Read the following passage and answer the questions below:
“Patel, the organisational man of the Congress, wanted to purge the
Congress of other political groups and sought to make of it a cohesive
and disciplined political party. He …. sought to take the Congress away
from its all-embracing character and turn it into a close-knit party of
disciplined cadres. Being a ‘realist’ he looked more for discipline than
for comprehension. While Gandhi took too romantic a view of “carrying
on the movement,” Patel’s idea of transforming the Congress into
strictly political party with a single ideology and tight discipline showed
an equal lack of understanding of the eclectic role that the Congress,
as a government, was to be called upon to perform in the decades to
follow.” — Rajni Kothari
(a) Why does the author think that Congress should not have been
a cohesive and disciplined party?
(b) Give some examples of the eclectic role of the Congress party
in the early years.
(c) Why does the author say that Gandhi’s view about
Congress’ future was romantic?
Take a political map of India (with State outlines) and mark:
(a) two states where Congress was not in power at some point
during 1952-67.
(b) two states where the Congress remained in power through
this period.
Four statements regarding one- party dominance are given below. Mark
each of them as true or false.
(a) One-party dominance is rooted in the absence of strong alternative
political parties.
(b) One-party dominance occurs because of weak public opinion.
(c) One-party dominance is linked to the nation’s colonial past.
(d) One-party dominance reflects the absence of democratic ideals in
a country.
Differentiate between:
(a) hypocotyl and epicotyl;
(b) coleoptile and coleorrhiza;
(c) integument and testa;
(d) perisperm and pericarp.
Match the following leaders listed in List A with the parties in List B.
List A List B
(a) S. A. Dange i. Bharatiya Jana Sangh
(b) Shyama Prasad Mukherjee ii. Swatantra Party
(c) Minoo Masani iii. Praja Socialist Party
(d) Asoka Mehta iv. Communist Party of India
Choose the correct option to fill in the blanks.
(a) The First General Elections in 1952 involved simultaneous
elections to the Lok Sabha and ………………….(The President of
India/ State Assemblies/ Rajya Sabha/ The Prime Minister)
(b) The party that won the second largest number of Lok Sabha seats
in the first elections was the………………….(Praja Socialist Party/
Bharatiya Jana Sangh/ Communist Party of India/Bharatiya Janata
Party)
(c) One of the guiding principles of the ideology of the Swatantra
Party was………………….(Working class interests/ protection of
Princely States / economy free from State control / Autonomy of
States within the Union)
Read the following passage and answer the questions below:
“In the history of nation-building only the Soviet experiment bears
comparison with the Indian. There too, a sense of unity had to be forged
between many diverse ethnic groups, religious, linguistic communities
and social classes. The scale – geographic as well as demographic
– was comparably massive. The raw material the state had to work with
was equally unpropitious: a people divided by faith and driven by debt
and disease.” — Ramachandra Guha
(a) List the commonalities that the author mentions between India
and Soviet Union and give one example for each of these from
India.
(b) The author does not talk about dissimilarities between the two
experiments. Can you mention two dissimilarities?
(c) In retrospect which of these two experiments worked better and
why?
What was the task of the States Reorganisation Commission? What
was its most salient recommendation?
Bring out two major differences between the challenge of nation
building for eastern and western regions of the country at the time of
Independence.
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