Saturday, October 11, 2014

India 1947-64: Political, Social and Economic Challenges

Sorry this is SO late - your blog for this week is due Tuesday, October 14th at 9:00 p.m. Read the packet distributed in class: "Political, social and economic challenges."


  1. There is a saying that "language is power." Why do people whose language is not officially recognized feel disempowered? What disadvantages do they suffer? What are the advantages and disadvantages to a country of having a large number of official languages? 
  2. Nehru is reported to have told the French writer, Andre Malraux, that the most difficult task he faced was creating a secular state in a religious country. Explain what he meant by this remark. 
  3. Having read this unit, explain how appropriate it is to consider each of these as an "axis of conflict" in Indian society: religion, language, caste, class and gender. 
  4. Find out what you can about the life of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar - the discrimination he faced as an "untouchable"; his distinguished academic career; his contribution to democracy in India;; and his disillusion with the Congress Party and with Hinduism. 
  5. Find out about and make brief notes on the position of the Dalits in Indian society and politics since Nehru's time.
GET READY FOR ANOTHER DEBATE NEXT WEEK ALONG WITH YOUR MAP TEST!!!!



21 comments:

  1. 1.There is a saying that "language is power." Why do people whose language is not officially recognized feel disempowered? What disadvantages do they suffer? What are the advantages and disadvantages to a country of having a large number of official languages?
    People whose language is not officially recognized might feel disempowered because if it’s a language that not a lot of people know then no one will listen to them. Thus, feeling powerless. A disadvantage that they might suffer is not being able to communicate with others. For example, if the ruler of India tries to become allies with China this will be completely impossible because the ruler of India doesn’t speak Chinese. Thus, not being able to communicate with the ruler of China. An advantage a country that has a large number of official languages might have is that it will be harder to get tricked by another country. For example, the ruler of India speaks English and Hindi. They try to make an agreement with the United States, but the ruler of the United States doesn’t know the ruler of India speaks English. If the ruler of the United States says something in English to his employees in front of the ruler of India planning a trick on India, the ruler of India will know and not make the agreement with the United States.
    2.Nehru is reported to have told the French writer, Andre Malraux, that the most difficult task he faced was creating a secular state in a religious country. Explain what he meant by this remark.
    What Nehru meant by this remark was it was very hard to turn a country that made their decisions based off of their religion to uniting together and making decisions together. This was very hard for Nehru because it was like he was trying to break the habit of having religion control every decision. As we all know it is very hard to break a habit.
    3.Having read this unit, explain how appropriate it is to consider each of these as an "axis of conflict" in Indian society: religion, language, caste, class and gender.
    Religion was definitely an axis of conflict because the Hindus and Muslims had completely different views and both had different beliefs. Thus, creating violence. Gender was a very big axis of conflict. I say this because no matter if there were laws that protected woman’s rights, they would still be broken. This caused a lot of drama with the females. Language also was an axis of conflict because it led up to lots of violence between the people who spoke different languages. Each person wanted their language to be recognized. However, there were way too many languages to do so. At first caste was an axis of conflict because the dalits were being treated like trash. Thus, giving the dalits motive to want to fight back. However, after the treatment of the dalits were changed. They were treated just like other citizens.

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  2. 4.Find out what you can about the life of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar - the discrimination he faced as an "untouchable"; his distinguished academic career; his contribution to democracy in India; and his disillusion with the Congress Party and with Hinduism.
    As an untouchable Dr. B.R. Ambedkar faced many discrimination. For example, he couldn’t own any land and used roads or other resources like other people. He had very low job opportunities; working on the land, carrying water, and tanning leather. He would even get kicked out of hotels and restaurants. Dr. B.R Ambedkar was the person responsible for creating and making the Hindu Code Bill possible; giving Hindu people equality. Dr. B.R Ambedkar also had an influence in the Indian constitution. The other untouchability and he were known as the “scheduled castes and scheduled tribes”.
    5.Find out about and make brief notes on the position of the Dalits in Indian society and politics since Nehru's time.
    The dalits in the Indian society and politics since Nehru’s time were treated differently from how they were first treated. The dalits were able to shop in the same places as other citizens, go to the same schools and they even had equal rights to vote and equality in law as other citizens. They were provided healthcare and stable homes. If a citizen of India treated a dalit rudely they would go to prison.

    work cited
    "Political, social and economic challenges." packet

    ReplyDelete
  3. William Reis
    IB History
    10/12/14
    Ms.Noce

    1 There is a saying that "language is power." Why do people whose language is not officially recognized feel disempowered? What disadvantages do they suffer? What are the advantages and disadvantages to a country of having a large number of official languages?
    This is a very common sense answer question from my point of view and everyone’s point of view. Language is power at any place. If you leave at a country and you don’t the speak the language that is originally from that country wouldn’t you feel lost? T here are many disadvantages that you suffer, people won’t understand you, people can mess with you but with advantages are quite a few also. You can be open minded about things and people will understand you, you can get involved with a diversity of culture in the area and many other things. Language is power, language is almost the key to getting around places.

    2. Nehru is reported to have told the French writer, Andre Malraux, that the most difficult task he faced was creating a secular state in a religious country. Explain what he meant by this remark.
    Since the time Nehu started being the leader of the congress his goal for India was to make india a independent a secular state, yet India was a country with significant importance of religion and they are both, Muslims and Hindus. This was not going to be an easy task for Nehru because every decision that was made in India was religiously driven and this was a strong habit and as you know, breaking a habit is a challenge!

    3. Having read this unit, explain how appropriate it is to consider each of these as an "axis of conflict" in Indian society: religion, language, caste, class and gender.
    Religion was a significant appearance India for such a long time. Religion was a gateway to conflicts in India because neither the Muslims or Hindus could never come up with an agreement, so violence would always act upon it. India was a country with a diversity of languages and this actually did create conflicts because since there were a variety of language, people thought that maybe it would be better if they divided the groups by language would be better. This idea didn’t quite work out because there were a certain group of a language that protested against another group of another certain language. The castes or the untouchables were highly discriminated against society they could almost do nothing! But that all changed at some point and they were welcomed to the society in an equal environment

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  4. 4. Find out what you can about the life of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar - the discrimination he faced as an "untouchable"; his distinguished academic career; his contribution to democracy in India; and his disillusion with the Congress Party and with Hinduism.
    Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, he was a strong campaigner for the rights of the Dalits. He served time as a Law minister and he actually had a significant role in India’s soon to be new constitution. He was culpable of creating a ‘Hindu Code Bill’. The “”untouchable”” faced major discrimination in India. “They could not own land, enter temples, or use common resources such as villages wells or roads. They performed all the menial work such as carrying water, tanning leather and working the land, usually as sharecroppers.”. (3. Political, social and Economic challenges) This wasn’t the only thing they were discriminated from, they were almost discriminated from society in general, there were certain places that they were not even allowed to enter, for example, restaurants or even hotels.


    5. Find out about and make brief notes on the position of the Dalits in Indian society and politics since Nehru's time.
    Dalits or the untouchables or simply ‘castes’ were finally relieved from the strong discrimination to society after some point. They were now free to go to same places as any other citizen such as, shopping, schools and so on. They gained benefits of getting health care and legal aid, just like other citizen in the area. On top of all these things that were done for them, if someone ever discriminated or disrespected the castes you would serve time in jail.

    ReplyDelete
  5. William Portorreal
    IB History
    Ms. Noce


    1. People who speak a language that is not recognized feel disempowered because they feel like they have no say in anything. People won’t understand what you’re trying to say and because of it you’re going to feel like you have no power at all and what you say won’t matter at all. A country that has many official languages is a good thing because that country will be able to communicate with other countries much easier. I believe there aren’t any disadvantages to having many official languages in a country because that means people could understand each other.

    2. What Nehru told the French writer is exactly what he means that his most difficult task was turning India into a secular state. India is a country that was divided in religion groups and religion is a very important factor when it comes to a country. So for Nehru to get all the states of India to unite was very hard because the different religions such as the Muslims and Hindus believed in different things making it complicated to make India secular. Change is very big for a country and for it to happen you need a lot of support which is what Nehru means by it was his most difficult task.

    3. Every religion in India disagreed with each other and the two main ones Hindu and Muslims disagreed so much that they caused tension and violence between each other. Religion was a main factor in violence in India. There were a lot of people who spoke different languages and each one of them wanted to be recognized but not all could be because the huge amount of diversity in India. Women had no power at all because men controlled their daily lives and they also had not rights at all. The caste people were highly discriminated and lost a lot of control because of it.

    4. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar as a untouchable had faced a lot of discrimination in India, for example he was kicked out of hotels and restaurants. He was treated as a minority and he couldn’t own any land or use any resources that other people would use. He also influenced India’s decision making and created a role in the Hindu code bill which was significant because it was made to unite India as one.

    5. Since Nehru’s time things have been better for the Dalites and they gained their respect from everyone else. Punishment was given to those who still discriminated them. The Dalites got to do everything a citizen in India got to do like going to school and going to public places just like everyone else. They also got the same rights as every other citizen and healthcare from the government.

    Sources: political, social and economic challenges packet

    ReplyDelete
  6. Samantha Foster
    IB History
    Ms.Noce
    10-13-14
    1. There is a saying that "language is power." Why do people whose language is not officially recognized feel disempowered? What disadvantages do they suffer? What are the advantages and disadvantages to a country of having a large number of official languages?
    People who's language is not officially recognized feel disempowered because they are considered to be pretty much a minority and therefore not taking seriously. A disadvantage that they suffer from is not being recognized by higher authorities. Such was the case between the Nehru and the Sikhs, who wanted to have an independent Sikh state which would be called Khalistan. Nehru denied them of this because he opposed the idea of creating independent states based on religious reasons. I think one advantage of having a country with a large number of official language is that it's a sign of peace in unity. Because there are so many languages being spoken in that country, there is no language that dominates the others. It shows that that many ethic groups can dwell with one another despite having different languages. However a disadvantage a country in which many speak different cultures is that many people start seeing themselves as an entirely different culture and want to be recognized as so. The tribal communities for example, made up about 7% of India's population and had different cultures and languages from other communities. In 1950, the Indian constitution considered the Naga people to be part of the province of Assam, but the Nagas wanted to be completely independent. The Indian government rejected the idea which resulted in Naga guerrilla fighters planning to fight against the indian army. In 1955, the Indian government finally gave in and the Naga people became the separate state of Nagaland.

    2.Nehru is reported to have told the French writer, Andre Malraux, that the most difficult task he faced was creating a secular state in a religious country. Explain what he meant by this remark.
    Religion is something that is important to others. It is often the way of life for many people and also their sense of guidance in the world. I can relate Nehru's remark to the well known idiom "old habits die hard". What Nehru meant by his remark was that is was hard for him to create a secular state when so many people were well accustomed to the religion they've known for their whole lives. It was hard for them to accept this religious change and some even refused to accept it and wanted India to have an official religion.

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  7. 3. Having read this unit, explain how appropriate it is to consider each of these as an "axis of conflict" in Indian society: religion, language, caste, class and gender.
    Religion is definitely an axis of conflict in indian society because many people are very religious. The reason why it was a hard task to make India a secular state was because over 80% of the Indian population was Hindu and therefore thought that Indian should be a Hindu state. Many thought that the changes the Indian government were making were a violation to Hindu traditions and practices that have been around for many years. Language is another axis of conflict since there were many groups within India that spoke different languages. The problem with many people speaking many different languages within the same country is that many groups start seeing themselves as an entirely different culture with their own language that feel the need to gain some recognition. Another axis of conflict in indian society was the caste system. The caste system have been around in India for around 2500 years. It categorized Indian society into two groups called high caste"touchables" and low caste"untouchables". The untouchables denied many things such as the right to own land, entering temples, village wells, etc.
    Ghandi greatly opposed the caste system and Nehru saw it as an outdated practice that should be stopped. Some thought that the caste system was a part of tradition and the the government shouldn't change it. Another axis of conflict in indian society was gender. The government did a lot to improve the lives of women but unfortunately it wasn't enough to change the traditional ways of most people especially in rural places.

    4.Find out what you can about the life of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar - the discrimination he faced as an "untouchable"; his distinguished academic career; his contribution to democracy in India;; and his disillusion with the Congress Party and with Hinduism.
    Growing up as an untouchable, B.R. Ambedkar faced many discriminations even at school. The teachers would separate the high caste children from the untouchable children. The teachers would even ask the untouchable children to sit outside of the class. He got accepted into Elphinstone College where he studied political science and economics and studied in the U.S. for higher studies after his graduation.
    Ambedkar wanted to stop the discrimination against untouchables and even stated to the government that untouchables were the same as another people in society. He was appointed as law minister in the first government for his status as a scholar and played a role in drafting the constitution. He was also responsible for drafting the Hindu code bill.

    5. Find out about and make brief notes on the position of the Dalits in Indian society and politics since Nehru's time.
    Unfortunately, not much has changed for the dalits. The dalits of today make up 16.2% of India's population yet they have little control over natural resources. Dalits who work as agricultural laborers had no land of their own and abd very few dalits can afford safe drinking water, electricity, etc.
    Even after Nehru, things have not been going well for the dalits

    works cited:

    "Dr. B. R. Ambedkar." Biography. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Oct. 2014.

    Dalits?" — Welcome to Navsarjan. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Oct. 2014.

    "Political, social and economic challenges." packet

    ReplyDelete
  8. Germairy Roman
    Ms. Noce
    IB History 12
    10/14/14
    India 1947-64: Political, Social and Economic Challenges

    1. There is a saying that "language is power." Why do people whose language is not officially recognized feel disempowered? What disadvantages do they suffer? What are the advantages and disadvantages to a country of having a large number of official languages?
    People whose language is not officially recognized feel disempowered because they are limited. The people who only know one language is limited because they aren't able to speak for themselves or fight for issues or beliefs they believe in if they don't speak another language. The disadvantages are not being able to participate in issues or discussions because of the language barrier. The advantages are that there is no limitation and there is a range of languages that can be spoken. The disadvantages are having citizens unable to communicate due to the variety of official languages.

    2. Nehru is reported to have told the French writer, Andre Malraux, that the most difficult task he faced was creating a secular state in a religious country. Explain what he meant by this remark.
    Nehru wanted to create a secular state because he wanted people's religion to be a private matter and so that citizens wouldn't face discrimination. If India was secular then everything would be fair and there would not be any injustice.

    3. Having read this unit, explain how appropriate it is to consider each of these as an "axis of conflict" in Indian society: religion, language, caste, class and gender.
    Religion, language, caste, class and gender can be considered "axis of conflict" because they separate groups. The differences in religion and language causes rifts between groups and therefore causes conflict. The caste system divided society into levels which were called castes. The two levels would high caste and low caste. The "untouchables" is also associated with the caste system. The "untouchables" face discrimination and are not allowed to own land or enter temples. That in itself can be considered an "axis of conflict" because people are treated unfairly which can cause conflict. Gender can be an "axis of conflict" mainly because of females facing injustice. Women groups took up issues about violence against women and I believe a lot of men in that time period would of been against women. Some men would support violence against women and that creates conflict.

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  9. 4. Find out what you can about the life of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar - the discrimination he faced as an "untouchable"; his distinguished academic career; his contribution to democracy in India;; and his disillusion with the Congress Party and with Hinduism.
    Dr. B.R. Ambedkar faced discrimination due to home being an "untouchable" during his life. He became a respected leader in the movements against the caste system and the banning of the "untouchables". Despite Ambedkar's struggles with the caste system, he was able to have a successful academic career. He attended Columbia University during 1914-1916 and in 1926 he received a doctorate. While attending Columbia University, Ambedkar was encouraged to commit to social reform by his teachers. Ambedkar contributed to democracy in India by becoming the leader of the movements of banning the "untouchables". The caste system was still active after independence in 1947 so the movements were not totally successful. The caste system was still very much alive and apart of rural society.

    5. Find out about and make brief notes on the position of the Dalits in Indian society and politics since Nehru's time.
    After Nehru's time, the Dalits in Indian society and politics still face the caste system. In India the caste system is unfair to citizens in Indian society. The "untouchables" today are illiterate because they do not have access to education. Not much has been changed to ban the caste system because it is still being used currently.

    Work Cited
    - India packet: Political, social and economic challenges
    -http://www.browsebiography.com/bio-bhimrao_ambedkar.html
    -http://www.e-ir.info/2010/06/23/the-dalits-of-india-education-and-development/

    ReplyDelete
  10. There is a saying that “language is power.” Why do people whose language is not officially recognized feel disempowered? What disadvantages do they suffer? What are the advantages and disadvantages to a country of having a large number of official languages?
    - No matter where you are from, language will always be a source of. Due to the reason that we use language to convey what we want to achieve, we use language to get others on our side. Language is used remotely in any country to help out with gaining the power that people give the person (therefor from my perspective “language is power”). People wont understand you (which can be a disadvantage). But going to country with so many official languages will be a disadvantage to some extent because you’ll never know who speaks what language so it’ll be harder to communicate and therefor you’ll feel like you have less power because you wont be able to communicate (which a reason to why I agree that language is power).
    Nehru is reported to have told the French writer, Andre Malraux, that the most difficult task he faced was creating a secular state in a religious country. Explain what he meant by this remark.
    - What Nehru means by this remark is that turning a whole religious state secular was a very hard thing to do. When a state focused solely on religion I would find it hard to break it apart from that (in education, taxes, meals…etc). So you can interpret that separating a state from a religion (when it solely focused everything around it) would be a very difficult task to do.
    Having read this unit, explain how appropriate it is to consider each of these as an “axis of conflict” in Indian society: religion, language, caste, class and gender.
    -Religion was a big problem in India due to the Muslim and Hindus having completely different views and beliefs. So because of that there was a lot of violence between the two groups because of religion. Language probably was an axis to violence due to the fact the India’s population was so big people were bound to fight at some point. Caste was a problem only until dalits were pushed through. Gender was a huge axis to violence because women were not treated equal to men and when rights passed to help females out due to religion, real religious groups still treated women unfairly and harshly.
    Find out what you can bout the life of Dr.B.R. Ambedkar- the discrimination he faced as “untouchable”, his distinguished academic career; his contribution to democracy in India; and his disillusion with the Congress Party and with Hinduism.
    - Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was a very strong campaigner for the rights of Dalits. He played a big role in the making of the new constitution for India but served as a Law minister. He helped out with the Hindu Code Bill but despite all he’s done Ambedkar still faced discrimination in India.
    Find out about and make brief notes on the position of Dalits in Indian society and politics since Nehru’s time.
    - From what I have found out not a lot had changed to the Dalits in India. But what came out of its success were that punishments were given to people who discriminated. They were given healthcare and were able to attend schools (also go in public places. They basically got their rights to do anything like any other normal citizen in India).

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  11. Mu Ying Yu
    IB World History 12
    Ms. Noce
    October 14, 2014
    India 1947-64: Political, Social and Economic Challenges

    1.There is a saying that “language is power.” Why do people whose language is not officially recognized feel disempowered? What disadvantages do they suffer? What are the advantages and disadvantages to country of having a large number of official languages?
    -- People whose language is not officially recognized might feel disempowered because not many people understand their language and they might not be able to speak up for themselves, therefore people felt powerless. The disadvantages they suffer are not able to communicate with others and they could not participate in discussion with important government issues. The advantages to a country of having a large number of official languages are the country is a multi-cultural country with different languages. The disadvantages are people might not understand each other’s language due to the fact that there are mix languages spoken in the same country.

    2.Nehru is reported to have told the French writer, Andre Malraux, that the most difficult task he faced was creating a secular state in a religious country. Explain what he meant by this remark.
    -- The reason why Nehru wanted to create a secular state because he wanted every citizens to be equal no discrimination over others due to their religious, therefore he wanted to make religious to be private. What Nehru meant by this remark was that it will be hard for him to create something that every citizens going to accept it and break the religious controlled over the citizens.

    3.Having read this unit, explain how appropriate it is to consider each of these as an “axis of conflict” in Indian society: religion, language, caste, class and gender.
    -- In Indian society: religion, language, caste, class and gender considered to be the “axis of conflict” because they are all different from each other and have different impacts to India. The two important religious group in India are the Hindus and Muslims, they had completely different beliefs and point of views over issues. Religion is also the guide that lead conflicts in India because the religious group can never be agree with each other at once, therefore violence or war is created. Languages is another issues because there are too many different languages got spoken in one country therefore not everyone in a country can understand each other and make people feel they are all different from each other. The castes system divided the society into high caste “touchable” and low caste “untouchable”. The low caste “untouchable” is having difficulties, like not to own land, face discrimination and may not be able to go to church. Class is another issues because people treated unfairly and not equal. Gender is another issues because male and female had different society status, female is treated unequal.

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  12. 4.Find out what you can about the life of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar - the discrimination he faced as an “untouchable”; his distinguished academic career: his contribution to democracy in India; and his disillusion with the Congress Party and with Hinduism.
    -- Dr. B. R. Ambedkar faced discrimination as an “untouchable”. As an “untouchable” you are a low caste therefore you are not able to own lands and discriminated by other people in the society. When he was in school, the “touchable” and the “untouchable” is separated, the “untouchable” will be sitting outside the class at the hall wall for class then the “touchable” will sitting inside the class comfortably for lecture. His hard work help him get into college in U.S. for higher education and he studied political and economic. Ambedkar helped to stop discrimination in the country. Ambedkar became a law minister and played a big role in making the Constitution and the Hindu Code Bill.

    5.Find out about and make brief notes on the position of the Dalits in Indian society and politics since Nehru’s time.
    -- There’s not a big change in the Dalits in Indian society and politics. People still treated differently, the Dalits were able to had equal education and treated fairly like others. The benefits that they provided are healthcare and stable homes. But if there’s one Indian ever discriminated and treated people disrespectfully then you would be in prison.

    Work Cited:
    - Political, Social and Economic Challenges Packet

    ReplyDelete
  13. Carlos Callejas
    1. There is a saying that "language is power." Why do people whose language is not officially recognized feel disempowered? What disadvantages do they suffer? What are the advantages and disadvantages to a country of having a large number of official languages?
    They feel disempowered because, at its essence, non-recognition means that the community does not acknowledge said people’s voice, their sovereignty or their power. Moreover, language is tied to culture, which further feeds the problem and can even cause violence between cultures (languages). Finally, language is indeed power, people whose language is not recognized will be lost! They have few means of conveying ideas outside of their community and have to resort to learning a major language to communicate (this can also seen as bastardization of their culture by some).
    2. Nehru is reported to have told the French writer, Andre Malraux, that the most difficult task he faced was creating a secular state in a religious country. Explain what he meant by this remark.
    “Secular” means to not be affiliated to any religion and tolerate each other. This is the exact opposite of the situation in India! India has had a millenary religious tradition, which has clashed with Islam and Sikhism for ages. These deeply rooted issues remain even today to a lesser extent than previous years. Making a deeply religious country secular is an almost impossible task.
    3. Having read this unit, explain how appropriate it is to consider each of these as an "axis of conflict" in Indian society: religion, language, caste, class and gender.
    Religion is perhaps the greatest axis of conflict in India, the conflict between Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs has been going on for many years and has taken many lives and caused pain to many more. Language is a minor axis of conflict, it drives people to demand the recognition of their state but not to the amount of conflict and violence that religion causes. Caste and class are lesser axes of conflict, since they have millenary bases which were seldom challenged until western ideas were introduced. Gender
    4. Find out what you can about the life of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar - the discrimination he faced as an "untouchable"; his distinguished academic career; his contribution to democracy in India; and his disillusion with the Congress Party and with Hinduism.
    Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was a Dalit, an untouchable. This meant he was dishonored and “sick” according to Indian society due to the lowly jobs his parents performed, and as a consequence he was to perform as well. Dalits were not allowed in many buildings, temples, they could not own land, not even roads! He formed the Scheduled Caste Federation for the equal treatment of people of all castes in India, a situation very hard to improve for reasons aforementioned. His disappointment in Hinduism came from the unfairness of the caste system and the fact that despite his academic and political achievement as a Dalit, culturally, he could never change his caste and his situation would remain the same.
    5. Find out about and make brief notes on the position of the Dalits in Indian society and politics since Nehru's time.
    Dalits, the untouchables, have since been granted a few more rights and privileges since Nehru’s period of government. They have been granted access to schools and some markets and resources, but to a limited extent. Dalits are still being treated as outcasts even to this date. Some such as Dr. Ambedkar have achieved education out of India to overcome their situation there, but these cases are very few.
    SOURCES: “Political, Social, and Economical Challenges” packet.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Junior FanFan
    Ms.Noce
    IB History
    October 14,2014


    There is a saying that "language is power." Why do people whose language is not officially recognized feel disempowered? What disadvantages do they suffer? What are the advantages and disadvantages to a country of having a large number of official languages?
    People whose language is not officially recognized feel disempowered because they feel like minorities to others that speak the native language and sometimes feel left out. The biggest disadvantage these people feel is not having authority our having the confidence to be a leader and take action. This happened between the Nehru and Sikhs, both these countries wanted their independent state the Sikhs wanted to separate from India and become Khalistan. Nehru didn’t accept this because he was against the idea of creating independent states. One advantage that was really good was having a mixture of languages in one place it showed the melting pot of the country. This was also good because their was no one language that was spoken for example in America the common language is english this language dominates over all the other ones. So this was good because no one language dominates over all the other ones. The disadvantage of this was people becoming to think of them as different and creating religions and beliefs and laws. 7% of India had many different religions and cultures that were in place.

    Nehru is reported to have told the French writer, Andre Malraux, that the most difficult task he faced was creating a secular state in a religious country. Explain what he meant by this remark.
    Every since Nehru came into power over India his main goal over everything else was to make India a secular and independent state. India’s biggest beliefs was religion and they were either Muslim or Hindus. This was a very challenging task for Nehru because you can’t take people away from their religions back then because religion was all that people had and all they went by.

    Having read this unit, explain how appropriate it is to consider each of these as an "axis of conflict" in Indian society: religion, language, caste, class and gender.
    Religion was the cause of all mayhem the only two religions was Hindu and Muslims. these two religions always disagreed on things and that caused violence and tension. Women also had no power in India, the men of the India had all the power they controlled absolutely everything and women had no say in what laws were being made and what the men were doing to the economy. The untouchables also denied people the right to own land, entering village wells and temples.

    Find out what you can about the life of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar - the discrimination he faced as an "untouchable"; his distinguished academic career; his contribution to democracy in India;; and his disillusion with the Congress Party and with Hinduism
    Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was discriminated because his home was an untouchable. He became a respected leader in the events that took place against the caste system and banning the “untouchables”. Dr. B.R. had a great academic career despite the struggle stopping the caste system. In 1914-1916 he went to the university of Colombia and he received his doctorate. Ambedkar contributed to India by starting the movement to stopping the untouchables. The movements to stopping the caste system was a fail because after independence in 1947 it was still alive and was in many rural areas.

    Find out about and make brief notes on the position of the Dalits in Indian society and politics since Nehru's time.
    After Nehru’s time the Dalits didn’t really change in Indian society and politics. The Dalits were able to have equal rights and education just like every other citizen in India. They provided healthcare and stable homes for people to live in. You were put into prison if anybody was discriminated or mistreated by anyone else.

    work cited:
    - Political, Social and Economic Challenges Packet

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  15. Erick Volquez
    IB History 12
    Ms. Noce
    India 1947-1964

    1. When I come to think about Language being power and how those countries have a huge disadvantage when they have diverse languages, a lot comes to mind. First and for most we know that a nation who has diverse cultures and languages gets to grown more in the fields of economy for the tremendous out spur of migration; like the United States. Having diverse languages gives the country a well known status showing that there is different art, science, translators, doctors and many fields that the country would not have if there wasn’t a migration of these people. Back then, migration wasn’t something that would you’ll see a lot the central idea of every country was communication threw the main language which was power. Back then, having a central language would give the country to have a strong communication among each other which would accelerate the work and immediate things when making the country recognized as a stable and well developed one. The only advantages to that were really that people would be able to communicate but there would be many disadvantages because they would close their understanding. For example, there could be a minority of foreign language citizens who have strong pottering and craftsmanship but that would not help the country because they would not be able to communicate. This is why there is a slight advantage that a country could build itself but at the end, the diversity it’s what produces more knowledge which is why language is power.
    2. India is considered and recognized around the world, not only for being one of the biggest Democracy in the world, they are known for their divinity in spirituality and their deity to Hinduism. When Nehru states these words to the French writer, Nehru wants to state that he wants a separation of religion and state. It’s not that Nehru wanted Hinduism to be abolished because (trust me) if he took out religion, he wouldn’t have gotten support from the country since still today religion is above the government. Nehru wanted the separation of religion and state because the religion aspect of India demanded people to live how they where, simple and with no understanding of advancement; Nehru respected these religious ideals but he wanted to make the country stable and recognized globally. Religion wasn’t a simply a practice, it was their life so Nehru really wanted to break religion’s power over the government, just to make it secular.
    3. In the Indian Society there were mayor axis of conflict which were by Language, gender, religion, caste and class. The Axis of conflict between Languages was that India was separated between four tongues which are Ancient Arabic and Hindu and then modern Arabic and Hindu which erupted problems since both couldn’t really understand themselves. The Axis conflict of gender derived from Men and Women differences and rights. Men didn’t want to give women the rights which of course weren’t passive; it was very brutal bringing death among them. The Axis of conflict coming from religion derived from Muslim and Hinduism. Mohammad threw God (Muslims) Polytheism, self identification of gods and goddesses (Hinduism) two very different believes. This caused problems because both races living together began to have problems due to their believes; this was because religion was and still is the most important to both ethnic groups. The Axis of conflict of caste wasn’t mayor compared to the other ones but it still was a problem. This was because there wasn’t a good separation of societal separations which influence the Rich to complain and push the poor away. Finally, the Axis of conflict in terms of class was also together with the idea of caste because class was starting to become a huge problem since people wanted separation.

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  16. 4. B.R Ambedkar (Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar) was known as an Indian Jurist, politician and social reformer who pushed for the uprising Modern Buddhist Movement and was greatly involved in the social discrimination campaigns in India (women discrimination). He was also known as the Babasaheb “the untouchable one”. It wasn’t that he was picky on who he talked to or was too proud to be around people that were bellow his status, people were just jelous because he did a lot. His academic carreer was of a law degree which at the time was very prestigious and good to have. He became an Indian Jurist in the Indian courts but he thought that this wasn’t enough. He considered having two more goals and path which were to work with the community and he found the opportunity to do it by the discrimination campaigns and also to get involved with changing India. Since he was already pushing for the Buddhist new movement; he wanted to make sure to contribute his ideas to the democratic reform movement which he contributed a lot by being involved in their campaigns and supporting 100% from where he was. He was very upset with the Congress party and Hinduism because when the congress party saw that his mayor accomplishment was going to be to introduce Buddhism, they didn’t accepted and put a stop to his coalition with them.
    5. The Dalit was a group of people who lived in India that had a difficult time in India. These people where named Dalit because a Dalit is a place where the lowest of lowest go, a place where those people lived and if they were seen they couldn’t be touched.and surprisingly, this group of people was conpossed of many different regions of india. Not only where they from different regions but they also spoke different languages which made it difficult to understand each other. This was a headache for those who practiced Hinduism in these groups because the rest of them practiced many other religions. In Nehru’s time, Nehru felt bad for these people and to make it of equality he dictated that those who hurt a Dalit civilian would suffer the consequences because even if they were of lower class and untouchable, they were human. Nehru made sure that these people had the opportunity to be able to shop among others and do things freely.

    WORK CITED:
    -Packet given in class “Political, Social and Economic Challenges Packet”

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  17. Dinia Clairveaux
    IB World History 12
    Ms. Noce
    10/14/2014

    India 1947-64: Political, Social and Economic Challenges

    1.There is a saying that “language is power.” Why do people whose language is not officially recognized feel disempowered? What disadvantages do they suffer? What are the advantages and disadvantages to country of having a large number of official languages?
    -- The reason why people whose language isn't officially recognize is because
    not many people are expose to the language and therefore it isn't spoken by the majority of the population. What I mean to say is that if the language isn't approved by the majority of the population it will be unrecognized. The advantages are that they are very more jobs in communications. The country have a lot of different cultures meaning different morals, values and traditions that comes with them.
    2.Nehru is reported to have told the French writer, Andre Malraux, that the most difficult task he faced was creating a secular state in a religious country. Explain what he meant by this remark.
    -- He meant that it was a difficult process of making India into a secular State because India contains a nation that is base of religion and to tell the nation that religion is a private practice would bring a lot of conflict and opposition.
    3.Having read this unit, explain how appropriate it is to consider each of these as an “axis of conflict” in Indian society: religion, language, caste, class and gender.
    -- Religion played a very important role in Indian society because the country was originally created base of the partitioning of different religious groups into their own nation. Language people played the role of communication in India it was a way of knowing and achieving and advocating what the Indian people wanted from the there government. Class role in India was to identify the peasants the middle class and the affluent from each other, usually the rich had all the good benefits the country has to offer. Gender in India was a huge thing because it was a male dominant society where the women had no voice, was viewed as property and had no right of ownership of anything including land. Until Nehru went and made laws to help aid the women of India in society.
    4.Find out what you can about the life of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar - the discrimination he faced as an “untouchable”; his distinguished academic career: his contribution to democracy in India; and his disillusion with the Congress Party and with Hinduism.
    -- As an untouchable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar was discriminated also deprived of allot of privileges that other citizens had like land ownership, enter the temples and use the wells.and roads. He was involved in the creation of the Hindu Code Bill also he participated in the creation of the Indian constitution.
    5.Find out about and make brief notes on the position of the Dalits in Indian society and politics since Nehru’s time.
    -- To this day Dalits are still being discriminated some still can't own their own land and also they are still deprived of the natural resources. And yet the make up a great amount of the Indian population.

    Work Cited:
    - Political, Social and Economic Challenges Packet

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  18. Naomie Bourdeau
    IB World History
    Ms.Noce
    10/14/2014
    India 1947-64: Political, Social and Economic Challenges

    1. There is a saying that "language is power." Why do people whose language is not officially recognized feel disempowered? What disadvantages do they suffer? What are the advantages and disadvantages to a country of having a large number of official languages?

    -After Gandhi’s assassination there were some really intense feelings about language, which led to people feeling disempowered because there language was not recognized. The reason why they felt that way was because before Gandhi had died, he supported the idea of separate states for different languages. These people wanted there state boundaries to be re-drawn “along linguistic lines, so that their states”. They faced many disadvantages, because they had to work so hard. Now that Nehru was ruling he was really “uneasy” about any subsequent sub-divisions on language. So people had to really fight for what they wanted. For, example Potti Sriramulu was actually one of the leaders who “fasted to death” in protesting against the governments refusal. There are many advantages/disadvantages when a country has a large number of official languages because it the use of an official language can perpetuate the division. Also it cause conflict between educated people that know different languages in the same country.
    2. Nehru is reported to have told the French writer, Andre Malraux, that the most difficult task he faced was creating a secular state in a religious country. Explain what he meant by this remark.
    -Nehru meant was that it was hard for him to separate a religious country because ,when you have people that is really tied up in a religion it’s going to be hard to make their state secular. Nehru was really committed to secularism. He had to work really hard to denounce it repeadeatly in radio broadcast, in parliament, even in public speeches. So he had to work to get the message across.
    3. Having read this unit, explain how appropriate it is to consider each of these as an "axis of conflict" in Indian society: religion, language, caste, class and gender.
    -For religion, it cause an axis of conflict in Indian Society because Nehru had to face many obstacles to get India a secular state, because it was very sacred. Language, many people felt that there language was not recognized so they fought until they got what they wanted. Some people died trying to get their language recognized. Gender, Nehru had numerous improvements for girls so that they would attend school. Men did not want women to have the same privilege as them so it effected there class of rank.

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  19. 4.Find out what you can about the life of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar - the discrimination he faced as an “untouchable”; his distinguished academic career: his contribution to democracy in India; and his disillusion with the Congress Party and with Hinduism
    - Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was a Dalit, and he was untouchable. It actually meant that he was despoiled and “sick” according to Indian society. Because of his parents had low ranks and their jobs were not the best. Dalit’s were actually not allowed in many temples, they couldn’t even own land. He formed the Scheduled Caste Federation for the equal treatment 4.Find out what you can about the life of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar - the discrimination of people of all castes in India. That was very hard for him to improve. He was really upset with Hinduism due to the unfairness of the caste system and the simple fact that despite his academic and political achievement as a Dalit, culturally, he could never change his caste and his position would remain the same. No matter what he did?
    5. Find out about and make brief notes on the position of the Dalits in Indian society and politics since Nehru's time.
    - Since Dalit was a group of people who actually lived in India, they had a difficult time in India also. They got the name Dalit because a Dalit is a place where “the lowest of lowest go, a place where those people lived and if they were seen they couldn’t be touched”. This group of people was composed of many different regions of India. Not only where they from different regions but they also spoke different languages which made it difficult to understand each other. This was a struggle for those who practiced Hinduism in these groups because the rest of them practiced many other religions. Nehru felt depraved for these people and to make it of equality he verbalized that those who hurt a Dalit civilian would suffer the consequences because even if they were of lower class and untouchable, they were human. He made sure that these people had the opportunity to be able to shop among others and do things easily. He protected them with all his might.
    Work Cited
    Packet “Political, Social, and Economic Challenges

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  20. Victor Harris
    Oct 15,2014
    Ms.Noce
    (Sorry for the late response, nusre said don't do no work)

    There is a saying that "language is power." Why do people whose language is not officially recognized feel disempowered? What disadvantages do they suffer? What are the advantages and disadvantages to a country of having a large number of official languages?

    -Language everywhere is power but also sometimes disapproved. Reason why;some people can't speak the language so wouldn't care on what their saying. This is why they feel disapproved, or unwanted because there kind is not understood. Disadvantages like getting made phone of because of there speech and be excluded on things they feel, they should be apart of. Even so there are good advantages for people with different languages, like trying to teach others and if they can speak english and another can talk for someone who can't understand english. A disadvantage, I can say for America, jobs would pick people who can do multiple languages because our world is not just based on one language.


    Nehru is reported to have told the French writer, Andre Malraux, that the most difficult task he faced was creating a secular state in a religious country. Explain what he meant by this remark.

    -What Nehru means by this remark because it was hard while communalism was there. Communalism was basically a group that only wanted one religion or group instead of having multiples. Nehru had to work hard for this and it wasn't easy. 80% of India was Hindu, so communalism believed it was only right to have India full Hindu. Nehru thought otherwise and wanted everything to be equal. But it seems it didn't play a major role in til he died.

    Having read this unit, explain how appropriate it is to consider each of these as an "axis of conflict" in Indian society: religion, language, caste, class and gender.

    -Well axis of conflict in my opinion are not in Indain. To other nations, yes it might be axis of conflict. You have to think before Nehru or anybody wanted to fix the problems this is how everything was. In religion the only reason why people said keep India Hindu because that was the largest population and was for a long time. Gender was always a problem because again people let it and India's economy wasn't good so that's why only man had jobs and worked hard. Didn't see problems with language but was probably hard because of different groups that India had.

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  21. Find out what you can about the life of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar - the discrimination he faced as an "untouchable"; his distinguished academic career; his contribution to democracy in India;; and his disillusion with the Congress Party and with Hinduism.

    -He was leading campaigner in the Rights of Dalits. He also served as law minster in the first government, than also played a leading role in the India's constitution. As in untouchable couldn't own land,temples or use the common resources;like wells and roads." He was largely responsible for drawing up the Hindu Code Bill, and he resigned when the government withdraw it in the face of heated opposition".


    Find out about and make brief notes on the position of the Dalits in Indian society and politics since Nehru's time.

    -Well at first the Dalits didn't have no rights. As I said early, they couldn't own land, enter temples or use the villagers stuff. But later on they started to get respect, for example if somebody discriminated against them they would be punish and go to jail. Also had the benfits to do the stuff the other people could do.

    Work Cited:
    Handout from class

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