question_answer

(a) When does a social difference become a social division?

(b) What does politics do to these social divisions?

Or

When does a social difference become a social division? What does policies do f these social divisions?

Answer:

(a) Social difference become a social division when

- some differences overlap other differences and

- cross­cut each other. Like in our country 'Dalits' tend to be poor and landless. They often face discrimination and injustice. Situations of this kind produce social divisions, when one kind of social difference becomes more important than other and people start feeling that they belong to other communities.

(b) Role of politics

At first sight it reveals that combination of politics and social divisions is very dangerous and explosive. Like democracy involves competition among various political parties and this competition tends to divide any society.

At the same time, social divisions affect voting in most countries. People from one community tend to prefer some party more than others. In many countries there are parties that focus only on one community.

Thus, all this does not lead to disintegration of the country.