Social and Political Movement

• In the next chapter, we will study challenges before democracy.
• Social and Political Movements involve labourers, businessmen, women, youth, and senior citizens.
• Movements are important in a democracy as they highlight different social problems and put pressure on the government to address them.
• Leaders and activists of the movement provide necessary information about those issues to the government, which is useful for the government while making policies.
• Some movements aim at opposing a particular decision or policy of the government, which is considered an important right in democracy.
• Different social problems come under discussion through these movements, forcing the government to pay attention to them.
• Movements have a leadership that keeps the movement active and decides the objectives, programme of action, and strategy of agitation.
• A strong leadership makes a movement effective.
• Movements have organisations that work towards achieving the movement's objectives.
• Movements are generally devoted to one particular issue but have an ideology behind them.
• Women started taking initiative in organising against injustice.
• The movement has a broad objective.
• Consumer movement works to protect consumers from adulteration, increased cost of items, and frauds in weight.
• Today women’s movement face the challenge of equal education for women and giving women a status and prestige as human beings.
• The movement demanded that the women should be treated as human beings.
• These movements are issue-based.
• Issue-based movements try to organise issue based mass movements.
• Women’s movements at various levels are taking up the issues like women’s health, social security, financial independence, and empowerment.
• Consumer movement increases the participation of people in public life.
• Environmental movements are taking up issues like protection of bio-diversity, protecting different sources of water, protection of forests, green belt, pollution of rivers, use of chemicals and their ill effects etc.
• In India women’s movement is not homogeneous in nature.
• Post 1980 movements are called neo-social movements as their nature is different from the earlier movements.
• In the latter period, women participated to a great extent in the movements against corruption, caste discrimination and religious extremism which made them aware of injustice against their own selves.
• Consumer movement emerged in India after the Consumer Protection Act came into existence in 1986.
• The farmers were now divided into rich farmers and poor farmers.
• Reforms such as widow remarriage, women education and right to vote to women were possible due to the work of these reformists.
• Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, Raja Rammohan Roy, Mahatma Jyotirao Phule, Savitribai Phule, Maharshee Dhondo Keshav Karve, Pandita Ramabai, Ramabai Ranade took initiative in ending the practice of Sati and child marriages.
• The government for the welfare of farmers and landless labourers started policies like food grains, it did not benefit the poor farmers.
• Shetkari Sanghatana, Bharatiya Kisan Union, All India Kisan Sabha are some of the important farmers organisations in India.
• The 'Son of the soil' movements in India insist on issues such as unstable employment conditions, contract labour, financial insecurity, absence of legal protection for workers, unlimited working hours, insecurity at the workplace, health hazards.
• He formed an organisation – ‘Tarun Bharat Sangh’ which worked for building eleven thousand Johad in hundreds of villages.
• He revived rivers in the desert of Rajasthan.
• After independence, the Constitution gave equal rights to women in all fields.
• Dissatisfaction among the poor farmers led to the beginning of farmer’s movement.
• In the pre-independence period, progressive men in India initiated the women’s movement aimed at eliminating injustice against women and ending their exploitation, help them to lead a respectful life and participate actively in social life.
• Ramabai Ranade, Dr Rajendra Singh also known as ‘Waterman of India’ has brought Water revolution in Rajasthan.
• He won the Stockholm Water Prize, an award known as the ‘Nobel Prize for water’.
• Appropriate price for agricultural products, agriculture to be treated as an industry, implementation of the recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission, debt relief, debt cancellation, national policy for agriculture are some of the demands of the farmers movement.
• He became famous because of building thousands of ‘Johad’ in Rajasthan.
• In spite of this women were not treated equally in several fields.