12 Class Political Science – II Chapter 7 Rise of Popular Movements Notes
| Textbook | NCERT |
| Class | Class 12 |
| Subject | Political Science 2nd book |
| Chapter | Chapter 7 |
| Chapter Name | Rise of Popular Movements |
| Category | Political Science |
| Medium | English |
Class 12 political science chapter 7 rise of popular movements notes here we will be learn about Social and New Social Movements , Party based Movement , Non Party based Movement , Chipko Movement , Narmada Bachao Andolan , Farmers Agitation , The National Literacy Movement , Movement for Right to Information etc.
Social and New Social Movements : –
🔹 The broad historical processes of social change are the sum total of countless individual and collective actions gathered across time and space. Social movements are directed towards some specific goals. It involves long and continuous social effort and action by people : forests or the right of displaced people to settlement and compensation.
Old social movements : –
🔹 The old social movements were pre – industrial movements. They were based on issues related to agriculture , labour , farm , land , forestry and industry. They were class based.
New social movements : –
🔹 New social movements have emerged as corrective to new challenges like environmental degradation , violence against women , destruction of tribal cultures and violation or Human Rights , transgender rights etc. They are comprehensive issues affecting a major strata of the society and are issue based seeking redressal within the system.
Difference between Old Social Movements and New Social Movements : –
🔹 The Old Social Movements and New Social Movements are distinguished on the following basis : –
🔸 Old Social Movements : –
🔹 The Old Social Movements revolved around politics and political parties.
🔹 The Old Social Movements aimed at securing political representation , legislative political reforms and rights associated with citizenship in the political community.
🔹 The Old Social Movements are characterised by formal and hierarchical structures.
🔹 Old Social Movements are oriented towards political institutions through which change can be achieved.
🔸 New Social Movements : –
🔹 The New Social Movements have transcended these political limits and have become autonomous in nature.
🔹 The New Social Movements defend civil society against the political power in which culture of civil society is redefined rather than pursuing legislative change through the state.
🔹 New Social Movements are unstructured and informal in nature rather than being a structured organisation.
🔹 On the other hand , the New Social Movements emphasised upon more innovative forms of direct action.
Types of Social Movement : –
🔸 Party based Movement : –
- Naxalbari Telangana Tebhaga Movements
🔸 Non Party based Movement : –
- Farmer’s movement = ( BKU )
- Ecological movements = ( Narmada Bachao Andolan , Chipko Movement )
- Caste based Movement = ( Dalit Panthers )
- Women led Social movements = ( Chipko Movement , Anti – Arrack Movement )
Party based movements : –
🔹 Party based movements have close Association with political pnrtles and follow their objectives and ideologies , well organised and financed by political parties and often have a hidden agenda of opposing the party in power. For example : – the Indian Independence was fought by the Congress Party , the highly violent Maoist movement.
Non party movements : –
🔹 non party movements do not keep association with any political parties and are sometimes led by NGOs or individuals.
The Chipko Movement : –
🔹 The Chipko movement began in three villages of Uttarakhand in 1973 on refusal of permission to the villagers to fell Ash trees for making agricultural tools but the same land ( forest area in the Alaknanda valley ) was allotted for cutting to sports manufacturers for commercial use.
🔹 The villagers protested against the permission given by the government to outsiders ; they used a novel tactic to hug the trees and protect them from being cut down ( started from Mandal village ). The movement took up economic issues of landless forest workers and asked for guarantees of minimum wage.
Impact of Chipko Movement : –
🔹 This protest spread across many parts of Uttarakhand and brought into its ambit larger issues of ecological and economic exploitation of forest lands. This was a non – violent novel way of protest.
🔹 The government issued a ban on felling of trees in the Himalayan region for 15 years until the green cover was fully restored.
🔹 This movement started with a small demand as a protest but found active participation by women and became a symbol of many such popular movements emerging in different parts of India during the 1970s.
🔹 The Chipko movement turned into a massive movement for creating awareness about environmental issues and economic exploitation of the region.
Narmada Bachao Andolan : –
🔹 Narmada Bachao Andolan Was launched by tribal , villager , environmentalists against the displacement caused by a huge development project the Sardar Sarovar Project was launched in the Narmada Valley of Central India in the 1980s and its aim was to provide irrigation and electrcity to three states. In the process of construction of the dam 245 villages from these states were expected to get submerged.
🔹 Number of big and small dams were to be constructed on the river . Narmada and its tributaries across 3 states Madhya Pradesh Gujarat and Maharashtra.
🔹 In 1988-89 , it was organised under the banner of the NBA a loose collective community of many voluntary organisations through court actions , hunger strikes , rallies etc.
🔶 demand : –
🔹 The Movement demanded that there should be a cost benefit analysis of major development projects which included displacement af the locals and forced resettlement of the project affected people , loss of livelihood and depletion of ecological resources , the impact on biodiversity loss and fair rehabilitation of the displaced people.
🔹 Narmada Bachao Andolan continued for more than 20 years Over 192 villages and townships will come under the submergence due to the construction of the Dam.
Impact of Narmada Bachao Andolan : –
🔹 Government set up Narmada tribunals regarding resettlement and rehabilitation of those displaced by the dams.
🔹 The height of the Sardar Sarovar Dam was aslo raised to increase and extend its benefit for more water for irrigation mostly in the drought prone arees of Kutch and Saurashtra and to generate more hydroelectric power.
🔹 It created awareness regarding balance between development and environment with protection of biodiversity.
Farmers Agitation : –
🔹 Farmers Agitation led by Bhartiya Kisan Union in 1988 : Bhartiya Kisan Union was one of the leading farmers movements to protest against the policies of the process of liberalization of Indian economy.
🔹 The farmers of Western Uttar Pradesh and adjoining regions participated in it by holding rallies , demonstrations and ‘ Jail Bharo ‘ agitation.
🔶 Demands : –
- The demands were a getting higher prices for sugarcane and wheat.
- Guaranteed supply of electricity at reasonable rates.
- To waive off repayment of loan due for the farmers.
- To provide government pension to farmers.
- Abolition of restrictions on inter state movement of farm produce.
Impact of Farmers Agitation : –
- It helped to highlight the plight of farmers.
- BKU became the most successful social movement and was sustained for a long time due to the network and cooperation among its members.
- BKU farmers dominated regional electoral politics also in the coming years.
Anti Liquor / Arrack Movement ( Tadi Movement ) : –
🔹 Mass uprising of women against the production of and sale of country liquor ( arrak ) among the rural women in Andhra Pradesh. However , soon the movement became one of the biggest agitations led by women as a collective against the state and its Agencies leading to the total prohibitive ban of production of illicit liquor in the state.
The National Literacy Movement : –
🔹 The National Literacy Movement was started in January 1990 in Nellore district Andhra Pradesh. This was a state organised mass literacy campaign. However , it resulted in a spontaneous anti – arrack movement as the women gathered together and discussed their problems.
🔹 This discussion resulted in the women discovering that the consumption of locally made cheap liquor ( arrack ) was a source of their unsettled domestic life. The anti – arrack movement was a consequence of these meetings and started as a spontaneous movement in the small village Dubaganta in Andhra Pradesh and later spread to other districts of Andhra Pradesh.
Impact of movement : –
- The movement resulted In the declaration of total prohibition of liquor in Andhra Pradesh ( 1994 ).
- It resulted in the loss of the political party in elections that year.
- It helped to bring out women’s issues and made them a strong electorate swaying public opinion during elections.
Movement for Right to Information : –
🔹 Movement for Right to Information Started in 1990 when a mass based organisation called the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan ( MKSS ) in Rajasthan took the initiative in demanding records of famine relief work and accounts of labourers. It organised public hearings or ‘ jan sunwai ‘ where the administration was asked to explain its stand in public.
Impact of Right to Information Movement : –
🔹 An amendment in the Rajasthan Panchayati Raj Act was made to permit the public to procure certified copies of documents held by the panchayats.
🔹 In 1996 , MKSS formed the National Council for People’s Right to Information in Delhi to raise RTI to the status of a national campaign. The Right to Information Act was passed in June 2005.
Dalit Panthers : –
🔹 An militant organisation of the dalit youth which was formed in Maharashtra in 1972. The activities centred around fighting against atrocities on dalits. The main agenda was to destroy the caste system. To build an All India organisation of all the oppressed classes. To provide platform for dalit educated youth to use their creativity as a protest activity and to bring awareness about the caste based atrocities.
🔹 They protested against the inequality of the caste system. Dalit groups were mainly fighting against the perpetual caste based inequalities and material injustices that the Dallis faced in spite of constitutional guarantees of equality and justice. Effective implementation of reservations and other such policies of social justice was one of their prominent demands.
Impact : –
🔹 The movement was influenced by the black panther movement of the USA and South Africa.
🔹 There was a Renaissance in Marathi literature. Dalit art and literature flourished.
🔹 Politics using the ideologies of Ambedkar , Karl Marx and Jyoti Rao Phule , that helped to invigorate the use of the term dalit to refer to lower caste community.
🔹 Economic and social justice related issues were raised.
National Fish workers Forum : –
🔹 National Fishworkers Forum was a moventent started in Kerala as a Protest by the local fishermen against the government permission to bottom trawling for large – scale harvest of fish in the Indian Seas.
🔹 The lives and occupation of the fish workers were threatened in a major way. Fisheries being State subject , the fish workers were mostly mobilised at the regional level.
Impact of National Fish workers Forum : –
🔹 Work of the NFF consolidated when in 1991 it fought its first legal battle with the Union government successfully.
Importance of Social Movements : –
🔹 Social movements have been and continue to be closely connected with the democratic political systems in the country and are an engine for bringing about changes in a peaceful manner.
🔹 They help to mobilize various sectors and sections of the society and create a new set of social relationships which leads to a collective action and act as pressure valves in a democracy.
🔹 They help to express the hopes and aspirations of the common people be it ; women , workers , child rights , ecological and environmentalists issues which otherwise would have been left unheard. They help to democratise from the bottom up ( grassroots level ).
🔹 There is no doubt that social movements have certain limitations and challenges but they have the power to shake the existing political and social systems and a voice for the oppressed classes.
🔹 These movements came up to rectify some problems in the functioning of party politics and should be seen as an integral part of the democratic politics.
🔹 Popular movements suggest new forms of active participation and thus broadened the idea of participation in Indian democracy.
Criticism of these movemnets : –
🔹 collective actions like strikes , sit – ins and rallies disrupt the functioning of the government , delay in decision making and destabilise the routines of democracy.
Naxalbari uprising : –
🔹 Naxalbari uprising was an armed peasant revolt in 1967 in the Naxalbari block in Darjeeling district , West Bengal , India. It was mainly led by local tribals and the radical communist leaders of Bengal and further developed into Communist Party of India ( Marxist – Leninist ) in 1969.
🔹 It gave rise to the a light armed struggle led by Charu Majumdar , Kanu Sanyal , Punjab Rao , Vinod Mitra . This is an example of political party based social movement.
Silent Valley protest : –
🔹 In 1973 a protest was launched against the hydroelectric project Dam as an entire biosphere reserve was to be submerged in Kerala. In the 2000s protests erupted in Singur in West Bengal against the acquisition of 400 acres of land for a proposed car project.
🔹 In 2011 Anna Hazare fought against corruption in a Movement in New Delhi to persuade the government to enact a stringent anti – corruption law called the ‘ Lokpal Bill ‘.
The Tebhaga Movement : –
🔹 The Tebhaga Movement was a significant peasant agitation , initiated in Bengal by the Kisan Sabha ( peasant front of the Communist Party of India ) in 1946-47.
Conclusion : –
🔹 Movements are not only about collective assertions or only about rallies and protests . They involve a gradual process of coming together of people with similar problems , similar demands and similar expectations.
Do social movements helps make democracy a success ?
🔹 Popular movements are an integral part of democracy and help to keep the democracy alive. The possibilities of deep social conflicts are reduced by popular movements at same time they make the people aware of their rights. The weak and the marginalised sections of the society get an outlet to assert their democratic rights and place their demands. Most of them used peaceful methods of protest such as hartals , rallies picketings etc.
🔹 Popular social movements bring about positive social changes in the lives of the common people and help to legitimise democracy they are an expression of deprivation , common purpose , solidarities and a common purpose. Rights of the tribal population , displaced people , settlement and compensation issues are safe gaurded by these movements.
Related Chapters
Challenges of nation building
Era of one party Dominance
Politics of Planned Development
India’s External Relations
Challenges to and restoration of the congress system
The Crisis of Democratic Order
Rise of Popular Movements ( Deleted )
Regional Aspirations
Recent Developments in Indian Politics