Question

project on electoral politics​

Answer 1

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$\huge \bold{India’s \: Electoral} \: \\ \huge \bold{Politics }\\ \\ </p><p></p><p>As the world’s largest democracy \\ goes to the polls, this \\ Backgrounder looks at the laws, \\ major players, and issues, \\ including economic reform, \\ caste, and religion, that have \\ shaped India’s politics.</p><p></p><p>$

Answer 2

What makes an election democratic?

• In the activity, students will be presented with different scenarios that depict undemocratic elections.

• In their notebooks, they must draw the table shown below and write the consequences of the scenarios and their learning from the same.

Facilitation Notes:

• In the previous activity, we found that elections lead to effective and representative decision making.

• Let’s look at elections in greater detail. Let’s consider and compare a few different scenarios. Let’s quickly draw the table made on the board into our

notebooks and go over the scenarios mentioned, one by one.

Let’s say that we are trying to choose a student representative once again through an election. However, this time let’s say that instead of each person having one vote, the students with less than 75% marks in the last exam do not get to vote. What would happen in such a scenario? (Take responses)

(Discuss each scenario and take responses to fill up the table as shown below)

• (After discussion of all scenarios) Excellent! Our learnings are all features of a democratic election. While we can conduct an election without these features, it will not be a democratic election where all people can participate to choose a leader of their choice.

Janaagraha’s initiative to improve citizen engagement in India’s democracy through their civic learning program

Developed in collaboration with Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC) 5

Scenario

- There is only one candidate

- The position was given to a candidate

who did not have the majority vote

Exemplar response:

Consequences

- People will lose faith in the process of elections

Learning

The candidate selected by the majority should be s elected

It will be unfair as not everyone’s opinion will be heard. Many students are being denied a voice.

Everyone should ha

ve one vote of equal value.

- There is only one candidate

- There is no real choice. People who do not like the candidate have no choice but to vote for him/her.

There is a choice to voters)

choose from (for the

- The teacher forces students to vote for a particular candidate or he/she would deduct marks

- People may feel pressurised to vote for a certain candidate who is not of their choice

- The candidate elected will not represent everyone’s interest and may listen only to the teacher

Election should be conducted in a free and fair manner (no use of violence/ power/ money)

Note to the teacher:

• In this activity, the class should be divided into 2 groups which will be presented two different scenarios. One of the scenarios presents a democratic

election process while the other does not.

• Discuss with the students both scenarios to identify democratic elections as the better system based on the points mentioned in the ‘De-brief’.

Facilitation Notes:

• Now that we have understood what makes an election democratic, let’s try to understand the need and advantages of democratic elections.

• Let’s divide the class into 2 groups.

• (After establishing the division, use the script in the table below to read out the scenarios to the class and ask the questions that follow)

● Scenario where the students form the population of India and the Prime Minister is not elected by the people because there are no elections.

● The Prime Minister recently passed a law called ‘One-child policy’. According to this law, all Indian families can have only 1 child else they will have to pay a huge fine to the government.

De-brief: In which situation do you think the citizens will be happier? Why? – Discussion between the 2 groups In an election, the voters make many choices:

1. They can choose who will make laws for them

Janaagraha’s initiative to improve citizen engagement in India’s democracy through their civic learning program

Developed in collaboration with Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC) 7

● Scenario where the students form the population of India and the Prime Minister is elected by the people and it is a Representative Democracy.

● The Prime Minister wants to pa policy’. According to this law, all Indian else they will have to pay a huge fine to

ss a new law called ‘One-child families can have only 1 child

the government.

● How many of you support this policy and are happy with the government’s decision? Raise your hands.

● The ones who are not happy, what do you think can be done about this? (take a few responses- these will mostly be negative like the citizens will have no ch