Solved Board Paper For CBSE Class 12 Sociology: Social Change and Development in India

The term Demography is of Greek origin and is composed of two words demos meaning _people _ and graphien implying _describe_.

The Demography term is of Greek origin and is composed of the two words, demos (people) and graphein (describe),implying the description of people.

While population rises in 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.).

The National Family Planning Programme was renamed as the National family welfare Programme.

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A bill of exchange which allowed merchants to engage in long distance trade during pre-colonial period in India is called __Hundi__.

The goods that people buy and use conveys their Socio-economic status. __Status-symbol_ is the term coined to refer to this relationship by Max Weber.

There is a controversy about the sale of kidneys by the poor to cater to rich patients who need kidney transplants. This refers to the negative social effects of the process of __commodification__.

__Subsidies __ lower the cost of farming because the government pays part of the price charged for inputs.

A nation is a peculiar sort of community that is easy to describe and hard to define.

True

a) Sanskratisation leads to no structural change but only positional change of some individual.

In the 19th century, orthodox members of the Hindu community in Bengal formed an organisation called_Dharma Sabha_ debating the issue of _sati_.

d) participatory democracy

__Law__carries the means to coerce whereas the essence of _Justice__ is fairness.

False

Nyay Panchayat

Benami transfers

c) diversification

Alienation

De-skilling

Availability of work- Those who cannot find work (or sufficient work) in the rural areas go to the city in search of work.

Decline of common resources- This flow of rural-to-urban migration has also been accelerated by the continuous decline of common property resources like ponds, forests and grazing lands. These common resources enabled poor people to survive in the villages although they owned little or no land.

Theoretically, 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.

According to Adam Smith, Each individual 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’.

Marketisation includes relaxation or removal of economic controls (deregulation), privatisation of industries, and removing government controls over wages and prices.

There is a close relationship between disability and poverty. Malnutrition, mothers weakened by frequent childbirth, inadequate immunisation programmes, accidents in overcrowded homes, all contribute to an incidence of disability among poor people that is higher than among people living in easier circumstances. Furthermore, disability creates and exacerbates poverty by increasing isolation and economic strain, not just for the individual but for the family. The disabled people are among the poorest in poor countries.

Social inequality and exclusion are social because they are not about individuals but about groups.

They are social in the sense that they are not economic, although there is usually a strong link between social and economic inequality.

There is a definite pattern to social inequalities- they are systematic and structured.

The cultural diversity can present tough challenges. The cultural identities are very powerful – they are often able to mobilise large numbers of people and can arouse intense passions.

Sometimes cultural differences are accompanied by economic and social inequalities. The steps taken to mitigate the inequalities or injustices suffered by one community can provoke opposition from other communities.

English is widely used in India. Number of Indian authors produced impressive literary writings in English. The knowledge of English has given Indians an edge in the global market. It remains a mark of privilege. Knowledge of English gives advantage in the job market. Traditionally formal education deprived groups such as the Dalits, the knowledge of English has opened the doors of opportunities that were formerly closed.

Rituals have also secular dimensions as distinct from secular goals. Rituals provide men and women with occasions for socialising with their peers and superiors, and for showing off the family’s wealth, clothing and jewelry.

During the last few decades, the economic, political and status dimensions of ritual have become increasingly conspicuous.

The index to the household’s standing in the local community is measured by the number of cars lined up outside a wedding house and the VIPs who attended the wedding.

Since sanskritisation results in the adoption of upper caste rites and rituals it leads to practices of secluding girls and women, adopting dowry practices instead of bride-price and practising caste discrimination against other groups, etc.

The 73^rd Constitutional Amendment ushered in grassroots democracy or decentralised governance in 1992.

By this act the Panchayati Raj Institutions are provided constitutional status (PRIs). It is necessary now for local self-government bodies in rural and municipal areas to be elected every five years.

Dr. Ambedkar argued that local elites and upper castes were so well entrenched in society that local self-government only meant a continuing exploitation of the downtrodden masses of Indian society. The upper castes would silence this segment of the population further.

The tribals have paid a disproportionate price for the development of the rest of Indian society. The reasons are:-

1- In the Nehruvian era, National development involved the building of large dams, factories and mines. The tribal areas were located in mineral rich and forest covered parts of the country.

2- The process of dispossessing tribals of their land has occurred as a necessary byproduct of the exploitation of minerals and the utilisation of favourable sites for setting up hydroelectric power plants, many of which were in tribal areas. This kind of development has benefited the main stream at the expense of the tribes.

3- The coming of private property in land has also adversely affected tribals, whose community-based forms of collective ownership were placed at a disadvantage in the new system.

4- 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. This threatens to disrupt and overwhelm tribal communities and cultures

Khasi matriliny generates intense role conflict for men.

• They are torn between their responsibilities to their natal house on the one hand, and to their wife and children on the other.
• A woman can never be fully assured that her husband does not find his sister’s house a more congenial place than her own.
• A sister will be apprehensive about her brother’s commitment to her welfare because the wife can always pull him away from his responsibilities to his natal house.
• Women possess only token authority in Khasi society; it is men who are the de-facto power holders.
• The system is indeed weighted in favour of male matri-kin rather than male patri-kin.

Social inequality is not the outcome of innate or ‘natural’ differences between people, but is produced by the society in which they live. Sociologists use the term social stratification to refer to a system by which categories of people in a society are ranked in a hierarchy. This hierarchy then shapes people’s identity and experiences, their relations with others, as well as their access to resources and opportunities. Three key principles help explain social stratification:

1. 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. In the most technologically primitive societies – hunting and gathering societies, for instance – little was produced so only rudimentary social stratification could exist. In more technologically advanced societies where people produce a surplus over and above their basic needs, however, social resources are unequally distributed to various social categories regardless of people’s innate individual abilities.

2. 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. A person’s social position is ascribed. That is, children assume the social positions of their parents. Within the caste system, birth dictates occupational opportunities.

3. 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.

In the western context the secularism means the separation of church and state. The separation of religious and political authority marked a major turning point in the social history of the west. This separation was related to the process of “secularisation”, or the progressive retreat of religion from public life, as it was converted from a mandatory obligation to a voluntary personal practice. Secularisation in turn was related to the arrival of modernity and the rise of science and rationality as alternatives to religious ways of understanding the world.

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. In terms of the state-religion relationship, this sense of secularism implies equal respect for all religions, rather than separation or distancing. For example, the secular Indian state declares public holidays to mark the festivals of all religions.

The Policies of assimilation – often involving outright suppression of the identities of ethnic, religious or linguistic groups – try to erode the cultural differences between groups.

Policies of integration- seek to assert a single national identity by attempting to eliminate ethno-national and cultural differences from the public and political arena, while allowing them in the private domain. Both sets of policies assume a singular national identity.

Assimilationist and integrationist strategies try to establish singular national identities through various interventions like:

• Centralising all power to forums where the dominant group constitutes a majority and eliminating the autonomy of local or minority groups;
• Imposing a unified legal and judicial system based on the dominant group’s traditions and abolishing alternative systems used by other groups;
• Adopting the dominant group’s language as the only official ‘national’ language and making its use mandatory in all public institutions;
• Promotion of the dominant group’s language and culture through national institutions including state-controlled media and educational institutions;
• Adoption of state symbols celebrating the dominant group’s history, heroes and culture, reflected in such things as choice of national holidays or naming of streets, etc.

The colonial government often used unfair means to hire and forcibly keep labourers and clearly acted on behalf of the British planters.

The colonial administrators were clear that harsh measures were taken against the labourers to make sure they benefited the planters.

Followed different democratic norms- They were fully aware that the laws of a colonised country did not have to stick to the democratic norms that the British back home had to follow in Britain.

To force the labourers to live in unhospitable environment, the recruitment of labourers for tea gardens of Assam was carried on for years mostly by contractors under the provisions of the Transport of Native Labourers Act, 1863.

During the 60s and 70s, the government launched the programme of agricultural modernisation called Green Revolution. It was based on providing high-yielding variety (HYV) or hybrid seeds along with pesticides, fertilisers, and other inputs, to farmers. Green Revolution programmes were introduced only in areas that had assured irrigation, because sufficient water was necessary for the new seeds and methods of cultivation. It mainly targeted at the wheat and rice-growing areas. As a result, only certain regions such as the Punjab, western U.P., coastal Andhra Pradesh, and parts of Tamil Nadu, received the first wave of the Green Revolution package.

Due to expensive inputs, small and marginal farmers could not afford to spend to purchase these inputs. It was primarily the medium and large farmers who were able to benefit from the new technology, in most of the Green Revolution areas.

The introduction of new technology in the first phase (60s and 70s) of green revolution produced extreme inequality in the rural areas.

“The more mechanised an industry gets, the fewer people are employed.” Justify the statement with suitable examples.

• The more mechanized an industry gets, the fewer people are employed however they too have to work at the pace of the machine. For example, In Maruti Udyog Ltd. two cars roll off the assembly line every minute.
• Workers get only 45 minutes rest in the entire day. Two tea breaks of 7.5 minutes each and one lunch break of half an hour. While production has gone up, the number of permanent jobs in the factory has gone down.
• The firm has outsourced all services like cleaning, and security, as well as the manufacture of parts. Outsourcing and just-in-time keeps costs low for the company, but the workers are very tense because if the supplies fail to arrive, their production targets get delayed, and when they do arrive they have to run to keep up. Thus, they get exhausted and they leave their jobs.
• The case of Maruti Udyog is an apt example to show that fewer people are employed in the mechanised industry.

A new international division of labour has emerged in which more and more routine manufacturing production and employment is done in the Third World cities.

• Nike grew as an importer of shoes. The company grew to a multinational enterprise, a transnational corporation.
• As costs increased production shifted to South Korea in mid-1970s. Labour costs grew in South Korea, so in the 1980s production widened to Thailand and Indonesia. In the 1990s we in India produce Nike.
• However, if labour is cheaper elsewhere production centers will move somewhere else. This entire process makes the labouring population very vulnerable and insecure.
• This flexibility of labour often works in favour of the producers. Instead of mass production of goods at a centralised location (Fordism), we have moved to a system of flexible production at dispersed locations (post-Fordism).

• In India we have seen the circulation of newspapers grow.
• New technologies have helped boost the production and circulation of newspapers. A large number of glossy magazines have also made their entry into the market.
• There is a rise in the number of literate people who are migrating to cities.
• The needs of the readers in the small towns and villages are different from that of the cities and the Indian language newspapers cater to those needs. Dominant Indian language newspapers such as Malayala Manorama and the Eenadu launched the concept of local news in a significant manner by introducing district and whenever necessary, block editions using simplified and colloquial language.
• The Indian language newspapers have adopted advanced printing technologies and also attempted supplements, pullouts, and literary and niche booklets.
• Marketing strategies like consumer contact programmes, door-to-door surveys, and research have marked the growth of circulation.

• India adopted the policy of liberalisation in the early 1990s. In 1991 there was one state controlled TV channel Doordarshan in India. By 1998 there were almost 70 channels.
• Privately run satellite channels have multiplied rapidly since the mid-1990s. While Doordarshan broadcasts over 20 channels there were some 40 private television networks broadcasting in 2000. The staggering growth of private satellite television has been one of the defining developments of contemporary India.
• Satellite subscription has now penetrated 56 percent of all TV homes. In 1992, Zee TV, a Hindi-based satellite entertainment channel, also began beaming programs to cable television viewers in India. By 2000, 40 private cable and satellite channels were available including several that focused exclusively on regional-language broadcasting.
• Most television channels are on throughout the day, 24X7. News has been made far more immediate, democratic and intimate.
• There are a growing number of news channels in Hindi and English, a large number of regional channels and an equally large number of reality shows, talk shows, Bollywood shows, family soaps, interactive shows, game shows and comedy shows.

a) Social movements can be classified as: (i) redemptive or transformatory; (ii) reformist; and (iii) revolutionary.

A redemptive social movement aims to bring about a change in the personal consciousness and actions of its members. For instance, people in the Ezhava community in Kerala were led by Narayana Guru to change their social practices. Reformist social movements strive to change the existing social

Reformist social movements strive to change the existing social and political arrangements through gradual, incremental steps. The 1960s movement for the reorganisation of Indian states based on language and the recent Right to Information campaign are examples of reformist movements.

Revolutionary social movements attempt to radically transform social relations, often by capturing state power.

(b) Dalit movements belong to all types of social movements. for example-

It was revolutionary in terms of society and redemptive in terms of individuals. The ‘post-Ambedkar Dalit movement’ has had revolutionary practice. It has provided alternative ways of living, at some points limited and some points radical and all-encompassing,

It was redemptive in the way that they adopted wide-ranging changes in behaviour such as giving up eating beef and to ameliorate their social position they adopted the path of religious conversion.

Dalit movements has focused on changes in the entire society, from the radical revolutionary goal of abolishing caste oppression and economic exploitation to the limited goals of providing scope for members of Scheduled Caste to achieve social mobility.

On the whole, this movement has been a reformist movement. It has mobilized along caste lines; it has attempted and achieved societal changes with gains especially for the educated sections among Dalits.