NCERT Solutions for Class 8 Social Science (Civics) Understanding Laws [Old Book]

NCERT
SOLUTIONS
CLASS - 8TH

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Book : Social and Political Life Ncert Solutions | Chapter-4 Civics

Class : 8th
Subject : Civics
Chapter : 4
Chapter Name : Understanding Laws

Q1 What do you understand by ‘domestic violence’? List the two rights that the new law helped
achieve for women who are survivors of violence.
Can you list one process that was used to make more people aware of the need for this law?

Answer. Missing

Page : 48 , Block Name : How Do New Laws Come About

Q1 Write in your own words what you understand by the term the ‘rule of law’. In your response
include a ctitious or real example of a violation of the rule of law.

Answer. The “rule of law” implies that everyone, regardless of any discrimination, is equal before
the law. In an independent and democratic India, all citizens from a rickshaw puller to the Prime
Minister are to be judged equally before the law if they violate it by committing a crime. Every
violation of a law or commitment of a criminal offence has a speci c process to establish guilt and
cite its punishment. The “rule of law” ensures that equality is maintained by passing the same
judgment on a criminal regardless of his/her status or background.
Violations of the “rule of law” are, sadly enough, aplenty in India. In our country, if one has power
or “contacts” with in uential people, then it is easy to get away with even gross violations of laws
and rules. For example, most politicians today own property and wealth worth crores but they do
not even le tax returns on the same. The assets they declare are probably not even half of what
they originally own. However, an ordinary income tax of cial cannot dare to question them for fear
of losing his job, because the former have “power” that this of cial does not possess.

Q2 State two reasons why historians refute the claim that the British introduced the rule of law in
India.

Answer. Historians refute the claim that the British introduced the rule of law in India on account
of two main reasons. Firstly, colonial law was not devoid of arbitrariness. The Sedition Act of 1870
bears testimony to this. This Act allowed the police to arrest any person protesting against the
British government, without due trial.
Secondly, Indian nationalists played a pivotal role in the framing of the Indian Constitution that
upholds equality of all to law.
Hence, historians vehemently refute the claim that the British introduced the rule of law to India,

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Book : Social and Political Life Ncert Solutions | Chapter-4 Civics

because Indians were constantly discriminated against in various spheres of the social, political
and administrative life of the country.

Q3 Re-read the storyboard on how a new law on domestic violence got passed. Describe in your
own words the different ways in which women’s groups worked to make this happen.

Answer. Women’s groups worked hard and untiringly towards the passing of the new law on
domestic violence in India. They used different forums like public protests, hearings, meetings
with other organizations, press conferences and petitions to the government to introduce a new
reformed bill on domestic violence to include demands like monetary relief and protection against
being evicted from the shared household. While earlier, domestic violence only entailed “injury or
harm or threat of injury or harm” by an adult male against a woman. The Protection of Women
from Domestic Violence Act 2005 extended to include physical, economic, sexual, verbal and
emotional abuse.

Q4 Write in your own words what you understand by the following sentence on page 44−45: They
also began ghting for greater equality and wanted to change the idea of law from a set of rules
that they were forced to obey, to law as including ideas of justice.

Answer. This line refers to the protests of Indian nationalists against the violation of the rule of
law by British authorities. Indians were discriminated against in their own country by the British
colonists and the Sedition Act of 1870 was the most proli c example of the breach of the rule of
law. This Act was remonstrated against by Indian freedom ghters in favour of a more just set of
rules based on ideals of equality.
Many Indians began to practice the legal profession and used it to demand and gain equal rights
for all. Thus, Indians played a major role in the evolution of the rule of law during times of colonial
rule.

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