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University of Delhi — B.A. (Hons.) Political Science — official course contents PDF
Semester I papers and unit structure as published in the official Department of Political Science course contents, effective from the academic year 2011-2012 onwards.
The batch above is the student cohort this material is mapped to. The effective period is stated by the official document itself — check your college's current syllabus before relying on either.
University of Delhi · Academic batch 2024-25
Semester I carries three core discipline papers and one concurrent qualifying language paper. The three core papers are listed below with their official titles, unit counts and lecture hours.
Marks pattern (official): Max Marks 100 = Theory Exam 75 + Internal Assessment 25. Teaching: 5 lectures + 1 tutorial per week (main papers).
Core discipline papers
Concurrent papers
Verified units
Published lectures
To help the student understand India’s colonial past, since the roots of many political institutions and ideas, and social and economic structures central to politics in India today, can be traced back to this past. The course studies colonialism in India from social-economic, political, religious, legal and educational perspectives.
6 units · 60 lectures · 100 marks
This course is divided into two sections. Section A introduces the student to the idea of political theory, its history and approaches, and an assessment of its critical and contemporary trends. Section B is designed to reconcile political theory and practice through reflections on the ideas and practices related to democracy.
2 units · 60 lectures · 100 marks
To acquaint students with the constitutional design of state structures and institutions, and their actual working over time. The Indian Constitution accommodates conflicting impulses — liberty and justice, territorial decentralization and a strong union — within itself. The course traces the embodiment of these conflicts in constitutional provisions, and shows how they have played out in constitutional practice, encouraging a study of state institutions in their mutual interaction and with the wider non-institutional environment.
4 units · 60 lectures · 100 marks
Semester I also carries Paper IV: Concurrent – Qualifying Language. The official syllabus states that the existing syllabi of all Concurrent/Credit Courses shall remain unchanged, so this paper is governed by the separate language syllabus rather than the Political Science course contents.
The semester builds a specific sequence: Paper I establishes the historical and theoretical ground for colonial rule, Paper II supplies the conceptual vocabulary, and Paper III applies both to the Indian constitution and government. Read in that order, each paper makes the next one easier.
6 units and 60published lectures — more than either of the other two papers. Its six units run from competing accounts of colonialism through to peasant and tribal resistance, so it carries the largest share of descriptive material in the semester.
2 units and 60 lectures. The volume sits in the concepts rather than the history: the traditions of political theory, and then democracy as an idea with participation and representation. Short units here still demand long answers, because almost every question is a comparison.
4 units and 60lectures on the Constitution, the organs of government, federalism and the liberty–security balance. Paper I’s account of how colonial law shaped Indian institutions is the background Paper III assumes.
The lecture counts below are the published allocation, not an estimate. They are the most reliable guide to how the teaching week is actually spent across the three papers.
| Paper | Title | Units | Lectures | Max marks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paper I | Colonialism in India | 6 | 60 | 100 |
| Paper II | Understanding Political Theory | 2 | 60 | 100 |
| Paper III | Constitutional Democracy and Government in India | 4 | 60 | 100 |
| Total | Core discipline papers only | 12 | 180 | 300 |
The concurrent qualifying language paper is excluded from this table because its structure is set by a separate syllabus that the Political Science document does not reproduce.