Class 6 Social Science Chapter 10: Grassroots Democracy — Part 1: Governance

Start with the crowd

People have lived together in communities for a very long time. That is where this chapter begins, and it begins there for a reason. The moment many people share a life, something appears that a single person never needs.

Why anything is needed at all

Put a great many people in one place and disagreements start, with disorder behind them. Some way of settling matters becomes necessary. That is the whole argument for rules, and it is worth noticing that it has nothing to do with punishment.

Order and harmony

Rules exist to keep order and harmony in a society. Two words, and they are not the same. Order is things running as they should, so that a road or a school or an office works at all. Harmony is people getting along while they do. A society can have one without the other, which is why both are named. Rules aim at the two together.

Rules where you already live

You need not look far for examples. At home there are probably one or two plain rules you are meant to keep. Your school has rules too, some meant for students and some meant for teachers.

And beyond school

In higher classes, anyone sitting an examination has rules to keep. So has every driver on the road. People in every kind of job follow rules set by their employer, and the employer in turn must keep the rules promised to the employees.

Both directions

That last example is the one to hold. Rules are not simply handed downwards from the powerful to everybody else. An employer is bound by commitments too. The same idea returns later in the chapter, on a much larger scale.

The test question

Now the chapter asks a blunt question. What would happen if nobody followed any of those rules? The answer given is short and gives no comfort. Society would not be able to function.

Three words to separate

From here the chapter introduces three terms that examinations love to confuse. They arrive within a few sentences of each other and they are not interchangeable. Take them one at a time.

Governance

Governance is a process. It is the taking of decisions, the ordering of how a society lives, through one set of rules and another, and the work of seeing that they are actually kept. All three parts belong to it. Deciding alone is not governance.

Government

A government is different. It is the body of people, or the system, that frames the rules and ensures they are kept. So governance is what is being done, and a government is who does it. Keep that sentence.

Law

The third word is the narrowest. The rules that matter most are the ones we call laws. This means every law is a rule, but a great many rules are not laws. The rule about your school uniform is not a law.

Nothing is settled for ever

Finally, the chapter adds something important. Rules and laws are not set once and for all. They can be argued with, and changed, and the chapter gives you three examples of how, going from small to large.

From a kitchen to a country

At home you might take a rule up with your parents. A student body might ask its school or university to change a rule. And the citizens of a country get a say in the laws they live under. The scale changes; the principle does not.

The questions ahead

Who frames the rules, and why? By what process are they made? Those are the questions the chapter sets itself. The rest of it is the answer, and it starts by splitting a government into three parts.

Scenario:

A class is told to run its own library corner for a month with no rules at all. In the first week books go missing and two children argue over the same title. The class then writes three rules and appoints somebody to apply them. The arguing stops. Their teacher asks what the second week added. The children answer that it added rules, and Nita adds that it also added a person whose job was to apply them. The class separates the two ideas. Rules say what should happen, and governance is somebody being responsible for seeing that it does, which is why writing rules alone had not been enough.

Analysis:

The first week showed why rules are needed and the second showed that rules are not self-enforcing. Governance is the part that makes a written rule take effect.

Activity:

Write three rules for a shared space in your school. Beside each, name who would be responsible for applying it.

Title:

The rules you live under

What You Notice:

Almost nothing on the list turns out to be a law, which is exactly the chapter's point that laws are a small group inside a much larger one. The third column is the interesting part: most people cannot say who made the rules they keep every day, and the last step turns that from a gap into a question worth asking.

Employers set rules for the people they employ. But employers must also keep the rules they have committed to, so it runs both ways.

The chapter's answer to what would happen if nobody followed the rules is very short: society would not be able to function.

A student body may ask a school or university to change a rule. Citizens can do the same with the laws of a country.

Governance and government — One is the doing, one is the doer — Governance is the process of deciding, organising and enforcing. A government is the people or system doing it. Confusing them is the commonest error in this chapter.

Rules and laws — All laws are rules; not all rules are laws — Laws are the more important rules. Your school's rule about uniforms is a rule but not a law.

One word, three parts

The previous topic left a government defined as whoever makes the rules and sees them kept. That is a useful definition and it hides something. A government is not one body doing one job. It has three branches, and the chapter calls them organs.

Why the word organ

The word is well chosen. Organs in a body are distinct from one another, each doing work the others cannot, and yet they belong to a single living thing. A government's three organs are exactly like that, as the end of this topic makes clear.

The legislature

The first is the legislature, and it is the organ that makes new laws. The verb is legislating, and the name contains it. It does not only add. Sometimes it also updates laws already in force, or removes them altogether.

Who does that work

Importantly, the chapter says who. Law-making falls to an assembly made up of the people's representatives. Not by an official, and not by one person. That phrase, representatives of the people, comes back in the last topic of this chapter and matters a great deal there.

The executive

The second organ is the executive, which implements the laws. Again the verb sits in the name: it executes them. A law that nobody carries out changes nothing, so this organ is what turns words into action.

Who belongs to it

The executive is broader than people expect. It includes the head of state — a president, or a prime minister, or a chief minister. It includes the ministers. And it includes whatever agency is charged with enforcing law and order.

An example of such an agency

The chapter's own example is the cyber police, the force that handles crimes committed through digital means. They are not lawmakers and they are not judges. They enforce, which places them squarely inside the executive.

The judiciary

The third organ is the judiciary, and the chapter defines it as the system of courts. Its first job is the familiar one. It decides whether the law has been broken and, if it has, what should then be done, including punishment where that is necessary.

Its second job

But there is a second job, and it is the one students forget. Sometimes the judiciary also looks at whether a decision the executive took was right. It may also examine whether a law the legislature has passed is soundly framed, and fair to everybody.

Look at what that means

Read that again. The third organ can look at the work of the other two and question it. A court may ask whether a minister's decision was proper, and whether an assembly's law is fair. That is not interference; it is the design.

Keeping them separate

In a system of good governance, the chapter says, these three organs must be kept separate. The three must not be in the same hands. This separation has a name, and it is one worth learning exactly: the separation of powers.

But not isolated

Separate does not mean cut off. The chapter is careful here. The organs still interact with each other and work together. They simply may not take over one another's roles, which is a different thing from refusing to cooperate.

Checks and balances

Separating them is what creates the checks and the balances. Each organ can look at what the other two are doing, and pull things back into balance when one of them steps past the role it was given. Checking, and then correcting.

Why it matters

Imagine one set of people holding all three organs at once. The same hands would write the law, carry it out and judge whether it had been broken. There would be nobody left to question anything, and no way to restore a balance once lost.

The pattern to carry forward

So a government divides its work three ways, and then keeps the three apart on purpose. The next topic does something similar with a different cut. It divides the same government not by the kind of work, but by how far the work reaches.

Scenario:

A state has a problem with waste being dumped in a river. Its assembly debates the matter for two sittings and passes a new law. Under it, no factory may release untreated water into any river in the state, and a fine follows each offence. The state's minister for the environment then sets up an inspection wing of forty officers to visit factories and test the water they release. Within six months the wing reports three factories. Two pay the fine. The third goes to court, arguing that its treatment plant was already approved by the same department that is now fining it. The court hears both sides. It finds the factory did breach the law, but also finds that the department's approval was given carelessly, and orders the department to review how approvals are granted.

Analysis:

All three organs appear here, doing exactly the work this topic describes. The assembly is the legislature, and it made a new law. The minister and the inspection wing are the executive, implementing that law, the wing being an agency enforcing law and order. The court is the judiciary, and it does both of its jobs in one hearing. It decides whether the law was broken, which is the first job, and it examines whether an executive decision was right, which is the second. Its order to review the approvals is checks and balances in action: one organ noticing another going wrong, and restoring the balance.

Activity:

Draw three boxes labelled legislature, executive and judiciary, and place every actor from this story in the right box. Then add one arrow for each moment when an organ checked another, and label what it checked.

The judiciary does two jobs, not one. Besides deciding whether a person broke the law, it can ask whether a law the legislature passed is fair to everybody.

Separating the organs does not mean they ignore each other. They interact and work together, but none may take over another's role.

The chapter's own example of an enforcement agency is the cyber police, who handle crimes committed using digital means.

The three organs — Make, carry out, judge — The legislature makes the law, the executive carries it out, the judiciary judges under it. Three verbs, one for each organ, and the names almost say it themselves.

Legislate and execute — The verb is hiding in the name — A legislature legislates, meaning it makes laws. An executive executes, meaning it implements them. The judiciary's name comes from judging.

A second way of cutting

The last topic divided a government into three organs, according to the kind of work each does. This topic divides the very same government again, but along a different line. Not by what the work is, but by how far it reaches.

Levels, or tiers

Any democratic government operates at more than one level. In many countries, India among them, it works at three levels, which are also called tiers. The word tier suggests layers stacked one above another, and that is the picture intended.

Which three

The three are the local, the state or regional, and the national. Each level deals with different matters. That last sentence is the whole point of having more than one, and everything else in this topic illustrates it.

Why not have just one

Before the examples, notice the difficulty. A single national government would have to handle a blocked drain in one street and a war on the border with the same machinery. Neither job would be done well. That is the problem tiers solve.

A bulb that will not light

The chapter's first illustration is deliberately small. Suppose a bulb in your home does not light up. What do you do? You do not begin by writing to anybody. You begin close to hand.

Step by step

First you check the bulb itself, then the switch, then the fuse. If none of that works, an electrician is the next step. And if it turns out the problem is not inside your home at all, the Electricity Board is where a complaint must be filed.

What the bulb shows

These are three levels of dealing with one problem. You do not skip to the last, and you do not stay stuck at the first. You move outward only when the level you are at cannot solve it. Government works the same way.

The three in India

In India there are local governments, State governments, and the Central or Union government. Note that last point: Central and Union are two names for the same thing, and papers use both. Local government sits nearest to people, at the town or village.

A flood, three responses

The second illustration is larger and more serious. Imagine heavy rain for several days, and then a flood in part of a district. What happens next depends entirely on how big the flood is.

When it is not severe

Where the water does not rise far, the local authorities alone may be able to cope. Nothing further is needed. The nearest level of government handles a problem of its own size.

When several towns are hit

If the flood involves several towns and many villages, that is beyond a local body. The State Government steps in and sends rescue teams to help the people affected. The problem has grown, so the level responding grows with it.

When vast areas are affected

And if it is the water covers vast areas, the Central Government too may step in with help. It can send relief supplies, and it can send the army. These are resources no local body or State keeps ready on this scale.

The word also

Read that sentence carefully. The Central Government may come and help as well. The State does not stop working when the Centre arrives, and neither does the local authority. The levels add to one another rather than replacing each other.

Two mottoes

The chapter now adds something that looks like a detour and is not. Many Indian institutions have mottoes drawn from the wisdom of our ancient texts. Two are given, and both are worth learning with their meanings.

Satyameva Jayate

The motto of the Government of India is Satyameva Jayate: truth, and nothing else, prevails. It belongs to the government as a whole, not to any one organ or level of it.

Yato Dharmastato Jayah is the motto of the Supreme Court: victory follows wherever dharma is. You met dharma in an earlier chapter as doing one's duty, and here it stands over the highest court in the country.

What is left for later

The chapter is honest about what it is not covering. The details of these levels, including the precise role of the assemblies, are left for Grade 7. Local government is set aside here because the next two chapters examine it closely.

Scenario:

A class lists problems in its area and decides who should fix each one. A broken street light, a bus route, and a national highway all appear. The children find they cannot send every problem to the same place. Their teacher asks them to sort the list by how far the problem reaches. The street light affects one lane, the bus route a district, and the highway several states. The class matches each to a level of government. Rohit sees why three tiers exist rather than one. A single office would be too far away to know about the street light and too small to plan the highway.

Analysis:

The three tiers are not duplication. Each problem has a reach, and the level that can see it is rarely the level that can fund the largest one.

Activity:

List four problems near you. Mark how far each one reaches and which level of government should handle it.

Title:

Which level would you go to?

What You Notice:

The rows with two ticks are the interesting ones, because they are exactly the cases the chapter's word also describes: a higher level joining in without the lower one stopping. The hardest problems to place are usually those that sit on a boundary, which is why the chapter leaves the detailed division of functions to the next topic rather than to guesswork.

Many Indian institutions take their mottoes from ancient texts. Both mottoes in this chapter are examples of that practice.

The chapter deliberately leaves local government out of its table of functions, because the next two chapters look at it closely.

The details of the three levels, including exactly what the assemblies do, are left to be studied in Grade 7.

The three levels — Nearest, middle, widest — Local at the town or village, State across a region, Central for the nation. The order runs outward from where you stand.

Two mottoes — Truth for the Government, dharma for the Court — Satyameva Jayate, truth alone triumphs, belongs to the Government of India. Yato Dharmastato Jayah, where there is dharma there is victory, belongs to the Supreme Court.

Putting the two divisions together

You now have two ways of dividing a government. Three organs, by the kind of work, and three levels, by how far it reaches. This topic lays one across the other and asks a simple question: at each level, what is each organ called, and what does it do?

What the table leaves out

One thing is missing on purpose. Local government does not appear, because the next two chapters of the book look at it closely. So the table covers the national and State levels only, and the two together.

The judiciary, first

Start with the judiciary, because it is the simplest. For the whole country there is the Supreme Court of India. At the State level there is the High Court. Two names, two reaches, and no confusion possible between them.

The legislature at the Centre

The national legislature has two houses. They are the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, and together they formulate national laws. A house, the glossary explains, is the chamber in which laws are debated and voted through.

The legislature in a State

A State has one State Assembly, called the Vidhan Sabha. Here the chapter adds a careful note, and it is the sort of note examiners like. A single assembly is the rule; only a handful of States run two.

The executive: two heads at each level

Now the part that causes most trouble. At each level the executive has not one head but two, and they do different things. One is nominal and one is executive, and the words must not be swapped.

At the Centre

The Central Government is led by the President of India, who is the nominal head. The President is also Supreme Commander of the Indian Armed Forces. The Prime Minister is the executive head, and that is who actually leads the government.

In a State

A State Government follows the same shape exactly. It is led by the Governor, who is the nominal head. The Chief Minister is the executive head. Learn the two pairs together, since one is a copy of the other.

What nominal means

The glossary is precise. Nominal means in name only. Neither the President of India nor a Governor of a State really heads the executive. They do hold certain powers under special circumstances, but normally they do not interfere in the affairs of their government.

The Central subjects

Now the functions, and the chapter warns that its list is not exhaustive. The Central Government handles defence, foreign affairs, atomic energy, communications, currency and inter-state commerce. It also handles education, and the formulation of national policies.

Why those subjects

Look at the pattern rather than memorising blindly. Defence and foreign affairs reach outside the country. Currency and inter-state commerce cross state lines. Atomic energy and communications are national systems. Nothing on that list can sensibly stop at a state border.

The State subjects

A State Government handles police, and law and order. It takes the laws the Centre makes, adapts them, and puts them into effect within the State. It also handles public health, education, agriculture, irrigation and local government.

One subject on both lists

Read those two lists again and you will find education on each. That is not a misprint. Education is a Central responsibility and a State responsibility at the same time, which is why schooling looks different from state to state within one national framework.

Notice the second item on the State list, because it is easy to skim past. A State adapts and implements laws made by the Centre. So a State is not only making its own arrangements; it is also the hands through which national law reaches people.

Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

The chapter ends this section with a person, and for a reason. Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was born in 1931 at Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu, to a family of modest means. He became a scientist of great repute, known as the Missile Man of India for his part in the country's space, missile and nuclear work.

A nominal head who mattered

He held office as India's 11th President between 2002 and 2007. High status notwithstanding, he stayed close to people, and to the young in particular, and his passion for good education and for innovation. He urged young Indians to dream big and to work hard.

Why he appears here

The chapter states the point itself. Dr Kalam showed that a nominal office need not be an idle one, and that a President could still matter and touch countless lives. Nominal describes the office, not the person holding it.

Scenario:

A sudden shortage of a common medicine hits the whole country. The national legislature debates the matter and passes a law fixing a maximum price. The Central Government then negotiates with two foreign suppliers, to bring stock in quickly. Meanwhile each State must get the medicine to its own clinics. Each must also check that no chemist charges above the fixed price. State health departments and State police are both drawn in. In one State a chemist is found charging four times the price. He is prosecuted. His case is heard first by a lower court, and then on appeal by that State's highest court. He then petitions the country's highest court, arguing that the price law is unfair to small shops.

Analysis:

Almost every row of the chapter's table appears in this one story. The national legislature passing the price law is the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha at work. Negotiating with foreign suppliers is foreign affairs, a Central subject. Getting medicine to clinics is public health. Prosecuting the chemist involves police, and law and order. Both are State subjects. The State health department checking prices is the State executive implementing a law the Centre made. That is the second item on the State list. And the two courts are the High Court and then the Supreme Court of India.

Activity:

Draw the chapter's table with two columns and three rows, then write each actor from this story into the right cell. Mark with a star any cell that the story fills twice.

Education appears on both lists. It is a Central responsibility and a State responsibility at the same time.

The President of India is also the Supreme Commander of the Indian Armed Forces, even while being the nominal head.

Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was India's 11th President between 2002 and 2007, and was nicknamed the Missile Man of India.

Nominal and executive heads — Named, and doing — President and Governor are nominal: heads in name. Prime Minister and Chief Minister are executive: heads who do the work. One pair at each level.

Central subjects — Anything that crosses a border — Defence, foreign affairs, currency and inter-state commerce all cross state lines or reach outside the country, which is why they belong to the Centre.

A phrase you have already met

Earlier in this chapter, when the legislature was introduced, a phrase slipped past: representatives of the people. The chapter now returns to it deliberately, because that phrase is a foundation stone of the system most countries of the world have adopted.

The word itself

That system is democracy, and the word is Greek. It comes from two words: dēmos, which is people, and kratos, which is rule or power. Put them together and the word says, quite literally, rule by the people.

But can they?

The chapter immediately asks a hard question of its own definition. Can all the people actually rule? The answer it gives is blunt. It is clearly not possible, and the reason is worth working out with a small example.

A class with a problem

Suppose your class wants to raise something with the principal. Maybe a classroom needs repair, or one of the school buildings does, or there is a date you want to suggest for the field trip. What happens next?

Not everybody goes

Will the entire class walk to the principal's office? Clearly that would not be practical. Where no class monitor or representative has been elected, a class can simply pick one for this job; many classes already have such a person.

One goes on behalf of all

It will be enough to send that one representative to the principal. Nothing is lost, because the representative carries the class's view rather than their own. That is the whole idea, working at the size of one classroom.

The same principle, scaled up

It is exactly the same at the State or national level. Through elections, people vote for representatives, who become the elected members of their respective assemblies. The classroom has simply grown into a country.

What they are called

The names differ by level. At the State level the usual term is Member of Legislative Assembly, shortened to MLA. At the national level they are called Members of Parliament, or MPs. Two names, two levels.

What they do there

In the assemblies these members take up laws, problems and solutions. And when opinions differ, which they will, they try through dialogue and debate to convince each other. Democracy is talk before it is voting.

India's kind of democracy

Like any modern democracy, India is a representative democracy. That is the label to remember, and it follows directly from the fact that everybody cannot rule at once. Representatives are the practical answer to an impractical ideal.

The largest of them

India is also the world's largest democracy, with roughly 970 million voters by 2024. In principle, every Indian citizen above the age of 18 has the right to take part in those elections. Hold on to that number and that age.

A picnic, and a vote

Now a second small example, making a different point. Your class is planning a picnic and two places are possible, A or B. The class weighs distance, time, cost, the facilities available, and still cannot decide.

Hands in the air

So the teacher settles it by voting. Those in favour of A raise their hands, then those in favour of B. Whichever option gets the larger number of raised hands is chosen. That process is called voting.

Why this one is different

This is a case of direct democracy, because every single student's opinion was taken to settle the matter. Nobody was sent on anybody's behalf. Compare it with the monitor going to the principal and the difference is plain.

Grassroots democracy

The chapter's last term names something else. The term grassroots democracy names a system built to enable, and to encourage, ordinary citizens taking part — the base of that pyramid of levels you met earlier.

Notice that it says enables and encourages. Enabling is making participation possible; encouraging is actively inviting it. A system could do the first without the second, and the chapter asks for both.

What it gives citizens

In such a system, citizens get a voice in the decisions that touch their own lives. That returns the chapter to where it began, with rules not being set once and for all and citizens having a voice in the laws that govern them.

Scenario:

A class is told that democracy comes from the Greek words dēmos, people, and kratos, rule. Imran says that must mean everybody decides everything. Their teacher asks the class to try it, putting a single question to a vote with every child speaking first. It takes most of the period. The class works out what would happen with a village of two thousand, let alone a country. They then look at what is done instead: people choose representatives, and the representatives decide. Imran sees that the word still holds. The power stays with the people, and choosing who exercises it is how that power is made workable.

Analysis:

Imran read the word correctly and drew the wrong conclusion about method. Representation is not a dilution of rule by the people but the arrangement that lets it scale.

Activity:

Put one class decision to a vote twice, once with everybody speaking and once through three chosen representatives. Time both.

Title:

Two ways to decide one thing

What You Notice:

The direct vote is usually faster and feels fairer, which is exactly why it works in a classroom. The representatives take longer, but they argue, and arguing sometimes produces an answer neither side began with, which is what the chapter means by dialogue and debate. The last step is the real lesson: the method that felt fairer in a room of forty is the one that becomes impossible at the size of a country.

India is the world's largest democracy. In 2024 it had some 970 million voters.

In principle, every Indian citizen above the age of 18 has the right to take part in these elections.

Grassroots democracy takes its name from the base of the pyramid of levels, where ordinary citizens are.

The Greek roots — Demos plus kratos — Dēmos is people and kratos is rule or power. Put them together and the word means, quite literally, the rule of the people.

Two kinds of democracy — Hands up, or send somebody — Direct democracy is every hand raised, as in a class vote. Representative democracy is one person sent on behalf of many, as with an MLA or an MP.