Sociology NCERT Notes - Class 12(b)

Chapter 1 - Introducing Indian Society

INTRODUCING AN INTRODUCTION

• It was in the colonial period that a specifically Indian consciousness took shape. Colonial
rule unified all of India for the first time, and brought in the forces of modernization and
capitalist economic change.
• Colonial exploitation and domination scarred Indian society in many ways. But
paradoxically, colonialism also gave birth to its own enemy – nationalism.
• Historically, an Indian nationalism took shape under British colonialism. The shared
experience of colonial domination helped unify and energies different sections of the
community.
• Ironically, colonialism and western education also gave the impetus for the rediscovery
of tradition. This led to the developments on the cultural and social front which
solidified emergent forms of community at the national and regional levels.
• Colonialism created new classes and communities which came to play significant roles in
subsequent history.

Chapter 2 - The Demographic Structure Of The Indian Society

• Demography is the systematic study of population.
• Demography studies the trends and processes associated with population including –
changes in population size; patterns of births, deaths, and migration; and the structure
and composition of the population, such as the relative proportions of women, men and
different age groups.
• Demography is a field that is of special importance to sociology.
• Demographic data are important for the planning and implementation of state policies,
especially those for economic development and general public welfare.

SOME THEORIES AND CONCEPTS IN DEMOGRAPHY

THE MALTHUSIAN THEORY OF POPULATION GROWTH

• Humanity is condemned to live in poverty forever because the growth of agricultural

production will always be overtaken by population growth. While population rises in

1
 geometric progression (i.e., like 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 etc.), agricultural production can only
grow in arithmetic progression (i.e., like 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 etc.).
• Unfortunately, humanity has only a limited ability to voluntarily reduce the growth of its
population (through ‘preventive checks’ such as postponing marriage or practicing
sexual abstinence or celibacy). Malthus believed therefore that ‘positive checks’ to
population growth – in the form of famines and diseases.

THE THEORY OF DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION

• ‘Population explosion’ happens because death rates are brought down relatively quickly
through advanced methods of disease control, public health, and better nutrition.

COMMON CONCEPTS AND INDICATORS

• Most demographic concepts are expressed as rates or ratios – they involve two
numbers.
• Birth rate is the total number of live births in a particular area (an entire country, a
state, a district or other territorial unit) during a specified period (usually a year) divided
by the total population of that area in thousands.
• the birth rate is the number of live births per 1000 population.
• The death rate is a similar number of deaths in a given area during a given time per 1000
population.
• The rate of natural increase or the growth rate of population refers to the difference
between the birth rate and the death rate.
• The fertility rate refers to the number of live births per 1000 women in the child-bearing
age group, usually taken to be 15 to 49 years.
• That is why demographers also calculate age-specific rates. The total fertility rate refers
to the total number of live births that a hypothetical woman would have if she lived
through the reproductive age group and had the average number of babies in each
segment of this age group as determined by the age-specific fertility rates for that area.
• The infant mortality rate is the number of deaths of babies before the age of one year
per 1000 live births.
• The maternal mortality rate is the number of women who die in childbirth per 1000 live
births.
• One concept which is somewhat complicated is that of life expectancy.
• This refers to the estimated number of years that an average person is expected to
survive.
• The sex ratio refers to the number of females per 1000 males in a given area at a
specified time period.

2
• The age structure of the population refers to the proportion of persons in different age
groups relative to the total population.
• The dependency ratio is a measure comparing the portion of a population which is
composed of dependents with the portion that is in the working age group, generally
defined as 15 to 64 years.

SIZE AND GROWTH OF INDIA’S POPULATION

• India is the second most populous country in the world after China.
• The growth rate of population substantially increased after independence from British
rule going up to 2.2% during 1961-1981.
• Before 1931, both death rates and birth rates were high, whereas, after this transitional
moment the death rates fell sharply but the birth rate only fell slightly.
• The principal reasons for the decline in the death rate after 1921 were increased levels
of control over famines and epidemic diseases.
• Improvements in medical cures for these diseases, programs for mass vaccination, and
efforts to improve sanitation helped to control epidemics.
• Famines were also a major and recurring source of increased mortality. Famines were
caused by high levels of continuing poverty and malnutrition in an agroclimatic
environment that was very vulnerable to variations in rainfall.
• Scholars like Amartya Sen and others have shown, famines were not necessarily due to
fall in foodgrains production; they were also caused by a ‘failure of entitlements’, or the
inability of people to buy or otherwise obtain food.

AGE STRUCTURE OF THE INDIAN POPULATION

• India has a very young population – that is, the majority of Indians tend to be young,
and the average age is also less than that for most other countries.
• The bias towards younger age groups in the age structure is believed to be an advantage
for India. Like the East Asian economies in the past decade and like Ireland today, India
is supposed to be benefitting from a ‘demographic dividend’.

THE DECLINING SEX-RATIO IN INDIA

• The sex ratio is an important indicator of gender balance in the population.

• India has had a declining sex-ratio for more than a century.
• From 972 females per 1000 males at the turn of the twentieth century, the sex ratio has
declined to 933 at the turn of the twenty-first century.
• The sex ratio for the 0 - 6 years age group has generally been substantially higher than
the overall sex ratio for all age groups, but it has been falling very sharply.

3
• The state-level child sex ratios offer even greater cause for worry. As many as nine
States and Union Territories have a child sex ratio of under 900 females per 1000 males.
Haryana is the worst state with an incredibly low child sex ratio of 793, followed by
Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir, Delhi, Chandigarh, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.
• Demographers and sociologists have offered several reasons for the decline in the sex
ratio in India. The main health factor that affects women differently from men is
childbearing.
• Several factors may be held responsible for the decline in the child sex ratio, including
severe neglect of girl babies in infancy, leading to higher death rates; sex-specific
abortions that prevent girl babies from being born; and female infanticide (or the killing
of girl babies due to religious or cultural beliefs). Each of these reasons point to a serious
social problem.
• The availability of the sonogram (an x-ray like diagnostic device based on ultra-sound
technology), originally developed to identify genetic or other disorders in the foetus,
may be used to identify and selectively abort female foetuses.

LITERACY

• Literacy as a prerequisite to education is an instrument of empowerment. The more

literate the population the greater the consciousness of career options, as well as
participation in the knowledge economy.
• Literacy varies considerably across gender, across regions, and across social groups.
• The literacy rate for women is 16.3% less than the literacy rate for men.
• Female literacy has been rising faster than male literacy, partly because it started from
relatively low levels.

RURAL-URBAN DIFFERENCES

• The vast majority of the population of India has always lived in the rural areas, and that
continues to be true.
• The urban population has been increasing its share steadily, from about 11% at the
beginning of the twentieth century to about 28% at the beginning of the twenty-first
century.
• Agriculture used to be by far the largest contributor to the country’s total economic
production.
• Mass media and communication channels are now bringing images of urban life styles
and patterns of consumption into the rural areas.
• The rapid growth in urbanization shows that the town or city has been acting as a
magnet for the rural population.

4
• Sometimes the city may also be preferred for social reasons, especially the relative
anonymity it offers. The fact that urban life involves interaction with strangers can be an
advantage for different reasons.
• While urbanization has been occurring at a rapid pace, it is the biggest cities – the
metropolises – that have been growing the fastest.

POPULATION POLICY IN INDIA

• Population policy India was perhaps the first country to explicitly announce such a policy
in 1952.
• The population policy took the concrete form of the National Family Planning Program.
The broad objectives of this program have remained the same – to try to influence the
rate and pattern of population growth in socially desirable directions.
• Government tried to intensify the effort to bring down the growth rate of population by
introducing a coercive program of mass sterilization. Here sterilization refers to medical
procedures like vasectomy (for men) and tubectomy (for women) which prevent
conception and childbirth.
• The National Family Planning Program was renamed as the National Family Welfare
Program after the Emergency, and coercive methods were no longer used.

Chapter 3 - Social Institutions: Continuity And Change

CASTE AND THE CASTE SYSTEM
CASTE IN THE PAST

• Caste is an institution uniquely associated with the Indian sub-continent.

• As is well-known, the English word ‘caste’ is actually a borrowing from the Portuguese
casta, meaning pure breed. The word refers to a broad institutional arrangement that in
Indian languages is referred to by two distinct terms, varna and jati. Varna, literally
‘colour’, is the name given to a four-fold division of society into brahmana, kshatriya,
vaishya and shudra, though this excludes a significant section of the population
composed of the ‘outcastes’, foreigners, slaves, conquered peoples and others,
sometimes referred to as the panchamas or fifth category. Jati is a generic term
referring to species or kinds of anything, ranging from inanimate objects to plants,
animals and human beings.
• In its earliest phase, in the late Vedic period roughly between 900 — 500 BC, the caste
system was really a varna system and consisted of only four major divisions.
• The most commonly cited defining features of caste are the following:
- Caste is determined by birth

5
- Membership in a caste involves strict rules about marriage.
- Caste membership also involves rules about food and food-sharing.
- Caste involves a system consisting of many castes arranged in a hierarchy of rank and
status.
- Castes also involve sub-divisions within themselves.
- Castes were traditionally linked to occupations.
• It is also clear from the historical evidence that caste was a very unequal institution –
some castes benefitted greatly from the system, while others were condemned to a life
of endless labour and subordination.
• The caste system can be understood as the combination of two sets of principles, one
based on difference and separation and the other on wholism and hierarchy.
• The hierarchical ordering of castes is based on the distinction between ‘purity’ and
‘pollution’.
• Castes that are considered ritually pure have high status, while those considered less
pure or impure have low status as in all societies.
• Historians believe that those who were defeated in wars were often assigned low caste
status.
• Castes are not only unequal to each other in ritual terms, they are also supposed to be
complementary and non-competing groups.
• Our sources of knowledge about the past and specially the ancient past is inadequate.

COLONIALISM AND CASTE

• Indian Independence in 1947 offers a natural dividing line between the colonial period
(roughly 150 years from around 1800 to 1947) and the post-Independence or post-
colonial period (the six decades from 1947 to the present day). The present form of
caste as a social institution has been shaped very strongly by both the colonial period as
well as the rapid changes that have come about in independent India.
• Scholars have agreed that all major social institutions and specially the institution of
caste underwent major changes during the colonial period.
• Many British administrative officials were also amateur ethnologists and took great
interest in pursuing such surveys and studies.
• The land revenue settlements and related arrangements and laws served to give legal
recognition to the customary (caste-based) rights of the upper castes.
• Government of India Act of 1935 was passed which gave legal recognition to the lists or
‘schedules’ of castes and tribes marked out for special treatment by the state. This is
how the terms ‘Scheduled Tribes’ and the ‘Scheduled Castes’ came into being.
• Colonialism brought about major changes in the institution of caste. Perhaps it would be
more accurate to say that the institution of caste underwent fundamental changes
during the colonial period.

6
 CASTE IN THE PRESENT

• Indian Independence in 1947 marked a big, but ultimately only partial break with the
colonial past. Caste considerations had inevitably played a role in the mass mobilizations
of the nationalist movement. Efforts to organize the “depressed classes” and
particularly the untouchable castes predated the nationalist movement, having begun in
the second half of the nineteenth century.
• Anti-untouchability programs became a significant part of the Congress agenda.
• The dominant view in the nationalist movement was to treat caste as a social evil and as
a colonial ploy to divide Indians.
• The post-Independence Indian state inherited and reflected these contradictions. On
the one hand, the state was committed to the abolition of caste and explicitly wrote this
into the Constitution. On the other hand, the state was both unable and unwilling to
push through radical reforms which would have undermined the economic basis for
caste inequality.
• The only exception to this was in the form of reservations for the Scheduled Castes and
Scheduled Tribes.
• The development activity of the state and the growth of private industry also affected
caste indirectly through the speeding up and intensification of economic change.
• Perhaps, the most eventful and important sphere of change has been that of politics.
From its very beginnings in independent India, democratic politics has been deeply
conditioned by caste.
• Sociologists and social anthropologists coined many new concepts to try and understand
these processes of change. Perhaps the most common of these are ‘sanskritisation’ and
‘dominant caste’.
• ‘Sanskritisation’ refers to a process whereby members of a (usually middle or lower)
caste attempt to raise their own social status by adopting the ritual, domestic and social
practices of a caste (or castes) of higher status.
• ‘Dominant caste’ is a term used to refer to those castes which had a large population
and were granted land rights by the partial land reforms effected after Independence.
• These intermediate castes became the ‘dominant’ castes in the country side and played
a decisive role in regional politics and the agrarian economy. Examples of such dominant
castes include the Yadavs of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the Vokkaligas of Karnataka, the
Reddys and Khammas of Andhra Pradesh, the Marathas of Maharashtra, the Jats of
Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh and the Patidars of Gujarat.
• One of the most significant yet paradoxical changes in the caste system in the
contemporary period is that it has tended to become ‘invisible’ for the upper caste,
urban middle and upper classes.
• For the so-called scheduled castes and tribes and the backward castes – the opposite
has happened. For them, caste has become all too visible, indeed their caste has tended
to eclipse the other dimensions of their identities.
7
• The juxtaposition of these two groups – a seemingly caste-less upper caste group and an
apparently caste-defined lower caste group – is one of the central aspects of the
institution of caste in the present.

TRIBAL COMMUNITIES

• ‘Tribe’ is a modern term for communities that are very old, being among the oldest
inhabitants of the sub-continent.

CLASSIFICATIONS OF TRIBAL SOCIETIES

• Tribes have been classified according to their ‘permanent’ and ‘acquired’ traits.
Permanent traits include region, language, physical characteristics and ecological
habitat.

PERMANENT TRAITS

• About 85% of the tribal population lives in ‘middle India’, a wide band stretching from
Gujarat and Rajasthan in the west-to-West Bengal and Odisha in the east, with Madhya
Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and parts of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh
forming the heart of this region. Of the remaining 15%, over 11% is in the North Eastern
states, leaving only a little over 3% living in the rest of India.
• In terms of language, tribes are categorized into four categories. Two of them, Indo-
Aryan and Dravidian, are shared by the rest of the Indian population as well, and tribes
account for only about 1% of the former and about 3% of the latter. The other two
language groups, the Austric and Tibeto-Burman.

ACQUIRED CHARACTERISTICS

• Classifications based on acquired traits use two main criteria – mode of livelihood,
and extent of incorporation into Hindu society – or a combination of the two.
• On the basis of livelihood, tribes can be categorized into fishermen, food gatherers
and hunters, shifting cultivators, peasants and plantation and industrial workers.

TRIBE – THE CAREER OF A CONCEPT

• Some Indian “tribes” like Santhal, Gonds, and Bhils are very large and spread over
extensive territory. Certain tribes like Munda, Hos and others have long since turned to
settled agriculture, and even hunting gathering tribes, like the Birhors of Bihar employ
specialized households to make baskets, press oil etc.

8
• Some scholars have also argued that there is no coherent basis for treating tribes as
“pristine” – i.e., original or pure – societies uncontaminated by civilization.

NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT VERSUS TRIBAL DEVELOPMENT

• The imperatives of ‘development’ have governed attitudes towards tribes and

shaped the policies of the state. National development, particularly in the Nehruvian
era, involved the building of large dams, factories and mines.
• The loss of the forests on which most tribal communities depended has been a
major blow. Forests started to be systematically exploited in British times and the
trend continued after Independence.
• Many tribal concentration regions and states have also been experiencing the
problem of heavy in-migration of non-tribals in response to the pressures of
development.

TRIBAL IDENTITY TODAY

• Forced incorporation of tribal communities into mainstream processes has had its
impact on tribal culture and society as much as its economy. Tribal identities today are
formed by this interactional process rather than any primordial characteristics peculiar
to tribes.
• The positive impact of successes – such as the achievement of statehood for Jharkhand
and Chhattisgarh after a long struggle – is moderated by continuing problems.
• Another significant development is the gradual emergence of an educated middle class
among tribal communities.
• Two broad sets of issues have been most important in giving rise to tribal movements.
These are issues relating to control over vital economic resources like land and specially
forests, and issues relating to matters of ethnic-cultural identity.

FAMILY AND KINSHIP

• In itself a family can be defined as nuclear or extended. It can be male-headed or

female-headed. The line of descent can be matrilineal or patrilineal. This internal
structure of the family is usually related to other structures of society, namely political,
economic, cultural etc.
• The family (the private sphere) is linked to the economic, political, cultural, and
educational (the public) spheres.
• It is evident from the kind of changes that take place that not only have family
structures changed, but cultural ideas, norms and values also change.

9
 NUCLEAR AND EXTENDED FAMILY

• A nuclear family consists of only one set of parents and their children. An extended
family (commonly known as the ‘joint family’) can take different forms, but has more
than one couple, and often more than two generations, living together.
• The extended family often is seen as symptomatic of India.

THE DIVERSE FORMS OF THE FAMILY

• A patriarchal family structure exists where the men exercise authority and dominance,
and matriarchy where the women play a similarly dominant role. However, matriarchy –
unlike patriarchy – has been a theoretical rather than an empirical concept.
• Matrilineal societies, i.e., societies where women inherit property from their mothers
but do not exercise control over it, nor are they the decision makers in public affairs.

Chapter 4 - The Market As A Social Institution

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON MARKETS AND THE ECONOMY

• The most famous of the early political economists was Adam Smith, who in his book,
The Wealth of Nations, attempted to understand the market economy that was just
emerging at that time. Smith argued that the market economy is made up of a series of
individual exchanges or transactions, which automatically create a functioning and
ordered system. This happens even though none of the individuals involved in the
millions of transactions had intended to create a system. Each person looks only to their
own self-interest, but in the pursuit of this self-interest the interests of all – or of society
– also seem to be looked after. In this sense, there seems to be some sort of an unseen
force at work that converts what is good for each individual into what is good for
society. This unseen force was called ‘the invisible hand’ by Adam Smith. Thus, Smith
argued that the capitalist economy is driven by individual self-interest.
• Smith supported the idea of a ‘free market’, that is, a market free from all kinds of
regulation whether by the state or otherwise. This economic philosophy was also given
the name laissez-faire, a French phrase that means ‘leave alone’ or ‘let it be’.

COLONIALISM AND THE EMERGENCE OF NEW MARKETS

• The advent of colonialism in India produced major upheavals in the economy, causing
disruptions in production, trade, and agriculture. A well-known example is the demise of
the handloom industry due to the flooding of the market with cheap manufactured
textiles from England.

10
• In the colonial era India began to be more fully linked to the world capitalist economy.
Before being colonized by the British, India was a major supplier of manufactured goods
to the world market. After colonization, she became a source of raw materials and
agricultural products and a consumer of manufactured goods, both largely for the
benefit of industrializing England.
• In some cases, new communities emerged to take advantage of the economic
opportunities provided by colonialism, and continued to hold economic power even
after Independence.
• A good example of this process is provided by the Marwaris, probably the most
widespread and best-known business community in India. Represented by leading
industrial families such as the Birlas, the community also includes shopkeepers and
small traders in the bazaars of towns throughout the country.

UNDERSTANDING CAPITALISM AS A SOCIAL SYSTEM

• One of the founders of modern sociology, Karl Marx, was also a critic of modern
capitalism. Marx understood capitalism as a system of commodity production, or
production for the market, through the use of wage labour.
• Marx wrote that all economic systems are also social systems.

COMMODITISATION AND CONSUMPTION

• Commodification occurs when things that were earlier not traded in the market become
commodities. For instance, labour or skills become things that can be bought and sold.
According to Marx and other critics of capitalism, the process of commodification has
negative social effects.
• Another important feature of capitalist society is that consumption becomes more and
more important, not just for economic reasons but because it has symbolic meaning.
• One of sociology’s founders, Max Weber, was among the first to point out that the
goods that people buy and use are closely related to their status in society. He coined
the term status symbol to describe this relationship.
• Weber also wrote about how classes and status groups are differentiated on the basis of
their lifestyles.

GLOBALISATION – INTERLINKING OF LOCAL, REGIONAL, NATIONAL AND

INTERNATIONAL MARKETS

• Since the late 1980s, India has entered a new era in its economic history, following the
change in economic policy from one of state-led development to liberalization. This shift

11
 also ushered in the era of globalization, a period in which the world is becoming
increasingly interconnected — not only economically but also culturally and politically.\
• A central feature of globalization is the increasing extension and integration of markets
around the world. This integration means that changes in a market in one part of the
globe may have a profound impact somewhere else far away.

DEBATE ON LIBERALISATION – MARKET VERSUS STATE

• The globalization of the Indian economy has been due primarily to the policy of
liberalization that was started in the late 1980s. Liberalization includes a range of
policies such as the privatization of public sector enterprises (selling government-owned
companies to private companies); loosening of government regulations on capital,
labour, and trade; a reduction in tariffs and import duties so that foreign goods can be
imported more easily; and allowing easier access for foreign companies to set up
industries in India.
• The changes that have been made under the liberalization programme have stimulated
economic growth and opened up Indian markets to foreign companies.
• The privatization of public companies is supposed to increase their efficiency and reduce
the government’s burden of running these companies. However, the impact of
liberalization has been mixed.

Chapter 5 - Patterns Of Social Inequality And Exclusion

Social inequality and exclusion are facts of life. As a South American proverb says – “If hard
labour were really such a good thing, the rich would keep it all for themselves!”
WHAT IS SOCIAL ABOUT SOCIAL INEQUALITY AND EXCLUSION ?
SOCIAL INEQUALITY

• In every society, some people have a greater share of valued resources – money,
property, education, health, and power – than others. These social resources can be
divided into three forms of capital – economic capital in the form of material assets and
income; cultural capital such as educational qualifications and status; and social capital
in the form of networks of contacts and social associations.
• Patterns of unequal access to social resources are commonly called social inequality.
• Sociologists use the term social stratification to refer to a system by which categories of
people in a society are ranked in a hierarchy.
• Three key principles help explain social stratification:

12
- Social stratification is a characteristic of society, not simply a function of individual
differences. Social stratification is a society-wide system that unequally distributes social
resources among categories of people.
- Social stratification persists over generations. It is closely linked to the family and to the
inheritance of social resources from one generation to the next.
- Social stratification is supported by patterns of belief, or ideology. No system of social
stratification is likely to persist over generations unless it is widely viewed as being
either fair or inevitable.
• Each of us grows up as a member of a community from which we acquire ideas not just
about our ‘community’, our ‘caste’ or ‘class’ our ‘gender’ but also about others. Often
these ideas reflect prejudices.
• Prejudices refer to pre-conceived opinions or attitudes held by members of one group
towards another. The word literally means ‘pre-judgement’, that is, an opinion formed
in advance of any familiarity with the subject, before considering any available evidence.
• Prejudices are often grounded in stereotypes, fixed and inflexible characterizations of a
group of people. Stereotypes are often applied to ethnic and racial groups and to
women.
• If prejudice describes attitudes and opinions, discrimination refers to actual behavior
towards another group or individual. Discrimination can be seen in practices that
disqualify members of one group from opportunities open to others.

SOCIAL EXCLUSION

• Social exclusion refers to ways in which individuals may become cut off from full
involvement in the wider society.
• It is important to note that social exclusion is involuntary – that is, exclusion is practiced
regardless of the wishes of those who are excluded.
• Prolonged experience of discriminatory or insulting behavior often produces a reaction
on the part of the excluded who then stop trying for inclusion. For example, ‘upper’
caste Hindu communities have often denied entry into temples for the ‘lower’ castes
and specially the Dalits.
• India like most societies has been marked by acute practices of social discrimination and
exclusion.

THE CASTE SYSTEM AS A DISCRIMINATORY SYSTEM

• The caste system is a distinct Indian social institution that legitimizes and enforces
practices of discrimination against people born into particular castes. These practices of
discrimination are humiliating, exclusionary and exploitative.

13
• Historically, the caste system classified people by their occupation and status. Every
caste was associated with an occupation, which meant that persons born into a
particular caste were also ‘born into’ the occupation associated with their caste – they
had no choice.
• However, in actual historical practice economic and social status tended to coincide.
There was thus a fairly close correlation between social (i.e., caste) status and economic
status – the ‘high’ castes were almost invariably of high economic status, while the ‘low’
castes were almost always of low economic status.
• As the system has become less rigid, the distinctions between castes of broadly similar
social and economic status have weakened. Yet, between different socio-economic
groupings, the distinctions continue to be maintained.
• Moreover, the proportion of population that lives in poverty or affluence differs greatly
across caste groups.

UNTOUCHABILITY

• ‘Untouchability’ is an extreme and particularly vicious aspect of the caste system that
prescribes stringent social sanctions against members of castes located at the bottom of
the purity-pollution scale. Strictly speaking, the ‘untouchable’ castes are outside the
caste hierarchy – they are considered to be so ‘impure’ that their mere touch severely
pollutes members of all other castes, bringing terrible punishment for the former and
forcing the latter to perform elaborate purification rituals.
• It is important to emphasize that the three main dimensions of untouchability – namely,
exclusion, humiliation-subordination and exploitation – are all equally important in
defining the phenomenon.
• Moreover, untouchability is almost always associated with economic exploitation of
various kinds, most commonly through the imposition of forced, unpaid (or under-paid)
labour, or the confiscation of property.
• Mahatma Gandhi had popularized the term ‘Harijan’ (literally, children of God) in the
1930s to counter the pejorative charge carried by caste names.
• However, the ex-untouchable communities and their leaders have coined another term,
‘Dalit’, which is now the generally accepted term for referring to these groups.

STATE AND NON-STATE INITIATIVES ADDRESSING CASTE AND TRIBE DISCRIMINATION

• The Indian state has had special programs for the Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled
Castes since even before Independence.
• Among the most significant additions is the extension of special programs to the Other
Backward Classes (OBCs) since the early 1990s.

14
• The most important state initiative attempting to compensate for past and present
caste discrimination is the one popularly known as ‘reservations.
• In addition to reservations, there have been a number of laws passed to end, prohibit
and punish caste discrimination, especially untouchability.

THE OTHER BACKWARD CLASSES

• Untouchability was the most visible and comprehensive form of social discrimination.
• The Constitution of India recognizes the possibility that there may be groups other than
the Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes who suffer from social disadvantages. These
groups – which need not be based on caste alone, but generally are identified by caste –
were described as the ‘socially and educationally backward classes. This is the
constitutional basis of the popular term ‘Other Backward Classes’ (OBCs), which is in
common use today.
• They are neither part of the ‘forward’ castes at the upper end of the status spectrum,
nor of the Dalits at the lower end.
• OBCs are a much more diverse group than the Dalits or Adivasis.
• First Backward Classes Commission headed by Kaka Kalelkar submitted its report in
1953.
• The Second Backward Classes Commission headed by B.P. Mandal was appointed at this
time. It was only in 1990, when the central government decided to implement the ten-
year old Mandal Commission report, that the OBC issue became a major one in national
politics.

ADIVASI STRUGGLES

• Like the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes are social groups recognized by the
Indian Constitution as specially marked by poverty, powerlessness and social stigma.
The jana or tribes were believed to be ‘people of the forest’ whose distinctive habitat in
the hill and forest areas shaped their economic, social and political attributes.
• In the case of Adivasis, the movement of populations from one area to another further
complicates the picture.
• In the areas where tribal populations are concentrated, their economic and social
conditions are usually much worse than those of non-tribals.
• From the late nineteenth century onwards, the colonial government reserved most
forest tracts for its own use, severing the rights that Adivasis had long exercised to use
the forest for gathering produce and for shifting cultivation.
• The Independence of India in 1947 should have made life easier for Adivasis but this was
not the case. Firstly, the government monopoly over forests continued. If anything, the
exploitation of forests accelerated.

15
• Adivasi lands were rapidly acquired for new mining and dam projects.
• Like the term Dalit, the term Adivasi connotes political awareness and the assertion of
rights. Literally meaning ‘original inhabitants’, the term was coined in the 1930s as part
of the struggle against the intrusion by the colonial government and outside settlers and
moneylenders.
• In post-Independence India, the most significant achievements of Adivasi movements
include the attainment of statehood for Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, which were
originally part of Bihar and Madhya Pradesh respectively.

STRUGGLE FOR WOMEN’S EQUALITY AND RIGHTS

• The women’s question arose in modern India as part of the nineteenth century middle
class social reform movements.
• They are often termed as middle-class reform movements because many of these
reformers were from the newly emerging western educated Indian middle class.
• We draw from the anti-sati campaign led by Raja Rammohun Roy in Bengal, the widow
remarriage movement in the Bombay Presidency where Ranade was one of the leading
reformers, from Jyotiba Phule’s simultaneous attack on caste and gender oppression,
and from the social reform movement in Islam led by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan.
• Raja Rammohun Roy’s attempts to reform society, religion and the status of women can
be taken as the starting point of nineteenth century social reform in Bengal. A decade
before establishing the Brahmo Samaj in 1828, Roy undertook the campaign against
“sati” which was the first women’s issue to receive public attention.
• Jotiba Phule came from a socially excluded caste and his attack was directed against
both caste and gender discrimination. He founded the Satyashodak Samaj with its
primary emphasis on “truth seeking”. Phule’s first practical social reform efforts were to
aid the two groups considered lowest in traditional Brahmin culture: women and
untouchables.
• Dayanand Saraswati of the Arya Samaj, he stood for women’s education but sought for
a curriculum that included instruction in religious principles, training in the arts of
housekeeping and handicrafts and rearing of children.
• Stree Purush Tulana (or Comparison of Men and Women) was written by a
Maharashtrian housewife, Tarabai Shinde, as a protest against the double standards of a
male dominated society.
• In 1931, the Karachi Session of the Indian National Congress issued a declaration on the
Fundamental Rights of Citizenship in India whereby it committed itself to women’s
equality. The declaration reads as follows:
- All citizens are equal before the law, irrespective of religion, caste, creed or sex.

16
- No disability attaches to any citizen, by reason of his or her religion, caste, creed or sex,
in regard to public employment, office of power or honour, and in the exercise of any
trade or calling.
- The franchise shall be on the basis of universal adult suffrage.
- Woman shall have the right to vote, to represent and the right to hold public offices.
• Social change whether on women’s rights or any other issue is never a battle won once
and for all.
• The women’s movement in India will have to fight to defend hard won rights as well as
take up new issues as they emerge.

THE STRUGGLES OF THE DISABLED

• The differently abled are not ‘disabled’ only because they are physically or mentally
‘impaired’ but also because society is built in a manner that does not cater to their
needs.
• The very term ‘disabled’ is significant because it draws attention to the fact that public
perception of the ‘disabled’ needs to be questioned.
• In India labels such as ‘disability’, ‘handicap’, ‘crippled’, ‘blind’ and ‘deaf’ are used
synonymously. Often these terms are hurled at people as insults.
• Labels such as bechara (poor thing) accentuate the victim status for the disabled person.
The roots of such attitudes lie in the cultural conception that views an impaired body as
a result of fate.
• There is a close relationship between disability and poverty.
• Caste, tribe, gender and disability as institutions that generate and perpetuate
inequalities and exclusion. They also provoke struggles against these inequalities. The
understanding of inequality in the social sciences has been dominated by notions of
class, race and more recently, gender.
• The Indian context, caste, tribe and gender are now getting the attention they deserve.

Chapter 6 - The Challenges Of Cultural Diversity

• The term ‘diversity’ emphasizes differences rather than inequalities. When we say that
India is a nation of great cultural diversity, we mean that there are many different types
of social groups and communities living here.
• Sometimes cultural differences are accompanied by economic and social inequalities,
and this further complicates things. Measures to address the inequalities or injustices
suffered by one community can provoke opposition from other communities.
CULTURAL COMMUNITIES AND THE NATION-STATE

17
 THE IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNITY IDENTITY

• The socialization process involves a continuous dialogue, negotiation and even struggle
against significant others (those directly involved in our lives) like our parents, family,
kin group and our community.
• Community identity is based on birth and ‘belonging’ rather than on some form of
acquired qualifications or ‘accomplishment’. It is what we ‘are’ rather than what we
have ‘become’.
• Expanding and overlapping circles of community ties (family, kinship, caste, ethnicity,
language, region or religion) give meaning to our world and give us a sense of identity,
of who we are.
• A second feature of ascriptive identities and community feeling is that they are
universal. Everyone has a motherland, a mother tongue, a family, a faith… This may not
necessarily be strictly true of every individual, but it is true in a general sense.

COMMUNITIES, NATIONS AND NATION-STATES

• A nation is a sort of large-scale community – it is a community of communities.

Members of a nation share the desire to be part of the same political collectivity. This
desire for political unity usually expresses itself as the aspiration to form a state.
• In Max Weber’s well-known definition, a state is a “body that successfully claims a
monopoly of legitimate force in a particular territory”
• A nation is a peculiar sort of community that is easy to describe but hard to define.
• The criterion that comes closest to distinguishing a nation is the state.
• Nations are communities that have a state of their own. That is why the two are joined
with a hyphen to form the term nation-state.
• In short, today it is hard to define a nation in any way other than to say that it is a
community that has succeeded in acquiring a state of its own. Interestingly, the
opposite has also become increasingly true.
• Establishment of democracy and nationalism as dominant sources of political legitimacy.
This means that, today, ‘the nation’ is the most accepted or proper justification for a
state, while ‘the people’ are the ultimate source of legitimacy of the nation. In other
words, states ‘need’ the nation as much or even more than nations need states.

CULTURAL DIVERSITY AND THE INDIA1N NATION-STATE – AN OVERVIEW

• The Indian nation-state is socially and culturally one of the most diverse countries of the
world.
• In terms of religion, about 80.5% of the population are Hindus.
• About 13.4% of the population are Muslims.

18
• The other major religious communities are Christians (2.3%), Sikhs (1.9%), Buddhists
(0.8%) and Jains (0.4%). Because of India’s huge population, these small percentages can
also add up to large absolute numbers.
• India can be considered a good example of a ‘state-nation’ though it is not entirely free
from the problems common to nation-states.

REGIONALISM IN THE INDIAN CONTEXT

• Regionalism in India is rooted in India’s diversity of languages, cultures, tribes, and

religions. It is also encouraged by the geographical concentration of these identity
markers in particular regions, and fueled by a sense of regional deprivation.
• After Independence, initially the Indian state continued with the British-Indian
arrangement dividing India into large provinces, also called ‘presidencies. (Madras,
Bombay, and Calcutta were the three major presidencies;
• Language coupled with regional and tribal identity – and not religion – has therefore
provided the most powerful instrument for the formation of ethnonational identity in
India.
• There are lists of ‘subjects’ or areas of governance which are the exclusive responsibility
of either State or Centre, along with a ‘Concurrent List’ of areas where both are allowed
to operate.

THE NATION-STATE AND RELIGION-RELATED ISSUES AND IDENTITIES

• The most contentious of all aspects of cultural diversity are issues relating to religious
communities and religion-based identities. These issues may be broadly divided into two
related groups – the secularism–communalism set and the minority–majority set.
Questions of secularism and communalism are about the state’s relationship to religion
and to political groupings that invoke religion as their primary identity.

MINORITY RIGHTS AND NATION BUILDING

• In Indian nationalism, the dominant trend was marked by an inclusive and democratic
vision.
• The term ‘people’ has not been seen in exclusive terms, as referring to any specific
group defined by religion, ethnicity, race or caste. Ideas of humanism influenced Indian
nationalists and the ugly aspects of exclusive nationalism were extensively commented
upon by leading figures like Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore.
• The notion of minority groups is widely used in sociology and is more than a merely
numerical distinction – it usually involves some sense of relative disadvantage. Thus,

19
 privileged minorities such as extremely wealthy people are not usually referred to as
minorities;
• In democratic politics, it is always possible to convert a numerical majority into political
power through elections. This means that religious or cultural minorities – regardless of
their economic or social position – are politically vulnerable.
• In the long years of struggle against British colonialism, Indian nationalists understood
the imperative need to recognize and respect India’s diversity. Indeed ‘unity in diversity’
became a short hand to capture the plural and diverse nature of Indian society.
• The makers of the Indian Constitution were aware that a strong and united nation could
be built only when all sections of people had the freedom to practice their religion, and
to develop their culture and language. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, the chief architect of the
Constitution, made this point clear in the Constituent Assembly.

COMMUNALISM, SECULARISM AND THE NATION-STATE

COMMUNALISM

• The word ‘communalism’ refers to aggressive chauvinism based on religious identity.

Chauvinism itself is an attitude that sees one’s own group as the only legitimate or
worthy group, with other groups being seen – by definition – as inferior, illegitimate and
opposed.
• Communalism is an aggressive political ideology linked to religion.
• “Communal” means something related to a community or collectivity as different from
an individual.
• It is important to emphasis that communalism is about politics, not about religion.
• One of the characteristic features of communalism is its claim that religious identity
overrides everything else.
• Communalism is an especially important issue in India because it has been a recurrent
source of tension and violence. During communal riots, people become faceless
members of their respective communities.
• India has had a history of communal riots from pre-Independence times, often as a
result of the divide-and-rule policy adopted by the colonial rulers.
• But we should not forget that we also have a long tradition of religious pluralism,
ranging from peaceful co-existence to actual inter-mixing or syncretism.
• In short, history provides us with both good and bad examples; what we wish to learn
from it is up to us.
SECULARISM

• Secularism is among the most complex terms in social and political theory. In the
western context the main sense of these terms has to do with the separation of church
and state.
20
• The Indian meanings of secular and secularism include the western sense but also
involve others. The most common use of secular in everyday language is as the opposite
of communal. So, a secular person or state is one that does not favour any particular
religion over others. Secularism in this sense is the opposite of religious chauvinism and
it need not necessarily imply hostility to religion as such.
• One kind of difficulty is created by the tension between the western sense of the state
maintaining a distance from all religions and the Indian sense of the state giving equal
respect to all religions.
• Another set of complications is created by the tension between the Indian state’s
simultaneous commitment to secularism as well as the protection of minorities.
• The first generation of leaders of independent India (who happened to be
overwhelmingly Hindu and upper caste) chose to have a liberal, secular state governed
by a democratic constitution.

STATE AND CIVIL SOCIETY

• The state is indeed a very crucial institution when it comes to the management of
cultural diversity in a nation. Although it claims to represent the nation, the state can
also become somewhat independent of the nation and its people. To the extent that the
state structure – the legislature, bureaucracy, judiciary, armed forces, police and other
arms of the state – becomes insulated from the people, it also has the potential of
turning authoritarian.
• Civil society is the name given to the broad arena which lies beyond the private domain
of the family, but outside the domain of both state and market. Civil society is the non-
state and non-market part of the public domain in which individuals get together
voluntarily to create institutions and organizations.
• It consists of voluntary associations, organizations or institutions formed by groups of
citizens. It includes political parties, media institutions, trade unions, non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), religious organizations, and other kinds of collective entities.
• The Indian people had a brief experience of authoritarian rule during the ‘Emergency’
enforced between June 1975 and January 1977. Parliament was suspended and new
laws were made directly by the government. Civil liberties were revoked and a large
number of politically active people were arrested and jailed without trial.
• The Emergency shocked people into active participation and helped energies the many
civil society initiatives that emerged in the 1970s.

21