Question

Studies on political and social inequalities in democracy show that
A. Democracy and development go together
B. Inequalities exist in democracies
C. Inequalities do not exist under a dictatorship
D. Dictatorship is better than democracy

Answer 1

Hint:
Democracy is derived from the Greek word demos, or people is defined, basically, as the government in which the absolute power lies in the people. Inequality is the “state of not being equal, either in status, rights and opportunities”.

Complete answer:
The United Nations defines inequality as the “state of not being equal, in status, rights and opportunities”.

Inequality can be broadly classified into:

> Economic inequality: It refers to the unequal distribution of income and opportunity between individuals or different groups in society.
> Social inequality: It occurs when resources in a given society are allotted unequally based on their standards, thus creates specific patterns along lines of socially defined categories.
E.g., religion, race, caste, ethnicity, gender etc. have different access to resources of power, prestige and wealth depending on the standards of a society.
Both these categories are deeply intertwined and inequality of one type affects the inequality in another e.g., Social Inequality due to gender has a large impact on the income of women. A large gender wage gap is seen to be existing in patriarchal societies.
> Political Inequality: It occurs when there are structured differences in the distribution of political resources.

Studies show that in the case of democracy also inequalities do exist:

> A small number of ultra-rich individuals enjoy a highly unbalanced portion of wealth and incomes. In the total income of the country, their share has been increasing.
> Then again, those at the bottom strata of the society once in a while think that it’s hard to meet their fundamental needs of life like nourishment, cover, dress, instruction, and wellbeing. Their incomes used to decline continuously.
> In reality, democracies have not been quite as successful in reducing economic inequalities.

Thus, the correct answer is B

Note
A feeling of exclusion among religious minority groups is generated by Religious inequality. This reduces their participation in the mainstream. In India, the economic exclusion of the religious minorities compromises the GDP growth of the nation as a whole as they have a large population.

Existing socio-economic inequalities result in poor development indicators like IMR, MMR, low per capita income, lower education and learning outcomes at schools, high rate of population growth.

High economic inequality is deleterious to public healthcare and education. The Upper and Middle classes do not have a vested interest in well operating public healthcare and education, rather they have the means to access private healthcare and education.