What is Government? CBSE Class 6 Civic Chapter 3 Notes

TextbookNCERT
BoardCBSE Board, UP board, JAC board, HBSE Board, Bihar Board, PSEB board, RBSE Board, UBSE Board
Class6th Class
SubjectCivic| Political Science | Social Science
ChapterChapter 3
Chapter NameWhat is Government?
TopicWhat is Government? CBSE Class 6 Civic Chapter 3 Notes
MediumEnglish
Especially Designed Notes forCBSE, ICSE, IAS, NET, NRA, UPSC, SSC, NDA, All Govt. Exam

What is Government?

Government

  • A government is necessary in every country for making decisions and getting things done.
  • The decisions involve issues like building of roads and schools, checking inflation of essential goods like onions, potatoes, supply of water and electricity etc.

Functions of a Government

Some functions of a government are as follow:

  • The government is involved in handling social issues like how to make good programmes for the poor.
    • It also do some important things like running the railway services and postal services.
  • The government has to protect the country’s boundaries and resolve disputes with other countries.
    • It is responsible for the health of the people and ensures that citizens have enough food to eat.
  • If natural disasters like earthquake or tsunami take place, then the government has to organise aid and assistance camps for affected people.
  • The government makes laws for citizens of the country.
    • If there is a dispute or someone has committed a crime, we found that person tried in the court of law.
    • Courts are also a part of the government.

Government performs all the above functions on behalf of its citizens through leadership, taking decisions and implementing programmes among all the people living in their territory.

Levels of Government

Government is responsible for many things and it works at different levels. These are:

  • National level-It is related to the entire country.
  • State level-It covers an entire state like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, etc.
  • Local level – It is related to the village administration, town or locality.

Laws and the Government

  • The government makes laws and regulations which, every citizen is supposed to follow.
    • Laws need to be enforced for proper functioning of the government.
    • Just like the government has the power to take decisions, similarly it has the power to implement those decisions.
  • For example if we ride a bike, then we should have a licence.
    • If someone is caught riding a vehicle without licence, then he/she can either be jailed or fined a large sum of money.
  • The citizen can approach the court if a law is not being followed.
    • For example if someone is not hired for a job because of his religion or caste, he/she may approach the court and claim that the law is not being followed.
    • The court can then give orders about what should be done.

Types of Government

There are two types of government:

1. Democracy

  • In democracy, people elect the government through elections in which they vote for particular persons and elect them.
    • Once elected, these people form the government.
    • In a democracy, the government has to explain each of its actions and has to defend its decisions.

2. Monarchy

  • It is another form of government where the King or Queen has the power to make decisions and run the government.
    • The King or Queen may discuss some matters with his/her feudals/subordinates but the final decision-making power remains with the monarch.
    • The King or Queen does not explain anything to the people and does not explain his/her actions and also have not defend his/her decisions.

Democratic Governments

  • In India there is a democracy.
  • This achievement is the result of long and action packed struggle of the Indian people.
  • There are many other places where people have also struggled to have democracies.
  • Main feature of the democracy is that the people have the power to elect their leader.
  • The basic idea is that people rule themselves by participating in the making of rules.

Universal Adult Franchise

  • Nowadays, democratic governments are better known as representative democracies.
    • In this kind of democracy, people participate indirectly.
    • They choose their representatives during elections and these representatives meet and make decisions for the entire population.
    • All adults in the country are eligible to vote according to the Universal Adult Franchise(UAF).
  • In India, before independence, only a small minority had the right to vote and they determined the fate of the Indians.
    • The national leaders including Mahatma Gandhi were shocked at the unfairness of this practice and finally they demanded that all Indians who are adult have the right to vote.
    • This is called Universal Adult Franchise.

‘Right to Vote’ for Women

  • Nowhere in the world have governments willingly shared power.
    • In Europe and USA, women and the poor have had to fight for participation in government.
    • Women’s struggle to vote got strengthened during the First World War.
    • This movement is called the women’s suffrage movement as the term suffrage usually means right to vote.
  • During the war, women did men’s work because men were away fighting.
    • Women began organising and managing different kinds of work.
    • When people watched this, they started to wonder why they had created so many unfair stereotypes about women and what they were capable of doing.
    • So, women began to be seen as being equally capable of making decisions.
  • The suffragettes called for the right to vote for all women and they wanted it very soon.
    • To get their calls heard, they chained themselves to railing in public places.
    • Many of them were jailed and went on hunger strikes.
    • American women got the right to vote in 1920, later UK allowed it in 1928.

One word meaning

  1. Government A government is the system by which a state or community is governed.
  2. Laws It is a system of rules that are enforced through social institutions to govern behaviour.
  3. Elections it is a formal decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office.
  4. Democracy A government of the people, by the people and for the people.
  5. Universal Adult Franchise It refers to the extension of the right to vote to all adult citizens.

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