activities Around Us