NCERT Solutions Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 10 End-of-chapter exercise — Questions, activities and projects

Book page 161 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.

Test yourself — What is the meaning of democracy? What is the difference between direct democracy and representative democracy?

Answer

Democracy means the ‘rule of the people’. The word comes from two Greek words — dēmos, meaning ‘people’, and kratos, meaning ‘rule’ or ‘power’. It is “one of the foundation stones of the system of governance adopted by most countries of the world”.

The difference between the two kinds:

Point of comparison	Direct democracy	Representative democracy
Who takes the decision	Every member of the group, personally	Representatives elected by the people
How opinions are counted	Everyone votes on the question itself — the chapter’s show of hands for picnic place A or B	People vote to choose a person; that person then votes on the questions
The book’s example	The class picnic vote: “This is a case of direct democracy where every student’s opinion was taken to finalise the place”	The class representative sent to the principal; and MLAs and MPs at the State and national levels
Suitable for	Small groups who can all meet — a class, a village assembly, a small society	Large populations — a State or a country
How often people decide	On every question that comes up	At elections; between elections, representatives decide
India	Used in small bodies and meetings	“Like any modern democracy, therefore, India is a representative democracy” — the world’s largest, with some 970 million voters in 2024

Why India cannot use direct democracy for everything: not because people’s opinions do not matter, but because of sheer arithmetic. If 970 million voters each spoke for one minute on a single law, the debate would last more than 1,800 years. Representation is how a democracy keeps every person’s voice inside a decision that still gets taken this week.

Do not confuse: ‘direct’ does not mean better and ‘representative’ does not mean weaker. Both are democracy — the difference is the size of the group, not the amount of freedom.

Q2.

Recall the three organs of government. What are their different roles?

Answer

The three organs are the legislature, the executive and the judiciary.

Organ	Its role	In India	In the cybercrime example
Legislature	Makes new laws, and sometimes updates or removes existing ones. Done by “an assembly of representatives of the people”	Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha (national); Vidhan Sabha (State). A house is “an assembly where laws are discussed or passed”	Passed new laws against cybercrime
Executive	Implements the laws — the head of state, the ministers and “any agency responsible for enforcing ‘law and order’”	President (nominal head, Supreme Commander of the Indian Armed Forces) with the Prime Minister as executive head; Governor (nominal head) with the Chief Minister as executive head	The cyber police investigated and arrested the criminals
Judiciary	Decides whether someone has broken the law and what should follow, including punishment; sometimes examines whether an executive decision is right, or a law fair to all	Supreme Court of India; High Court in each State	Convicted them; they were “fined as well as jailed for some years”

And one more thing to add for full marks: the three must be kept separate — the separation of powers — although they interact and work together. The purpose is checks and balances: “each organ of the government can check what the other is doing and restore balance if one organ acts beyond its expected role.”

Memory hook: Make · Do · Judge. Legislature makes the law, executive does it, judiciary judges it.

Q3.

Why do we need three tiers of government?

Answer

Because problems come in three sizes, and each size is best handled at the level closest to it that can actually manage it. “Any democratic government operates at multiple levels… Each level deals with different matters.”

The pyramid of page 155: narrow at the top where matters are few and national, broad at the base where they are many and local.

Reason	Explanation
1. Matters differ in scale	Defence, currency and foreign affairs concern the whole country; police, health and irrigation concern a State; a blocked drain or a streetlight concerns one street. One office cannot do all three well
2. Local problems need local knowledge	Only people of the place know which lane floods and which handpump has failed. Decisions taken 2,000 km away would miss this
3. Speed	Small problems get solved fast when the office is near — the bulb, the electrician, the Electricity Board comparison on page 155
4. A ladder for big problems	A flood in one area is handled by the local authorities; if it spreads to several towns and villages, the State sends rescue teams; if it is massive, the Centre sends relief supplies and the army
5. India is enormous and diverse	Different States have different languages, crops, rainfall and needs. State governments can suit their own conditions, within national laws
6. It brings democracy within reach	This is the chapter’s own point: grassroots democracy “enables and encourages the participation of ordinary citizens — the base of the pyramid”, so that citizens “can have a say in decisions which affect them”

Coming next: the local tier gets a chapter of its own — the chapter says local government is not shown in Fig. 10.5 “as we will look at it more closely in the next two chapters”.

Q4.

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

How to do this project. Work in a group of four. Collect your material from three sources: (1) ask family members and neighbours what they remember, (2) look at newspapers of 2020–21 in the school or public library, and (3) note what your own school did. Write it up in three parts, exactly as the question asks — actions taken, tiers involved, organs involved. A wall chart with a timeline works very well.

Part 1 — a list of actions taken (sample, to be added to from your own findings):

Area	Actions taken during the pandemic
Restricting movement	A nationwide lockdown from late March 2020; shops, offices, factories, trains, buses and flights stopped except for essential services; containment zones sealed; curfew-like restrictions in many districts
Health measures	Masks and physical distancing made compulsory; testing centres and COVID care centres opened; hospitals given oxygen plants and extra beds; isolation and quarantine rules; a nationwide vaccination drive from January 2021 with the CoWIN portal
Food and money	Free foodgrain for ration card holders; community kitchens; money transferred to bank accounts of many families; shelter and transport arranged for workers returning home; special trains run later
Education	Schools and colleges closed; online classes, television and radio lessons; examinations postponed or their pattern changed; mid-day meal rations or money given at home
Information	Daily bulletins of cases; helpline numbers; advertisements and announcements on hygiene; action against false information

Part 2 — which tiers of government were involved: all three, and this is the best evidence in the whole chapter for why three tiers are needed.

Tier	What it did
Central	Declared the nationwide lockdown and issued national guidelines; managed international borders and flights; procured and distributed vaccines and oxygen; ran the national foodgrain scheme; funded the response
State	Applied and adapted the guidelines to local conditions — “adaptation and implementation of laws made by the Central government at the State level” is a State function in Fig. 10.5; ran hospitals and testing (public health is a State subject); deployed the police; decided school closures and reopening
Local	Municipalities and panchayats marked containment zones, sanitised streets, ran door-to-door surveys and screening, arranged food and water for the needy, and made local announcements. Anganwadi and ASHA workers reached individual homes

Part 3 — the role of each organ of government:

Organ	Its role during the pandemic
Legislature	Parliament and the State Assemblies met, discussed the situation, questioned the government, and passed the money bills and budgets that paid for relief, hospitals and vaccines; some existing health and disaster laws were amended
Executive	Did most of the visible work: the Prime Minister, Chief Ministers, ministers, the health departments, district collectors, the police, doctors, nurses, sanitation and municipal staff. Orders were issued, hospitals run, supplies moved, rules enforced
Judiciary	Courts kept working, many of them online. They heard petitions about oxygen supply, hospital beds, the condition of migrant workers, and the price of testing and treatment, and asked governments to explain and to act — an example of the judiciary examining “whether a decision taken by the executive is right”

What the project should conclude: a single emergency needed every tier and every organ at once — a national rule, a State adapting it, a municipality carrying it to each street, an assembly voting the money, and a court asking questions when something went wrong. The pandemic is the clearest recent proof of the chapter’s two main diagrams: the three organs of Fig. 10.3 and the three levels of Fig. 10.4.

Two cautions for a good project. First, dates: COVID-19 was identified in 2019 and the pandemic reached India in early 2020; the nationwide lockdown began in March 2020. Second, keep the write-up about institutions and processes — what each tier and each organ did — and not about praising or blaming any party or leader. If your group disagrees about something, record both views and say what evidence each rests on.

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