CLASS 12 · KALIEDOSCOPE · CHAPTER 18
Original, student-friendly answers to Amartya Sen's essay on debate, plural voices, inequality, and democracy in India.
13 worked answers · short steps first, explanations when you need them
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Question Stop and Think 1
Contrast acting from duty with weighing the consequences of action.
'Faring forward' stresses carrying out one's duty; 'faring well' asks whether the results will benefit people or cause harm. Sen says both matter.
Question Stop and Think 2
Connect both examples through the tension between duty or achievement and harmful consequences.
Both raise the moral question of whether duty or technical success can justify severe harm caused by the action.
Question Stop and Think 3
Explain that income is a means and development should expand people's capabilities and well-being.
Like Maitreyi, Sen asks what wealth is for. Development should expand people's real freedoms and well-being, not measure success by income alone.
Question Stop and Think 4
List women thinkers and leaders, working-class poets, anti-caste arguments, and Bhakti-Sufi voices.
Examples include Maitreyi, Gargi, Sarojini Naidu, Nellie Sengupta, Kabir, Dadu, Ravi-das, Sena, anti-caste voices in the epics, Buddhist and Jain writers, and Bhakti-Sufi poets.
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Question Understanding the Text 1
Set out each position and explain that Sen believes the epic preserves both arguments.
Krishna stresses duty; Arjuna stresses the human cost. Sen says the Mahabharata takes both seriously, and Arjuna's concern is not fully dismissed.
Question Understanding the Text 2
Name moral debate, participation across social groups, and public reasoning in democracy.
Sen discusses moral and philosophical debate, whose voices take part across social divisions, and public reasoning as a basis for democracy.
Question Understanding the Text 3
State both misconceptions and Sen's balanced explanation.
Sen rejects the ideas that democracy was only a Western gift or that India alone is naturally suited to it; public reasoning has roots in many societies, including India.
Question Understanding the Text 4
Connect open debate with citizens' ability to assess public choices and sustain democratic institutions.
Public debate lets people question authority and consider different views, helping democratic institutions take root and continue.
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Question Talking about the Text 1
Explain the benefits of reasoned debate and distinguish it from hostile quarrelling.
Sen values argument when it helps people test ideas and hear different views; he does not praise hostile quarrelling.
Question Talking about the Text 2
Describe the usual focus on duty and Sen's call to include Arjuna's concern for consequences.
The Gita is often read as a lesson in duty without attachment to results. Sen asks readers also to consider Arjuna's concern about harmful consequences.
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Question Appreciation
Pair each statement with one or more examples Sen supplies.
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Question Language Work I (a) and (b)
Separate debate vocabulary from words that limit or qualify a claim.
Speech words include talk, speech, loquaciousness, dialogue, debate, argument, and disputation. Qualifiers include often, by and large, perhaps, and in some ways.
Question Language Work II Task
Identify each phrase's head noun, modifiers, and appositive or prepositional additions.
1. Head: head; 'the second woman' modifies it; 'of the Indian National Congress' adds information; 'Nellie Sengupta' renames it. 2. Heads: relation, distance; 'between income and achievement' completes them. 3. Head: basis; 'class' modifies it; the 'of' and 'in' phrases add details.