(a) Discuss the role of social media in communal polarisation. Suggest ways to combat it. (20 marks) (b) Urban settlements in…

(a) Role of social media in communal polarisation and ways to combat it

Role:

• Algorithms reward engagement and outrage, which pushes emotionally charged content. Cass Sunstein's "echo chambers" and Eli Pariser's "filter bubbles" describe how users are insulated from other views and prejudice hardens.
• Encrypted messaging, notably WhatsApp forwards, spreads rumours and doctored videos at speed and with little accountability; rumours of child-lifting led to mob lynchings in 2018.
• Anonymity, trolling and organised campaigns amplify hate speech and stereotypes, and "othering" of communities becomes routine.
• Offline tensions and online content reinforce each other during local disputes.

Ways to combat:

• Law and regulation: apply the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 on grievance redress and takedown, and Section 196 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (formerly Section 153A IPC) against promoting enmity, balanced with free-speech safeguards, transparency and judicial review.
• Platform duties: algorithmic transparency, forwarding limits, faster moderation in Indian languages.
• Fact-checking and counter-speech: independent fact-checkers, and community and official counter-narratives.
• Digital literacy in schools and communities, and peace committees and local administrations that act quickly on rumours.

(b) Why urban settlements replicate rural caste-kinship imprints

Urbanisation has reorganised rather than dissolved caste. M. N. Srinivas noted a shift from the village's vertical, interdependent ties to horizontal caste solidarity.

Reasons:

• Migration chains: kin and caste networks channel migrants into jobs and neighbourhoods, producing caste-based occupational niches and clusters, such as Dalit concentration in sanitation work.
• Housing: studies using the index of dissimilarity (Vithayathil and Singh, 2012) show residential segregation in Indian cities, helped by discriminatory renting and caste-based housing societies.
• Social capital: caste associations manage community halls, hostels, marriage networks and political mobilisation, so caste remains a source of security in uncertain urban life.
• Marriage: endogamy continues, with matrimonial advertising and platforms sorting by caste.
• Hidden advantage: Satish Deshpande argues that upper-caste social and cultural capital is presented as "merit", leaving caste invisible to those who benefit from it.

(c) Does economic empowerment bring substantive empowerment for women?

Not automatically. Naila Kabeer's framework treats resources (income, credit, jobs) as only one dimension, which become achievements only through agency, the ability to set goals and act on them, including control over income and decisions about body, mobility and marriage.

Main issues:

• Property and control: women's land and asset ownership remains low despite the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005, and income earned is often controlled by family.
• Unpaid care work: women carry a disproportionate share, restricting mobility and careers.
• Violence and safety, and restrictions on mobility and marriage choice.
• Digital gender gap in devices and skills.
• Political representation: women hold about 14 per cent of Lok Sabha seats; the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam, 2023 provides one-third reservation once it comes into effect.
• Son preference and skewed sex ratios, even among educated households.

Empowerment thus needs changes in norms, property, care and political voice, not income alone.