NCERT Solutions for Class 7th Social Science Chapter 18 Chapter opening — The Big Questions
Book page 143 Updated on2026-09-19
Q1.
What is the difference between a state and a government?
Answer
The state is the whole thing; the government is one part of it. A state, says the chapter, “is a political organisation that has the authority to govern a defined territory and its population”, and it has four parts. The government is the third of those four.
The four parts of a state (Fig. 6.3, page 144). The government is the red box — one part, and the only one that changes hands.
The differences, side by side.
State
Government
What it is
The whole political organisation — people, land, government and sovereignty together
“A group of people or a system that runs the country… leaders, ministers, and officials”
How long it lasts
Permanent. “The state remains the same”
Temporary. “It can change after elections”
What it does
It exists, and it holds sovereignty
It acts — makes laws, enforces laws, resolves disputes
Who meets it
We rarely deal with “the whole state”
“We usually interact with the government” — the school, the hospital, the police station, the ration shop
Why it happens: the chapter’s own picture is the clearest one. “Think of the state as a school, and the government as the principal and teachers. Teachers may come and go, but the school remains.” When a new principal joins, the school does not become a different school — its building, its students and its right to run itself are unchanged. In exactly the same way, when a new government is voted in, India is still India, with the same territory, the same citizens and the same sovereignty.
Then why do people mix the words up? Because “the government acts on behalf of the state, and is the face of the state that we see in action every day.” We say “the state did this” or “the government decided that” as if they were the same, since the government “runs the daily work of the state”.
Q2.
What is the difference between a democracy and a republic? What makes India a democratic republic?
Answer
They answer two different questions. Democracy answers who chooses the government? A republic answers how does a person become head of state? A country can be one, both, or neither.
Democracy
Republic
The core idea
“Rule by the people” — demos = people, kratos = rule
“The head of state (the highest office) is elected and not hereditary”
The test
Do the people choose the government “through free and fair elections”?
Is the head of state elected (directly or indirectly), rather than a king or queen who inherits power?
Extra condition
—
“There are limitations set on the power of rulers through a constitution or laws”
The four boxes this makes. The chapter’s own examples fill three of them.
Democracy and republic are two separate tests, so four combinations are possible. The chapter names the countries in the top two boxes.
What makes India a democratic republic — both halves.
Democratic: “People in both India and the UK elect their representatives, and the government is accountable to parliament.” We choose our legislature, and through it our government.
Republic: “The makers of our Constitution decided that India’s head of state, the president, would be elected — not directly by the people, but by a group of elected representatives.” Nobody inherits the office of President of India.
And the limits: in a republic “there are limitations set on the power of rulers through a constitution or laws.” India’s Constitution “guarantees fundamental rights to all its citizens”, and “the elected leaders cannot pass laws that go against people’s basic rights — like freedom of speech, religion, or equality before the law.”
Why the Constitution makers used both words: India had been ruled for nearly two centuries by a system whose head of state was a monarch across the sea. “When India got Independence, she did not blindly adopt the British parliamentary system.” Keeping the elections but replacing the inherited crown with an elected president is precisely the difference between a democracy and a democratic republic — and that is why the Preamble says both.
Q3.
How do citizens engage with the government in day-to-day life? How can one make government work for the people?
Answer
Day to day, we meet the government mainly as the executive — “in our daily lives, we primarily interact with the various departments that form part of the executive.” Not the Parliament, not the Supreme Court: the school, the bus, the hospital, the ration shop, the electricity office, the police station.
Where the government touches an ordinary day. The chapter names the government’s triple role — “protector (law and defence), provider (public welfare and infrastructure), and regulator (of economic activity and social justice)”:
Role
What you actually meet
Protector
The police who “maintain law and order”; the armed forces; the courts that settle disputes
Provider
“Education free for children by building schools and hiring teachers”; roads, bridges, railways, airports; welfare schemes; anganwadi and health workers
Regulator
“Initiatives to ensure food safety”, rules for businesses, and measures for social justice
The people we deal with are mostly the permanent executive. As the chapter says, “our interactions are usually with the bureaucrats serving at the grassroots — government school teachers, anganwadi workers, health workers, water and sanitation workers, or bus conductors.”
How to make the government work for the people — the chapter’s six ways.
Grievance redressal. Many departments have grievance redressal offices, and there are vigilance commissions “to investigate matters of corruption”. The Public Grievances Portal (https://pgportal.gov.in/) takes complaints online and “the concerned government department will respond within a specified time period”. Several states have their own portals.
Ask for information under the RTI Act. “Officials are bound to provide information under this Act, and the information brings transparency and accountability.” You may ask how much was spent on a road, who the beneficiaries of a scholarship were, or where a metro project has reached.
Use the media. Write in print or electronic media; many officials are active on social media, and you can “share your concerns and tag the corresponding officials” — the chapter shows @RailwaySeva as an example.
Join a civil society organisation. “India has thousands of citizen groups, collectively termed as civil society”, working on education, health, environment, livelihood and women’s empowerment. “One can join any of those (or create one!)”.
Write to political representatives — your councillor or panchayat member, MLA, MP or a minister — “seeking action on a particular issue”.
Vote. “Once you are old enough to vote, make sure to participate and vote in local, state, and national elections.”
Two real examples from the chapter. In Bagepalli near Bengaluru, badly built double roads and streetlights were causing accidents; a citizen filed an RTI for the finances allocated, and “armed with this information, a group of citizens confronted the concerned officials, who later ensured that the roadwork was completed to the satisfaction of all concerned.” In Silent Valley, NGOs, scientists, writers and villagers mobilised against a dam planned in 1970; the project was cancelled in 1983 and the valley became a National Park in 1985.
Why any of this works: because of two words the chapter puts in the margin — transparency (“open access to information to citizens regarding government policies and actions, expenditure of public funds”) and accountability (“those in power… are obligated to answer for them to the public”). A citizen who can see what was decided, and can ask an official to explain it, changes how the decision gets made next time. That is the whole point of the RTI, the grievance portal and the vote.