Telangana SCERT Solution Class VIII (8) Social Studies Chapter-20 (Understanding Secularism)
1) List the different types of religious practices that you find being practiced in your neighborhood. They could be different forms of prayers, worship of different gods, sacred sites, different kinds of religious music and singing. Does this indicate freedom of religious practice?
Answer – The Hindus sing bhajans and perform pujas to pray to their god. They worship different gods like Krishna, Vishnu, Saraswathi, Shiva, Lakshmi, and others. Sacred sites of the Hindus are Varanasi, Haridwa and etc
The Muslims pray by offering namaaz five times a day. They worship to Allah. Sacred sites of the Muslims are Mecca, Dargahs & etc
The temples, mosques in my locality indicate that all citizens are able to practise their religion with freedom in a secular environment.
2) Will the government intervene if some religious group says that their religion allows them to practice infanticide? Give reasons for your answer.
Answer –
Yes the government will intervene if some religious group says that their religion allows them to practise infanticide because we live in a democratic & secular country where the government has established Fundamental Right to Life and such Practise are against the right. Infanticide involves the killing of an innocent child and hence it is unacceptable so the government has to interfere by enforcement or strict laws.It is considered to be an unethical crimeand it is strictly prohibited in India.
3) Find out some examples of different views within the same religion.
Answer
The examples are:
In the Muslim religion some of the people believe in Parda system whereas others don’t. Some of the Muslim let woman gets educated whereas some don’t.
In the Hindu religion we celebrate the same festivals but in different ways and we worship different god according to our region. Some of the Hindu still practice untouchability and some don’t.
4) The Indian State both keeps away from religion as well as intervenes in religion. This idea can be quite confusing. Discuss this once again in the class using examples from the chapter as well as those that you might have come up with.
Answer-
They are as follow:
- The Constitution gives right to religious communities to set up their own educational centre and provides them with financial help without any discrimination.
- The Constitution bans ‘untouchability’ to create equality in the Nation.
- The Indian State has to check that no religious community dominate other community and if some community does they have to control them.
- The Constitution makes certain exceptions for particular religious community and doesn’t interfere in their practices
5) Read the paragraph under the heading ‘What is Secularism?’ and comment on it.
Answer- Secularism refers to the distinction of religion from the State that means that the government stays away from different religious practices of the people.The Constitution gives every citizen the right of freedom to live by their religious beliefs & practices as they interpret them. To bring religious freedom for all, constitution has adopted strategy of separating the power of religion and the power of the State. Secularism means every religion can practice its own belief and the govt. won’t interfere until it doesn’t break any fundamental rights.