ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Rights of Man (1791), a book by Thomas Paine, including 31 articles, posits that popular political revolution is permissible when a government does not safeguard the natural rights of its people.

Detailed explanation-2: -Paine explored the idea that government based on true justice should support not only mankind’s natural rights (life, liberty, free speech, freedom of conscience) but also its civil rights (relating to security and protection).

Detailed explanation-3: -Paine was convinced that the principle of monarchical government was undermined long before France became a republic. His account of the early dramatic events of the French Revolution were often inaccurate, because he was in England when they occurred, and he wrote as a polemicist not as an impartial historian.

Detailed explanation-4: -Key Points Made in ‘Common Sense’ Here are some of Paine’s key points: Government’s purpose was to serve the people. Paine described government as a “necessary evil, ” which existed to give people a structure so they could work together to solve problems and prosper.

Detailed explanation-5: -Men are born free and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions can be based only on public utility. The aim of every political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression.