Places and forms of Power notion terminale S oral de bac

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Introduction :

The notion I am going to deal with is about « Places and forms of power ». First, I’d like to introduce and give a definition of the notion. We can consider that the power is the ability or the official capacity to exercise control, authority or influences over others. It can be exerted in different spheres : economy, politics and different forms : democracy, dictatorship, and in different places, country all around the world. But to illustrate this notion I have chosen to present the theme of “India on the move”, because it is an emerging country, the second most populous country in this world. In fact, Traditions still remain in India, the world's largest democracy, which had to cope with inequalities and try to reduce them. So we may wonder if Indian contemporary government and society succeed in assuring equality between all his inhabitants ? So, in the first part we will to talk about the inequalities between the poor, the low society and the rich, the high society than we will deal with the inequalities between men and woman and our last topic will be the evolution of the Indian society.

1. Inequalities between the poor and the rich:

First, India is divided into four unequal hereditary social castes: it’s the cast system. No one can change the cast into they were born and they can’t get married with someone belonging to another cast. In the lowest classes of society there are the Dalits, who are outcasts. There are 170 millions Dalits in India, and most of them live on less than 2 dollars a day. The cast system is oppressive and prevent people from being on an equal footing.

In India there are lots of inequalities among rich and poor. For instance there are 69 billionaires and whereas 800 millions of people who live below the extreme poverty line (the 2 dollars a day). We can say that there are two faces of India, on the one hand booming, The India tiger, and on the other hand poverty and penury. There is an emerging middle class too, with about 300 millions of people. But a majority of Indians are struggling. In fact, in class we have studied the largest slum in the world, named Dharavi Slum, about one million people live there, in squalid condition, below the poverty line. The circumstance that illustrates best the glaring inequalities is that this massive slum is located right in the middle of India’s financial capital, Mumbai (Bombay).

1. Inequalities between men and woman:

If discrimination exists among Indian citizens, it’s also a true fact among men and women. Indian women are often underprivileged or disadvantaged and they don't play an important role in society. These inequalities origins can be traced mainly to the dowry tradition. A dowry is a sum of money given by the bride’s family to the husband’s family as a compensation to the boy’s education.

We saw that 600,000 girls go missing every year: this is the gendercide. The dowry tradition which is deeply rooted in Indian society, cost far too much for families with daughters. But finding the sex of the baby before birth is illegal therefore girls are killed at birth.

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