Gender, Religion and Caste in Politics

1. Social divisions and the gender division

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• NCERT's frame: social diversity does not threaten democracy. It is fine, and sometimes good, for social differences to show up in politics. Three cases are compared:
• Gender is found everywhere, and bringing it into politics has been mostly positive.
• Religion is widespread, and bringing it into politics has been mostly negative.

• Caste is special to India and has both good and bad effects.

• Gender division: a ranked (hierarchical) division between men and women. People often see it as natural and unchangeable, but it comes from social expectations and stereotypes, not from biology.

• Sexual division of labour: women do all the housework (cooking, cleaning, washing, tailoring, childcare) or organise it through domestic helpers, while men work outside. Men take up the same jobs when they are paid; most tailors and hotel cooks are men.
• Public-private distinction: women are tied to the "private" home and men to "public" work and politics. Most women also do paid work, such as farm work, domestic help or office jobs, but it goes unnoticed. The result is that women have a very small role in public life.
• Time use survey (a survey of how people spend their day): NCERT's table comes from the 1998-99 pilot in six states.

Daily time (hours:minutes)	Men	Women
Income-generating work	6:00	2:40
Household work	0:30	5:00

• In that pilot, women worked a little over 7.5 hours a day and men about 6.5 hours. The all-India NSO surveys (2019, 2024) still show women doing several times more unpaid care work than men (verify current minutes).

2. Women's disadvantage: education, work, pay, sex ratio and safety

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• Literacy: women and men were at 64.6% and 80.9% in Census 2011 (NCERT: 54% and 76%, which are the 2001 figures). Girls do as well as boys in school but drop out because parents spend more on sons' education.
• Work and pay: few women hold highly paid jobs. On average a woman works about one hour more a day than a man, much of it unpaid. The Equal Remuneration Act 1976 is now part of the Code on Wages 2019, in force from 21 November 2025. Even so, women earn less in sport, cinema, factories and fields. Female labour-force participation is low but rising in the PLFS (verify current).
• Child sex ratio (girls per 1,000 boys aged 0-6): 945 in 1991, 927 in 2001 and 918 in 2011 (NCERT prints 919). In 2011 it was 834 in Haryana and 846 in Punjab.

• It is a different measure from the overall sex ratio (NFHS-5: 1,020 females per 1,000 males) and the sex ratio at birth (NFHS-5: 929).

• Sex-selective abortion (aborting a foetus because it is female) is driven by son preference. Amartya Sen called the result "missing women" (1990). Finding out the sex of a foetus is banned under the PCPNDT Act 1994.

• Safety: NCERT reports harassment and domestic violence, and says urban areas are "particularly unsafe". Data come from NCRB's Crime in India (verify current).
• Global Gender Gap Index (World Economic Forum, since 2006) has four sub-indices: economic participation, education, health and survival, and political empowerment. India ranked 131 of 148 in 2025 (verify current). It scores low on the economy and politics sub-indices. Do not confuse it with UNDP's Gender Inequality Index.

3. Feminist movements, women's suffrage and political representation

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• Women's suffrage (women's right to vote) was won through long struggles abroad:

Country	Year
New Zealand (first)	1893
USA (19th Amendment)	1920
Britain (equal franchise; partial vote in 1918)	1928
France	1944
Switzerland (federal level)	1971

• India: some provinces gave propertied and educated women the vote from 1921, Madras first. Under Arts. 325-326, universal adult franchise came in 1950 without a separate fight (Class 9, Democracy). The voting age was 21 and became 18 under the 61st Amendment (1988). Class 9 also warns that having the vote does not guarantee equal participation.
• Feminist movements began with the vote, moved on to legal status, education and careers, and in radical forms to equality inside the family. A feminist is any woman or man who believes in equal rights for women and men. Indian milestones: Towards Equality (1974), the Mathura case leading to the Criminal Law Amendment 1983, Vishaka (1997) and the Nirbhaya protests (2012).
• Women's political representation: women won 78 Lok Sabha seats (14.36%) in 2019 and 74 (13.6%) in 2024. Women are about 9% of MLAs (PRS, 2023; NCERT: "less than 5%"). India is in the bottom group of countries worldwide.
• Why so few: party "winnability" gatekeeping, money and muscle power, the care burden at home, and harassment. Women were under a tenth of 2024 Lok Sabha candidates (verify).

4. Women's reservation: from local bodies to the 106th Amendment

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• Women's reservation in local bodies: Arts. 243D (panchayats) and 243T (municipalities), added by the 73rd and 74th Amendments (1992), reserve not less than one-third of directly elected seats and chairperson posts for women. This includes one-third within the SC and ST seats, and the reserved seats rotate.
• States can go further: 21 states and 2 UTs give 50% in panchayats, and 17 states and 1 UT in urban bodies (2023).

• About 14-15 lakh women now sit in local bodies (NCERT: "more than 10 lakh"; verify current).

• Geeta Mukherjee Committee (1996): the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the 81st Amendment Bill 1996. It backed one-third reservation with rotation and suggested extending it later to OBC women.

• Women's Reservation Bill 2008 (108th Amendment Bill): passed by the Rajya Sabha on 9 March 2010 and lapsed in 2014. The sticking points were an OBC "quota within quota" and the effects of rotation.
• 106th Constitutional Amendment Act 2023 (Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam):
• It was introduced as the 128th Amendment Bill and passed 454-2 in the Lok Sabha and 214-0 in the Rajya Sabha. It received assent on 28 September 2023.
• It added Arts. 330A (Lok Sabha), 332A (state assemblies), 239AA(2)(ba) (Delhi assembly) and 334A (timing and duration).
• It reserves one-third of seats, including within SC and ST seats, for 15 years. Parliament can extend this.
• There is no OBC sub-quota, and the Rajya Sabha and legislative councils are not covered.

• Trigger: it starts only after a delimitation (redrawing of constituencies) based on the first census after 2023. NCERT's "33 percent" leaves this out.

• The 131st Amendment Bill 2026 would have delinked the reservation from the new census. It was negatived on 17 April 2026, so the 2023 timeline stands (verify current).

5. Religion in politics and communalism

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• Acceptable links between religion and politics (NCERT):
• Gandhi's view that politics should be guided by the moral values shared by all religions.
• Demands to protect minorities from riots.
• Reform of family laws that discriminate against women.

• These are fine as long as every religion is treated equally.

• The danger begins when religion becomes the basis of the nation (Northern Ireland). It also arises when one religion is claimed to be superior, when one group's demands are set against another's, or when state power is used for domination.

• Communalism: the belief that religion is the main basis of social community. It holds that all followers of a religion share the same interests and cannot form one community with followers of other religions. In its extreme form, communities cannot live as equal citizens, so one must dominate or they must separate.

• Why it is wrong: every person has many identities, and every community has many voices.

• Forms of communalism (four): 1. Everyday beliefs: prejudice, stereotypes and a sense of superiority. 2. A quest for political dominance: majoritarian dominance for a majority, or a separate political unit for a minority. 3. Political mobilisation using sacred symbols, religious leaders, emotional appeals and fear. 4. Communal violence: Partition, and later 1984, 1992-93, 2002 and 2020.

• Census 2011 religion shares: Hindus 79.8%, Muslims 14.2%, Christians 2.3%, Sikhs 1.7%, Buddhists 0.7%, Jains 0.4%. Sachar Committee estimates expect the Muslim share to rise only about 3-4 percentage points in 50 years. This disproves the myth that Muslims will outnumber other groups.

6. Countering communalism: the secular state, the law and everyday life

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• Secular state: India has no official religion, unlike Buddhism in Sri Lanka, Islam in Pakistan and the Church in England. The Constitution:
• gives freedom to profess, practise and propagate any religion, or none (Art. 25)
• bans religious discrimination (Arts. 14, 15, 16, 29(2))

• allows the state to step in for equality inside a religion, such as banning untouchability (Art. 17) and temple entry (Art. 25(2)(b))

• "Secular" was added to the Preamble in 1976 (42nd Amendment). S.R. Bommai (1994) made secularism part of the basic structure (the core features that no amendment can destroy). The theory of secularism is in the secularism note.

• Election law:
• RPA 1951 s.123(3) and (3A) make appeals based on religion, caste, community or language, and promoting enmity, a corrupt practice.
• s.125 punishes promoting enmity in connection with elections.

• Abhiram Singh (2017, 4:3) held that "his religion" includes the voter's religion.

• Criminal law (BNS 2023): ss.196-197 (formerly IPC 153A, 153B), s.299 (formerly 295A) and s.302 (formerly 298). Mob lynching on religious grounds falls under s.103(2). Tehseen Poonawalla (2018) laid down anti-lynching guidelines.

• Other tools: the Law Commission's 267th Report (2017) on hate speech. The Places of Worship Act 1991 freezes the religious character of places as on 15 August 1947, with Ayodhya exempted. A December 2024 Supreme Court order paused new suits (verify current).
• NCERT: a secular Constitution is necessary but not enough. Prejudice must be countered in everyday life, and religious mobilisation in politics, because communalism threatens "the very idea of India".

7. Caste system and caste inequalities today

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• Caste system: an extreme form of hereditary occupational division (jobs passed down by birth), backed by rituals. Each caste followed rules on occupation, marriage within the group (endogamy) and eating only with its own members. "Outcaste" groups were excluded and faced untouchability.
• Jati: the caste group, or a subdivision of it, into which a person is born and usually marries. It is often called a "community".
• Caste hierarchy: a ladder that places castes from the "highest" to the "lowest".
• Reformers who fought caste: Jotiba Phule, Gandhi, B.R. Ambedkar and Periyar.
• What is breaking caste down: economic development, urbanisation, education, the weakening of village landlords and occupational mobility (a new generation taking up different work from its ancestors). Arts. 15 and 17 ban caste discrimination.
• Sanskritisation (M.N. Srinivas): a lower caste adopts upper-caste customs to claim higher status.
• What persists: most people still marry within their caste, and untouchability has not fully ended (IHDS 2011-12, verify figures).
• Caste inequality: average economic status still follows the old ladder.

Rural population below the poverty line (NSSO, 1999-2000)	%
Scheduled Tribes	45.8
Scheduled Castes	35.9
OBCs	27.0
Muslim upper castes	26.8
Hindu upper castes	11.7
All groups	27.0

• Graduates per 1,000 in urban India (Class 11, Equality): SC 47 and Hindu upper caste 253.

8. Caste in politics: candidates, vote banks and the limits of caste

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• Casteism: the belief that caste is the only basis of social community, so that each caste is a natural community with its own interests. Experience shows caste is only one part of a person's identity.
• Caste in politics (NCERT's forms):
• Parties pick candidates and ministers to match the caste mix of voters.
• Parties appeal to caste feeling, and some parties are seen as speaking for particular castes.

• Universal franchise pushed leaders to mobilise voters and brought new awareness to castes once treated as low.

• Vote bank: M.N. Srinivas's term (1955) for a group that votes largely for one party. Asking for votes on caste grounds is a corrupt practice under RPA s.123(3).

• Limits of caste (NCERT's four points): 1. No Lok Sabha constituency has a clear majority of one caste. 2. No party gets all the votes of a caste; a "vote bank" only means a large share. 3. Many candidates may share a caste, while many voters have no candidate of their own caste. 4. Ruling parties and sitting MPs and MLAs often lose.

• Other factors that shape votes: loyalty to a party, class and gender differences within a caste, and judgements on government performance and leaders. Lokniti-CSDS surveys show voting by welfare beneficiaries (verify).

• Reserved SC and ST seats need votes across castes because all voters vote in them. This system comes from the Poona Pact (1932).

9. Politics in caste: politicisation, dominant castes and new coalitions

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• Politicisation of caste: politics changes caste too. Rajni Kothari (1970) said caste gets politicised, rather than politics becoming caste-ridden.
• Castes grow larger by absorbing nearby sub-castes.
• Castes must form coalitions and negotiate with other castes.

• New groupings appear, such as "backward" and "forward" castes.

• Dominant caste (M.N. Srinivas, 1959): a caste that is large in number, owns much of the land and holds local power. Examples: Jats, Marathas, Patidars, Vokkaligas, Lingayats, Reddys and Kammas.

• Several have agitated for backward status: Patidars (2015), Jats (2016) and Marathas (2018, 2023-24). These demands run into the 50% ceiling on reservations.

• Coalitions: KHAM in Gujarat (Kshatriya-Harijan-Adivasi-Muslim, 1980s), Charan Singh's AJGAR, Muslim-Yadav alliances, and Kanshi Ram's BSP (1984; see Class 10, Political Parties). OBC parties rose after Mandal. More recently parties have targeted sub-castes and used the "PDA" (backward, Dalit, minority) slogan in 2024.

• NCERT's balance sheet:
• Gains: Dalits and OBCs got better access to decision-making, and groups campaign for dignity, land and resources.

• Costs: politics based only on caste diverts attention from poverty, development and corruption, and can lead to tension and violence.

• New frontier: sub-classification of SCs and OBCs.

10. Counting caste: census data and the caste census

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• What the Census counts: religion exactly as each person states it, including "no religion". It also counts SCs (16.6% in 2011) and STs (8.6%), but not OBCs.
• OBC estimates: about 41% (NSS 2004-05) and 52% (Mandal Commission, projected from 1931 data).

• SCs, STs and OBCs together are about two-thirds of the population and three-fourths of Hindus.

• Caste census: caste was counted from 1881 to 1931, the last full count. In 1941 it was collected but not tabulated. From 1951 only SCs and STs have been counted.

• Socio-Economic and Caste Census 2011 (SECC): a door-to-door survey. Its socio-economic data were released in 2015 and are used for PMAY-G and Ayushman Bharat. The caste data were never published.
• Bihar caste survey (2023): EBCs 36.01%, BCs 27.12%, SCs 19.65%, STs 1.68% and unreserved 15.52%.
• The Patna High Court upheld the survey (August 2023) but struck down the rise in reservation to 65% (June 2024).

• Karnataka and Telangana have held their own surveys (verify current).

• Census 2027: the CCPA (Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs) decided on 30 April 2025 to count all castes.

• Phase 1: houselisting, April-September 2026.
• Phase 2: population enumeration, with reference date 1 March 2027 (1 October 2026 for snow-bound areas).

• It is India's first digital census, with self-enumeration.

• The debate: caste data would help target welfare, sub-classify groups and test the 50% ceiling. Critics fear it will entrench caste identity. The new census will also trigger delimitation and women's reservation (Section 4).

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Exam angles

Prelims — high-yield facts and traps

• 106th Amendment (2023): Arts. 330A, 332A, 334A and 239AA(2)(ba). It reserves one-third of seats, including within SC and ST seats, for 15 years, with rotation after each delimitation. There is no OBC sub-quota and no Rajya Sabha or council seats. "It is already in force for the 2024 Lok Sabha": FALSE.
• The 2008 Bill passed only the Rajya Sabha (2010) and lapsed in 2014. The 131st Amendment Bill 2026 was negatived.
• "Arts. 243D and 243T mandate 50% for women": FALSE. They say "not less than one-third", and the 50% comes from state laws.
• Sex ratios: child sex ratio 945, 927 and 918 (1991-2011). The overall ratio was 1,020 in NFHS-5. Know which measure is which.
• Indices: the Global Gender Gap Index is the WEF's (four sub-indices); the Gender Inequality Index is UNDP's.
• Time Use Survey: run by NSO (MoSPI), all-India in 2019 and 2024. NCERT's table is the 1998-99 pilot.
• Suffrage chronology: New Zealand 1893, USA 1920, UK 1928, India 1950. The voting age became 18 under the 61st Amendment (1988).
• NCERT exercise answers: gender division means unequal roles assigned by society. Communal politics rests on statements A and C. "The Constitution gives official status to one religion": FALSE. Social divisions based on caste are peculiar to India. The matching answer is 1-B, 2-A, 3-D, 4-C.
• Terms and authors: vote bank, dominant caste and Sanskritisation are M.N. Srinivas's terms. Politicisation of caste is Rajni Kothari's. Abhiram Singh (2017, 4:3) covers religious appeals.
• Census facts: the last full caste count was in 1931, and SECC 2011 caste data were never published. The CCPA decided on caste enumeration on 30 April 2025. The Census 2027 reference date is 1 March 2027.

Mains — GS-II themes

1. Why women's share of legislators stays low, whether quotas work (panchayat evidence versus proxy "sarpanch-pati" rule), and the delay caused by tying the 106th Amendment to delimitation.
2. Unpaid care work, the sexual division of labour and female labour-force participation as barriers to women's public role (also GS-I).
3. The forms of communalism, and whether a secular Constitution is enough: hate-speech law versus free speech, and the roles of civil society and media.
4. Caste in politics versus politics in caste: does caste mobilisation spread power to Dalits and OBCs, or does it divide? Also, the limits of caste as a voting factor.
5. The caste census: data for reservation design, sub-classification and the 50% ceiling, against the risk of entrenching caste. Also, state surveys and federal politics.
6. Why caste inequality persists despite formal equality, and remedies beyond reservation.

Current-affairs hooks

• Census 2027 operations and how caste data are designed and released; state caste surveys and the quota laws built on them.
• Delimitation and the women's reservation timeline after the 131st Amendment Bill 2026 failed; the share of women in each new legislature.
• The annual WEF gender gap report, NSO time-use and PLFS releases, and SRS/HMIS figures for sex ratio at birth.
• Hate-speech cases, Places of Worship Act hearings, and ECI action on religious and caste appeals.
• Dominant-caste quota agitations (Maratha, Jat, Patidar, Kapu) and new caste coalitions in state elections.