Places and Forms of Power

PLACES AND FORMS OF POWER

The notion I’m going to deal with is Places and Forms of Power. First, I’m going to define the notion:

- “Places” could be important buildings or institutions that represent a certain form of power, for example the White House, a symbol of the American presidency. A place can also be a country or a state for example the USA.

- “Power” is the ability to control others, events, or resources; the ability to make things happen despite obstacles, resistance, or opposition.

India is a country which is powerful enough to influence events throughout the world and is also a major economic power in today’s world. That's why this theme fits into in this notion.

We can wonder if all citizens are on an equal footing in modern-day India.

First, I will talk about inequalities among Indian citizens and then, inequalities among men and women. Finally, I’ll deal with the evolution of Indian society.

I. Inequalities among citizens

• Firstly, there is a caste system in India, that is, the society is divided into four unequal hereditary social classes. The Dalits are at the bottom of this social ladder and they are outcastes. As stated in The Dalits they continue to suffer discrimination in rural areas and are forced to go to specific schools, temples… 40 percent of them live on less than $2 a day.

• There is also a gap between the rich and the poor. Take for example the document A country on the march which tells us that India owns 55 billionaires (fourth highest number of billionaires in the world) and at the same time 42% people lives below 80 pounds a day.

II. Inequalities among men and women

• There are other inequalities within the population, those between men and women. First, we can talk about the dowry tradition. The family of the wife must give a gift to the family of the future husband. As the document The dowry tradition says, the bride can be tortured or even killed by the husband if the family does not respect this contract. The bride can also be burned, and the act is then disguised as an accident (it’s called “bride burning”).

• This dowry tradition explains why many parents don’t want to have daughter. And the first consequence is that there is a “gendercide” of girls in India. It consists of gender-selected abortions or female infanticide. We can take the example of Kavita’s husband in the text Another girl who wanted to get rid of their daughter at birth because like many families, he absolutely wanted the new-born to be a boy.

III. The evolution of Indian society

• However, despite these inequalities, India is evolving a lot thanks to its economy. The text Changing India tells us that India has changed dramatically, for example farms are giving way to factories and Indian companies buy foreign companies. Moreover, the graphics of the document A country on the march shows us a clear growth of the GDP (Gross domestic product) in all sectors of activities (agriculture, industry).

• Successful women are also an aspect of this evolution of Indian society. Indeed,

...