TABLE OF CONTENT 2024-25

TABLE OF CONTENT
INDIAN SOCIETY
(GS MAINS PAPER-I)

Review of PYQs 2013-2023

Review of Material

Framework Lesson Plan 2023-24

Topics under each chapter

(a) Frameworks
(b) Contemporary issues

Source Lecture Notes + Handouts

No. of Lectures

Practice Questions
(a) Mains QIP

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INDIAN SOCIETY (UPSC MAINS) – PREVIOUS YEARS QUESTIONS

2023:

1. What was the difference between Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore in their approach
towards education and nationalism? (150 words)

2. What are the main features of Vedic society and religion? Do you think some of the features are still
prevailing in Indian society? (250 words)

3. Do you think marriage as a sacrament is loosing its value in Modern India? (150 words)

4. Explain why suicide among young women is increasing in Indian society. (150 words)

5. Child cuddling is now being replaced by mobile phones. Discuss its impact on the socialization of
children. (150 words)

6. Why did human development fail to keep pace with economic development in India? (250 words)

7. Does urbanization lead to more segregation and/or marginalization of the poor in Indian
metropolises? (250 words)

8. Why is caste identity in India both fluid and static? (250 words)

9. Discuss the impact of post-liberal economy on ethnic identity and communalism. (250 words)

2022:

1. Explore and evaluate the impact of ‘Work From Home’ on family relationships. (Contemporary
changes and impact on Indian social institutions)

2. How is the growth of Tier 2 cities related to the rise of a new middle class with an emphasis on the
culture of consumption? (Urbanisation: Social structure of urban India)

3. Given the diversities among tribal communities in India, in which specific contexts should they be
considered as a single category? (tribalism: Definitional difficulties)

4. Analyse the salience of ‘sect’ in Indian society vis-a-vis caste, region and religion. (Multi-
culturalism/Composite culture of India/Evolution of Indian culture)

5. Are tolerance, assimilation and pluralism the key elements in the making of an Indian form of
secularism? Justify your answer. (Nature of Indian Civilization/Nature of secularism in India)

2021:

1. Examine the uniqueness of tribal knowledge system when compared with mainstream knowledge
and cultural systems. (Tribalism: Nature of tribalism)

2. Examine the role of ‘Gig Economy’ in the process of empowerment of women in India.
(Contemporary changes and status of women)

3. What are the main socio-economic implications arising out of the development of IT industries in
major cities of India? (Urbanisation: Trends)

4. Discuss the main objectives of Population Education and point out the measures to achieve them in
India in detail. (Issues related to population)

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5. What is Cryptocurrency? How does it affect global society? Has it been affecting Indian society also?
(Contemporary changes and Indian society: technology and society)

6. How does Indian society maintain continuity in traditional social values? Enumerate the changes
taking place in it. (Nature of Indian civilization: Continuity and Change)

2020:

1. Has caste lost its relevance in understanding the multi-cultural Indian Society? Elaborate your answer
with illustrations. (Position of Caste in multi-cultural nature of Indian society)

2. COVID-19 pandemic accelerated class inequalities and poverty in India. Comment.

3. Do you agree that regionalism in India appears to be a consequence of rising cultural assertiveness?
Argue. (Regionalism: Process and Nature)

4. Is diversity and pluralism in India under threat due to globalisation? Justify your answer.
(Contemporary changes and Nature of Indian society)

5. Customs and traditions suppress reason leading to obscurantism. Do you agree? (Nature of Indian
civilization)

6. How have digital initiatives in India contributed to the functioning of the education system in the
country? Elaborate your answer.

2019:

1. What makes the Indian society unique in sustaining its culture? Discuss. (Continuity and Change:
Nature of Indian society)

2. “Empowering women is the key to control population growth.” Discuss. (Population issues)

3. What are the challenges to our cultural practices in the name of secularism? (Nature of secularism
in India)

4. Do we have cultural pockets of small India all over the nation? Elaborate with examples.
(Regionalism: Process and Nature)

5. What are the continued challenges for women in India against time and space? (Women issues: a
life cycle approach)

6. Are we losing our local identity for the global identity? Discuss. (Composite culture in Indian
society: Decolonisation)

2018:

1. “Caste system is assuming new identities and associational forms. Hence, the caste system cannot
be eradicated in India.” Comment. (Changing nature of caste in India)

2. ‘Despite the implementation of various programmes for the eradication of poverty by the
government in India, poverty is still existing’. Explain by giving reasons. (Approaches to
development: How to govern the poor)

3. How the Indian concept of secularism different from the western model of secularism? Discuss.
(Nature of Indian secularism/Decolonisation)

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4. ‘Women’s movement in India has not addresses the issues of women of lower social strata.’
Substantiate your view. (Status of Women: Heterogenous category)

5. ‘Globalisation is generally said to promote cultural homogenisation but due to these cultural
specificities appear to be strengthened in the Indian society.’ Elucidate. (Nature of Indian society:
syncretism in India)

6. ‘Communalism arises either due to power struggle or relative deprivation.’ Argue by giving suitable
illustrations. (Communalisation)

2017:

1. In the context of the diversity of India, can it be said that the regions form cultural units rather than
the States? Give reasons with examples for your view point. (Regionalism: Process and Nature)

2. What are the two major legal initiatives by the State since Independence addressing discrimination
against Scheduled Tribes (STs)? (Issues related to tribes in India)

3. The spirit of tolerance and love is not only an interesting feature of Indian society from very early
times, but it is also playing an important part at the present. Elaborate. (Nature of Indian
civilization/ composite culture/decolonisation)

4. Distinguish between religiousness/religiosity and communalism giving one example of how the
former has got transformed into the latter in independent India. (Communalisation)

5. “The growth of cities as I.T. hubs has opened up new avenues of employment, but has also created
new problems”. Substantiate this statement with examples. (Urbanisation: Trends)

2016:

1. Has the formation of linguistic states strengthened the cause of Indian unity? (Multi-linguistic
character of Indian society)

2. To what extent globalisation has influenced the core of cultural diversity in India? Explain.
(Globalisation and Indian society)

3. “An essential condition to eradicate poverty is to liberate the poor from the process of deprivation.”
Substantiate this statement with suitable examples. (How to govern the poor?)

4. Why are the tribals in India referred to as ‘the Scheduled Tribes’? Indicate the major provisions
enshrined in the Constitution of India for their upliftment. (Issues related to tribes in India)

5. With a brief background of quality of urban life in India, introduce the objectives and strategy of the
‘Smart City Programme.” (Urbanism challenges and solutions)

6. What is the basis of regionalism? Is it that unequal distribution of benefits of development on

regional basis eventually promotes regionalism? Substantiate your answer. (Regionalism: Bases)

2015:

1. Describe any four cultural elements of diversity in India and rate their relative significance in building
a national identity. (Unity in Diversity: Process)

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2. Critically examine whether growing population is the cause of poverty OR poverty is the main cause
of population increase in India. (Population issues)

3. How do you explain the statistics that show that the sex ratio in Tribes in India is more favourable to
women than the sex ratio among Scheduled Castes? (Population characteristics)

4. Discuss the changes in the trends of labour migration within and outside India in the last four
decades. (Population characteristics)

5. Discuss the positive and negative effects of globalization on women in India. (Impact of
globalisation)

6. Debate the issue of whether and how contemporary movements for assertion of Dalit identity work
towards annihilation of caste. (Changing nature of caste in India)

7. Smart cities in India cannot sustain without smart villages. Discuss this statement in the backdrop of
rural urban integration. (Urbanisation: Challenges)

2014:

1. How does patriarchy impact the position of a middle class working woman in India? (Status of
Women in India)

2. Why do some of the most prosperous regions of India have an adverse sex ratio for women? Give
your arguments. (Population characteristics)

3. The life cycle of a joint family depends on economic factors rather than social values. Discuss.
(Salient features of Indian society: Social Institutions in India)

4. Discuss the various economic and socio-cultural forces that are driving increasing feminization of
agriculture in India. (Urbanisation: challenges)

5. How do the Indian debates on secularism differ from the debates in the West? (Secularism: Nature
of secularism in India)

2013:

1. Discussion the various social problems which originated out of the speedy process of urbanization
in India. (Urbanisation: challenges)

2. Male membership needs to be encouraged in order to make women’s organization free from gender
bias. Comment.

3. Critically examine the effects of globalization on the aged population in India. (Impact of
globalisation)

4. Growing feeling of regionalism is an important factor in the generation of demand for a separate
state. Discuss. (Regionalism: Types)

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LESSON PLAN: 2023

1. Salient Features of Indian Society
• What is society? A concept
• Salient features of Indian society
• Indian Culture: A composite culture
• Multi-religious society
• Multi-linguistic society
• Caste and Caste system
o Caste as an ideology
o Caste as an identity
o Assertion:
o Consolidation of caste identity: Caste identity in politics 1960s
o Acceleration of caste identity: Caste identity in politics and reservation:1990s
o Use caste to end caste: Return of caste census and subcategorization of OBCs
o Caste-based reservation to class based reservation or both?
• Tribalism
o What is Tribe?
o Definitional difficulties: Conceptualisation v/s Identification
o Tribal development in India
o Approaches: Isolationist v/s Assimilationist
o Tribal Panchsheel: Integrationist Approach
o Tribes as Indigenous People and Adivasi Consciousness
o Issues and Challenges
• The Great Indian Middle Class
• Unity in Diversity
• Conclusion

2. Unity in Diversity
3. The Factors of Unity in Diversity
4. Geographical and Demographic Factors
5. Religious factors
6. Cultural Factors
7. Political Factors
8. Linguistic factors

9. Population and associated issues

• Why study population?
o Using population theories to understand the relevance of population studies

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• Demographic transition in India
• Size and Composition
o Population size
o Population growth: Growth rate: Birth rate and Death rate
o Population composition: Age, Sex, Space, Literacy, Marital status, Religion, Occupation, Rural-
Urban
• Population dynamics
o Study of demographic processes and its relationship with size and composition of population
• Population Behaviour
o Fertility: TFR
o Mortality
o Migration
• Population policy
• Population control: Is it desirable?

10. Secularism in India

• Defining Secularism
• Secularism in India: A historical account
• Secularism in colonial India
• Secularism in present Indian context
o A Constitutional prescription
o Supreme Court on Secularism
o Representation of peoples act and secularism
• Secularism in practice: A few recent issues
• Triple talaq
• Sabarimala temple entry case
• Cow slaughter
• Debate over Uniform civil code
• A Case for UCC
• Judiciary and UCC
• Law Commission: UCC neither feasible nor desirable

11. Regionalism
12. What is Regionalism?
13. What determines Regions and Regionalism in India?
14. Origin and Evolution of Regionalism in India
• Stage 1: Seeds of Regionalism sown in India
• Stage 2: National Movement and Regionalism

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• Stage 3: State’s Reorganization and Regionalism
• Stage 4: Rise of Regional parties and Consolidation of regionalism in India

15. Interplay of factors and nature of regionalism in different regions

• Dravida Movement
• North-East India: A Theatre of Regionalism and Sub-Regionalism
• Punjab: Regionalism or Communalism?

16. Formation of Smaller States

17. Forms of Regionalism in India
• Secessionism
• Supra-state Regionalism
• Inter-state Regionalism
• Intra-state Regional Politics: Sub-regionalism

18. Conclusion
19. Communalism
20. Communalism: Concept and definition
21. Communalisation: A process
22. Dimensions of communalism
• Assimilationist communalism
• Welfarist communalism
• Retaliatory communalism
• Secessionist communalism

23. Communalism in Pre-colonial India

24. Communalism during colonial rule
25. Partition and thereafter
26. Broad reasons behind communal incidents in India
27. Communalism in India is symbolic and expressive
28. Conclusion
29. Poverty and developmental issues
• POVERTY AND DEVELOPMENT: A CONCEPT
• MEASURING DEVELOPMENT
• DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY FOR POVERTY ALLEVIATION IN INDIA
• INDIA’S REPORT CARD UNDER MDG FRAMEWORK

30. Role of women and women’s organization

31. Status of Women: A timeline
32. Status of Women in History

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33. Role of Women in Freedom Movement
34. Socio Cultural Context of Women in India today
35. Gender Stereotyping
36. Reflections of Gender Stereotyping: Individual, Family and Societal level
37. Stereotype behind the very notion of gender: Transgender Rights
38. Introduction to women’s Issues: A Structural Problem
39. Women Issues in India: A life-cycle approach
40. Unborn, Infant and Girl Child
41. Missing Millions: A National Shame
42. Child marriage: Depriving childhood of girl child
43. Adolescent girls
44. High dropout rate
45. Issues around Menstruation in India
46. Violence against Women
47. A gendered phenomena
48. Forms and manifestations
49. Domestic violence, bride burning
50. Sexual Violence in India
51. Nirbhaya and aftermath
52. Criminalisation of Marital Rape: A distant dream in India
53. Child Sex Abuse and POCSO
54. Child Sex abuse and death penalty
55. Honour Crimes: Intersection gender-based and caste-based violence
56. Issues concerning working women
57. Declining female labour force participation rate
58. Gender pay gap
59. Unpaid, unrecognized work
60. Harassment at workplace
61. Issues concerning other categories
62. Elderly women
63. Differently-abled women
64. Dalits and tribals
65. Sex workers
66. Contemporary Issues
67. Sale of Womb in India: Issues around surrogacy
68. Issues related to Assistive Reproductive Technologies (ART)

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69. Harassment in cyberspace
70. Debate around abortion
71. Religious rights of women
72. Women’s movement in India
73. Evolution and new women’s movement
74. Effects of globalization on Indian society
75. Urbanisation: their problems and their remedies
• Urban area, Urbanism and Urbanisation
• What is an Urban area?
• Urbanism in India
• Urbanisation in India
• Evolution of cities in India
• Challenges of Urban India
o Urban equity
o Urban transport
o Urban land
o Urban planning
o Urban safety and inclusiveness
o Urban resilience
o Urban governance
• Roadmap for a sustainable Urban India
• National Urban Policy Framework 2018 and concluding remarks

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