NCERT Solutions Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community

F R E E S T U D Y M AT E R I A L F O R E V E R Y S T U D E N T

CLASS 6 · SOCIAL SCIENCE

NCERT Solutions

Chapter 9: Family and
Community

NCERT Textbook — Exploring Society: India And Beyond

BOOK PAGES SECTIONS QUESTIONS MEDIUM

137 – 148 14 37 English

Solutions, notes, sample papers & more at 40 pages

Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

CLASS 6 · SOCIAL SCIENCE · EXPLORING SOCIETY: INDIA AND BEYOND

NCERT Solutions — Chapter 9: Family and Community
Complete NCERT Solutions for Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community from the NCERT
textbook Exploring Society: India and Beyond. Every question of the chapter is answered — The Big Questions,
all seven LET’S EXPLORE boxes, the THINK ABOUT IT box on page 142, the in-text questions on pages 138,
144 and 146–147, Before we move on … and all three Questions, activities and projects — with a drawn
family tree for Shalini’s family, and the pictures of joint and nuclear families, the halma photographs on page
145 and the street-class picture on page 146 all read off the printed page.

TEXTBOOK BOOK PAGES

Exploring Society: India and Beyond (Class 6) 137 – 148

SECTIONS QUESTIONS

14 37

MEDIUM

English

The Big Questions — Page 137
Chapter opening

THE BIG QUESTIONS

Q1 Why is the family unit important?

Because it is the first and smallest group in which people look after one another — and
almost everything a child first learns, they learn there. The chapter opens by calling the
family “the fundamental and most ancient unit of any society”.
The chapter gives five reasons, and proves each one with something in the text.

Page 1 of 40

Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

WHY THE FAMILY WHAT THE CHAPTER SHOWS
MATTERS

1. It is where people are Relationships rest on love, care, cooperation and interdependence. Parents are
cared for “responsible for raising their children to become happy individuals and responsible
members of the society”

2. Everyone has a role, “Each member of the family has a role and responsibility towards other members.” As
so work gets shared children grow up they take on more work at home; Tenzing’s father took over cleaning, the
vegetable garden and cooking when his mother’s work grew busy

3. It is a ‘school’ of Children learn ahimsa, dāna (giving), sevā (service) and tyāga (sacrifice) — and learn
values them by watching, not from a textbook

4. It carries people Shalini’s uncle lost his job, so her parents bought Onam clothes for his family too. “This is
through difficulty how families support each other and share what they have”

5. It passes on what a “In many homes, children also learn some of the traditions and practices their family has
family has kept for been following for generations” — and Tenzing’s grandmother’s stories carry “humour and
generations wisdom”

Why the family is called the ‘unit’ of society: a society is not built directly out of
single persons. It is built out of small groups that already know how to share, take
turns, forgive and give up something for someone else. Whatever a family practises
daily — sharing food, taking turns, helping without being asked — is what its
children will later practise in the neighbourhood, the school and the workplace. That
is why the chapter’s opening line from Tiruvalluvar says, “Love and dharma are the
flower and fruit of family life.”

Remember: families come in many shapes — large joint families, a couple with
children, one parent with children, children brought up by grandparents or other
relatives. The chapter says a nuclear family may be “sometimes one parent and
children”. What makes a family important is the care that happens inside it, not its
size or its shape.

Q2 What is a community and what is its role?

A community is a group of connected people — the chapter’s own words: “Families are
connected not only within themselves, but also with other families and the people around them.
Such a group of connected people may be called a ‘community’.” The book adds at once that

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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

“there are other meanings for ‘community’, depending on the context”.
Its role is to do together what one family cannot do alone.

ROLE OF A THE CHAPTER’S EXAMPLE
COMMUNITY

Celebrating together Coming together for festivals, feasts, weddings and other events

Sharing work In some villages people support each other in land preparation, sowing and harvesting

Managing shared Agreeing over time on practices for water, grazing lands and forest produce — ‘rules’
wealth rarely written down, which give “secure access to resources”. This is the case with many tribal
communities, and to some extent in rural India today

Helping in a crisis The halma tradition of the Bhil community near Jhabua — thousands of trees planted,
trenches dug, no payment taken; and the Chennai floods of 2015, when private, spiritual and
religious groups cooked and distributed food

Filling a gap Kamal Parmar of Ahmedabad taught 150 street children every evening after work and gave
them dinner

Making local rules Residents’ Welfare Associations frame rules on waste management, cleanliness of common
areas, care of pets — and the residents take part in making them

A community also places duties on its members: “all families and individuals within the
community have specific duties to perform. Otherwise, the community will not function
smoothly.”

Widening circles — the chapter’s route from page 137 to page 147

Many communities, interdependent

Community
festivals, shared work, shared water and forest

Family
love, care

traders, municipal workers, farmers, teachers …

The chapter moves outward: from the family, to the community of families around it, to the many
communities that depend on one another.

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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community
a g l AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

co m
m.
Why the book calls ‘community’ a flexible concept: the same word is used for a

m l a se
jāti or a subdivision of it, for people of a religion or a region, for people of a common
o
.c — ‘Mumbai’s Parsi community’, ‘Kerala’s scientific a gcommunity’, ‘the
m
work or interest

l a se farming community’ — and even for your school’s sports community,
g
village’s
ascience club, NSS or NCC. The one thing common to all of them is connection:
people who share something and can be counted on by one another.
co m
e m . ag
g l as
LET’S EXPLORE — Page 138
a

co m
m.
Family — types of families around you

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.co l
LET’S EXPLORE

a g
a s em
a gl What types of families do you see in your neighbourhood? List the type with the
Q1
number of households for each type.

m a s
m .co agl
se

g l a
a
This is a small survey. Do it by observing and by asking politely — never by prying into
anyone’s home life. Ask only what type of household it is; do not ask why.
Method. Fix your area first (for example, one lane, or one block of flats — about 20 to 30
co m
households). Draw a three-column table, walk through the area with a classmate, and mark one
m .
as e
comexactly. g l
tally for each household. Use the book’s two types, and add a third column for households that

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ase
fit neither

agl TYPE OF WHAT IT MEANS (PAGE 137–138) HOUSEHOLDS COUNTED
FAMILY — SAMPLE ANSWER
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com g l a
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s aunts, brothers, sisters and cousins
Joint family Several generations living together — grandparents, 7
parents, uncles a
a g l and

Nuclear family A couple and their children 13

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Nuclear family One parent and children — the chapter counts this as 3

m l as
.co g
with one parent nuclear too

m Other households a
l a se For example, grandparents living with grandchildren, a 5

ag
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couple with no children, a person living alone, or two

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generations plus one relative

m a s
Total —

e m . co 28 households
agl
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a

co m
m .
m as e
.co


a g l Page 4 of 40

Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Do it politely: write no names in your table, only numbers. Some classmates live
with a single parent, with grandparents, with a guardian or in a hostel — every one
of these is a family. The survey counts types of households, never who is better off.

Q2 What types are more frequent? Why do you think this is so?

In the sample count above, nuclear families are the most frequent (13 + 3 = 16 of 28
households). In most towns and cities today you will find the same; in many villages, joint
families are still common.

WHERE NUCLEAR FAMILIES ARE WHERE JOINT FAMILIES ARE MORE FREQUENT —
MORE FREQUENT — WHY WHY

Work is elsewhere. Jobs take one couple to The work is shared and in one place. A family farm, a shop or
another town or city, away from the older a craft needs many hands, and everyone works on the same
generation land

Houses in cities are small and rents are high, so a The ancestral house is large and belongs to the whole family
small household is easier to manage

Studies and transfers move people frequently Land, cattle and property are held together, so the family stays
together

Fewer members are needed for daily tasks, since Child care, cooking and care of the elderly are easier when
shops, schools and services are close by several adults live together

Why this is not a judgement: the chapter never says one type is better. Each has
strengths — a joint family has many hands and many people to turn to; a nuclear
family is smaller and can move and decide quickly. Both can be full of love, and both
can face difficulties. What your survey shows is how people’s work and housing have
changed, not how good the families are.

Q3 As a class activity, compare with your classmates’ findings and discuss.

Method for the class activity.

1. Each pair reports only their numbers, and the part of the town or village they surveyed.

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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

2. The teacher adds up all the pairs’ figures on the board into one class table.
3. Work out the share of each type: share = number of that type ÷ total households × 100.
4. Compare areas — an old village lane, a new colony, a block of flats — and look for a pattern.

Sample class total (28 pairs of eyes, 210 households):

TYPE HOUSEHOLDS SHARE OF THE TOTAL

Nuclear (couple and children) 104 about 50%

Joint 58 about 28%

One parent and children 21 about 10%

Other households 27 about 13%

Three good questions for the discussion:

Did the older part of the settlement have more joint families than the newer part? Why might
that be?
What does a joint family make easier — and what does a nuclear family make easier?
Do the two types really stay separate? Many families are nuclear all year but joint at a
wedding or a festival, and many keep grandparents for part of the year. Where would you
put those in the table?

Ground rule for the discussion: talk about types of families, not about particular
families in your class. No one should have to explain who they live with.

In-text Question — Page 138
Family — words for relatives

Q1 But what is the word for ‘cousin’ in an Indian language?

In most Indian languages there is no such word. The chapter answers its own question: “In
most Indian languages, you will find that there is no such word! That is because cousins are only
‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’.”
What Indian languages have instead is a way of saying which brother or sister — the relation is
described through the parent, but the person is still called a brother or a sister.

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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

ENGLISH HINDI WHAT THE HINDI LITERALLY SAYS

Cousin (father’s brother’s son) चचेर ा भाई “chacha-side brother”

Cousin (father’s sister’s daughter) फु फे री बहन “bua-side sister”

Cousin (mother’s brother’s son) ममेर ा भाई “mama-side brother”

Cousin (mother’s sister’s daughter) मौसे र ी बहन “mausi-side sister”

Notice that the noun never changes: it is always भाई or बहन. In everyday speech even the first
word is usually dropped — you simply say bhai or bahan. The book’s own table on page 139
does exactly this: Rani, a mother’s brother’s daughter, is listed under the Hindi term बहन.

Why this matters, in the chapter’s words: “This emphasises the deep bonds
among all the children in the family.” English puts your father’s brother’s son in a
separate box marked ‘cousin’, one step further away than a brother. Indian
languages refuse to make that step — he is your brother. The language itself teaches
the child that the whole family’s children are one set of brothers and sisters.

Did you know? Indian languages are precise where English is vague. English has
one word ‘uncle’; Hindi distinguishes chacha (father’s younger brother), tau (father’s
elder brother), mama (mother’s brother) and phupha (father’s sister’s husband).
Tamil goes further still and separates elder brother (aṇṇā) from younger brother
(thambi), and elder sister (akkā) from younger sister (thangai) — as the chapter
notes.

LET’S EXPLORE — Page 139

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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Family — your own list of relatives

LET’S EXPLORE

Q1 Make a list of all the members of your family you can think of, including a few
distant relatives. List their terms in your mother tongue or regional language and
try to find the equivalent in English. Two examples are below for Hindi: Rani — बहन
— mother’s brother’s daughter (cousin) (among other possible meanings); Sameer
— चाचा — father’s younger brother (uncle).

Method. Start with the people at home, then move outward — parents’ brothers and sisters,
their husbands and wives, their children, then grandparents on both sides. Write the word you
actually use for each person, not a dictionary word. Then write in English what that word
means, in as many words as it takes. Ask an elder at home when you are not sure; that is part of
the exercise.
Sample answer (the terms are Hindi; use your own language’s terms, and add or leave out rows
as your family requires):

NAME TERM IN HINDI DESCRIPTION / TERM IN ENGLISH

Rani बहन mother’s brother’s daughter (cousin) (among other possible meanings)

Sameer चाचा father’s younger brother (uncle)

Kamala दादी father’s mother (grandmother)

Hariram नाना mother’s father (grandfather)

Sunita बुआ father’s sister (aunt)

Meera मौसी mother’s sister (aunt)

Rakesh ताऊ father’s elder brother (uncle)

Anjali ताई father’s elder brother’s wife (aunt)

Vikram मामा mother’s brother (uncle)

Deepa भाभी elder brother’s wife (sister-in-law)

Arjun भाई father’s elder brother’s son (cousin) — but simply ‘brother’ in Hindi

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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community
a g l AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

co m
m.
Tip: if your mother tongue is Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali,

m l a se
Odia, Assamese, Manipuri, Khasi, Bhojpuri, Gujarati or any other language, use its
o g mesho, khura,
.c — chithappa, periyappa, mama, atha, kaka, mavshi, pishi,
a
m
own words

l a seand so on. The exercise is more interesting the further your language is from
g
apong
aHindi.
o m
e
. c
mrelatives you have. Nobody’s list has to be ag
s
Careful and kind: make your list of the
a that is exactly what makes the class comparison
long, and no two lists will match l—
g
worth doing. a

co m
se m.
o m l a
g or regional language
m .c how, quite often, a single word in your mother tongue
Notice
a
se requires several words in English to give a precise definition.
Q2

l a
ag
s
m a
m.co
True — and the reason is that Indian languages carry the exact relationship inside the
agl
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word, while English gives one broad word for many relationships.

a g
ONE WORD IN AN INDIAN LANGUAGE WHAT ENGLISH NEEDS TO SAY

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e
चाचा (chacha) father’s younger brother — five words where Hindi uses one

m l as
.co a g
em
ताऊ (tau) father’s elder brother

a s
agl मामा (mama) mother’s brother

se m
com a
मौसी (mausi)
l
mother’s sister

. a g
m
ase
बुआ (bua) father’s sister

नानी (nani) agl mother’s mother

co m
.
दादी (dadi) father’s mother

em
m l as
.co a g
Look at the right-hand column: English says ‘uncle’ for the first three and ‘aunt’ for the next

a s emtwo, and ‘grandmother’ for the last two. Five different relationships collapse into two English
agl words.
.c
s e m
m a
. co agl
Hindi: 1 word → 1 exact relationship
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English: 1 word (‘uncle’) → 4 different relationships → so English must add “father’s
a
younger…”, “mother’s…” to be precise

co m
m .
m ase
.co


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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Why languages differ like this: a language keeps short words for the things its
speakers talk about most. In Indian family life it matters a great deal whether
someone is your father’s elder brother or your mother’s brother — the person’s
place at a wedding, at a festival and in daily respect depends on it. So the language
gave each one its own short word. Where a distinction is not needed daily, a
language lets one broad word do the work.

LET’S EXPLORE — Page 140
Roles and Responsibilities — who does what at home

LET’S EXPLORE

Q1 Answer these questions and compare your answers with a few classmates: Who in
your family decides what is to be bought from the market?

Answer for your own home — there is no single correct answer, and the point of the exercise is
to see how many different answers a class produces.
Sample answer: In my home, my mother makes the list of what is needed for the kitchen, but
the final decision on bigger purchases is taken together by my mother and father. For
vegetables, my grandmother often decides, because she knows what is fresh in this season.

What a good answer contains: (1) who decides everyday purchases; (2) who
decides big or costly purchases; (3) whether it is one person or a discussion. The
chapter’s own example is Tenzing’s family: “When any special expenses come up, I
have often seen that they discuss them together.”

Q2 Who cooks food in your home?

Sample answer: My mother cooks most days. On Sundays my father makes breakfast, and I
have started helping with cutting vegetables and making tea. When my grandmother is with us,
she cooks the festival food, because only she knows the family recipes.

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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Why the book asks this: cooking is the clearest example of a role in a household.
Notice, when the class compares answers, how often the answer is a woman — and
notice the chapter’s counter-example on page 141: when Tenzing’s mother became
busy in the handicraft cooperative, his father took over cleaning the house, the
vegetable garden and other chores, and helps his grandmother prepare food. Roles
at home can be shared, and they can change.

Q3 Who is the oldest person in your family?

Sample answer: My grandfather, who is 74. He is the oldest member of our family. My great-
grandmother, who is 91, lives with my father’s uncle in our village, and we visit her every year.

Take it further: ask the oldest person in your family one question — what their
school, their village or their town was like when they were your age. Write down the
answer in four or five lines. That is a small piece of history that exists nowhere else.

Q4 Who cleans the floor in your home?

Sample answer: We share it. My mother sweeps in the morning; I sweep my own room and the
sitting room in the evening; my elder sister mops on holidays. Once a week we all clean
together, which takes half the time.

Tip for the comparison in class: add a second column to your answer — “and who
helps?” Very often one person does a job and one or two others help. Both belong in
the answer.

Q5 Who washes utensils in your house?

Sample answer: My mother washes the utensils after lunch, and my brother and I wash them
after dinner, turn by turn — one week each. On days when there are guests, everybody joins in.

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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q6 Who helps you to do your homework?

Sample answer: My elder sister helps me with mathematics, my mother listens to me read
aloud, and for social science I ask my grandfather, who likes explaining maps. When nobody is
free, I finish it myself and get it checked the next morning.

What all six questions add up to: lay your six answers side by side and you have a
picture of the roles and responsibilities in your home — exactly the idea the section
is about. Then compare with classmates and two things become visible. First, no two
families divide the work in the same way. Second, in many homes the heaviest
household work still falls on women and girls, and this is worth discussing as a class:
which jobs at home could be shared more evenly, and what could you take over this
month? The chapter’s own answer is that “through daily practice, children learn to
participate in the life of the household”.

Discuss with respect: some classmates may live with one parent, with grandparents
or with a guardian, and in some homes an adult is away for work. Every
arrangement is a family. Compare the sharing of work, never the families
themselves.

LET’S EXPLORE — Page 141
Roles and Responsibilities — the story of Shalini

LET’S EXPLORE

Q1 Draw a simple tree of this family of seven members.

Here is the family tree of Shalini’s household, drawn from the story on pages 140–141.

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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Shalini’s family — three generations under one roof, in Kerala

Acchamma
grandmother (father’s mother)

Father Mother Chittappa Chitti
runs a small business a teacher father’s brother Chittappa’s wife

Shalini Younger brother Chinni
the storyteller Shalini’s cousin (sister)

Shalini’s family tree. The top row is the grandmother’s generation, the middle row the parents’
generation (the two horizontal ties mark the two couples), and the bottom row the children.

How to draw one yourself:

1. Put the oldest generation at the top — here, Acchamma alone.
2. Draw her children in the next row: Shalini’s father and Chittappa, who are brothers. Join
each to his wife with a short horizontal line — Father–Mother, Chittappa–Chitti.
3. Drop a line from the middle of each couple to their children: Shalini and her younger
brother from the first couple, Chinni from the second.
4. Label each person with the term the story uses. In Malayalam, Acchamma is the father’s
mother, Chittappa the father’s younger brother and Chitti his wife.

Check it yourself — the count. The question says “seven members”, but the story
actually names eight people living in the house: Acchamma, Shalini’s father, Shalini’s
mother, Chittappa, Chitti, Shalini, her younger brother and Chinni. Count them on
the tree above. Draw all eight and add a line below your tree saying “8 members are
named in the story”. In an examination, drawing the complete family from the story
is the right answer — a tree that leaves out a person to reach seven would be wrong.

Q2 Why do you think Shalini’s parents bought clothes for everyone?

Because Chittappa’s family could not buy festival clothes that year, and in a family what
one member has is shared with the others.

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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community
a g l AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

The story gives the chain of events plainly:
co m
e m.
m l as
m .co a g
Chittappa lost his job; Chitti is a homemaker → the family had financial difficulties

l a se
g
Acchamma told Shalini’s father about it → the elders spoke to each other
aOnam was coming → new clothes are part of the festival for everyone

com
. ag
So Shalini’s parents bought clothes for Chittappa, Chitti and Chinni as well
e m
g l as
The money had to stretch further → Shalini got a simple cotton dress instead of the silk one

she expected
a

. c om
s e m “this is how
Acchamma’s own explanation, in the book’s words, is the answer to this question:

. com each other and share what they have.”
families support
a gla
a s em
a gl Why this counts as more than kindness: the chapter has already named the values
a family teaches — dāna (giving), sevā (service) and tyāga (sacrifice). Shalini’s

om a s
. c agl
parents practised dāna, and Shalini herself practised tyāga without being asked to.

s e
Notice also how it was done: nobody m was made to feel small. The clothes were
a
agl for everyone, so Chittappa’s family shared the festival
bought quietly while shopping
as equals rather than receiving charity. That is why the last line of the story is about
happiness, not loss: “She was happy that everyone could get some new clothes.”
co m
m .
m as e
.co a g l
a s em What would you have done if you were in Shalini’s place?
a gl
Q3

se m
com g l a
m . a
ase
This asks for your own honest answer. Here is what a thoughtful answer would contain, and a
model you can adapt.
a gl
Sample answer: I think I would first have felt disappointed, because I had been looking forward

co
to the silk dress for weeks. But once Acchamma explained why, I would have done the same as
m
m .
Shalini and taken the cotton dress happily. Chinni is like my own sister, and a festival in which

o m l a se
one part of the house has new clothes and the other part does not would not feel like a festival
at.all. a g anything to Chinni about the
c I would also have kept it to myself — I would not have said
m
se dress I gave up, because that would have spoilt it for her.
a
agl c
m .
m a s e
e m . co agl
g l as
a

co m
m .
m ase
.co


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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

What makes an answer good here: (1) admit the first feeling honestly —
disappointment is natural and the book does not pretend otherwise; (2) say what
changed your mind; (3) say what you would do, not only feel; (4) think of the other
child’s feelings. An answer that says “I would happily give up everything” without a
reason is weaker than an honest one.

Another defensible answer: you could say you would have asked your parents to
buy the silk dress next month instead, so that nothing was cancelled, only
postponed. That is also a fair answer — as long as you explain that the uncle’s family
comes first this festival.

THINK ABOUT IT — Page 142
Roles and Responsibilities — the story of Tenzing

THINK ABOUT IT

Q1 Why does Tenzing’s father consult his wife for special expenses?

Because in that family money decisions belong to both parents, not to one. Tenzing says it
in the story: “When any special expenses come up, I have often seen that they discuss them
together.”
Three good reasons lie behind the habit.

REASON WHAT IT SHOWS

Both of them earn The father runs a small grocery store; the mother works in a local handicraft cooperative. The
money is the family’s, so the decision is the family’s

Two people see more A special expense is a large one. Talking it over means fewer mistakes and no regrets
than one afterwards

They are saving for Tenzing’s mother says “we should always try to save some money for any unexpected needs
the unexpected that may arise in the future”. Any big spending affects that saving, so both must agree

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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Why the book puts this in a THINK ABOUT IT box: it is an example of equal
respect inside a family. Consulting is not a formality — it treats the other person as
an equal partner. This is the same value the chapter calls cooperation, ‘working
together’, applied to money.

Q2 How do you feel about his participation in household chores?

It is admirable, and it is simply fair. When Tenzing’s mother became busy in the handicraft
cooperative, his father “joined in cleaning the house, taking care of our small vegetable garden
and other household chores”, and often helps the grandmother prepare food — while still
running his grocery store.

WHAT HE DID WHY IT DESERVES RESPECT

Took over chores when his wife’s The work of the house did not fall on one person just because her paid work
work grew increased

Cooks with the grandmother He treats housework as everyone’s work, not as one gender’s work

Did it without being asked This is the “cooperation and interdependence” of page 139 in practice

Tenzing notices and says it with Children learn roles by watching. The next generation of that house will find
pride shared chores normal

Why this is worth saying out loud: cooking, cleaning and caring take real time and
real skill, and in many homes they are still left almost entirely to women and girls —
often on top of a paid job. Tenzing’s father shows that there is no work in a house
that a man cannot do. My own view: I feel respect for him, and I think this should be
ordinary rather than remarkable.

Try this: list the household jobs done in your home in one week and who did each.
Then pick one job you could take over from this month, and do it without being
reminded.

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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q3 What roles do the grandparents fulfil?

Both grandparents are working members of the household — one inside the house, one
inside the neighbourhood.

GRANDMOTHER GRANDFATHER

Prepares food for the whole family, with the Helps Tenzing with his homework
father helping her

Tells Tenzing “all sorts of interesting stories Takes him to the school bus stop
… with humour and wisdom”

Understands people better than anyone — Is “actively involved in social work in our colony” and always offers
“no one seems to understand people better help to others
than her!”

In short: the family’s cook, storyteller and Registered a complaint at the nearby office during a power failure;
teacher of life collected money from the whole neighbourhood when the
neighbours’ house was damaged in a storm

So the grandmother’s roles are care, culture and companionship; the grandfather’s are
education, daily help and community service. Together they free the parents for their work,
and they are the bridge between this family and the community around it — which is exactly
where the chapter goes next.

Notice: the grandfather’s storm collection is a small halma. One family’s damaged
house became the whole neighbourhood’s problem to solve — the same instinct the
Bhil community shows on page 144, only smaller.

LET’S EXPLORE — Page 143

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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Roles and Responsibilities — stories, drama, and two kinds of family

LET’S EXPLORE

Q1 Create a story of a family somewhere in India, where we see some family values
practised. Share it with your class either through writing or drawing.

Method. Follow the shape the book itself uses for Shalini and Tenzing: (1) place the family
somewhere real in India and name the members; (2) give them ordinary work; (3) bring one
difficulty; (4) show a family value — dāna, sevā, tyāga, cooperation, care — solving it; (5) end
with what someone learnt. Keep it to 150–200 words. If you draw instead, use four or five panels
with one line under each.

Sample answer — “The Bicycle”, a family in Bhagalpur, Bihar
Ratna is in Class 6. She lives with her mother, who is a tailor, her father, who drives an
auto-rickshaw, her dadi, and her younger brother Manu. For a year Ratna had been
saving in a steel box for a second-hand bicycle, so that she could stop walking four
kilometres to school. In August the rains flooded the low lane where her father’s
cousin lived, and the family’s sewing machine — their only means of earning — was
ruined.
That evening nobody spoke at dinner. Then Ratna brought her steel box and put it
on the mat. “The bicycle can wait,” she said. Her father said nothing for a while. Then
he said that he would drive two extra hours daily until the box was full again.
Six weeks later the cousin’s family had a repaired machine, and Ratna had her
bicycle — bought with the box, her father’s extra hours and her dadi’s silver ring. On
the first morning she rode it, Manu ran beside her all the way to the turning.
The value practised: tyāga (sacrifice) and dāna (giving), and the cooperation of
every member — nobody carried the loss alone.

Tip: the best stories in this exercise are small. One difficulty, one decision, three or
four people. Avoid a story where a rich stranger solves everything — the chapter is
about what a family does for itself.

Page 18 of 40

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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community
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co m
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Stage a small drama with all your classmates around two or three families. The play
e
Q2

comthey are resolved.
you write could include some challenging situations that the families faced, and
show .how g l as
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Method for the class. Divide into three groups of six to eight. Each group is one family and
. co ag
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writes its own scene of five to seven minutes; the teacher or two students link the three scenes

ase
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as narrators. Keep the props simple — chairs, a shawl, a bag.
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SCENE FAMILY THE CHALLENGE HOW IT IS RESOLVED

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Scene 1 A joint family in a village in The paddy must be harvested
se m.
Neighbours join in; the children carry

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Odisha — grandparents, in three days before the rain, water and food to the field; the harvest

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and one brother has fallen ill is saved

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wives, four children

Scene 2 A nuclear family that has Both parents’ shifts change and They talk to the neighbours; a retired

m a s
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just moved to a city for there is nobody at home when teacher next door offers her veranda for

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work — a mother, a father the younger child returns from an hour each day, and the elder child
and two children
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school takes charge of homework

Scene 3 A family in which a mother a g The school trip costs more The family decides together: the trip

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brings up two children than they can spare this month this year for one child, next year for the

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mother’s help
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l a se lines for the narrator to close with — take them straight from the chapter:
ag Three

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relationships rest on love, care, cooperation and interdependence; each member has a role

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and responsibility towards the others; and “this is how families support each other and share
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what they have”.

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Careful when you cast the play: write the families as characters, not as copies of

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anyone in the class. And let the girls’ and boys’ parts share the difficult work — do

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not put all the cooking on one side of the stage.

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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q3 In the stories of Shalini and Tenzing, we see examples of joint families. What do you
think are the aspects of modern living that make some couples opt for a nuclear
family (i.e., living apart from older generations or other relatives)? What could be
some advantages as well as disadvantages of the two kinds of families?

Part 1 — what makes some couples live separately today.

Work in another place. A job, a transfer or a posting takes a couple to a city far from the
family home, and the older generation may not want to leave the place they know.
Small and costly houses. A city flat has two rooms; the family house in the village or town
had eight.
Both partners working, often with long travel and shifting hours, so the daily rhythm of a
large household is hard to keep.
Studies and moving about. Young couples move for courses, training and better
opportunities.
Wanting to decide for themselves — about money, about schooling for the children, about
how they live.
Smaller families generally, and children of one family settling in different cities or countries.

Part 2 — advantages and disadvantages of each.

JOINT FAMILY NUCLEAR FAMILY

Advantages Many hands for work and for child care; children Fewer people to consult, so decisions are
grow up with grandparents and cousins; the elderly quicker; the couple can move where the
and the sick are cared for at home; expenses are work is; less friction over daily matters;
shared, so a shock like Chittappa’s job loss can be expenses of one small household are easier
absorbed; traditions, recipes and stories are passed to plan; parents and children get a great deal
on; there is always someone to talk to of time together

Disadvantages Less privacy and less individual freedom; No help at hand in an illness or an
disagreements between many adults; decisions can emergency; children may see grandparents
be slow; the household work may fall unfairly on a rarely; one lost job hits the whole household
few members, usually the women; a young couple at once; the elderly may be left alone in
may find it hard to make their own choices another town; parents can feel very
stretched between work and home

The fair conclusion: neither kind is better than the other — they suit different
situations, and most families move between them over a lifetime. A nuclear family in
a city may become a joint one when a grandparent comes to live with them; a joint
family gathers for a wedding and separates again. What actually decides whether a
family works is not its type but whether its members share the work and support
each other, which is the whole point of this section of the chapter.

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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Beyond the book: you will sometimes hear a third term, extended family — used
for a household that is more than a couple with children but not a full joint family,
for example a couple, their children and one grandparent or an aunt; or, more
loosely, for all the relatives a family keeps close ties with even when they live in
separate homes. Your NCERT chapter names only joint and nuclear, so use those two
in an examination and mention ‘extended’ only as an extra.

In-text Question — Page 144
Community — Don’t Miss Out

DON’T MISS OUT

Q1 There are many more such examples of people coming together to do something
for the benefit of the community without expecting anything in return. Have you
heard of any?

Yes — such examples are everywhere, once you start looking. Here are some well-known
ones, and then the kind you can find in your own street.

Page 21 of 40

Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

EXAMPLE WHAT PEOPLE DID TOGETHER, UNPAID

Shramdaan (‘gift of Villagers give a day’s work to clean a pond, repair a bund, level a path or desilt a canal. In
labour’) Rajasthan, Maharashtra and many other States, entire village tanks have been revived this
way

Community kitchens Free meals cooked and served to anyone who comes — langar at gurudwaras, annadānam at
temples, meals distributed by mosques, churches and local groups, especially during floods
and other disasters

The Kerala floods Fishermen took their own boats inland and rescued thousands of stranded people; students
(2018) and volunteers ran relief camps and sorted supplies for weeks

Cleanliness drives Neighbourhood and school groups clearing a beach, a riverbank, a park or a market street,
and separating waste — often on Gandhi Jayanti or under Swachh Bharat

Blood donation and Colleges, workplaces and residents’ groups organising donation camps and free check-ups;
health camps volunteers giving blood for strangers

Village and colony People donating books and one room, and taking turns to keep a small free library or an
libraries evening study centre open for children — very like Kamal Parmar’s classes

Help during an Neighbours delivering groceries and medicines to elderly people living alone, and volunteers
epidemic or a running food packets to those who had lost work
lockdown

Sample answer for your notebook: Yes. In our colony, when the drain overflowed after heavy
rain last year, about thirty people — shopkeepers, students, two autorickshaw drivers and
several homemakers — came out with spades and buckets on a Sunday morning and cleared it,
and one family sent tea for everybody. Nobody was paid and nobody was in charge. Our
sweeper, who lives nearby, showed us where the blockage was.

What all these have in common: people do the work as a duty, not for payment —
exactly as the Bhils did in the halma tradition, whose stated objective “is to serve
Mother Earth”. Look at the photographs on page 145: hundreds of people digging
trenches across a whole hillside, walking to the site with their own tools, drums
being played as they work, and a pond full of water where a dry slope used to be.
Nobody in those pictures is a paid worker.

Do this: ask an elder in your family for one example from their own life — a well
dug, a school room built, a road repaired, a wedding managed by the whole street.
Write it down with the year. That is a piece of your community’s history.

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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

In-text Questions — Pages 146–147
Community — the story of Kamal Parmar, Ahmedabad

Q1 Discuss this story in your class. What kind of attitude towards the community does
it reveal?

It reveals an attitude of responsibility — that the children on the street are not somebody
else’s problem but one’s own community’s children.
Kamal Parmar owned a small auto-fabrication workshop. He was not a teacher, he had no
organisation behind him, and nobody asked him. He simply noticed a group of children who
had dropped out of school or had never been, and began teaching them from 5:30 to 9:30 pm
every day, after his regular work hours, with a free dinner as well.

WHAT HE DID THE ATTITUDE IT REVEALS

Noticed the children at all He did not treat them as part of the street scenery. Seeing is
where responsibility begins

Started with what he had — his evenings You do not need money or authority to begin; you need to begin

Four hours a day, after a full working day Not a one-day event but a steady commitment

Gave dinner as well He understood that a hungry child cannot study — he looked at
the whole child

Others joined — school teachers, and older One person’s initiative pulled a community into being. This is the
schoolchildren as volunteers chapter’s ‘community’ in the making

The volunteer’s remark is the heart of it: “We went there to teach, instead we learnt a lot
from them.” The attitude is not pity looking downward; it is people meeting as equals, in which
both sides gain.

Q2 What values get reflected in Kamal Parmar’s initiative?

Almost every value the chapter has named so far — and they are the same values the family
teaches on page 140.

Page 23 of 40

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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community
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VALUE WHERE YOU SEE IT IN THE STORY

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Sevā (service)
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Four hours of teaching every evening, expecting nothing in return

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Dāna (giving) Free tuition and a free dinner for 150 children, from a man running a small workshop

Tyāga (sacrifice) He gave up his own rest and free time, day after day, after a full day’s work

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Compassion and equality He treated street children as children who deserved to learn, not as a nuisance

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Cooperation Teachers and older students joined in, and the work became a shared effort

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Perseverance
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a Respect for learning The teacher’s own words: no benches, no ‘silence zone’, vehicles roaring past, “yet they

m a s
pay all their attention” — and he thought that worth honouring

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Think about those underprivileged children. Do you think society has been unfair to
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them?
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emThrough no fault of their own, they were left without the one thing every child in

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Yes.
a India is entitled to — school. Some had dropped out and others “had never been to school” at
all, although free and compulsory education is the right of every child between 6 and 14 years.
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WHAT WAS UNFAIR WHY

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They were out of school while children of the same age, in The difference was made by the family they were born

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the same city, were in classrooms into, not by anything they did

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Their education depended on one kind individual’s spare Kindness is precious, but a right should not rest on
evenings
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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Being careful about the word ‘society’: the story shows that ‘society’ is not one
solid thing. The same society that let those children stay on the street also produced
Kamal Parmar, the teachers who joined him and the schoolchildren who
volunteered. So the honest answer is: society failed them, and parts of that society
then tried to put it right. Which part we belong to is decided by what we do.

Say it without looking down on anyone: these children were poor in money, not in
ability — the teacher’s own testimony is that their attention and their affection were
extraordinary. Unfairness lies in the conditions they were given, never in the children
themselves.

Q4 What should society do to make sure that all children get access to education?

Treat schooling as a right that must reach every child, and remove one by one the things
that keep a child out of school.

Page 25 of 40

Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

WHAT KEEPS A CHILD OUT WHAT SHOULD BE DONE ABOUT IT
OF SCHOOL

The family needs the child’s earnings Free schooling, free books and uniforms, scholarships, and firm action
against child labour

The child comes to school hungry Mid-day meals — a hungry child cannot learn, as Kamal Parmar
understood when he provided dinner

No school nearby, or no safe way to A school within reach of every habitation, and transport or safe paths,
reach it which matters especially for girls

The family moves for work, or lives Bridge courses, evening classes and residential schools; admission without
on a street or a worksite insisting on documents the family cannot produce

The child was never enrolled, or Special classes to bring them up to their age-group’s level and then into a
dropped out years ago regular class

A child with a disability finds the Ramps, accessible toilets, learning material in usable forms, and trained
school unusable teachers

Girls stopped from studying after a Talking to families, girls’ hostels, toilets in every school, and scholarships
certain age

Poor teaching or absent teachers Enough trained teachers, in-service training and regular checking that
children are actually learning

And what young citizens can do — this is the part the chapter’s story really points at: help a
younger child in your street with homework; give your old books to a school library; support a
school’s cleanliness or plantation drive; join the NSS or a similar group when you are older; and
tell an adult when you know of a child in your neighbourhood who is not in school.

Did you know? The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act,
2009 makes education a legal right of every child from 6 to 14 years, and Article 21A
of the Constitution makes it a Fundamental Right. India’s mid-day meal scheme, now
called PM POSHAN, is one of the largest school meal programmes in the world.

LET’S EXPLORE — Page 147

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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Community — who supports you

LET’S EXPLORE

Q1 Make a list of all people outside your family that are supporting you through their
work in one way or another.

Method. Walk through one ordinary day of your life from waking to sleeping, and at each point
ask: “whose work made this possible?” Your list will be far longer than you expect. Write it as a
table so that the work is visible, not just the person.
Sample answer:

PERSON HOW THEIR WORK SUPPORTS ME

Farmers and farm workers Grow the rice, wheat, dal and vegetables I eat every day

Milk seller, vegetable seller, grocer Bring that food within walking distance of my house

Truck and railway workers Carry goods from where they are grown or made to where I live

Municipal sweepers and waste collectors Keep my street and colony clean and take away the waste every day

Water supply and electricity workers Water in the tap and light in the room; they repair the lines when a
storm brings them down

Teachers and the school staff Teach me; the clerk, the cook and the cleaner keep the school
running

School bus driver / autorickshaw driver Takes me to school and brings me back safely

Doctors, nurses, chemist Treat me when I fall ill; the chemist keeps the medicines in stock

Police, fire service Keep the area safe and come when there is an emergency

Tailor, cobbler, barber, carpenter, electrician, Make and mend the clothes, shoes, furniture and fittings I use
plumber, mason

Postal and delivery workers Bring letters, parcels and documents

Weavers, tailors and factory workers Made the clothes I am wearing right now

Writers, printers and booksellers Made the very textbook I am reading this chapter in

Neighbours and friends Lend a hand in an emergency, keep a key, help with studies

Page 27 of 40

Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

What the list proves: the chapter’s closing point on page 147 — “in our complex
societies, everyone depends on a number of other people and communities”.
You did not choose most of these people, you may not know their names, and yet
not one ordinary day of yours would work without them. That is interdependence.

Tip: when you read your list out in class, add one line — “and whom do I support?”
Perhaps you help a younger cousin with homework, carry a neighbour’s water, or
look after a sibling. Interdependence goes both ways.

LET’S EXPLORE — Page 148
Community — the communities you belong to

LET’S EXPLORE

Q1 What types of communities are you part of?

Every one of us belongs to several at once. Use the chapter’s own examples on pages 147–
148 as your headings, and fill in your own.

KIND OF SAMPLE ANSWER — THE ONES I BELONG TO
COMMUNITY

Family and relatives My own family, and the wider circle of relatives who gather for weddings and festivals

Neighbourhood The families of my lane; our Residents’ Welfare Association, which decides about waste
collection and the cleaning of the common park

School My class; the school’s sports community (I play kabaddi); the science club; the school band

Place or region The people of my town, and those who share my mother tongue

Work or interest The cycling group in our colony; the children who read at the free library on Sundays

Service groups Scouts and Guides; older students in my school join the NSS and the NCC

Jāti or religious The chapter notes that a jāti, or a group of one religion, is also called a community
community

Page 28 of 40

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co m
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Why the answer is ‘several at once’: the chapter calls ‘community’ a flexible

m l a se
concept. You are not in one box. The same person can belong to a class, a sports
o g on the same
.c a town, a language group and a service organisation
a
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team, a colony,
seand each of those communities also contains people who differ from you in
daya—
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g ways. Belonging to many communities is what keeps a society stitched
aother
together.
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Q2
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Is there a club that you are a part of in school? How does it function?

co m
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m .c your own school — describe a club you actually belongato.g If you are not in one,
Answer for

l a se a club in your school you would like to join, and say so honestly.
describe

agSample answer: I am a member of our school’s Eco Club. It has about 30 students from Classes
s
6 to 9 and one teacher-in-charge. We meet every Saturday in the last period. Two student
om a
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secretaries, chosen by the members, make the plan for the month and keep the register. We

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look after the school’s kitchen garden andm the saplings planted last monsoon, run a paper-
g a up a notice board with one ‘green fact’ each week. Money
collection drive once a month, andlput
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for seeds and pots comes from selling the collected paper. Decisions are taken by discussion,
and if the members disagree we vote. Every member is expected to attend at least two
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meetings a month and to take one turn at watering.
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.c a full answer must contain: (1) the club’s name anda gpurpose; (2) who is in it
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What

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Notice that this last point is the same idea as page 144 — a community works only
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Why a club is a good small model of a community: it is voluntary, it makes its own

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rules, it needs members to do their part, and it depends on others outside it — the
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teacher-in-charge, the school office, the gardener. That is a Residents’ Welfare

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Association in miniature.

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Before we move on … — Page 148
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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

The chapter in three points

BEFORE WE MOVE ON …

Q1 Family is the foundation of human society. Ideally, members of a family support
each other in their many duties and tasks.

Read the sentence in two halves — a fact and an ideal.

THE HALF OF THE WHAT THE CHAPTER SHOWED
SENTENCE

“Family is the foundation It is “the fundamental and most ancient unit of any society”, and “almost all of us live in
of human society” a family”. Society is built out of families, not out of separate individuals

“members … support each Relationships rest on love, care, cooperation and interdependence; each member “has a
other in their many duties role and responsibility towards other members” — Tenzing’s father taking over the
and tasks” chores, his grandmother cooking and telling stories, his grandfather teaching and
serving the colony

The one careful word: The book does not claim every family is like this. It says this is what a family is at its
“Ideally” best — which is also why the chapter’s exercises ask you to look at who really does the
work in your own home

Why ‘foundation’ is the right word: a foundation is what everything else stands on
and is usually not visible. Values learnt at home — sharing, taking turns, giving up
something for someone else — are carried out into the street, the school and the
workplace by everyone who leaves that home each morning. Shalini’s cotton dress is
a small thing; the habit it belongs to is not.

Q2 Community, a bigger unit, also implies that people do their best to support each
other. ‘Community’ can be defined in several ways and there are many kinds of
community.

Three claims in one sentence, and the chapter proves each.

Page 30 of 40

Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

CLAIM EVIDENCE IN THE CHAPTER

A community is a “Families are connected not only within themselves, but also with other families and the people
bigger unit than a around them” — the circle simply widens
family

People support each Festivals, feasts and weddings; help with land preparation, sowing and harvesting; the halma
other in it of the Bhil community; food cooked and distributed in the Chennai floods of 2015; Kamal
Parmar’s evening classes in Ahmedabad

It can be defined in A jāti or a subdivision of it; a group of one religion, region, common work or interest —
several ways ‘Mumbai’s Parsi community’, ‘Kerala’s scientific community’, ‘the village’s farming
community’; and in school, your class, the sports community, the NSS, the NCC, a science or
drama club

New kinds keep Residents’ Welfare Associations of the last 30–40 years, which frame their own rules on
appearing waste, cleanliness and pets

And with support come duties: “all families and individuals within the community have specific
duties to perform. Otherwise, the community will not function smoothly.”

Q3 Ultimately, communities are interdependent.

No community can live on its own. The chapter’s own example: the same Residents’ Welfare
Association that makes rules for its colony “will depend on the trading community for supplies
and also on municipal workers to handle waste”.

The chapter’s own example of interdependence (page 147)

Trading community Municipal workers
supplies handle the waste

Residents’ Welfare
Association

each needs the others

Farming community
food for all of them

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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Every community in the picture depends on the others — and each of them buys, sells, eats and
throws away.

The same holds all the way down the chain: the traders need transporters and farmers; the
municipal workers need equipment made by others; the farmers need seed, tools and a market.
The chapter’s conclusion is plain — “in our complex societies, everyone depends on a number
of other people and communities.”

Why ‘ultimately’ is the right word to end the chapter with: the chapter began
with the smallest circle, the family, where interdependence is obvious — a child
depends on parents, parents on each other, and the elderly on the young. It ends by
showing that the same relationship holds between the biggest circles too. Nothing
in society stands alone; everything is held up by something else.

Questions, activities and projects — Page 148
End-of-chapter exercise

Q1 What are some of the rules you follow in your family and neighbourhood? Why are
they important?

Most rules at home and in a neighbourhood are unwritten — exactly like the community
practices on page 143, which the chapter calls ‘rules’, “though they were rarely written down”.
Write down the ones you actually follow, and then say what each one protects.

Page 32 of 40

Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

RULES IN MY FAMILY — SAMPLE ANSWER WHY IT IS IMPORTANT

Everyone eats together at night, and nobody starts before It is the one time the whole family talks; problems come
the others sit down up here first

Tell an elder where you are going and when you will be Safety — and it saves everyone from worry
back

Homework and school bag are finished before play Work first keeps the whole evening free of quarrels

Whoever uses a thing puts it back; each of us keeps our Shares the housework instead of leaving it to one person
own corner clean

Big spending is discussed by both parents The same practice as Tenzing’s family — fewer mistakes,
and equal respect

Food is not wasted; leftovers are used or shared Respect for the work and money behind every meal

Speak politely to elders and to anyone who works in the Respect is owed to everybody, not only to those senior to
house us

RULES IN MY NEIGHBOURHOOD — WHY IT IS IMPORTANT
SAMPLE ANSWER

Waste is put out in the morning, wet and dry kept Keeps the lane clean and makes the waste collector’s work
separate possible

No loudspeakers late at night; music is turned down Children study and old people sleep; one house’s fun should
after 10 pm not be another’s trouble

Vehicles parked in the marked place, not across a Ambulances and fire engines must be able to get in
gate

Water is not wasted; taps are shut at the common The supply is shared and limited — this is the ‘shared
tank resource’ rule of page 143 in a city form

Pet owners clean up after their pets; the park is kept One of the very rules the book mentions for Residents’
for everyone Welfare Associations

Everyone contributes to festival and cleaning drives, Common things belong to nobody unless everybody takes a
by money or by work share of them

Page 33 of 40

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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community
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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

A RULE THAT CAN BE WHY IT IS UNFAIR A FAIRER FORM OF IT
UNFAIR

Girls do the cooking and The same work, the same house, but only A rota in which every child takes
cleaning; boys are not asked one half of the children carry it — and it a turn, as Tenzing’s father showed
eats into their study and play time by taking over the chores

Only boys are sent to the better A child’s education should not depend on The same schooling for every
or the farther school whether they are a girl or a boy child; if money is short, the
family decides together and
openly

“Children should not speak Applied to everything, it silences the Listen first, then speak; and let
when elders are talking” people a decision is about — for instance, a children be heard on matters that
child’s own studies concern them

A colony rule that domestic It treats some people as lesser for the work One entrance and one lift for
workers or delivery workers they do — the same people the colony everybody
must not use the main lift or gate depends on entirely

A ban on playing in the only The rule protects the grass and takes away Fixed play hours and a marked
open space of a colony the children’s only ground area, decided with the children

An old practice that keeps some It is unjust and against the Constitution’s Equal access for every family,
families away from a common guarantee of equality — no tradition can without exception
well, temple, or gathering justify it

A meeting time or a notice that They must obey rules they never got to Announce in the local language,
leaves out people who cannot discuss hold meetings at a time working
read, or who work late people can attend

Three questions that test any rule:
1. Who made it? Did the people it binds have a voice? The chapter notes approvingly
that in a Residents’ Welfare Association, “people living in the community participate
in making such rules”.
2. Who does it fall on? A rule that always burdens the same people — the youngest,
the women, the poorest — is unfair however old it is.
3. Can it be changed? Rules made by people can be changed by people. That is
exactly what your own Questions, activities and projects is inviting you to think about.

How to raise it at home: not by refusing the rule, but by asking for the reason and
proposing a fairer version — “Could we make a rota for the dishes?” A reason you
can hear is the difference between a rule and an order.

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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

Q3 Describe several situations that you have observed where community support
makes a difference. You can draw or write about these.

Method. Describe each situation in four steps: (1) what happened, (2) what one family alone
could have done, (3) what the community did, (4) the difference it made. Three or four
situations are enough. Draw them as panels if you prefer, with one sentence under each.
Sample answers

SITUATION WHAT THE COMMUNITY DID THE DIFFERENCE

1. A flooded lane About thirty neighbours cleared the choked Water drained in one morning instead of
after heavy rain drain on a Sunday morning with spades and standing for a week. No family could have
buckets; one family sent tea; the local sweeper done it alone, and no complaint would have
showed where the blockage was been answered that fast

2. A wedding in a Neighbours lent chairs, vessels and a shamiana; The family got a proper wedding without
house with little four families cooked; the young men managed falling into debt — the sharing of work and
money the guests things, exactly as in a village community

3. An accident on Shopkeepers stopped traffic, an autorickshaw He got help within minutes. Strangers acted
the road outside driver took the injured man to hospital, because the person in trouble was in their
school someone called his family street

4. An old woman The neighbours took turns to bring food and She was cared for at home. This is the
living alone falls ill medicines and to sit with her; a college student halma idea — supporting an individual in a
did her bank work time of crisis

5. A dry village The whole village gave shramdaan for three The pond held water all summer, and the
pond days to desilt the pond and repair its bund wells nearby did not run dry — the same
before the monsoon reasoning as the Bhils’ trenches near Jhabua

6. Children out of Two college students and a retired teacher Eleven children joined a regular school the
school in our area started free evening classes in the community next year — Kamal Parmar’s story
hall; residents donated books repeating on a smaller scale

What to write in your conclusion: in every one of these, the same pattern appears — a
problem too big for one family, solved by people who expected nothing in return, and a duty
accepted rather than a payment received. As the chapter puts it, communities exist because “all
families and individuals within the community have specific duties to perform”, and because
“everyone depends on a number of other people and communities”.

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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

If you draw it: four panels work well — the problem, people gathering, the work
being done together, the result. Look at the photographs on page 145 of the
textbook for the idea: an entire hillside of people digging trenches, walking to the
site with their own tools, and, at the end, a pond full of water where a bare slope
used to be.

Chapter at a glance
The chapter’s one idea: people do not live alone. A family is the smallest circle of people
who look after one another; a community is a larger circle of families and people
connected to each other. The chapter moves outward from the first circle to the second, and
ends by showing that even communities cannot manage alone — they depend on one
another.
The family is the oldest unit of society, and it comes in more than one shape. The book
names two: a joint family, where several generations live together (grandparents, parents,
uncles and aunts, brothers, sisters and cousins), and a nuclear family, “limited to a couple
and their children, and sometimes one parent and children”. Neither is presented as better
than the other — they are simply different ways of living together.
Indian languages carry the relationships in their words. English manages with a few
terms; Hindi has bua, tau, tai, chacha, mausi, nana, nani and many more, and Tamil even
separates elder from younger brother or sister. But there is no word for ‘cousin’ in most
Indian languages — cousins are simply brothers and sisters, which “emphasises the deep
bonds among all the children in the family”.
Inside a family: roles, responsibilities and give-and-take. Relationships rest on love,
care, cooperation and interdependence — ‘cooperation’ meaning ‘working together’.
Following one’s dharma, or duty, is an old principle of Indian culture, and the family is a
‘school’ where children learn ahimsa, dāna (giving), sevā (service) and tyāga (sacrifice). Two
stories show this: Shalini in Kerala, whose family buys festival clothes for the uncle’s family
too, and Tenzing in the northeast, whose father takes over housework and whose
grandparents teach, help and serve the neighbourhood.
Communities come together, make rules, and serve. People join for festivals, feasts and
weddings, and in villages for sowing and harvesting; over time they agree on unwritten
rules for shared water, grazing land and forest produce — which also means every family
has duties. The Bhil community of the Jhabua region (Madhya Pradesh) followed its halma
tradition to plant thousands of trees and dig water-harvesting trenches, unpaid; in the
Chennai floods of 2015 private and religious groups cooked and distributed food; in
Ahmedabad, Kamal Parmar ran free evening classes for 150 children after his workshop
hours.
‘Community’ is a flexible word, and communities depend on each other. A jāti or a part
of it, a religious or regional group, people of a common work or interest, a school club, the

Page 37 of 40

Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

NSS or NCC — all are called communities. New ones have appeared in the last 30–40 years,
such as Residents’ Welfare Associations, which make their own rules about waste,
cleanliness and pets. Yet the same association needs the trading community for supplies
and municipal workers for waste: “in our complex societies, everyone depends on a number
of other people and communities.”

Page 38 of 40

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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community
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Class 6 Social Science Chapter 9 Family and Community AglaSem · NCERT Solutions

TERM WHAT IT MEANS WHERE IT WORTH REMEMBERING
APPEARS IN THE
CHAPTER

Unwritten ‘rules’ Practices a community Pages 143–144 They give secure access to
agrees on for shared water, resources — and give every family
grazing land and forest duties
produce

Residents’ Welfare An urban community that Page 147 A ‘new’ type of community, of the
Association makes its own rules about last 30–40 years
waste, cleanliness of
common areas, pets and so
on

Jāti A community of the Page 147 One of several very different things
traditional social order; a the single word ‘community’ can
jāti or a subdivision of it is mean
often called a community

Page 40 of 40