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NCERT Solutions Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 9 –147Community — In-text Questions

Book page 146 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.
Discuss this story in your class. What kind of attitude towards the community does it reveal?
Answer

It reveals an attitude of responsibility — that the children on the street are not somebody else’s problem but one’s own community’s children.

Kamal Parmar owned a small auto-fabrication workshop. He was not a teacher, he had no organisation behind him, and nobody asked him. He simply noticed a group of children who had dropped out of school or had never been, and began teaching them from 5:30 to 9:30 pm every day, after his regular work hours, with a free dinner as well.

What he didThe attitude it reveals
Noticed the children at allHe did not treat them as part of the street scenery. Seeing is where responsibility begins
Started with what he had — his eveningsYou do not need money or authority to begin; you need to begin
Four hours a day, after a full working dayNot a one-day event but a steady commitment
Gave dinner as wellHe understood that a hungry child cannot study — he looked at the whole child
Others joined — school teachers, and older schoolchildren as volunteersOne person’s initiative pulled a community into being. This is the chapter’s ‘community’ in the making

The volunteer’s remark is the heart of it: “We went there to teach, instead we learnt a lot from them.” The attitude is not pity looking downward; it is people meeting as equals, in which both sides gain.

Q2.
What values get reflected in Kamal Parmar’s initiative?
Answer

Almost every value the chapter has named so far — and they are the same values the family teaches on page 140.

ValueWhere you see it in the story
Sevā (service)Four hours of teaching every evening, expecting nothing in return
Dāna (giving)Free tuition and a free dinner for 150 children, from a man running a small workshop
Tyāga (sacrifice)He gave up his own rest and free time, day after day, after a full day’s work
Compassion and equalityHe treated street children as children who deserved to learn, not as a nuisance
Responsibility towards the communityHe acted because the need was in front of him, not because it was his job
CooperationTeachers and older students joined in, and the work became a shared effort
PerseveranceIt continued long enough for 150 children to attend regularly — more than 20 years ago, and remembered still
Respect for learningThe teacher’s own words: no benches, no ‘silence zone’, vehicles roaring past, “yet they pay all their attention” — and he thought that worth honouring
Q3.
Think about those underprivileged children. Do you think society has been unfair to them?
Answer

Yes. Through no fault of their own, they were left without the one thing every child in India is entitled to — school. Some had dropped out and others “had never been to school” at all, although free and compulsory education is the right of every child between 6 and 14 years.

What was unfairWhy
They were out of school while children of the same age, in the same city, were in classroomsThe difference was made by the family they were born into, not by anything they did
They studied on the roadside — no benches, no quiet, vehicles passingThey were willing and attentive; what was missing was provision, not ability
Some had to work or beg instead of studyingA child made to earn loses the years in which learning comes easiest
Their education depended on one kind individual’s spare eveningsKindness is precious, but a right should not rest on someone happening to be kind
Being careful about the word ‘society’: the story shows that ‘society’ is not one solid thing. The same society that let those children stay on the street also produced Kamal Parmar, the teachers who joined him and the schoolchildren who volunteered. So the honest answer is: society failed them, and parts of that society then tried to put it right. Which part we belong to is decided by what we do.
Say it without looking down on anyone: these children were poor in money, not in ability — the teacher’s own testimony is that their attention and their affection were extraordinary. Unfairness lies in the conditions they were given, never in the children themselves.
Q4.
What should society do to make sure that all children get access to education?
Answer

Treat schooling as a right that must reach every child, and remove one by one the things that keep a child out of school.

What keeps a child out of schoolWhat should be done about it
The family needs the child’s earningsFree schooling, free books and uniforms, scholarships, and firm action against child labour
The child comes to school hungryMid-day meals — a hungry child cannot learn, as Kamal Parmar understood when he provided dinner
No school nearby, or no safe way to reach itA school within reach of every habitation, and transport or safe paths, which matters especially for girls
The family moves for work, or lives on a street or a worksiteBridge courses, evening classes and residential schools; admission without insisting on documents the family cannot produce
The child was never enrolled, or dropped out years agoSpecial classes to bring them up to their age-group’s level and then into a regular class
A child with a disability finds the school unusableRamps, accessible toilets, learning material in usable forms, and trained teachers
Girls stopped from studying after a certain ageTalking to families, girls’ hostels, toilets in every school, and scholarships
Poor teaching or absent teachersEnough trained teachers, in-service training and regular checking that children are actually learning

And what young citizens can do — this is the part the chapter’s story really points at: help a younger child in your street with homework; give your old books to a school library; support a school’s cleanliness or plantation drive; join the NSS or a similar group when you are older; and tell an adult when you know of a child in your neighbourhood who is not in school.

Did you know? The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 makes education a legal right of every child from 6 to 14 years, and Article 21A of the Constitution makes it a Fundamental Right. India’s mid-day meal scheme, now called PM POSHAN, is one of the largest school meal programmes in the world.
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