Reading Comprehension Questions and Answers

Direction for [ Question No: 11 To 13 ] :

Read the following passages and answer the questions below :

What is your ideal society if you do not want caste is a question that is bound to be asked of you. If you ask me, my ideal would be a society based on Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. And why not? What objection can there be to Fraternity? I cannot imagine any…. An ideal society should be mobile…. there should be many interests consciously communicated and shared…. Democracy is not merely a form of Government. It is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience. It is essentially an attitude of respect and reverence towards fellowmen. Any objection to Liberty? Few object to liberty in the sense of a right to free movement, in the sense of a right to life and limb….. Why not allow liberty to benefit by an effective and competent use of a person’s powers ? The supporters of caste who would allow liberty in the sense of a right to life, limb and property, would not readily consent to liberty in this sense, inasmuch as it involves liberty to choose one’s profession. But to object to this kind of liberty is to perpetuate slavery. For slavery does not merely mean a legalized form of subjection…. It is found where, as in the Caste System, some persons are compelled to carry on certain prescribed callings which are not of their choice. Any objection to Equality ? This has obviously been the most contentious part of the slogan of the French Revolution…. Equality may be a fiction but nonetheless one must accept it as the governing principle. A man’s power is dependent upon (1) physical heredity, (2) social inheritance or endowment in the form of parental care, education, accumulation of scientific knowledge, everything which enables him to be more efficient than the savage, and finally, (3) on his own efforts. In all these three respects men are undoubtedly unequal. But the question is, shall we treat them as unequal because they are unequal? …. It may be desirable to give as much incentive as possible to the full development of everyone’s powers. But what would happen if men were treated unequally as they are, in the first two respects ?…. It is obvious that those individuals also in whose favour there is birth, education, family name, business connections and inherited wealth would be selected in the race. But selection under such circumstances would not be a selection of the able. It would be the selection of the privileged…. On the other hand it can be urged that if it is good for the social body to get the most out of its members, it can get most out of them only by making them equal as far as possible at the very start of the race. That is one reason why we cannot escape equality. But there is another reason why we must accept equality. A Statesman is concerned with vast numbers of people…. The Statesman, therefore, must … treat all men alike not because they are alike but because classification and assortment is impossible. The doctrine of equality is glaringly fallacious but taking all in all it is the only way a Statesman can proceed in politics which is a severely practical affair and which demands a severely practical test.

Direction for [ Question No: 14 To 18 ] :

Directions : Read the given passage carefully and based on the paragraph answer the questions that follow :

The India-China relationship has always been too complex to classify under a single theme. Competition-cooperation-discord is an often-evoked term typology that reflects the contradictory nature of this relationship. Last year witnessed all these facets play out: India's trenchant critique of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), India's entry into the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the dramatic crisis in Doklam on the northern frontiers, the acceleration of multilateral cooperation in the BRICS format, and attempts to foster economic engagement. Yet, nothing exemplified the state of ties more than the Himalayan standoff, which was the closest both countries came to drawing blood in over three decades.

What led to this tailspin in India-China relations ? We will not find the clues in some valley or a narrow stretch of road in the upper Himalayas. Rather, the main reason has been a systematic build-up of negative images of how each side viewed the other's foreign policies, along with a collapse in geopolitical trust. For India, China's attempt to raise its economic and political profile in the subcontinent was seen as an encroachment on, and an affront to, Indian authority in the neighbourhood. For China, India's pursuit of deeper military engagement with the former's main strategic rivals – the U.S. and Japan – was viewed as a serious challenge to its future security. Convinced that only an assertive policy would work, both Delhi and Beijing over the past two years began exploiting leverages and pressure points to keep the other side off balance. India tilted closer to the U.S., China towards Pakistan, and on a scale not witnessed even during the Cold War years.

Yet, neither side has been able to extract any concessions or improve the terms of their bilateral interactions. On a range of issues – the Nuclear Suppliers Group membership, Pakistan-sponsored terror and hydrological cooperation being the most prominent – India failed to receive any give from China. With India's boycott of the BRI, China too found itself confronting not only the only major holdout against its flagship international initiative but also its most suspicious and non-cooperative neighbour in Asia. Beijing also noticed that New Delhi was beginning to openly involve external powers to collaborate with it in an anti-China strategy in South Asia and the Indian Ocean. Worse still must have been the spectacle of India brandishing its Tibet card. Such unbridled competition and rising costs to Indian and Chinese interests – and Doklam was the tipping point – appears to have persuaded both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping that their policies were producing zero-sum outcomes and required some kind of a course correction.

Direction for [ Question No: 19 To 20 ] :

Directions : Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow :

In July 1921, Tagore returned home from Europe. He was alarmed to find that many members of the staff at Santiniketan had enthusiastically embraced the non-co-operation movement, thus giving themselves up to 'narrow nationalist ideas that were already out of date'. In the first week of September, Gandhi met Tagore at his family home in Calcutta. They had a long and argumentative conversation about non-co-operation. C. F. Andrews, who was present, wrote that they had 'a difference of temperament so wide that it was extremely difficult to arrive at a common intellectual standing, though the moral ties of friendship remained entirely unbroken…'. Tagore later recalled that he had told Gandhi that 'the whole world is suffering today from the cult of a selfish and short-sighted nationalism. India has all down her history offered hospitality to the invader of whatever nation, creed or colour. I have come to believe that, as Indians, we not only have much to learn from the West but that we also have something to contribute. We dare not therefore shut the West out. But we still have to learn among ourselves how, through education, to collaborate and achieve a common understanding'.

Gandhi's answer is not recorded. But apparently Tagore was not satisfied, since he chose to make his criticisms public in the influential Calcutta journal Modern Review. In his recent travels in the West, said Tagore, he had met many people who sought 'to achieve the unity of man, by destroying the bondage of nationalism'. He had 'watched the faces of European students all aglow with the hope of a united mankind…'. Then he returned home, to be confronted with a political movement suffused with negativity. Are 'we alone to be content with telling the beads of negation', asked Tagore, 'harping on other's faults and proceeding with the erection of Swaraj on a foundation of quarrelsomeness?'

Gandhi responded immediately, defending the non-co-operation movement as 'a refusal to co-operate with the English administrators on their own terms. We say to them, "Come and co-operate with us on our terms, and it will be well for us, for you and the world". … A drowning man cannot save others. In order to be fit to save others, we must try to save ourselves. Indian nationalism is not exclusive, nor aggressive, nor destructive. It is health-giving, religious and therefore humanitarian. India must learn to live before she can aspire to die for humanity. The mice which helplessly find themselves between the cat's teeth acquire no merit from their enforced sacrifice.'