NCERT Solutions for Class 8 Civics Chapter 7 – Understanding Marginalisation are provided here for students to prepare and achieve their desired goals. According to a newspaper report in April 2019, there was rising anxiety among Minorities, who form 14% of India’s population but barely constitute 4% of its Parliament. When a group of people or communities are excluded from the majority because of their language, customs, or religion, it is called Marginalisation.
1. Write in your own words two or more sentences of what you understand by the word ‘marginalisation’.
Answer: A social process of being confined to lower social standing is marginalisation. It involves people being denied their fundamental rights, which results in lowering their social and economic status. It is a situation when a particular social group is forced to live on the fringes rather than in the mainstream. A marginalised section of society does not get opportunities for social and economic development.
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2. List two reasons why Adivasis are becoming increasingly marginalised.
Answer: Adivasis are being increasingly marginalised for the following two reasons:
- Changes in forest laws have deprived the Adivasis of access to forest produce.
- The construction of factories and other projects in tribal areas have forced many tribal people to migrate to other places in search of a livelihood.
3. Write one reason why you think the Constitution’s safeguards to protect minority communities are very important.
Answer: The safeguards to protect minority communities are necessary because the majority community may culturally dominate the minority communities, and the minority communities might become marginalised.
4. Re-read the section on Minorities and Marginalisation. What do you understand by the term minority?
Answer: A minority is a community that is numerically small in relation to the rest of the population. A particular religious section which has a low percentage in population compared to the major religious community is called a minority.
The Constitution of India provides safeguards to linguistical and religious minorities as a part of its fundamental rights and ensures that minorities do not face any disadvantage or discrimination. In India, Christians, Sikhs, Muslims, etc., are included as minorities.
5. You are participating in a debate where you have to provide reasons to support the following statement: ‘Muslims are a marginalised community.’ Using the data provided in this chapter, list two reasons that you would give.
Answer: As per the data provided in the chapter, the literacy rate of the Muslim population in India is only 59%, which is the lowest compared to 65% among Hindus, 70% among Sikhs, 73% among Buddhists, 80% among Christians, and 94% among Jains.
Also, only 3% of Muslims represent the esteemed Indian Administrative Service Cadre. The above statistics support that Muslims are a marginalised community in India.
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6. Imagine that you are watching the Republic Day parade on TV with a friend, and she remarks, “Look at these tribal people. They look so exotic. And they seem to be dancing all the time.” List three things that you would tell her about the lives of Adivasis in India.
Answer: Adivasis have a deep knowledge of forests. They were hunters and gatherers and lived like nomads. They practised shifting agriculture and also cultivated in a single place. Their deep knowledge of forests made them indispensable to the rulers of various empires during the pre-colonial period in India. They have their own language and have influenced the formation of various Indian languages, Bengali being one of them.
7. In the storyboard, you read about how Helen hopes to make a movie on the Adivasi story. Can you help her by developing a short story on Adivasis?
Answer: Students have to do this by themselves.
8. Would you agree with the statement that economic marginalisation and social marginalisation are interlinked? Why?
Answer: Social marginalisation and economic marginalisation are interlinked. Social marginalisation forces a social group out of the mainstream, resulting in a lack of opportunities for skill development and education. This means that the people from marginalised sections will not have proper access to quality healthcare, which in turn means that a child from the marginalised section does not develop into a financially stable adult who otherwise is capable enough to ensure a better income. Thus, the individual who is left behind in socio-economic development also becomes economically marginalised.