NCERT Solutions for Class 7th Social Science Chapter 18 Fig. 6.4 — In-text Questions

Book page 145 Updated on2026-09-19

Q1.

Since you are studying Political Science in college, can you tell me why it is important to have a permanent population for a place to become a state? Can a state not be a place where people can just go, visit, and come back?

Answer

Because a state needs people who belong to it, not people who are passing through. Roshini didi gives two reasons.

Without people there is no state at all. “First, without people, meaning a population, there can be no state.” Territory alone is only land; sovereignty alone is only a claim. Somebody has to be governed.
Visitors do not make a society. “If people just go visit and then move on then they are like tourists, with no identification with the place nor anything that is common and shared — they don’t live together.”

What a permanent population adds. “When people identify with a place or a territory, and usually live there, then they form a permanent population. Such a group of people… then develops its own culture and society, which also identifies with that geographically defined territory.”

Why this matters for governing: laws only work on people who will still be there tomorrow. A tax has to be collected year after year; a school is built for children who will grow up in that place; a law about property assumes somebody stays to own it. A crowd of tourists shares nothing, owes nothing and stays for nothing — so there is nothing for a government to govern, and no shared culture or society to hold the place together.

Try this: think of a railway platform and a village. Both have people on them right now. The village has a permanent population — the same families, a common language, festivals, shared fields and quarrels. The platform has only passengers. Only one of the two could ever be part of a state.

Q2.

What exactly is a geographically defined territory?

Answer

“It is a place, a geographical area, that has clear boundaries.” That is the answer given in the chapter, and the important word in it is clear.

How the boundaries are decided. The chapter is careful here: “The boundaries are not necessarily geographical features but sort of lines that are agreed upon by the neighbouring states that separate these states.” So a boundary need not be a river, a mountain range or a coast. Very often it is simply a line that two countries have agreed on and marked on a map.

Kind of boundary	What it is
A natural feature	A river, a mountain range, a sea coast — easy to see on the ground
An agreed line	A line settled between neighbouring states and drawn on the map, whether or not anything on the ground marks it

Why a state must have a defined territory: because law has to stop somewhere. Every law says, in effect, “inside this area, this rule applies”. If nobody knew where India ended and the next country began, nobody could say which country’s laws applied to a village, whose police could enter it, or which government had to build its road. The boundary is what turns “power” into “authority over a definite place”.

Q3.

What does sovereignty mean, and why is it essential for a state?

Answer

Sovereignty “means that the state has complete control over its own matters and is able to make and implement laws in accordance with its own needs.” The second half of the definition is just as important: “No other state or external body can interfere in the internal affairs of that state.”

So sovereignty has two faces.

Facing inwards	Facing outwards
The state is the highest authority inside its own territory — it makes the laws, and everyone inside must follow them	No outside state or body may interfere in those internal affairs

Why it is essential. The chapter’s own words: “This is why sovereignty is an essential feature of a state.” The reasoning behind that sentence is straightforward — if some other country could overrule India’s laws, then India would not be governing itself, and the government we elect would not be the real authority. A place without sovereignty may have people, land and even an administration, but the final decisions are taken elsewhere. That is what colonial rule was, and it is why the Preamble opens by calling India a sovereign republic.

Note the link to the earlier answer: the younger sibling in the dialogue works it out step by step — population, then territory, and then, “that also then explains why the government is a part of the state, but it is not the state. Because people live together, they need laws to be made and implemented for the state to function, which is what the government does.” Sovereignty is the power to make those laws; the government is the machinery that exercises it.

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