RBSE Solutions for Class 8 Social Science Civics Chapter 4 Understanding Laws

Rajasthan Board RBSE Solutions for Class 8 Social Science Civics Chapter 4 Understanding Laws Textbook Exercise Questions and Answers.

RBSE Class 8 Social Science Solutions Civics Chapter 4 Understanding Laws

RBSE Class 8 Social Science Civics Understanding Laws InText Questions and Answers

Page-43

Question 1. 
Read the following situation and answer the questions that follow:
A government official helps his son go into hiding because his son has been given a ten-year jail sentence by a District Court for a crime that he has committed.

1. Do you think that the government official’s actions were right?
2. Should his son be exempt from the law just because his father is economically and politically powerful?

Answer: 

1. No, the government official’s actions were not right.
2. No, his son should not be exempted from the law just because his father is economically and politically powerful.

Page-45

Question 1. 
State one reason why you think the Sedition Act of 1870 was arbitrary? In what ways does the Sedition Act of 1870 contradict the rule of law?
Answer: 
According to the Sedition Act of 1870, a person protesting or criticizing the British government could be arrested without due trial. Arresting without trial is arbitrary. The sedition law of 1870 violates the ‘rule of law’ in such a way that it was not based on the idea of justice and equality.

Page-48

Question 1. 
What do you understand by ‘domestic violence? List the two rights that the new law helped achieve for women who are survivors of violence.
Answer: 
Domestic Violence:
When a male member of the family (usually the husband) beats, hurts, or threatens to beat or hurt a woman (usually the wife) of the house, it is called domestic violence. This damage to a woman can be caused by physical assault or emotional abuse. This exploitation can be verbal, sexual, or even economic. The Domestic Violence Act, of 2005 has broadened the meaning of the word domestic with reference to the protection of women. Now such women will also be considered as part of the domestic realm who ‘live’ or ‘have lived’ in the same house with the man who committed the violence. Women who have faced violence have got the following two main rights from the new law-

1. This law recognizes the right of women to live in a shared house. Women can obtain orders for protection against any ' form of violence.
2. Women can get financial support for their treatment and other expenses.

Question 2. 
Can you list one process that was used to make more people aware of the need for this law? 
Answer: 
Following procedures have been used to make people aware of the need for this law:

1. Suggestions based on complaints heard by various women’s organizations,
2. Public meetings,
3. Newspaper editorials,
4. Television report,
5. Press conference,
6. Drafting the bill by lawyers, law students, and social scientists and teaching the people,
7. Radio broadcasting, etc.

Question 3. 
From the above storyboard, can you list two different ways in which people lobbied Parliament?
Answer: 
In this storyboard, opposing the 2002 bill and pressurized the Parliament for the new bill in the following two ways:

1. Calling a press conference and clarifying the shortcomings of this bill in front of the press.
2. Also started an online petition on the computer so that people on the internet can give their opinion instantly.

Question 4. 
In the following poster, what do you understand by the phrase ‘Equal Relationships are Violence Free'?
Answer: 
‘Equal Relationships are Violence Free’ means both husband and wife have equal rights and no one should suppress the other and always respect each other. Such types of equal relationships are always violent free and violence-free homes will benefit everyone.

Page-50

Question 1. 
Read the newspaper/watch news on TV for a week and find out if there are any unpopular laws that people in India or around the world are currently protesting. 
Answer: 
Students will do it themselves.

Question 2. 
List the three forms of protest that you see in the above photos.
Answer: 

• Hunger-strike,
• Dhamma,
• Rally.

RBSE Class 8 Social Science Understanding Laws Textbook Questions and Answers

Question 1. 
Write in your own words what you understand by the term the ‘rule of law’. In your response include a fictitious or real example of a violation of the rule of law. 
Answer:
Rule of Law:
The rule of law means that the law is the same for everyone. All persons are equal before the law and the law will provide equal protection to all citizens. The law cannot discriminate between persons on the basis of their religion, caste, or gender. All laws apply equally to nil citizens of the country and no one can be above the law, irrespective of any post. Any crime or violation of law has a specific punishment as well as a process through which the guilt of the person has to be established. 
For example:
it is a violation of law by a senior government official to not allow the police officer to take legal action against the minister’s son who has done a crime.

Question 2. 
State two reasons why historians refute the claim that the British introduced the rule of law in India.
Answer: 
Some people believe that the British introduced the rule of law in India. But historians refute the claim. The two main reasons are as follows:
(1) Colonial law was based on arbitrariness:
The Sedition Act of 1870 was an example of the arbitrariness of British rule. According to this, any person protesting or criticizing the British government could be arrested without due trial.

(2) Indian nationalists contributed to the development of the rule of law:
Indian nationalists in British India played an important role in the development of law. Indian nationalists began protesting and criticizing this arbitrary by the British. Their struggle was a struggle for equality. They wanted to see the law as a separate system based on the idea of justice. By the end of the nineteenth century, the Indian legal profession also began emerging and demanded respect in colonial courts. They began to use the law to defend the legal rights of IndiAnswer: Indian judges also began to play a greater role in making decisions. Therefore, there were several ways in which Indians played a major role in the evolution of the rule of law during the colonial period.

Question 3. 
Re-read the storyboard based 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: 
Process of formation of the new law on domestic violence:
In the 1990s, a demand for a new law to prevent domestic violence from various forums began to arise as women voiced their objections to various forums and insisted that they want to avoid assault and stay in their houses. There should be a new civil law to deal with this.

In 1999, ‘The Lawyers Collective’, a group of lawyers, law students, and activists, after nationwide consultations took the lead in drafting the Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Bill. It includes physical, economic, sexual and verbal, and emotional abuse in die definition of domestic violence, and any woman living within the shared domestic sphere was placed under this law. To discuss this, meetings were held with different institutions, and a demand was made before the government that the women’s movement wants a new law on domestic violence. The government should present this proposal in Parliament as soon as possible. 

Presentation of the Bill in Parliament: 
In 2002, the Domestic Violence Bill was introduced in Parliament, but this bill did not include the things which were suggested to the government. As a result, women’s Organisations opposed this bill. Several women’s organizations, National Commission for Women made a submission to the Parliamentary Standing Committee that the current proposed bill needs to be changed. They do not agree with the proposed definition of domestic violence. 

Recommendations of the Standing Committee and the presentation and approval of the new Bill: In December 2002, the standing committee submitted1 its ' recommendations to the Rajya Sabha and these were also tabled in the Lok Sabha. The committee’s ’report accepted most of the demands of the women’s groups. Finally, a new bill was reintroduced in Parliament in
2005. After being passed in both houses of Parliament, it was sent to the President for his assent. The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act came into effect in 2006. The law recognizes women’s right to a violence-free family and introduces a broader definition of domestic violence.

Question 4. 
Write in your own words what you understand by the following sentence on pages 44-45: They also began fighting for greater equality and wanted to change the idea of law from a set of rules that they were forced to obey, to the law including ideas of justice.
Answer: 
Colonial law in India was based on arbitrariness. The nationalists of India opposed this arbitrary use of power by the British and Started a struggle to establish the rule of law based on justice and equality.