Questions
- Protest and agitation are nearly indistinguishable. Discuss. Do you see recent opposition to farm bills as a protest or agitation? 20
- Do you think that deprivation leads to corruption in Bureaucracy? Critically examine. 10
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Model Solutions
1. Protest and agitation are nearly indistinguishable. Discuss. Do you see recent opposition to farm bills as a protest or agitation? 20
Model Structure
Introduction
- Agitation and protest both are a way of opposition and tactics to fulfil one’s demand.
Main Body
- Protest is a social process of opposition against any person, group or even wider society. Whereas, agitation involves intense activity undertaken by an individual or group, in order to fulfil a purpose.
- Both the terms are used interchangeably, but have a very thin line of separation between them.
- In protest there is opposition as a central tenet of it, whereas purpose is central in an agitation.
- It can also be argued that dissatisfaction is associated with agitation and dissent with protest.
- Agitations are mostly organised in nature but protests may be sporadic in origin.
- Agitations may demand authority over state or organisation but protests mostly are bare opposition to them.
- They overlap in their characteristics sometimes for example:
- Both protests and agitations may develop into social movements.
- They both depend on the structure of the society.
Farm bills and the opposition:
- The government launched three farm bills to cater the long due reforms in the agriculture sector. But they were met with massive opposition by the masses.
- The opposition started as a protest against the farm laws as the farmers were opposing some of the sections of the act.
- But as the time passed, protest transformed itself into an agitation and in further time it transformed into a social movement, which was spread across the country.
- In protest the farmers were just opposing the steps taken by the government but when it turned into an agitation they started asking for the repealing of the bills.
- Many manifestations of agitation like strikes, rasta roko, picketing etc. were conspicuous during this period.
- The agitation further got institutionalised and a greater degree of organisation was seen in due course of time, which led it in the direction of social movement.
Conclusion
- Be it protest or agitation, both are ways of opposition and making the state listen to the demands of the masses. The only difference can be seen in the structure, but the end goals are mostly the same.
2. Do you think that deprivation leads to corruption in Bureaucracy? Critically examine. 10
Model Structure
Introduction
- It refers to denying access to resources required for self-development and fulfilling necessities. Resources can be social, economic and cultural, and necessities vary from one culture to another.
Main Body
- Weber saw bureaucracy as an organisation with a hierarchy of paid, full-time officials who formed a chain of command.
- Deprivation may be absolute or relative. Here we are mostly concerned with the relative deprivation.
- Relative deprivation and corrupt bureaucracy:
- Samuel Stouffer’s theory of ‘The American Soldier’, highlights how despite no apparent deprivation in terms of actual hardships they feel relatively deprived.
- This may be true for the bureaucrats. As compared to their counterparts in the private sector the remuneration of a bureaucrat is very low. This leads to illegal means of earning in terms of corruption.
- Overloaded working hours of the officials leave them no time for personal space and further raises a big question on their allegiance to the organisation and their rules.
- They are constantly comparing themselves with their seniors and peers and often fall prey to the power abuse, which is a type of corruption of bureaucratic ethics.
- But deprivation is not the only or true reason for corruption and there is much more to it:
- There is a lack of control, supervision and auditing.
- Nexus between politicians, businessmen and bureaucrats.
- Lack of commitment of leadership.
- Normalisation of corruption in social spheres.
Conclusion
- Therefore, deprivation may be one of the factors of rising bureaucracy in India but it may not be the only or major reason of corruption.
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