CBSE Class 12 English Comprehension Passage 2 . Based on CBSE and NCERT guidelines. The students should read these basic concepts to gain perfection which will help him to get more marks in CBSE examination.
PASSAGE 2
1. Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions that follow :
1. Republic is essentially a nation-state in which supreme political power vests in the people and in elected representatives given a mandate to govern, by those people. Most importantly-and this is the principal point of difference from a monarchy-republics have an elected or nominated head of state, usually a president, not a hereditary monarch. In effect, all sovereignty, power and authority in a republic are vested in the people.
2. 'Republic' is derived from the Latin phrase res publica"a public thing". Ancient Romans used this to describe the wellspring of their governance system for their city-state by about 500 BC. Inspired by notions of Athenian democracy, Rome's republic was a noble experiment. The inscription 'SPQR', emblazoned on all Roman standards and public buildings, expanded to 'The Senate and People of Rome'. It touted to the world that Roman political power was vested in a great many, not concentrated in one ruler or family. Rome's republican tryst, sustained by public elections and classical debate, lasted until Julius Caesar seized control in 44 BC. Being succeeded by his wily nephew, Augustus-who founded a famous empire that lasted a while longer-300 consigned the republican ideal to the dustbin of the world.
3. Rome took much of its republican template from Greece. In particular, from Athens, most luminous of ancient Greece's many city-states. The notion of moving political power away from an individual to the masses sparang from the need to safeguard the then 'new' notion of personal and individual freedom. It meant citizens would willingly join any battle to safeguard this freedom from any aggressor. But it was a troubled ideal. Athens ran on slave labour, democracy became limited to narrower sections as time went by. Tyranny and mobrule reared their ugly heads; Athenian imperialism overstretched the city-state so much so that even Plato and Aristotle, in effect, argued for enlightened oligarchies in their political philosophy.
4. Aristotle's star pupil, Alexander of Macedon, soon put paid to all notions of republicanism by conquering large parts of Eurasia to establish an empire so large that it would only truly be eclipsed by Rome's later rise.
5. Besides the many obvious fruits of Renaissance and Reformation-Europe's two most epochal events in the second millennium-the republican ideal owes much to Niccolo Machiavellie and John Locke. Machiavelli, a 15th century Italian statesman-writer, located sovereignty in a collective exercise of power. The governed would guide actions of their ideal governor, he argued forcefully. Little wonder that Rousseau later referred to Machiavelli's 'The Prince' as "a handbook for Republicans".
A. Questions
(a) How is a republican state different from Monarchy?
(b) How did Julius Caesar change the face of a republican state?
(c) What are the major gifts of French Revolution?
(d) Mention the different forms of Republics started.
(e) How did India get its first Republican state.
Please refer to attached file for CBSE Class 12 English Comprehension Passage 2
