NCERT Solutions Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 4 The Varṇa–Jāti System — THINK ABOUT IT

Book page 78 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.
Inequalities within society can exist in many forms. Have you encountered any incident where you or anyone you know might have been made to feel different from others? Do you think equality is desirable in a society? If so, why? Have you come across people or initiatives that lessened inequalities?
Answer

This is a personal and reflective question, so nobody can hand you the answer. Here is how to build your own, and a model you can adapt.

What a good answer must contain — four parts:

  1. One real incident, described briefly and respectfully. Do not name or shame anyone; write “a classmate”, “a neighbour”.
  2. The form of inequality it shows — wealth, gender, language, region, disability, occupation of the family, or being new to a place.
  3. Your position on equality, with reasons, not just a feeling.
  4. One initiative or person you have actually seen or read about that reduced inequality.

Sample answer:

A boy who joined our class in the middle of the year spoke a different language at home and was laughed at when he read aloud. For two weeks he stopped answering in class altogether. Our teacher paired every student with a partner for reading practice and asked him to teach the class ten words of his language; by the end of the month he was the one correcting our pronunciation. That was an inequality of language and of being an outsider, and it was reduced simply by changing the rules of the classroom.

Yes, equality is desirable — for three reasons. It is fair: no one chooses the family, language or place they are born into, so no one should be ranked by it. It is useful: as this chapter shows, a society is stronger when every group's skills are respected and can be used, and weaker when talent is wasted because of who someone's parents were. And it is the law: the Constitution of India guarantees equality before the law and forbids discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth.

Initiatives that lessen inequality — mid-day meals and free textbooks in schools; scholarships for students from low-income families; ramps, large-print books and sign-language interpretation for persons with disabilities; the reservation of seats for women in panchayats; Dr B.R. Ambedkar's work for equality and the Constitutional provisions that came from it; and, closer home, a school that seats children by roll number rather than by anything else.

Link it back to the chapter: the book says the varṇa–jāti system gave Indian society structure and some stability, but in time became rigid and led to discrimination — and that it was significantly more flexible in earlier periods. That is the historian's lesson: social arrangements are made by people, and what people made, people can change.
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