All Political Science and International Relations optional papers

UPSC Mains 2016 Political Science and International Relations Optional Question Papers with Model Answers

All 56 questions of the 2016 Civil Services Main Examination, PSIR Paper I and PSIR Paper II, with marks and a suggested time per part. Solve each part on paper first, then open the model answer, or send it to answer-writing practice for evaluation.

UPSC Mains 2016 Political Science and International Relations PSIR Paper I

Question 1 (50 marks)

Q1(a) · Western Political Thought · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Hobbes and Locke
“How would I and my fellow human beings behave if we were to find ourselves in a state of nature, and what does this behaviour tell us about our innate pre-dispositions?” (Thomas Hobbes)
हिंदी में प्रश्न
“मैं और मेरे सह-मानव कैसे व्यवहार करेंगे, यदि हम स्वयं को प्राकृतिक अवस्था में पाते हैं और हमारा यह व्यवहार सहज पूर्वनुकूलता के विषय में क्या कहेगा?” (थामस हाब्स)
Practise this question Western Political Thought notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(a)
Approach: Explain the question Hobbes poses, his answer from human nature (passions, equality, causes of conflict), and what it reveals about our innate predispositions, with a short critique.
The question is Hobbes's thought experiment in Leviathan (1651): imagine human beings without any common power to keep them in awe, and observe how they would behave. The answer reveals his view of human nature.
Hobbes, a materialist, saw humans as bodies in motion driven by appetites and aversions, above all a perpetual and restless desire of power after power that ceases only in death. Being roughly equal in ability, they compete for the same goods. Competition, diffidence and glory make the state of nature a war of all against all, where life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.
What this tells us: our innate predispositions are self-preservation, fear and the desire for power, not natural sociability as Aristotle held. Yet humans also possess reason, which shows them the laws of nature and the need for a sovereign.
Rousseau and Locke offered gentler pictures, but Hobbes's insight shaped realism and modern rational-choice theory.
Q1(b) · Political Theory and Theories of the State · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Approaches to Political Theory: Normative, Historical, Empirical, Behavioural and Post-behavioural
The Post-Behavioural Approach.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
उत्तर-व्यवहारवादी उपागम।
Practise this question Political Theory and Theories of the State notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(b)
Approach: Explain the origin of post-behaviouralism, its main tenets (Credo of Relevance), and evaluate its contribution.
The post-behavioural approach arose in the late 1960s as a reaction against the excessive scientism of behaviouralism. David Easton, earlier a leading behaviouralist, proclaimed it in his 1969 APSA presidential address, ‘The New Revolution in Political Science’.
Tenets (Credo of Relevance): substance must precede technique; research must address the urgent problems of society; values are central to inquiry; scholars must protect humane values; knowledge carries a responsibility to act; and the profession must engage with society. Its watchwords were relevance and action.
Context: the Vietnam war, civil rights struggles and student protests showed that value-free political science had nothing to say on burning questions.
Contribution: it brought values back, encouraged policy analysis and paved the way for Rawls and the revival of normative theory. Unlike a counter-revolution, it kept behavioural methods but made them serve social goals.
Criticism: ‘relevance’ is vague and may politicise scholarship. Still, it made political science more humane and useful, for example in studying poverty and displacement in India.
Q1(c) · Justice, Equality and Rights · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Affirmative Action
Affirmative Action.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
सकारात्मक व्यवहार।
Practise this question Justice, Equality and Rights notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(c)
Approach: A short note: define affirmative action, its forms and rationale, compare the US and Indian approaches, and close with an assessment.
Affirmative action is a set of policies by which the state or institutions actively favour members of disadvantaged groups to overcome the effects of past and present discrimination.
Forms: soft measures such as outreach, training and scholarships; and strong measures such as preferences and fixed quotas in admissions, jobs and legislatures.
Rationale: it rests on the idea of substantive equality: treating unequals equally perpetuates inequality. Rawls' fair equality of opportunity and Dworkin's treatment as an equal support it, and Ambedkar saw it as essential to end caste exclusion.
US and India: in the US, courts in cases like Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978) rejected rigid racial quotas while allowing race as one factor. India adopted explicit quotas for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and, after the Mandal Commission, OBCs, upheld in Indra Sawhney (1992) with a 50% ceiling.
Critics cite merit, reverse discrimination and creamy-layer capture. Yet it has created a Dalit and tribal middle class and widened representation, making it a core instrument of social justice.
Q1(d) · Indian Political Thought · 10 marks≈ 7 min
B.R. Ambedkar
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar’s idea of state socialism.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
डॉ. बी. आर. अम्बेदकर का राज्य-समाजवाद का विचार।
Practise this question Indian Political Thought notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(d)
Approach: Explain Ambedkar's proposal for State socialism in States and Minorities (1947), its features and rationale, and what became of it in the Constitution.
Ambedkar set out his idea of State socialism in States and Minorities (1947), a memorandum submitted on behalf of the Scheduled Castes Federation to the Constituent Assembly.
Features: key and basic industries to be owned and run by the state; insurance to be a state monopoly; agriculture to be a state industry, with land acquired by the state (with compensation through bonds) and let out to village collectives that cultivate cooperatively without distinction of caste. Crucially, this economic structure was to be fixed in the Constitution itself, so that it could not be altered by an ordinary legislative majority.
Rationale: private enterprise in a caste society could not remove poverty or untouchability, and the landless Dalits needed economic security to make their political rights real. Yet he rejected the dictatorship of the proletariat, insisting on parliamentary democracy.
The Constituent Assembly did not adopt the scheme; its spirit survives in the Directive Principles, especially Articles 39(b) and (c).
Q1(e) · Western Political Thought · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Karl Marx and Antonio Gramsci
Gramsci’s concept of Hegemony.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
ग्रामसी का प्राधान्य सिद्धान्त।
Practise this question Western Political Thought notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(e)
Approach: Explain Gramsci's hegemony (consent through civil society backed by coercion), its agents and strategic implications, with a brief evaluation.
In his Prison Notebooks, Antonio Gramsci used hegemony to mean the intellectual and moral leadership through which a ruling class secures the active consent of subordinate classes, so that its worldview becomes common sense.
Hegemony operates mainly in civil society, through schools, churches, media and family, while political society (army, police, courts) supplies coercion when consent fails. The state is therefore hegemony protected by coercion. Intellectuals are its agents, and the ruling class builds a historic bloc by making limited concessions to other groups.
Implication: in the West revolution requires a war of position, building counter-hegemony in civil society, rather than a direct assault on the state.
The concept moved Marxism beyond economic determinism and influenced cultural studies and India's Subaltern Studies, though critics say it underplays resistance and coercion.

Question 2 (50 marks)

Q2(a) · Democracy, Power and Political Ideologies · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Liberalism
“The Political ideology of Globalization is Neo-liberalism.” Comment.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
“वैश्वीकरण की राजनीतिक विचारधारा नव-उदारवाद है”, टिप्पणी कीजिये।
Practise this question Democracy, Power and Political Ideologies notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q2(a)
Approach: Comment by defining neo-liberalism, showing how its ideas drove and justified globalisation (including India's 1991 reforms), then weighing the counter-arguments and recent trends.
Neo-liberalism is a revival of classical free-market liberalism that gained ground in the 1970s and 1980s. Its intellectual sources are Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom (1944), Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom (1962) and Robert Nozick's minimal state. It favours free markets, privatisation, deregulation, free trade and a limited state.
The statement holds that globalisation is not a neutral technological process but a project driven by this ideology. Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan put neo-liberal policies into practice, and the Washington Consensus (John Williamson's term, 1989) spread them through IMF and World Bank structural adjustment. The WTO (1995) institutionalised free trade, and capital flows were liberalised. Thatcher's slogan 'There is no alternative' captured the claim that this path was inevitable.
India's 1991 reforms of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation followed a balance-of-payments crisis and an IMF loan.
There are counter-arguments. Globalisation also has cultural, technological and political dimensions that cannot be reduced to neo-liberalism. Joseph Stiglitz, in Globalization and Its Discontents (2002), criticised market fundamentalism, while David Harvey, in A Brief History of Neoliberalism (2005), saw it as a project to restore class power. The World Social Forum argued that another world is possible. East Asian states, including China, globalised under strong state direction rather than neo-liberal prescriptions.
Since the 2008 crisis, rising protectionism and industrial policy have weakened the link. The statement is broadly valid for 1980 to 2008, but globalisation is now being reshaped by economic nationalism and state capitalism.
Q2(b) · Political Theory and Theories of the State · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Post-colonial and Feminist Theories of the State
Discuss Feminist theory of the State.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
राज्य के नारीवादी सिद्धान्त की व्याख्या कीजिये।
Practise this question Political Theory and Theories of the State notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q2(b)
Approach: Discuss the feminist theory of the state: the core claim, its main strands (liberal, radical, Marxist/socialist, post-structural and post-colonial) with thinkers, Indian examples, and an assessment.
The feminist theory of the state examines how the state is gendered: how it shapes, and is shaped by, relations between men and women. Feminists differ, however, on whether the state is an ally or an obstacle to women’s liberation.
Liberal feminism: from Mary Wollstonecraft to Betty Friedan, it sees the state as basically neutral and seeks equal rights, suffrage, education and anti-discrimination laws through it.
Radical feminism: Kate Millett (Sexual Politics, 1970) treated patriarchy as the basic form of domination; Catharine MacKinnon (Toward a Feminist Theory of the State, 1989) argued that the state is male because its law institutionalises the male point of view, for instance in rape and pornography law.
Marxist and socialist feminism: Engels linked women’s subordination to private property; socialist feminists show that the capitalist state depends on unpaid domestic labour.
Other strands: Carole Pateman exposed the sexual contract beneath the social contract; Scandinavian scholars spoke of ‘state feminism’ in the welfare state; post-colonial feminists stress the intersection of gender with race, caste and class.
India: laws on dowry, domestic violence (2005) and the Women’s Reservation Act (2023) show state action, while the Mathura case and marital rape debates show its limits.
The feminist theory thus exposes the gendered character of the state while showing it can be reshaped to serve gender justice.
Q2(c) · Justice, Equality and Rights · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Rawls' Theory of Justice
Critically examine John Rawls’ argument for democratic equality.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
लोकतांत्रिक समता पर जॉन रॉल्स के तर्क का आलोचनात्मक उल्लेख कीजिये।
Practise this question Justice, Equality and Rights notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q2(c)
Approach: Explain Rawls' four interpretations of the second principle and why he prefers democratic equality, then critically examine it from libertarian, Marxist-egalitarian and capability standpoints.
In A Theory of Justice (1971) John Rawls interprets the vague phrase that inequalities must be to everyone's advantage and positions open to all in four ways: natural liberty, liberal equality, natural aristocracy and democratic equality. He defends the last.
Argument: the system of natural liberty (careers open to talents plus free markets) lets distribution be shaped by the accidents of birth and fortune. Liberal equality adds fair equality of opportunity, correcting social class, but still rewards natural talent, which is equally arbitrary from a moral point of view. Democratic equality combines fair equality of opportunity with the difference principle: inequalities are allowed only if they benefit the least advantaged. Natural talents become a common asset, and the better endowed may gain only on terms that improve the situation of others.
Critique: Robert Nozick (Anarchy, State, and Utopia, 1974) argues that treating talents as common assets violates self-ownership and that redistribution disrupts just transfers. G.A. Cohen (Rescuing Justice and Equality, 2008) argues that the incentive argument lets the talented hold society to ransom, so Rawls is not egalitarian enough. Amartya Sen notes that equal primary goods ignore differences in converting goods into capabilities, for example for disabled persons.
Despite these objections, democratic equality remains the most influential liberal attempt to reconcile markets with fairness, and it echoes India's commitment to social and economic justice in the Preamble and Article 38.

Question 3 (50 marks)

Q3(a) · Indian Political Thought · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Sri Aurobindo
Discuss Sri Aurobindo’s views on Cultural Nationalism.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
सांस्कृतिक राष्ट्रवाद पर श्री अरविन्दो के दृष्टिकोण की व्याख्या कीजिये।
Practise this question Indian Political Thought notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q3(a)
Approach: Discuss Aurobindo's cultural (spiritual) nationalism: its sources, its main ideas on nation, culture and religion, its methods and later universalism, followed by critique and relevance.
Cultural nationalism holds that a nation is defined by a shared civilisation, values and spiritual heritage rather than by state or territory alone. Sri Aurobindo, influenced by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay's Anandamath and Vivekananda, became its most philosophical exponent in the Swadeshi period.
The nation as a living spirit: Aurobindo argued that India is not a piece of land or a collection of people but a living mother, a shakti formed from the energies of millions. Nationalism, he said in 1908, was not merely a political programme but a religion that came from God, to be lived with self-sacrifice.
Spiritual foundations: in the Uttarpara speech (1909) he identified Sanatana Dharma, understood as an eternal, universal religion, with Indian nationalism. India's culture, he argued in The Foundations of Indian Culture, rested on spirituality, and this distinguished it from the materialism of the West.
Cultural revival against colonialism: he criticised English education for producing mental slavery and promoted national education in Indian languages and values.
Methods: passive resistance through boycott and swadeshi, and the moral right to stronger resistance when repression made peaceful methods impossible.
Universalism: later, in The Human Cycle and The Ideal of Human Unity, Aurobindo held that free nations would eventually form a spiritual world union, so his nationalism was not exclusive or aggressive.
Critique: his Hindu religious imagery could not easily include Muslims, and critics such as Tagore, in his novel Ghare Baire and essays on Nationalism, warned against making the nation an object of worship.
Nevertheless, Aurobindo turned nationalism from a demand for reforms into a movement for cultural self-respect and complete freedom, and debates on Indian identity still draw on him.
Q3(b) · Western Political Thought · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Karl Marx and Antonio Gramsci
Explain Marx’s understanding of Human Essence and Alienation.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
मानवीय सत्त्व और विसंबंधन के प्रति मार्क्स के ज्ञान को स्पष्ट कीजिये।
Practise this question Western Political Thought notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q3(b)
Approach: Explain Marx's idea of human essence (species-being, later as the ensemble of social relations) and show how alienation under capitalism estranges humans from it, with the remedy and a critique.
Marx's theory of alienation presupposes a view of human essence. In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 he described humans as species-beings: unlike animals, they produce consciously, freely and universally, shaping nature according to their own designs and recognising themselves in what they create. Labour is thus the essence of humanity, and humans are social beings who realise themselves with others.
In the sixth Thesis on Feuerbach (1845) he added that the human essence is not an abstraction inherent in each individual but the ensemble of social relations; human nature is historical, changing with modes of production.
Alienation is the estrangement of humans from this essence under capitalism: from the product, which belongs to the capitalist; from the labour process, which becomes forced and mechanical; from species-being, as creative activity is reduced to a means of survival; and from fellow humans, as relations become competitive. Its root lies in private property and the division of labour.
The remedy is communism, where labour becomes free self-expression and humans recover their essence.
Critique: Althusser claimed a break between the humanist young Marx and the scientific mature Marx; others find the idea of essence vague. Yet Erich Fromm and the Frankfurt School revived it as a critique of consumer society.
Q3(c) · Justice, Equality and Rights · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Rights: Meaning, Theories and Kinds; Human Rights
“The implementation of human rights is regarded as a matter of changing the conduct of States.” Comment.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
“मानव अधिकारों का लागू किया जाना शासन के व्यवहार में परिवर्तन समझा जाता है”, समीक्षा कीजिये।
Practise this question Justice, Equality and Rights notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q3(c)
Approach: Explain why States are the primary duty-bearers of human rights, how international mechanisms try to change State conduct (treaties, monitoring, socialisation, NGOs), the limits of this approach, and the role of non-State actors.
Human rights law is built on the idea that the State is the primary duty-bearer: it must respect rights by not violating them, protect them against others, and fulfil them through provision. Hence implementation largely means changing how States behave.
Mechanisms: the UN Charter (1945), the UDHR (1948) and the two Covenants (1966) set norms; treaty bodies review State reports; the Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review (since 2008) subjects every State to peer review; regional courts such as the European Court of Human Rights deliver binding judgments.
How conduct changes: Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink (Activists Beyond Borders, 1998) describe the boomerang pattern, in which domestic groups blocked at home appeal to transnational networks that pressure their government from outside. Thomas Risse, Stephen Ropp and Sikkink's spiral model traces how States move from denial to tactical concessions to rule-consistent behaviour. Beth Simmons showed that ratified treaties empower domestic actors to demand compliance.
Limits: enforcement depends on State consent; great powers escape scrutiny; sovereignty and non-intervention are invoked against criticism.
Beyond the State: violations by corporations, armed groups and social hierarchies such as caste require wider responsibility; the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (2011) address companies.
The statement is largely correct, but implementation also needs domestic institutions, as India's NHRC under the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, and an active civil society.

Question 4 (50 marks)

Q4(a) · Western Political Thought · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Hannah Arendt
Discuss Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the role of Ideology in modern totalitarian regimes.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
आधुनिक सर्वाधिकारवादी शासन में विचारधारा की भूमिका के संदर्भ में हन्ना-आरेंट के विश्लेषण की व्याख्या कीजिये।
Practise this question Western Political Thought notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q4(a)
Approach: Discuss Arendt's analysis in The Origins of Totalitarianism: the nature of ideology (logic of an idea, total explanation, emancipation from reality), its fusion with terror, its social basis in atomised masses, and its consequences, with a critique.
In The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), especially the chapter 'Ideology and Terror', Hannah Arendt argued that Nazism and Stalinism were a novel form of government, different from tyranny or dictatorship. Its essence was terror, and its guiding principle ideology.
Nature of ideology: Arendt defined ideologies as 'isms' that claim to explain everything through the logic of a single idea, the law of Nature (race) for Nazism and the law of History (class struggle) for Stalinism. They have three totalitarian features: they claim total explanation of past, present and future; they become independent of experience, insisting on a truer reality behind perceptible things; and they proceed by strict logical deduction from a premise, so that once one accepts it, every conclusion, however monstrous, follows.
Ideology and terror: terror executes the law of movement that ideology announces. Inferior races or dying classes are declared objectively guilty and eliminated. The concentration camps were laboratories in which the belief that everything is possible was tested and human spontaneity destroyed.
Social basis: totalitarianism rested on atomised, superfluous masses produced by the collapse of class society, unemployment and the decline of the nation-state. Loneliness, the experience of not belonging to the world at all, made individuals receptive to ideological thinking.
Consequences: total domination sought to eliminate plurality, freedom and the capacity to begin something new.
Critique: critics argue that she equated Nazism and Stalinism too readily, a view that suited Cold War politics, and that her account underplays the role of economic interests and of elites.
Still, her analysis of how ideology destroys the distinction between fact and fiction remains relevant to post-truth politics, propaganda and radicalisation today.
Q4(b) · Democracy, Power and Political Ideologies · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Models of Democracy: Representative, Participatory and Deliberative
Explicate the features of Representative Democracy.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
प्रतिनिधि लोकतंत्र के अभिलक्षणों को स्पष्ट कीजिये।
Practise this question Democracy, Power and Political Ideologies notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q4(b)
Approach: Define representative democracy, list its features with the relevant thinkers on representation, and briefly assess it with Indian examples.
Representative democracy is indirect democracy in which citizens elect representatives who make laws and policies on their behalf and remain accountable to them. It developed with the modern nation-state, where direct democracy of the Athenian type was impractical.
Its main features are: (i) free, fair and periodic elections on universal adult franchise; (ii) accountability of representatives and the government to the electorate and the legislature; (iii) competitive political parties and a legal opposition; (iv) constitutionalism, rule of law and protection of rights; (v) freedom of speech, press and association; and (vi) majority rule with protection of minorities.
Thinkers differ on the representative's role. Edmund Burke, in his Speech to the Electors of Bristol (1774), saw the representative as a trustee who uses his own judgement; others see him as a delegate bound by voters' instructions. J.S. Mill saw representative government as the ideally best form, and Hanna Pitkin's The Concept of Representation (1967) distinguished formal, descriptive, symbolic and substantive representation.
India's parliamentary system shows these features, with reserved seats adding descriptive representation. Its weaknesses, low participation between elections, elite capture and money power, have led to calls for participatory and deliberative supplements.
Q4(c) · Indian Political Thought · 15 marks≈ 11 min
M.K. Gandhi
Examine Gandhi’s critique of ‘Modernisation’.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
‘आधुनिकीकरण’ के परिप्रेक्ष्य में महात्मा गांधी का आलोचनात्मक विवरण प्रस्तुत कीजिए।
Practise this question Indian Political Thought notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q4(c)
Approach: Examine Gandhi's critique of modern civilisation in Hind Swaraj (industrialism, materialism, institutions), its sources and alternative, then evaluate its strengths and weaknesses.
In Hind Swaraj (1909) Gandhi offered one of the most radical critiques of modern civilisation, influenced by Ruskin, Tolstoy and Thoreau. He called it a civilisation only in name, one that makes bodily welfare the object of life.
Main arguments: first, materialism and the multiplication of wants breed greed, competition and violence. Second, machinery and large-scale industry concentrate wealth, displace labour and destroy village crafts; he blamed Manchester cloth for ruining Indian weavers. Third, modern institutions such as railways, lawyers, doctors and parliament weakened self-reliance and morality; he described the British parliament harshly as sterile. Fourth, modernity separated politics and economics from ethics, and imperialism was its outcome.
His alternative was a civilisation of duty and self-restraint: simple living, swadeshi, bread labour, decentralised village economy and sarvodaya, the welfare of all.
Evaluation: the critique anticipated later concerns about ecological limits, consumerism and alienating technology, and E.F. Schumacher's Small is Beautiful echoes it. However, Nehru and Ambedkar found it romantic, since village India also meant caste and poverty. Gandhi himself later softened his stand, accepting machines that lightened human labour.
His critique is best read as an ethical warning against unrestrained modernisation, not a rejection of all progress.

Question 5 (50 marks)

Q5(a) · Indian Nationalism and the Making of the Constitution · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Perspectives on the National Movement: Liberal, Socialist, Marxist, Radical Humanist and Dalit
Critically examine the Radical Humanist perspective on Indian National Movement.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारतीय राष्ट्रीय आन्दोलन पर उग्र मानवतावादी परिप्रेक्ष्य में आलोचनात्मक विवरण प्रस्तुत कीजिये।
Practise this question Indian Nationalism and the Making of the Constitution notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(a)
Approach: Explain M.N. Roy’s radical humanist reading of the national movement (critique of Gandhian leadership, revivalism and bourgeois nationalism) and critically examine its merits and weaknesses.
The Radical Humanist perspective was developed by M.N. Roy, a founder of the Communist Party of India at Tashkent (1920) who broke with the Comintern in 1929 and later turned to New Humanism (Radical Democratic Party, 1940; New Humanism: A Manifesto, 1947).
Critique: Roy argued that the national movement was led by a bourgeoisie that compromised with imperialism, and that Gandhism was a reactionary, religious ideology that glorified a pre-modern past and blocked a scientific, rational outlook. Nationalism without a cultural renaissance, he held, would only replace foreign rulers with native ones.
Alternative: freedom must mean the freedom of the individual; he called for a philosophical revolution based on reason and science, and organised people’s committees for radical democracy.
Assessment: his insistence on individual freedom and secular rationalism was valuable. But his support for the British war effort during the Second World War isolated him, and he underestimated Gandhi’s success in mobilising the masses.
Roy remains an important dissenting voice.
Q5(b) · Grassroots Democracy, Statutory Institutions and Federalism · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Integrationist Tendencies, Regional Aspirations and Inter-State Disputes
Cultural and Regional differences are the enduring bases on which politics is played out in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
सांस्कृतिक और क्षेत्रीय भिन्नताएं वे स्थायी आधार हैं जिन पर भारत में राजनीति खेली जाती है।
Practise this question Grassroots Democracy, Statutory Institutions and Federalism notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(b)
Approach: Comment on the statement: show how cultural and regional differences shape Indian politics, qualify it with other cross-cutting bases, and conclude with the state-nation idea.
India's linguistic, religious and regional diversity has shaped its politics since independence: linguistic reorganisation of states (1956), the Dravidian movement, and the rise of regional parties such as the DMK, TDP and BJD show that region and culture are enduring bases of mobilisation.
Selig Harrison feared in 1960 that such differences would fragment India, and after 1967 the decline of the Congress system, described by Rajni Kothari, brought regional parties to power in many states.
Paul Brass showed that these identities are not fixed but selected and mobilised by elites, which explains why they remain politically potent.
However, they are not the only bases: caste, class, religion, development and leadership cut across regions, and national parties and national elections continue to matter.
India has managed these differences as a state-nation, in the words of Linz, Stepan and Yadav, through accommodation within a federal Union rather than suppression.
Q5(c) · The Constitution and the Organs of Government · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Judicial Review and the Basic Structure Doctrine
‘Article 368 does not enable Parliament to alter the basic structure or framework of the Constitution’.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
‘संविधान के मूलभूत ढाँचे अथवा संरचना को परिवर्तित करने के लिये अनुच्छेद 368 संसद को अधिकृत नहीं करता है’।
Practise this question The Constitution and the Organs of Government notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(c)
Approach: The question asks for comment on this principle, so the answer gives its origin in Kesavananda, its development, and an assessment.
The statement summarises the holding of Kesavananda Bharati v State of Kerala (1973): Parliament may amend any provision, including Fundamental Rights, but Article 368 does not empower it to alter the basic structure of the Constitution.
Background: Golaknath (1967) had barred amendment of Fundamental Rights; the 24th Amendment (1971) reasserted the power. Kesavananda upheld the 24th Amendment but held that ‘amendment’ implies the survival of the Constitution's identity.
Development: Parliament tried to oust review through Article 368(4) and (5), added by the 42nd Amendment, but Minerva Mills (1980) struck them down, holding that limited amending power is itself a basic feature. The NJAC case (2015) applied the doctrine to judicial independence.
Assessment: critics say the doctrine gives judges a veto over the people's representatives. Supporters point to the Emergency, when the 39th and 42nd Amendments threatened democracy.
The principle has made the Constitution's core values durable.
Q5(d) · The Constitution and the Organs of Government · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Preamble, Fundamental Rights and Duties, and Directive Principles
The purpose of the 42nd Constitutional Amendment was to make the economic and social democracy explicitly visible.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
42 वें संविधान संशोधन का उद्देश्य आर्थिक और सामाजिक लोकतंत्र को स्पष्टतया दृष्टिगोचर बनाना था।
Practise this question The Constitution and the Organs of Government notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(d)
Approach: The question asks for comment on the purpose of the 42nd Amendment, so the answer shows the provisions that made social and economic democracy explicit and balances them against its authoritarian features.
The 42nd Amendment (1976), passed during the Emergency, was the most sweeping change to the Constitution. Its declared aim was to make the goals of social and economic democracy explicit.
Provisions supporting the claim: it inserted ‘socialist’ and ‘secular’ in the Preamble; added Directive Principles on free legal aid (Article 39A), participation of workers in management (Article 43A) and protection of the environment (Article 48A); extended Article 39(f) on the welfare of children; added Fundamental Duties (Article 51A); and widened Article 31C to protect laws implementing any Directive Principle.
This echoed Ambedkar's warning that political democracy cannot last unless it rests on social democracy.
The other purpose: the amendment also curtailed judicial review, barred judicial scrutiny of amendments and extended the term of legislatures to six years. Minerva Mills (1980) struck down the extension of Article 31C and the bar on review of amendments, and the 44th Amendment (1978) reversed much else.
The statement is partly true: its socio-economic additions endured, while its centralising features were undone.
Q5(e) · Grassroots Democracy, Statutory Institutions and Federalism · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Federalism: Constitutional Provisions and Changing Centre-State Relations
The philosophy and administration of the distribution of powers between Centre and State is required to be re-assessed.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
केन्द्र और राज्य के मध्य शक्तियों के विभाजन की दार्शनिकता में और प्रशासन का पुनः निर्धारण किये जाने की आवश्यकता है।
Practise this question Grassroots Democracy, Statutory Institutions and Federalism notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(e)
Approach: Comment on whether the distribution of powers needs reassessment: explain the present scheme and its philosophy, the reasons for review, and the direction reform should take.
The Seventh Schedule's three lists, residuary powers with the Union and overriding Union law on the Concurrent List reflect a philosophy of a strong Centre for unity after Partition, which K.C. Wheare called quasi-federal.
Reassessment is now argued for because the Concurrent List has grown (the 42nd Amendment moved education and forests into it), and centrally sponsored schemes and conditional grants have extended the Centre into state subjects.
Administration also shows strain: states complain about the role of Governors, deployment of central forces and central agencies, while the Centre points to weak state capacity in policing and disaster response.
The Sarkaria (1988) and Punchhi (2010) Commissions recommended consultation with states before legislating on Concurrent subjects, sparing use of Article 356 and a stronger Inter-State Council.
The guiding principle of reassessment should be subsidiarity: transferring subjects and finances to the level best able to handle them, including local bodies, while keeping the Union strong in national matters.

Question 6 (50 marks)

Q6(a) · Planning, Social Cleavages, Party System and Social Movements · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Green Revolution, Land Reforms, Agrarian Relations and Liberalisation
Critically examine the politics of Economic growth in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत में आर्थिक विकास की राजनीति का आलोचनात्मक विवरण प्रस्तुत कीजिये।
Practise this question Planning, Social Cleavages, Party System and Social Movements notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(a)
Approach: Critically examine how politics shapes growth in India: explain the political economy theories (Bardhan, Rudolphs, Kohli, Jenkins), the shift of the 1980s-1991, the politics of reform, and the limits of growth politics.
The politics of economic growth concerns how state choices, class coalitions and electoral competition shape the pace and pattern of growth. In India growth has always been a political project, from Nehruvian planning to post-1991 reform.
Planning era: Pranab Bardhan, in The Political Economy of Development in India (1984), explained slow growth through the competing demands of three dominant proprietary classes: industrial capitalists, rich farmers and professionals including the bureaucracy, who diverted public resources into subsidies. Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph, in In Pursuit of Lakshmi (1987), described a demand polity in which mobilised groups pressed the state, weakening its command over investment.
The shift: Atul Kohli argues that a pro-business tilt began in the 1980s under Indira and Rajiv Gandhi, before the pro-market reforms of 1991. The 1991 balance of payments crisis allowed Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh to liberalise; Rob Jenkins shows that reform advanced by stealth, using federalism to diffuse opposition.
Electoral politics: India's voters have not consistently rewarded growth, as the defeat of the India Shining campaign in 2004 showed; welfare measures such as MGNREGA (2005) were the political price of sustaining reform.
Critique: growth has been uneven across states and classes; Kohli's Poverty amid Plenty in the New India (2012) argues the state-business alliance has neglected the poor. Charges of crony capitalism, jobless growth and regional divergence point to the same problem.
Federal and regional dimension: states compete for investment, and Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra grew faster than the Hindi heartland, making state politics central to growth.
Thus growth in India is negotiated in a competitive democracy; its sustainability depends on combining market reforms with inclusion so that growth itself remains politically legitimate.
Q6(b) · Planning, Social Cleavages, Party System and Social Movements · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Caste, Religion and Ethnicity in Indian Politics
Comment on the emergence of Backward classes in the Indian Politics.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारतीय राजनीति में पिछड़ा वर्गों के प्रकट होने पर टिप्पणी कीजिये।
Practise this question Planning, Social Cleavages, Party System and Social Movements notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(b)
Approach: Comment on the rise of backward classes in politics: trace the phases (socialist and agrarian roots, Mandal, regional parties, recent shifts), explain causes and assess consequences.
The Other Backward Classes, the intermediate and lower Shudra castes, form a large share of India's population. Their rise from the margins to the centre of power is among the most important changes in Indian politics, which Christophe Jaffrelot calls India's Silent Revolution (2003).
Early phase: in the south, the Justice Party and the Dravidian movement made non-Brahmin castes dominant by the 1960s. In the north, Ram Manohar Lohia's socialists demanded reservation for backward castes, and Charan Singh mobilised prosperous peasant castes enriched by the Green Revolution. Karpoori Thakur introduced backward class reservations in Bihar in 1978.
The Mandal moment: the Kaka Kalelkar Commission (1955) report was shelved, but the Mandal Commission (1980) recommended 27 percent reservation for OBCs, implemented by V.P. Singh in 1990 and upheld in Indra Sawhney (1992). This made the OBC a national political category.
Consequences: OBC-led parties such as the SP and RJD came to power, the share of OBC legislators in the Hindi belt rose sharply, and national parties had to court OBC voters. Yogendra Yadav calls this the second democratic upsurge.
Critiques: benefits concentrated among dominant OBCs such as Yadavs and Kurmis, leading to demands for sub-categorisation (the Rohini Commission); OBC assertion sometimes clashed with Dalits.
The emergence of backward classes has democratised Indian politics, though equal benefit for the most backward remains unfinished.
Q6(c) · Planning, Social Cleavages, Party System and Social Movements · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Party System, Coalition Politics and Pressure Groups
Discuss the pattern of Political Parties from one dominant party system to coalition politics in national politics.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
राष्ट्रीय राजनीति में एक प्रभावी दलीय व्यवस्था से बहुदली राजनीति तक राजनीतिक दलों के ढाँचे की व्याख्या कीजिये।
Practise this question Planning, Social Cleavages, Party System and Social Movements notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(c)
Approach: Discuss the pattern in phases from Congress dominance to coalition politics at the national level, with causes and the features of the coalition phase.
India's national party system has moved from the dominance of one party to competitive coalition politics. Yogendra Yadav divides this into successive electoral systems.
Dominant party phase (1952-67): the Congress, what Rajni Kothari called the Congress system, won large majorities on a plurality of votes. It was an umbrella of castes, classes and regions, and opposition parties such as the Socialists, Swatantra and Jana Sangh influenced it from outside.
Transition (1967-89): the 1967 elections ended Congress rule in several states; the 1969 split, the Emergency and the Janata government (1977-79), the first non-Congress government at the Centre, showed that dominance was breakable. Congress regained majorities in 1980 and 1984.
Coalition phase (1989-2014): hung Parliaments became the norm. The National Front (1989) and the United Front (1996-98) were unstable, but the NDA (1998-2004) and the UPA (2004-14) produced stable pre-poll coalitions led by a national party and bound by common programmes.
Causes: decline of the Congress organisation; Mandal and the rise of OBC and Dalit parties; the BJP's growth through the Ram temple movement; and the strength of regional parties in a federal set-up.
Features of coalition politics: federalisation of national politics, policy by consensus, the bargaining power of allies and the convention of coalition dharma.
The pattern shows the deepening of Indian democracy: power moved from one party to many, representing a more diverse society.

Question 7 (50 marks)

Q7(a) · Planning, Social Cleavages, Party System and Social Movements · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Green Revolution, Land Reforms, Agrarian Relations and Liberalisation
Land reforms have failed in the eradication of rural poverty. Comment.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
ग्रामीणों की गरीबी का उन्मूलन करने में भूमि सुधार असफल रहे हैं। टिप्पणी कीजिये।
Practise this question Planning, Social Cleavages, Party System and Social Movements notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(a)
Approach: Comment by assessing land reforms component-wise (zamindari abolition, tenancy, ceilings), explaining why they fell short on rural poverty, noting successes such as Kerala and West Bengal, and concluding.
Land reform was meant to give land to the tiller, end feudal exploitation and reduce rural poverty. Its programme had three parts: abolition of intermediaries, tenancy reform and ceilings on holdings with redistribution of surplus land.
Zamindari abolition was the most successful component: intermediaries were largely removed in the 1950s, bringing cultivators into direct relation with the state. But it mainly benefited upper tenants, the future dominant castes in M.N. Srinivas's sense, not the landless.
Tenancy reform largely failed: oral leases, eviction under the guise of resumption for personal cultivation, and the absence of records left most sharecroppers insecure. Ceiling laws had high limits, many exemptions and long delays, and benami and fictitious transfers meant that little surplus land was declared, distributed or actually held by beneficiaries.
Reasons: Daniel Thorner described how agrarian structure acted as a built-in depressor on growth; landed interests dominated state legislatures and Congress party units; land is a state subject, so implementation varied; and courts and amendments caused delay.
Exceptions show what was possible: Kerala's Land Reforms (Amendment) Act of 1969 conferred ownership on tenants, and West Bengal's Operation Barga from 1978 recorded sharecroppers. Both rested on political mobilisation by Left parties, and both states saw improved rural welfare.
Poverty fell later mainly through the Green Revolution, rural wages, public works and welfare, not through redistribution.
Hence land reforms largely failed to eradicate rural poverty, though they ended feudal landlordism and changed rural power. Today the agenda is secure tenancy, land records digitisation and land for the landless Dalits and Adivasis.
Q7(b) · The Constitution and the Organs of Government · 15 marks≈ 11 min
State Executive, Legislature and High Courts
Critically examine the role of Governor in recent times.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
हाल ही के समय में, राज्यपाल की भूमिका का आलोचनात्मक विवरण प्रस्तुत कीजिये।
Practise this question The Constitution and the Organs of Government notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(b)
Approach: The question asks for a critical examination of the Governor's recent role, so the answer contrasts the envisaged role with recent episodes, the courts' response and the reform proposals.
The Constituent Assembly saw the Governor as a constitutional head acting on ministerial advice, with a link role between the Union and the state. Recent practice has revived the charge that Governors act as agents of the Centre.
Arunachal Pradesh (2015–16): Governor J.P. Rajkhowa advanced the Assembly session without the advice of the Chief Minister, enabling a rebel group to remove the Speaker, and President's rule followed. In Nabam Rebia (July 2016) a Constitution Bench held the Governor's actions unconstitutional and restored the Nabam Tuki government.
Uttarakhand (2016): President's rule was imposed before a scheduled floor test; the High Court quashed it, and the Supreme Court ordered a floor test, which Chief Minister Harish Rawat won.
Earlier patterns: the dissolution of the Bihar Assembly in 2005 was held unconstitutional in Rameshwar Prasad (2006), and B.P. Singhal (2010) held that Governors cannot be removed merely for disagreeing with the Union government.
Other side: Governors have also acted as watchdogs, reporting breakdowns of order and acting as university chancellors.
Reforms: the Sarkaria Commission (1988) urged appointing detached persons from outside the state after consulting the Chief Minister; the Punchhi Commission (2010) proposed a fixed tenure and removal through a resolution of the state legislature.
The role must return to that of a constitutional head grounded in the floor test and cooperative federalism.
Q7(c) · Planning, Social Cleavages, Party System and Social Movements · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Social Movements: Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Women's and Environmental Movements
Discuss the Right to Information and underline challenges being posed before it.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
सूचना के अधिकार की व्याख्या कीजिये और उसके समक्ष आ रही चुनौतियों को स्पष्ट कीजिये।
Practise this question Planning, Social Cleavages, Party System and Social Movements notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(c)
Approach: Discuss the RTI as a right and a movement (origin in MKSS, the 2005 Act and its impact), then underline the challenges it faces, with a way forward.
The Right to Information grew from a grassroots movement into a statutory right. The Supreme Court had recognised the right to know as part of Article 19(1)(a) in cases such as Raj Narain (1975) and S.P. Gupta (1981).
The movement: the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), founded in Rajasthan in 1990 by Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey and Shankar Singh, used jan sunwais (public hearings) to expose corruption in wages and public works, raising the slogan that the right to know is the right to live. The National Campaign for People's Right to Information (1996) took it national, leading to state laws and the Right to Information Act, 2005.
Impact: it shifted power from officials to citizens, exposed scams, improved delivery of rations and wages, and enabled social audits under MGNREGA.
Challenges: vacancies and huge pendency in information commissions; poor suo motu disclosure under Section 4; misuse of exemptions under Section 8; attacks on and killings of RTI activists, while the Whistle Blowers Protection Act (2014) awaits effective operation; political parties' refusal to comply with the Central Information Commission's 2013 order treating national parties as public authorities.
Way forward: timely appointments, proactive disclosure and protection of users. Later amendments, the RTI Amendment Act (2019) on commissioners' tenure and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (2023) on personal information, have raised fresh concerns about the independence of the regime.

Question 8 (50 marks)

Q8(a) · Grassroots Democracy, Statutory Institutions and Federalism · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Panchayati Raj, Municipal Government and the 73rd and 74th Amendments
The goal of Good governance will be achieved only by strengthening the grass root level democracy.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
मूल भूत स्तर पर लोकतंत्र को सुदृढ़ करने के उपरान्त ही सुशासन के लक्ष्य की प्राप्ति होगी।
Practise this question Grassroots Democracy, Statutory Institutions and Federalism notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(a)
Approach: Discuss the statement: define good governance, show how strong grassroots democracy contributes to each of its elements, then note that local democracy is necessary but not sufficient, and conclude.
Good governance, a term popularised by the World Bank in 1989 and elaborated by the UNDP, refers to participation, rule of law, transparency, responsiveness, consensus orientation, equity, effectiveness and accountability in the exercise of public authority.
Grassroots democracy, institutionalised by the 73rd and 74th Amendments (1992), directly serves several of these elements, which is why the principle of subsidiarity holds that decisions should be taken at the lowest competent level.
Participation and responsiveness: the Gram Sabha lets citizens deliberate on plans and beneficiaries, as Tocqueville and Mill saw local institutions as schools of citizenship; local leaders know local needs better than distant bureaucracies.
Transparency and accountability: social audits of MGNREGA in Andhra Pradesh and the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan's jan sunwais in Rajasthan, which led to the Right to Information Act (2005), show how local forums expose corruption.
Equity: reservation for SCs, STs and women gives voice to groups excluded from state and national power, and Kerala's People's Plan Campaign (1996) showed that devolving funds improved local planning and service delivery.
Effectiveness: panchayats implement sanitation, housing and rural employment programmes at scale, and local monitoring improves outcomes.
However, strengthening grassroots democracy alone will not achieve good governance: local bodies can suffer from elite capture, caste domination, corruption and low capacity, and Ambedkar warned that the village could be a den of narrow-mindedness.
Good governance also needs an efficient bureaucracy, police and judicial reform, e-governance, a strong right to information and clean state and national politics.
The statement is therefore broadly valid but needs qualification: grassroots democracy is a necessary foundation of good governance, and becomes effective only when supported by genuine devolution of the 3Fs, capacity building and reform at the higher levels of the state.
Q8(b) · Grassroots Democracy, Statutory Institutions and Federalism · 15 marks≈ 11 min
National Commissions: SCs, STs, Women, Human Rights, Minorities and Backward Classes
Examine the objective and role of the National Human Rights Commission.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
राष्ट्रीय मानवाधिकार आयोग के उद्देश्य और भूमिका का विवरण प्रस्तुत कीजिये।
Practise this question Grassroots Democracy, Statutory Institutions and Federalism notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(b)
Approach: Examine the NHRC's objectives and role: its legal basis and composition, objectives, functions with examples, limitations, and a concluding assessment.
The National Human Rights Commission was set up in 1993 under the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, in line with the UN Paris Principles on national human rights institutions; its first chairperson was Justice Ranganath Misra, and it is chaired by a former Chief Justice of India.
Objectives: to strengthen institutions for the protection of human rights, defined as rights relating to life, liberty, equality and dignity guaranteed by the Constitution or international covenants; to inquire into violations independently; and to build a culture of human rights.
Role: it inquires, on complaint or suo motu, into violations or negligence by public servants; it can intervene in court proceedings, visit jails, review legal safeguards and recommend compensation or prosecution.
Its guidelines require custodial deaths and encounter killings to be reported, it has worked against bonded labour and manual scavenging, and in 2002 it moved the Supreme Court over the Gujarat violence.
Limitations: its recommendations are advisory; it cannot look into matters more than a year old; for armed forces it can only seek a report from the Union government; and its investigation staff are drawn from the police, whom it often investigates.
The NHRC has become a significant moral and advisory authority, but to fulfil its objectives it needs binding powers in defined cases, its own investigative cadre and greater financial autonomy.
Q8(c) · The Constitution and the Organs of Government · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Preamble, Fundamental Rights and Duties, and Directive Principles
Critically examine the provisions made in the Constitution for the protection of Environment.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
पर्यावरण के संरक्षण के लिए संविधान में किये गए पूर्वोपायों का आलोचनात्मक विवरण प्रस्तुत कीजिये।
Practise this question The Constitution and the Organs of Government notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(c)
Approach: The question asks to examine the constitutional provisions for the environment critically, so the answer lists the textual provisions, shows how courts expanded them, and evaluates their working.
The original Constitution said little about the environment. After the Stockholm Conference (1972) the 42nd Amendment (1976) added explicit duties, and the judiciary later turned Article 21 into the main source of environmental rights.
Textual provisions: Article 48A directs the state to protect and improve the environment and safeguard forests and wildlife; Article 51A(g) makes it a duty of every citizen; Article 47 links public health to the state's duty; Article 253 lets Parliament implement international agreements, the basis of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. Forests and wildlife moved to the Concurrent List in 1976.
Judicial expansion: courts read a right to a healthy environment into Article 21 (Subhash Kumar, 1991). Vellore Citizens Welfare Forum (1996) adopted the precautionary and polluter pays principles, M.C. Mehta v Kamal Nath (1997) the public trust doctrine, and the M.C. Mehta cases led to CNG in Delhi transport. The National Green Tribunal (2010) followed the Court's call for specialised forums.
Critique: Articles 48A and 51A(g) are not enforceable on their own, so protection rests on judicial activism and continuing mandamus, which courts cannot sustain. Weak enforcement by pollution control boards, dilution of clearances in the name of growth, and persistent air and river pollution show a gap between text and practice.
The provisions are sound in principle; their success depends on strong regulators and a balance between development and sustainability.

UPSC Mains 2016 Political Science and International Relations PSIR Paper II