All Political Science and International Relations optional papers

UPSC Mains 2023 Political Science and International Relations Optional Question Papers with Model Answers

All 56 questions of the 2023 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 2023 Political Science and International Relations PSIR Paper I

Question 1 (50 marks)

Q1(a) · Political Theory and Theories of the State · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Approaches to Political Theory: Normative, Historical, Empirical, Behavioural and Post-behavioural
Normative approach in Political Science
हिंदी में प्रश्न
राजनीति-विज्ञान में मानकीय उपागम
Practise this question Political Theory and Theories of the State notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(a)
Approach: Define the normative approach, give its features and thinkers, note the behavioural critique and its revival after Rawls, with an Indian illustration.
The normative approach studies politics in terms of what ought to be. It is concerned with values such as justice, liberty, equality and legitimacy, and with the standards by which states and policies should be judged.
Features: it is prescriptive rather than descriptive, deductive and philosophical in method, and openly value-laden. It treats facts as meaningful only in the light of purposes.
Thinkers: Plato’s just state, Locke’s limited government, Rousseau’s general will, Kant’s moral autonomy and T.H. Green’s positive freedom belong to this tradition. In the twentieth century John Rawls (A Theory of Justice, 1971), Robert Nozick and Amartya Sen (The Idea of Justice, 2009) revived it.
Critique and revival: behaviouralists dismissed it as unscientific, and Peter Laslett declared political philosophy dead in 1956. Rawls’s work showed that questions of justice cannot be settled by data alone.
In India, the Preamble’s ideals and the Directive Principles are normative commitments, and debates on reservation or the basic structure rest on them. The approach remains the moral compass of political science.
Q1(b) · Justice, Equality and Rights · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Multiculturalism, Citizenship and Recognition
Multicultural perspective on rights
हिंदी में प्रश्न
अधिकारों का बहुसांस्कृतिक परिप्रेक्ष्य
Practise this question Justice, Equality and Rights notes
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Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(b)
Approach: A short note: explain how multiculturalism extends rights from individuals to cultural groups, Kymlicka's typology, the critiques, and the Indian case.
The multicultural perspective on rights holds that a uniform set of individual rights is insufficient in culturally diverse societies; minorities also need group-differentiated rights to protect their culture and identity.
Will Kymlicka (Multicultural Citizenship, 1995) identifies three kinds: self-government rights for national minorities and indigenous peoples; polyethnic rights for immigrant groups, such as exemptions and funding for cultural practices; and special representation rights in legislatures. He distinguishes external protections, which shield a group from the majority, from internal restrictions on members, which liberals should reject.
Charles Taylor grounds such rights in the need for recognition, and Bhikhu Parekh in intercultural dialogue.
Critiques: Brian Barry (Culture and Equality, 2001) says they undermine common citizenship; Susan Okin warns of harm to women; others fear the freezing of identities.
India anticipated this perspective: Articles 29–30, Fifth and Sixth Schedules, reserved seats for Scheduled Castes and Tribes, and personal laws are forms of group-differentiated rights.
Q1(c) · Western Political Thought · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Hobbes and Locke
State of Nature as State of War (Hobbes)
हिंदी में प्रश्न
प्राकृतिक अवस्था, युद्ध की अवस्था के रूप में (हॉब्स)
Practise this question Western Political Thought notes
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Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(c)
Approach: Explain why Hobbes's state of nature becomes a war of all against all (human nature, equality, causes of quarrel), its consequences, and its significance and critique.
In Leviathan (1651), written amid the English Civil War, Thomas Hobbes described the state of nature, life without a common power, as a condition of war of every man against every man.
Reasons: human beings are self-interested, driven by a restless desire for power and by fear of death. They are roughly equal, since even the weakest can kill the strongest, so each hopes for the same ends. Hobbes named three causes of quarrel: competition (for gain), diffidence (for safety) and glory (for reputation). War here means not constant fighting but a known disposition to it.
Consequences: no industry, agriculture, arts or society; no notions of right and wrong, justice or property; and life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.
The only escape is a contract creating an absolute sovereign. Critics such as Rousseau said Hobbes attributed to natural man the vices of civil society; yet his model still underlies realist views of international anarchy.
Q1(d) · Democracy, Power and Political Ideologies · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Power, Hegemony, Ideology and Legitimacy
Foucault’s concept of power
हिंदी में प्रश्न
फूको की शक्ति की अवधारणा
Practise this question Democracy, Power and Political Ideologies notes
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Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(d)
Approach: Explain how Foucault departs from the sovereign view of power, set out disciplinary power, power-knowledge and biopower, and close with an assessment.
Michel Foucault rejected the traditional view of power as a possession of the sovereign or a ruling class, exercised from the top down.
For him power is relational and capillary: it circulates through all social relations, in prisons, hospitals, schools and families, and it is productive, not just repressive, because it creates norms, identities and subjects. In Discipline and Punish (1975) he described disciplinary power, which works through surveillance, normalisation and examination, symbolised by Bentham's Panopticon.
Power and knowledge are inseparable (power-knowledge): disciplines such as psychiatry and criminology define the normal and the deviant. Later he spoke of biopower and governmentality, the management of populations. Wherever there is power, there is resistance.
Critics say his view leaves no clear basis for emancipation, yet it has shaped feminist and postcolonial analyses of everyday domination, and it helps explain today's digital and biometric surveillance.
Q1(e) · Political Theory and Theories of the State · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Decline and Resurgence of Political Theory
Decline of political theory
हिंदी में प्रश्न
राजनीतिक सिद्धान्त का पतन
Practise this question Political Theory and Theories of the State notes
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Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(e)
Approach: State the decline thesis and who advanced it, explain its causes, and note the counter-view that it was a temporary eclipse.
The decline of political theory refers to the claim, made in the 1950s, that classical normative political theory had stagnated or died. David Easton (‘The Decline of Modern Political Theory’, 1951) and Alfred Cobban (‘The Decline of Political Theory’, 1953) made the case, and Peter Laslett wrote in 1956 that political philosophy was, for the moment, dead.
Causes: Easton blamed historicism, the habit of merely retelling the history of ideas, and moral relativism. Logical positivism held that value statements cannot be verified and so are meaningless. The rise of behaviouralism favoured empirical science, and Daniel Bell’s ‘end of ideology’ thesis (1960) suggested that the big ideological debates were over. Cobban also pointed to the growth of totalitarian states that left little room for theory.
Counter-view: Isaiah Berlin and Leo Strauss argued that theory never died, since disagreement about ends persists. Rawls’s work in 1971 proved them right.
The ‘decline’ was therefore an eclipse caused by positivism, not a death.

Question 2 (50 marks)

Q2(a) · Political Theory and Theories of the State · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Liberal and Neo-liberal Theories of the State
Success of contemporary democracies lies in the State limiting its own power. Explain.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
समकालीन लोकतंत्र की सफलता, राज्य द्वारा अपनी शक्ति को सीमित करने में निहित है। स्पष्ट कीजिए।
Practise this question Political Theory and Theories of the State notes
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Paper and question: Paper I, Q2(a)
Approach: Explain the liberal idea of self-limiting state power (constitutionalism), show the mechanisms through which states limit themselves with Indian examples, and qualify the claim by noting that success also needs state capacity.
A democracy rests on popular sovereignty, but an elected majority can itself become a tyranny, as J.S. Mill and Tocqueville warned. Its success therefore depends on constitutionalism: a state that binds its own power by law. Lord Acton’s maxim that power tends to corrupt expresses the liberal fear behind this idea.
Liberal foundations: Locke (Two Treatises of Government, 1689) made government a trust limited by natural rights; Montesquieu (The Spirit of the Laws, 1748) proposed the separation of powers; Madison in The Federalist argued that ambition must be made to counteract ambition through checks and balances; Dicey defined the rule of law.
Mechanisms of self-limitation: a written constitution and fundamental rights; judicial review; independent institutions such as the Election Commission, CAG and an independent judiciary; federalism and local self-government; periodic free elections; and a free press and civil society. In India, the basic structure doctrine (Kesavananda Bharati, 1973) limits even Parliament’s power to amend the Constitution.
Evidence: the Emergency of 1975–77 showed what happens when the state removes limits; the 44th Amendment (1978) restored safeguards. Fareed Zakaria’s warning about ‘illiberal democracy’ (1997) and Levitsky and Ziblatt’s How Democracies Die (2018) show that modern democracies decay when elected leaders capture referees and weaken restraints.
Qualification: a weak state is no guarantee of freedom. Francis Fukuyama argues that successful democracies combine a strong, capable state with rule of law and accountability. Welfare, security and the protection of rights need an active state.
The success of democracy thus lies in a state that is strong in capacity but limited in its use of power: effective, yet answerable to law and to the people.
Q2(b) · Justice, Equality and Rights · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Communitarian and Other Critiques of Rawls
Rawls’ idea of the ‘liberal self’ is too individualistic. Explain, in this context, the communitarian critique of Rawls’ theory of justice.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
रॉल्स के ‘उदार स्व’ का विचार बहुत अधिक व्यक्तिवादी है। इस सन्दर्भ में रॉल्स के न्याय सिद्धान्त की समुदायवादी आलोचना को स्पष्ट कीजिए।
Practise this question Justice, Equality and Rights notes
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Paper and question: Paper I, Q2(b)
Approach: Explain why Rawls' self is called individualistic, then set out the communitarian critique (Sandel, MacIntyre, Taylor, Walzer), Rawls' reply in Political Liberalism, and a balanced conclusion.
In A Theory of Justice (1971) Rawls' parties in the original position choose principles behind a veil of ignorance that hides even their conception of the good. The self is thus prior to its ends. Communitarians call this the liberal self and find it too individualistic.
Sandel: in Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (1982) Michael Sandel calls it an unencumbered self. Real persons are constituted by attachments to family, nation, faith and history. Such a self could not share the common assets that the difference principle presupposes.
MacIntyre: in After Virtue (1981) Alasdair MacIntyre argues that identity is a narrative embedded in traditions; justice is intelligible only within a tradition of virtues, not from an abstract standpoint.
Taylor and Walzer: Charles Taylor's critique of atomism holds that freedom and agency develop only within a culture and its institutions. Michael Walzer (Spheres of Justice, 1983) argues that goods carry social meanings, so justice is plural and local: complex equality, not one universal principle.
Rawls' reply: in Political Liberalism (1993) Rawls said the original position is a device of representation, not a metaphysics of the self; citizens are free only in their public, political identity.
The critique rightly stresses belonging, yet the liberal self protects individuals, such as Dalit women, against oppressive communities. Indian constitutionalism combines individual rights with community rights under Articles 25–30.
Q2(c) · Political Theory and Theories of the State · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Approaches to Political Theory: Normative, Historical, Empirical, Behavioural and Post-behavioural
‘Credo of Relevance’ in post-behaviouralism advocates the importance of action science. Analyze.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
उत्तर-व्यवहारवाद में ‘प्रासंगिकता के नियम’ क्रिया-विज्ञान की महत्ता का समर्थन करते हैं। विश्लेषण कीजिए।
Practise this question Political Theory and Theories of the State notes
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Paper and question: Paper I, Q2(c)
Approach: Explain the Credo of Relevance and its tenets, show how it makes political science an ‘action science’, and assess its merits and limits.
Post-behaviouralism was announced by David Easton in his 1969 presidential address to the American Political Science Association, ‘The New Revolution in Political Science’. Its programme, the Credo of Relevance, had two watchwords: relevance and action.
Tenets: substance must precede technique, so pressing social problems matter more than sophisticated methods; behaviouralism concealed an ideology of social conservatism; values are inseparable from research; intellectuals must protect humane values; to know is to bear the responsibility to act; and the profession itself must be politicised.
Action science: the credo rejects ‘pure science’ detached from society. Easton argued that knowledge must be put to work to reshape society, so political science should be an applied, problem-solving discipline. It emerged against the background of the Vietnam war, racial conflict, urban poverty and the threat of nuclear war, which value-free research had failed to anticipate.
Merits: it restored the link between facts and values, paved the way for the revival of normative theory with Rawls, and encouraged policy studies, peace research and environmental politics. Indian work on poverty, caste atrocities or displacement by dams reflects this spirit.
Limits: critics noted that it kept behavioural methods, so it was a correction rather than a revolution, and that ‘relevance’ is vague and may let ideology replace evidence.
On balance, the credo made political science both rigorous and socially responsible, which remains its most lasting legacy.

Question 3 (50 marks)

Q3(a) · Democracy, Power and Political Ideologies · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Fascism, Gandhism and Feminism
Fascism displays an ambivalent stance towards parliamentary democracy. Explain.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
फासीवाद संसदीय लोकतंत्र के प्रति एक द्विधापूर्ण रुख प्रदर्शित करता है। समझाइए।
Practise this question Democracy, Power and Political Ideologies notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q3(a)
Approach: Explain both sides of the ambivalence: fascism's ideological rejection of parliamentary democracy and its tactical use of elections and legal forms in Italy and Germany, then draw the lesson for democracies today.
Fascism, which arose in interwar Europe, was hostile to liberal parliamentary democracy, yet it came to power through parliamentary means and kept some democratic forms. This is its ambivalence.
Its rejection is clear. Fascists saw parliament as a talking shop that divided the nation into parties and classes and was weak in the face of communism and economic crisis. They rejected individualism, equality and pluralism in favour of the organic nation, the leader principle and the totalitarian state. Mussolini attacked liberal democracy as decadent, and the Nazis abolished all other parties and the federal states.
Yet fascists used democracy to destroy it. Mussolini's movement entered parliament through elections before the March on Rome (1922), and the Acerbo Law (1923) gave two-thirds of the seats to the list with the largest vote. After his failed putsch of 1923, Hitler chose a legal path to power; the Nazis became the largest party in July 1932, and he was appointed Chancellor constitutionally in January 1933. The Enabling Act of 1933, passed by the Reichstag, let his government make laws without parliament.
Fascism also claimed to represent the true popular will better than parliament, through plebiscites, mass rallies and corporatist chambers that replaced territorial representation.
This ambivalence carries a lesson: democracies can be dismantled from within, through elections and legal forms. Today's debates on illiberal democracy and democratic backsliding reflect this concern, and India's Constitution guards against it through the basic structure doctrine.
Q3(b) · Justice, Equality and Rights · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Affirmative Action
Affirmative Action Policies draw as much strong criticism as strong support. Analyze this statement in the context of equality.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
सकारात्मक कार्रवाई नीतियों का जितना दृढ़ समर्थन किया जाता है, उतनी ही कठोर आलोचना भी की जाती है। इस कथन का समानता के सन्दर्भ में विश्लेषण कीजिए।
Practise this question Justice, Equality and Rights notes
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Paper and question: Paper I, Q3(b)
Approach: Define affirmative action, set out the arguments of supporters and critics in terms of equality, illustrate with the US and Indian experience, and give a balanced judgement.
Affirmative action refers to policies that give preference or special support to historically disadvantaged groups in education, employment and representation. Because it treats people unequally in the name of equality, it divides opinion sharply.
Support: (i) Substantive equality: formal equality freezes historical injustice; Ambedkar argued that caste had denied Dalits education, property and dignity for centuries. (ii) Compensatory justice: rectifying past wrongs, which even Nozick's rectification principle allows. (iii) Diversity and representation: plural institutions are more legitimate. (iv) Ronald Dworkin defended it as consistent with treatment as an equal.
Criticism: (i) it violates formal equality and merit, treating individuals as members of groups; (ii) benefits are captured by a creamy layer; (iii) it may stigmatise beneficiaries and perpetuate caste identity; (iv) libertarians and some conservatives call it reverse discrimination. The US Supreme Court ended race-conscious college admissions in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023).
Indian balance: in Indra Sawhney (1992) the Supreme Court upheld OBC reservation but set a 50% ceiling and excluded the creamy layer; Janhit Abhiyan (2022) upheld the economically weaker sections quota, shifting the debate from social to economic disadvantage.
Both sides appeal to equality. The best path is to keep affirmative action as a temporary, evidence-based bridge to substantive equality, with periodic review and better targeting.
Q3(c) · Political Theory and Theories of the State · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Post-colonial and Feminist Theories of the State
Eurocentrism is both the target and the motive force of the post-colonial political theory. Discuss.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
यूरोकेन्द्रवाद, उत्तर-उपनिवेशवादी राजनीतिक सिद्धान्त का लक्ष्य एवं प्रेरक शक्ति दोनों है। विवेचन कीजिए।
Practise this question Political Theory and Theories of the State notes
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Paper and question: Paper I, Q3(c)
Approach: Discuss both halves of the statement: Eurocentrism as the target (critique of Western universalism) and as the motive force (post-colonial theory defined by and dependent on Europe), with thinkers, and end with an assessment.
Eurocentrism is the assumption that European history, institutions and ideas are the universal standard by which all societies are judged. Post-colonial political theory both attacks this assumption and is driven by it.
As the target: Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) showed how Western scholarship constructed the ‘Orient’ as backward to justify domination. Dipesh Chakrabarty’s Provincializing Europe (2000) argued that European categories are both indispensable and inadequate for understanding non-Western societies. Partha Chatterjee called Indian nationalism a ‘derivative discourse’ that borrowed European forms, and Spivak asked whether the subaltern can speak within Western frameworks.
As the motive force: the critique of Europe gives post-colonial theory its identity and energy; its project of recovering suppressed voices, Subaltern Studies under Ranajit Guha, Ashis Nandy’s The Intimate Enemy (1983), exists in response to Eurocentrism. Its tools themselves are European: Foucault, Derrida and Gramsci.
Assessment: Marxist critics such as Aijaz Ahmad (In Theory, 1992) and Vivek Chibber argue that this dependence traps it in Western debates and neglects capitalism. Yet its insistence on multiple modernities enriches political theory.
Thus Eurocentrism is both the adversary and the engine of post-colonial theory.

Question 4 (50 marks)

Q4(a) · Indian Political Thought · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Buddhist Tradition
Buddhist thought on Dhamma facilitates the emancipation of political action. Explain.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
धम्म पर बुद्ध के विचार राजनीतिक कार्रवाई को मुक्त करने में सहायता प्रदान करते हैं। स्पष्ट कीजिए।
Practise this question Indian Political Thought notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q4(a)
Approach: Explain the Buddhist idea of Dhamma and show how it frees political action from ritual and birth-based authority by grounding it in ethics, consent and welfare, with examples from texts and Ashoka, then add a brief critique.
In Buddhist thought Dhamma means the universal moral law discovered by the Buddha: the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, non-violence, compassion and the middle way. It is open to all and grounded in reason rather than Vedic ritual.
Emancipation from ritual and caste: the Brahmanical tradition tied political authority to sacrifice, divine sanction and varna. The Buddha rejected the authority of the Vedas and the claim that birth decides worth. Political action thus became a human, ethical activity.
Emancipation through consent: the Agganna Sutta explains the origin of kingship historically. As greed and private property produced disorder, people chose one among themselves, the Mahasammata or 'great elect', to maintain order in return for a share of rice. Authority is thus a human agreement, an early contract theory.
Dhamma as a standard for rulers: the Chakkavatti Sihanada Sutta describes the righteous wheel-turning monarch who rules by dhamma, not force, and warns that failure to give wealth to the poor leads to theft, violence and social decay. The ten royal virtues (dasa raja dhamma) judge the ruler's conduct.
Dhamma as collective self-government: the Buddha praised the Vajji republic for holding frequent assemblies and deciding in concord, and the Sangha itself decided by discussion, quorum and voting by ballot sticks (salaka).
Dhamma in practice: after Kalinga, Ashoka replaced conquest by war with conquest by dhamma, appointed dhamma-mahamattas, and promoted tolerance and welfare. In modern India, Ambedkar's turn to Buddhism in 1956 used dhamma to emancipate Dalits.
Limits: the tradition still accepted monarchy, and renunciation could encourage withdrawal from politics.
Overall, Dhamma liberated political action from ritual and hierarchy and placed it on the ground of ethics, consent and welfare.
Q4(b) · Western Political Thought · 15 marks≈ 11 min
John Stuart Mill
“The legal subordination of one sex to another is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human development.” (J. S. Mill). Comment.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
“एक लिंग की दूसरे लिंग पर विधिक अधीनस्थता अपने आप में गलत है, और वर्तमान में मानव विकास के समक्ष एक मुख्य बाधा है।” (जे॰ एस॰ मिल)। टिप्पणी कीजिए।
Practise this question Western Political Thought notes
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Paper and question: Paper I, Q4(b)
Approach: Comment on the opening argument of The Subjection of Women: explain why Mill thought legal subordination wrong in principle and harmful to progress, his remedies, and critiques from later feminists, with relevance.
The statement opens J.S. Mill's The Subjection of Women (1869), written with the influence of Harriet Taylor Mill. Mill argues that the legal subordination of women should be replaced by perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on one side nor disability on the other.
Why it is wrong in itself: it rests not on reason or experiment but on force and custom, a survival of the law of the strongest. Women's supposed nature is artificial, produced by education and dependence, so no one can know their real capacities. Under Victorian law, marriage made a wife legally subject to her husband, a condition Mill compared to slavery.
Why it hinders human development: it wastes half of humanity's talents, corrupts men by teaching them unearned superiority, and makes the family a school of despotism rather than of equality and justice. Society loses the moral and intellectual contribution of women.
Remedies: equal rights in marriage and property, access to education and professions, and the vote, which he pursued in Parliament in 1867.
Critique: radical feminists note that Mill accepted the gendered division of labour, expecting most married women to choose domestic roles. Yet he was the first major liberal to extend liberty to women, and India's Article 15 and the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005 reflect his principle.
Q4(c) · Indian Political Thought · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Sri Aurobindo
Sri Aurobindo’s idea of Swaraj has deep significance in the Indian social, political and cultural history. Analyze.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारतीय सामाजिक, राजनीतिक और सांस्कृतिक इतिहास पर श्री अरविन्द के स्वराज-सम्बन्धी विचार का गहन महत्त्व है। विश्लेषण कीजिए।
Practise this question Indian Political Thought notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q4(c)
Approach: Analyse Aurobindo's concept of Swaraj (complete independence with a spiritual mission) and assess its significance across social, political and cultural history, with critique.
Sri Aurobindo (1872 to 1950), an Extremist leader before he became a yogi, gave Swaraj a meaning far larger than self-government within the Empire. For him Swaraj meant complete freedom from foreign rule as the precondition for India's spiritual mission to humanity.
Political significance: in 'New Lamps for Old' (1893 to 1894) he attacked the Moderates' politics of petition. Writing in Bande Mataram (1906 to 1908) he demanded complete autonomy, free from British control, years before the Congress adopted Purna Swaraj in 1929. His 'Doctrine of Passive Resistance' (1907) set out boycott, swadeshi, national education and national courts as means.
Cultural significance: Swaraj for Aurobindo was rooted in spiritual nationalism. The nation was a living mother, a shakti, and nationalism a religion; the Uttarpara speech (1909) linked India's freedom with Sanatana Dharma. He sought to restore Indians' self-respect against colonial claims of cultural inferiority.
Social significance: he held that national revival required the regeneration of the whole people, including the masses. Later, in The Ideal of Human Unity, Swaraj became one step towards a free world union of nations.
Critique: the religious idiom could alienate Muslims and blur nationalism with Hindu revivalism, and his methods offered little concrete economic programme.
Still, his idea of Swaraj gave Indian nationalism its goal of complete independence and its cultural confidence.

Question 5 (50 marks)

Q5(a) · Indian Nationalism and the Making of the Constitution · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Making of the Constitution: Legacies of British Rule and Social and Political Perspectives
Imprint of the British Constitution on the Indian Constitution
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारतीय संविधान पर ब्रिटिश संविधान की छाप
Practise this question Indian Nationalism and the Making of the Constitution notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(a)
Approach: Identify the British-derived features of the Indian Constitution, explain why they were adopted, and show how India departed from the British model.
The Indian Constitution bears a deep imprint of the British Constitution, both through direct borrowing and through the colonial legacy of the Government of India Acts, especially that of 1935.
Borrowed features: the parliamentary system with a nominal head and a cabinet collectively responsible to the lower house; the office of Prime Minister; bicameralism; the Speaker and parliamentary procedure and privileges; the rule of law; single citizenship; prerogative writs; and a permanent, neutral civil service. Ambedkar defended the parliamentary form because it offers daily and periodic accountability.
Why: Indian leaders had worked these institutions in provincial legislatures since 1919 and 1937, so they were familiar.
Departures: India has a written constitution that is supreme, not parliamentary sovereignty; an elected President instead of a hereditary monarch; justiciable fundamental rights with judicial review; a federal structure; and the basic structure doctrine limiting amendment.
India thus adapted the Westminster model to a republican, federal and rights-based framework.
Q5(b) · Planning, Social Cleavages, Party System and Social Movements · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Social Movements: Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Women's and Environmental Movements
Environmentalism of the poor
हिंदी में प्रश्न
गरीबों का पर्यावरणवाद
Practise this question Planning, Social Cleavages, Party System and Social Movements notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(b)
Approach: Explain the concept, its originators and its contrast with Northern environmentalism, illustrate with Indian movements, and add a brief evaluation.
The environmentalism of the poor is a concept developed by Ramachandra Guha and Joan Martinez-Alier, in Varieties of Environmentalism (1997), and by Martinez-Alier in The Environmentalism of the Poor (2002). It refers to struggles by peasants, tribals, fishers and pastoralists to defend the natural resources on which their livelihoods depend.
Contrast: Northern environmentalism, which Ronald Inglehart linked to post-material values, is largely about wilderness, aesthetics and quality of life after affluence. The environmentalism of the poor is about survival, rights and environmental justice, and it challenges the state and corporations that appropriate commons.
Indian examples: Chipko, in which Garhwal villagers resisted commercial felling; the Narmada Bachao Andolan against displacement; Niyamgiri, where Dongria Kondh gram sabhas rejected bauxite mining in 2013; Plachimada against groundwater depletion by a cola plant; and fishworkers' struggles against mechanised trawling.
Evaluation: it reframes ecology as a question of distribution and democracy, though critics note that such movements may romanticise communities and resist all development.
Q5(c) · Grassroots Democracy, Statutory Institutions and Federalism · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Panchayati Raj, Municipal Government and the 73rd and 74th Amendments
Functions of District Planning Committee
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जिला योजना समिति के कार्य
Practise this question Grassroots Democracy, Statutory Institutions and Federalism notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(c)
Approach: A short descriptive question: state the constitutional basis and composition of the District Planning Committee, list its functions, and note briefly how it works in practice.
The District Planning Committee (DPC), provided by Article 243ZD (74th Amendment, 1992), links rural and urban planning at the district level, reflecting the Ashok Mehta Committee's view of the district as the unit of decentralised planning.
At least four-fifths of its members are elected by and from the elected members of the district panchayat and the municipalities, in proportion to the district's rural and urban population; state law fixes the rest of its composition.
Functions: it consolidates the plans of panchayats and municipalities and prepares a draft development plan for the whole district.
In doing so it considers spatial planning, sharing of water and natural resources, integrated infrastructure, environmental conservation and the available financial resources; its chairperson forwards the plan to the state government.
In practice DPCs are often chaired by ministers and merely compile departmental schemes; except in Kerala and a few states, they are yet to become bodies of bottom-up planning.
Q5(d) · Indian Nationalism and the Making of the Constitution · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Political Strategies of the Freedom Struggle: Constitutionalism to Mass Satyagraha
Satyagraha and Indian Nationalism
हिंदी में प्रश्न
सत्याग्रह और भारतीय राष्ट्रवाद
Practise this question Indian Nationalism and the Making of the Constitution notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(d)
Approach: Explain satyagraha as an idea and show how it shaped the character of Indian nationalism (mass, non-violent, moral, inclusive), with a brief critique.
Satyagraha, literally holding firmly to truth, was Gandhi’s method of resisting injustice through non-violent non-cooperation and self-suffering. Developed in South Africa from 1906 and theorised in Hind Swaraj (1909), it aimed to convert rather than coerce the opponent.
Shaping nationalism: first, it made nationalism a mass movement: Champaran (1917), Kheda and Ahmedabad (1918) linked local grievances of peasants and workers to national politics. Second, its non-violence allowed women, the old and the poor to participate and denied the colonial state moral legitimacy. Third, it fused politics with ethics and a constructive programme of khadi, communal unity and the removal of untouchability.
Phases: Non-Cooperation (1920–22), Civil Disobedience (1930–34) and Quit India (1942) followed what Bipan Chandra calls a struggle–truce–struggle strategy.
Critique: revolutionaries and Marxists saw its sudden withdrawals, such as after Chauri Chaura (1922), as protecting propertied interests; Ambedkar questioned its silence on caste power.
Satyagraha nevertheless gave Indian nationalism its distinctive moral and democratic character.
Q5(e) · Grassroots Democracy, Statutory Institutions and Federalism · 10 marks≈ 7 min
National Commissions: SCs, STs, Women, Human Rights, Minorities and Backward Classes
National Commission for Minorities
हिंदी में प्रश्न
राष्ट्रीय अल्पसंख्यक आयोग
Practise this question Grassroots Democracy, Statutory Institutions and Federalism notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(e)
Approach: A short note: give the origin, legal basis and composition of the NCM, its functions and powers, and a brief evaluation.
The National Commission for Minorities (NCM) began as a Minorities Commission set up by executive resolution in 1978 and became a statutory body under the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992.
It has a chairperson, a vice-chairperson and five members nominated by the Union government; six communities are notified as minorities: Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis and, since 2014, Jains.
Functions: it evaluates the progress of minorities' development, monitors the working of constitutional and legal safeguards, such as Articles 29 and 30, looks into specific complaints of deprivation of rights, and recommends measures to the Union and state governments.
While inquiring into complaints it has the powers of a civil court, and its annual reports are laid before Parliament.
Its limits are its recommendatory nature, frequent vacancies, a weak presence in states, and doubts about neutrality because members are government nominees.
The NCM remains a useful forum for minorities' grievances, but constitutional status or binding powers in defined areas would strengthen its role as a guardian of minority rights.

Question 6 (50 marks)

Q6(a) · Grassroots Democracy, Statutory Institutions and Federalism · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Panchayati Raj, Municipal Government and the 73rd and 74th Amendments
Discuss the major provisions of the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act. Do you think that the Act remains an ‘unfulfilled dream’? Argue your case.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
74वें संविधान संशोधन अधिनियम के प्रमुख प्रावधानों का विवेचन कीजिए। क्या आपके विचार में यह अधिनियम एक ‘अधूरा स्वप्न’ है? अपने तर्क दीजिए।
Practise this question Grassroots Democracy, Statutory Institutions and Federalism notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(a)
Approach: Two parts: first set out the main provisions of the 74th Amendment, then argue whether it remains an unfulfilled dream, weighing achievements against the gaps in urban self-government, and conclude with a balanced judgement.
The 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, 1992, in force from 1 June 1993, added Part IXA (Articles 243P to 243ZG) and the Twelfth Schedule, giving municipalities constitutional status as institutions of self-government.
Major provisions: nagar panchayats, municipal councils and municipal corporations (243Q); direct elections and wards committees in cities of three lakh or more (243R, 243S); reservation for SCs, STs and at least one-third for women (243T); and a five-year term with elections within six months of dissolution (243U).
States may devolve the 18 subjects of the Twelfth Schedule (243W); State Finance Commissions review municipal finances (243Y); State Election Commissions hold polls (243ZA); and District and Metropolitan Planning Committees integrate planning (243ZD, 243ZE).
Achievements: municipal elections are now regular, the Supreme Court in Kishan Singh Tomar (2006) insisted on timely polls, and women and SC leaders have entered urban politics in large numbers.
Why the dream is unfulfilled: devolution of the Twelfth Schedule is discretionary, so parastatals such as development authorities and water boards still perform core functions; most mayors have short terms and little power, while the state-appointed commissioner runs the administration.
Municipal own revenue is low, property tax is poorly collected, State Finance Commissions are delayed, ward committees and Metropolitan Planning Committees rarely function, and Smart City special purpose vehicles bypassed elected councils.
Yet the Act is not a failure: it secured a constitutional floor of democracy in cities, states such as Kerala have devolved more, and participatory budgeting experiments show what is possible.
The Act is thus a dream half realised; fulfilling it needs empowered mayors with fixed terms, funds matched to functions, strong municipal finance and the absorption of parastatals into urban self-government.
Q6(b) · Planning, Social Cleavages, Party System and Social Movements · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Planning and Development: Nehruvian and Gandhian Perspectives, Planning and the Public Sector
How does NITI Aayog as a ‘policy think tank with shared vision’ visualize the reorganization of planning in India? Justify your answer.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
नीति आयोग एक ‘साझा दृष्टिकोण के साथ पॉलिसी थिंक टैंक’ के रूप में भारत में योजना के पुनर्गठन की कल्पना कैसे करता है? अपने उत्तर की पुष्टि कीजिए।
Practise this question Planning, Social Cleavages, Party System and Social Movements notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(b)
Approach: Explain how NITI Aayog reconceives planning (think tank, shared vision, cooperative federalism, bottom-up), then justify with its functions and evidence, noting critiques.
NITI Aayog replaced the Planning Commission on 1 January 2015. Its founding resolution describes it as a policy think tank that would evolve a shared vision of national development with the states, marking a shift from command planning to indicative, consultative planning.
Reorganisation: first, from top-down to bottom-up, with plans to be formulated at the village level and aggregated upward. Second, from a Union body to cooperative federalism: the Governing Council includes all Chief Ministers, and Regional Councils address shared problems.
Third, from allocation to advice: with no power to give grants, NITI works through ideas, indices and partnerships. Fourth, from Five-Year Plans to a longer horizon: after the Twelfth Plan ended in 2017, it moved to vision and strategy documents such as Strategy for New India @75 (2018).
Justification: competitive federalism through rankings (SDG India Index, health and water indices), the Aspirational Districts Programme, Atal Innovation Mission and the Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office show a real role as a knowledge and evaluation hub.
Critique: without financial powers its influence depends on the Centre's political will; some opposition states have boycotted Governing Council meetings, and critics see it as an extension of the Union government rather than a neutral forum.
Thus NITI Aayog visualises planning as collaborative, evidence-based and federal; the design is justified, though success depends on Centre-state trust.
Q6(c) · Indian Nationalism and the Making of the Constitution · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Making of the Constitution: Legacies of British Rule and Social and Political Perspectives
The Constitution of India is the ‘cornerstone of a nation’. (Granville Austin). Analyze.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत का संविधान ‘किसी राष्ट्र की आधारशिला’ है। (ग्रेनविल ऑस्टिन)। विश्लेषण कीजिए।
Practise this question Indian Nationalism and the Making of the Constitution notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(c)
Approach: Explain Austin’s thesis and his three strands (national unity, democracy, social revolution), show how the Constitution fulfils this role with examples, and analyse the limits of the claim.
Granville Austin’s The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation (1966) argued that the Constitution was not merely a legal document but the foundation on which a new nation was built out of a diverse, divided and poor society. In Working a Democratic Constitution (1999) he described its goals as a seamless web of three strands.
National unity and integrity: after Partition the Assembly chose a strong centre, single citizenship, an integrated judiciary, all-India services and emergency powers, holding together a society of many religions, languages and regions.
Democracy: universal adult franchise from the start, parliamentary government, fundamental rights and an independent judiciary made ordinary Indians citizens rather than subjects.
Social revolution: abolition of untouchability, reservations and the Directive Principles committed the state to transforming an unequal society.
Analysis: the claim is borne out by the survival of democracy, peaceful transfers of power and the reorganisation of states without disintegration. But critics note tensions among the strands: emergency powers and Article 356 have been misused in the name of unity, the Emergency (1975–77) suspended democracy, and social revolution remains incomplete.
The Constitution is thus the cornerstone of the nation because it continues to be the shared reference point for resolving these tensions.

Question 7 (50 marks)

Q7(a) · Grassroots Democracy, Statutory Institutions and Federalism · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Federalism: Constitutional Provisions and Changing Centre-State Relations
Does the actual working of Indian federalism conform to the centralizing tendencies in Indian polity? Give reasons for your answer.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
क्या भारतीय संघवाद की वास्तविक कार्यप्रणाली भारतीय राज व्यवस्था में केन्द्रीकरण की प्रवृत्ति के अनुरूप है? अपने उत्तर के पक्ष में तर्क दीजिए।
Practise this question Grassroots Democracy, Statutory Institutions and Federalism notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(a)
Approach: Give a reasoned answer: identify the centralising features in the Constitution, trace how actual working has followed or resisted them across phases, and conclude that India is centralised but federal in practice.
K.C. Wheare called the Indian Constitution quasi-federal and Ivor Jennings saw a federation with a strong centralising tendency: residuary powers with the Union, Articles 249-253, Article 356, emergency provisions, appointed Governors, All India Services and a single judiciary.
Working that confirms centralisation: during 1950-67 Congress dominance and the Planning Commission let the Centre steer states; after 1967 Article 356 was used over a hundred times, often against opposition governments, until S.R. Bommai (1994).
The 42nd Amendment (1976) moved education and forests to the Concurrent List, and centrally sponsored schemes extended the Centre into state subjects.
Since 2014 one-party dominance at the Centre, the growth of cesses, conditional schemes, the use of central agencies, friction with Governors and the 2019 conversion of Jammu and Kashmir into Union Territories have revived concerns about centralisation.
Working that resists it: linguistic reorganisation (1956) accommodated regional identities; the coalition era (1989-2014) made regional parties partners at the Centre; and liberalisation created what the Rudolphs called a federal market economy, with states competing for investment.
Bommai made federalism part of the basic structure; the Sarkaria Commission led to the Inter-State Council (1990); the 14th Finance Commission raised states' share to 42 percent; and the GST Council institutionalised shared sovereignty over indirect taxes.
States also bargain through Article 131 suits and regional parties, and courts have checked Governors, as in the 2025 Tamil Nadu case.
The actual working thus partly conforms to centralising tendencies, especially when one party dominates, but the system has repeatedly rebalanced through politics and courts; it is best described as a centralised but bargaining, cooperative federalism rather than a unitary state.
Q7(b) · The Constitution and the Organs of Government · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Preamble, Fundamental Rights and Duties, and Directive Principles
The main goal of the Fundamental Duties in the Indian Constitution is to generate civic responsibility among the citizens. Explain.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारतीय संविधान में मूल कर्तव्यों का मुख्य लक्ष्य नागरिकों में नागरिक उत्तरदायित्व उत्पन्न करना है। स्पष्ट कीजिए।
Practise this question The Constitution and the Organs of Government notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(b)
Approach: The question asks to explain the purpose of Fundamental Duties, so the answer covers their origin and content, shows how they build civic responsibility through law and courts, and notes their limits.
Fundamental Duties were added as Article 51A (Part IVA) by the 42nd Amendment (1976) on the recommendation of the Swaran Singh Committee, drawing on the Soviet model. Ten duties were listed; the 86th Amendment (2002) added an eleventh, requiring parents and guardians to provide education to children aged 6 to 14.
Civic responsibility as the goal: the duties ask citizens to respect the Constitution, flag and anthem, uphold unity and integrity, promote common brotherhood, renounce practices derogatory to women, protect the environment, develop scientific temper and safeguard public property. They remind citizens that rights carry obligations, an idea close to Gandhi's view that rights flow from duties well performed.
How they work: the duties are not directly enforceable, but courts use them to interpret laws and to judge the reasonableness of restrictions. In AIIMS Students' Union (2001) the Court said they are as important as rights, and Article 51A(g) has supported environmental orders. The Justice J.S. Verma Committee (1999) found that laws such as the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971 already enforce several duties.
Critique: the duties are vague, were inserted during the Emergency, and may shift attention from the state's obligations to citizens.
Their main goal is indeed civic: to build a culture of constitutional citizenship. That works best through education, awareness campaigns and the example of public institutions, not through penalties.
Q7(c) · Indian Political Thought · 15 marks≈ 11 min
B.R. Ambedkar
Dr. Ambedkar’s clarion call, “Educate, Agitate and Organize”, strategizes the Dalit movement towards achieving civil liberty. Discuss.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
डॉ॰ अंबेडकर का स्पष्ट आह्वान, “शिक्षित हो, आन्दोलन करो और संगठित हो”, नागरिक स्वतन्त्रता प्राप्त करने की दिशा में दलित आन्दोलन की रणनीति बनाता है। विवेचन कीजिए।
Practise this question Indian Political Thought notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(c)
Approach: Discuss what each part of the slogan meant for Ambedkar and how together they formed a strategy for the Dalit movement to secure civil liberties, with examples and an assessment.
The slogan 'Educate, Agitate, Organize' sums up Ambedkar's strategy for converting Dalits from victims of caste into self-respecting citizens. His goal was civil liberty: equal access to public spaces, water, temples, education and political power.
Educate: Ambedkar held that education creates awareness of one's rights and the injustice of caste. He founded the Bahishkrit Hitakarini Sabha (1924) to spread education, and later the People's Education Society (1945), which set up Siddharth College in Bombay. Education also meant breaking the mental slavery that the Shastras imposed.
Agitate: rights would not be granted but had to be claimed. The Mahad Satyagraha (1927) asserted the right to draw water from the Chavdar tank, and the Kalaram temple entry movement at Nashik (1930) challenged exclusion from temples. These were non-violent but assertive struggles for self-respect.
Organize: Dalits needed independent political power. He formed the Independent Labour Party (1936) and the Scheduled Castes Federation (1942), and fought for political safeguards, culminating in reserved seats after the Poona Pact (1932).
Impact: the strategy made Dalit assertion autonomous and led to constitutional guarantees such as Articles 15, 17 and reservations. Later movements, from the Dalit Panthers to the Bahujan Samaj Party, drew on it.
Limits remain, as caste violence persists, but the slogan still defines the path from social exclusion to equal citizenship.

Question 8 (50 marks)

Q8(a) · Planning, Social Cleavages, Party System and Social Movements · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Caste, Religion and Ethnicity in Indian Politics
The rise of caste politics is to be attributed to both regional aspirations and electoral manifestations. Comment.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जातिगत राजनीति के उदय का श्रेय क्षेत्रीय आकांक्षाओं और चुनावी अभिव्यक्तियों—दोनों को दिया जा सकता है। टिप्पणी कीजिए।
Practise this question Planning, Social Cleavages, Party System and Social Movements notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(a)
Approach: Comment on the twin explanation: show how regional aspirations and electoral logic have each driven caste politics, with phases and examples, add other factors, and evaluate.
Caste politics refers to the use of caste as a basis of political organisation, representation and voting. Rajni Kothari argued that democracy did not abolish caste but politicised it, and the Rudolphs showed in The Modernity of Tradition (1967) how caste associations became vehicles of democratic participation.
Regional aspirations: caste mobilisation has often been fused with regional identity. In Tamil Nadu, the Dravidian movement combined anti-Brahmin non-caste assertion with Tamil pride, bringing the DMK to power in 1967. In the Hindi belt, the rise of the SP, RJD and BSP expressed the aspirations of backward and Dalit castes of specific states. Telangana and Maharashtra show similar fusions of region and caste.
Electoral manifestations: the logic of first-past-the-post rewards parties that build winning caste coalitions. M.N. Srinivas's vote bank, Indira Gandhi's KHAM coalition in Gujarat, Kanshi Ram's bahujan strategy, the Mandal politics after 1990, and the BJP's recent consolidation of non-dominant OBCs and non-Jatav Dalits all show caste as an electoral resource. Kanchan Chandra, in Why Ethnic Parties Succeed (2004), links this to a patronage democracy.
Other factors: the Green Revolution created prosperous intermediate castes; reservations and the Mandal report created new interests; and social reform movements of Phule, Periyar and Ambedkar supplied ideology.
Assessment: the statement is broadly valid, but it ignores the dignity and recognition dimension that Jaffrelot calls the silent revolution, and the role of state policy.
Caste politics has democratised representation, but its future depends on moving from symbolic assertion to substantive gains in education and jobs.
Q8(b) · Planning, Social Cleavages, Party System and Social Movements · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Party System, Coalition Politics and Pressure Groups
The decade 1989–1999 has created an epochal shift in the Indian party system at the national level. Identify the major national trends in the party system during this era.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
1989–1999 के दशक ने राष्ट्रीय स्तर पर भारतीय दलीय प्रणाली में युगान्तरकारी परिवर्तन किए हैं। इस दौर की दलीय प्रणाली में निहित मुख्य राष्ट्रीय प्रवृत्तियों को चिह्नित कीजिए।
Practise this question Planning, Social Cleavages, Party System and Social Movements notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(b)
Approach: Identify the major national trends in the party system during 1989-1999 (end of Congress dominance, coalitions, Mandal, Mandir, regionalisation, market) and explain why the shift was epochal.
Yogendra Yadav describes 1989 as the beginning of India's third electoral system, after Congress dominance (1952-67) and Congress versus opposition (1967-89). The decade 1989-1999 transformed the party system at the national level.
Trends: first, the end of single-party majorities. No party won a Lok Sabha majority in 1989, 1991, 1996, 1998 or 1999, and governments were formed by the National Front, the United Front and the BJP-led coalitions.
Second, the decline of the Congress, which lost its social coalition of upper castes, Dalits and Muslims to the BJP, BSP and regional parties.
Third, the rise of the BJP, from 85 seats in 1989 to 182 in 1998 and 1999, through the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, the politics of Mandir.
Fourth, Mandal: the implementation of OBC reservation in 1990 created a lower-caste political bloc and parties such as the SP and RJD.
Fifth, regionalisation and federalisation: regional parties became coalition partners at the Centre, and the S.R. Bommai judgment (1994) restricted the misuse of Article 356.
Sixth, the market: economic reforms after 1991 created a consensus among major parties, reducing ideological polarisation on economics.
This was an epochal shift because power moved from one dominant party to a competitive, multi-party and coalition system, bringing new social groups and states into national decision-making, a pattern that lasted until 2014.
Q8(c) · The Constitution and the Organs of Government · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Supreme Court: Envisaged Role and Actual Working
Do you agree that over the years the Supreme Court has become a forum for policy evolution? Justify your answer.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
क्या आप इस मत से सहमत हैं कि विगत कुछ वर्षों में सर्वोच्च न्यायालय एक नीति विकास मंच के रूप में निर्मित हुआ है? अपने उत्तर का औचित्य सिद्ध कीजिए।
Practise this question The Constitution and the Organs of Government notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(c)
Approach: The question asks whether the Supreme Court has become a forum for policy-making and to justify the view, so the answer gives evidence of policy evolution, the justifications, the critique and a balanced conclusion.
The Constitution envisaged the Supreme Court as the interpreter of law and guardian of rights. Through public interest litigation, continuing mandamus and Article 142, it has also become a place where public policy is shaped, a trend Pratap Bhanu Mehta called the rise of judicial sovereignty.
Evidence: the Vishaka guidelines (1997) on sexual harassment preceded the POSH Act (2013); the right-to-food orders in PUCL v Union of India (from 2001) shaped midday meals and the National Food Security Act (2013); M.C. Mehta orders moved Delhi's public transport to CNG; Prakash Singh (2006) laid down police reforms; T.N. Godavarman (from 1996) made the Court a manager of forests; NALSA (2014) recognised transgender persons, followed by the 2019 Act; and Anoop Baranwal (2023) laid down a committee for appointing Election Commissioners.
Justification: courts step in when legislatures and executives fail to protect rights, and Upendra Baxi saw PIL as social action litigation that gave voice to the poor.
Critique: policy-making by courts strains the separation of powers, lacks expertise and accountability, and often fails in implementation. In Supriyo (2023) the Court itself declined to legalise same-sex marriage, leaving it to Parliament.
The Court has become a forum for policy evolution; its legitimacy depends on catalysing policy and leaving the details to elected institutions.

UPSC Mains 2023 Political Science and International Relations PSIR Paper II