2023 PPT 1 Iss

Course Title:
Indian Social Structure
Course Instructors:
Prof. Manish Thakur
Prof. Saikat Maitra
Course Announcements
• Grading Policy: Final examination will count for 100% of your grades
for the course. Final examination will consist of essay type questions
only based on the reading materials, PPTs and in-class lectures.
• Class Participation: It is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED by both Prof.

Thakur and Prof. Maitra that students come to the class having
thoroughly read the course materials.
 Students are expected to actively participate in the class discussions

in a courteous and respectful manner.
 Both the quality and quantity of class participation will help the
students in establishing a good impression on the instructors.
In-class Policies
• Kindly attend the class on time
• Academic malpractices will be strictly dealt
with in accordance with relevant MBA policies.
Learning Objectives
• The task of the Manager: to manage people and resources
• Understanding the social bases and contexts from which
the people and resources emerge
• The changes in Indian society especially after the
economic liberalization of 1991 to understand the current
business climate of India
• The specific hopes, aspirations and anxieties of the people
in contemporary India whom you are expected to manage
• The vast diversity in Indian society and its dynamic,
changing nature that poses difficult challenges in effective
management and administration
Focus of the Course
• The sociological changes in India from the time of
economic liberalization in 1991 (post-liberalization
India) to the present
• Wide-ranging transformations in Indian society during
this time
In-depth focus on two aspects of these transformations
affecting:
1. Management practices and relationships between
capital and labor due to social changes
2. Development of new social identities in India related
to gender, caste, class and regional identities.
What was so special about the economic
liberalization of 1991?
• Or “yeh hi hai right choice baby”?

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBZ63pH
_GjI
The Importance of Choice in Post-
liberalization India
• Choice related to market

• The flood of new consumer goods in India
• Coke/ Pepsi/McDonalds not merely
commodities or brands but signifying life-style
choices
• The birth of the discerning Indian consumer
after decades of restricted market choices
Consumerism as Identity
• The vast availability of consumer products in
the Indian market
• “We are what we consume” – personal
identities linked to our consumer patterns and
preferences
• New ideas about life-styles – the emphasis on
global living standards
• Birth of a new consumerist middle-class
Market Forces and Political Changes
• Re-thinking the role of the Indian state after

1991
• Market or State or what is the role of the state
after liberalization?
• The rise of Affirmative Actions and Welfare
Measures – the Mandal commission
recommendations and the subsequent protests
against the affirmative action of the state
What does liberalization mean for India?
• The dependence on market forces including

private investments for growth and
development
• But growth for whom and who gets left out of
the market led development?
• Development and growth for all or for a select
few?
• Re-imagining the state after liberalization
The Developmentalist State and Nehruvian
Socialism
• From 1947 – 1980s the state as the key motor

for growth and development in India
• Nehru’s Temples – The Hydroelectric dams
and Steel factories
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuKpclO5
ZjE
Planned economy and the rise of state led
industrialization
• The adoption of industrialization and modernization as a

key aspect of development in India under the 2 nd Five
Year Plan between 1956 – 1961
• The Mahalonobis Plan – intensive capital investments by
the Indian state in public sector enterprises to bolster
industrialization like the steel cities of Bhilai or Durgapur
• The emphasis on planned growth through 5 year plans
like in the former USSR. Mixed economy with strong
socialist overtones
The Problem of Planned Economic Growth
• Stagnation and lack of development from the

1970s
• PSUs becoming unprofitable with large labor
unrest and strikes
• Inflation and social unrest especially in the early
1970s with Maoist m
• Unemployment and lack of opportunities for the
youth from the 1970s leading to immense
pressures on the state to find a solution
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCNbK9sYrwk
Privatization as solution?
• The opening up of the Indian economy and
growth through private corporate investments
• From austerity and anti-consumerist socialism
to market driven conspicuous consumption
and the emphasis on private capital in
development
• Profitability, flexibility, curtailment of labour
right such as unionization in certain sectors
like IT/ITES
Liberalization: Pro-business or pro-market in
India?
• State gradually shifting away from social investments
without creating the infrastructures necessary for a strong
market economy
• Great inter-regional and inter-state disparities in capitalist
growth with capital scarce regions continuing to
underperform
• The real beneficiaries of liberalization are a small group of
business, political and economic elites
• Except in the case of electoral politics, very little real
democratic participation of India’s masses in creating pro-
market policies
Pro-market Vs. Pro-business growth
• Pro-market features:
• decentralized markets create more robust
democracies
• Competition and level-playing fields for all
• Efficient technologies and labor intensive
industrialization
• Movement of capital to capital scarce regions like
rural regions mitigating regional inequalities in
the long run
Pro-market Vs. Pro-business
• Pro-business features in India:
• Rising regional inequalities
• Growing concentration of ownership of private capital
• Small elite group of bureaucrats and private
corporations determining the Indian economy
• Less than robust forms of democratic decision making
in India
• Direct and continuing advantages extended by the
state to a select group of private capitalists
Changing Structures of Work Relations and
organizations
• The huge rise of temporary contractual labor force, even in PSUs

(Jonathan Parry) which is often not protected by existing union
structures
• New types of globally distributed Indian labor force especially in
the IT sector and the specific challenges that such workers face due
to constant need for flexibility and innovation (Carol Upadhaya)
• The large presence of women in the managerial work force in new
forms of work such as in IT and financial services. The new types of
gender roles that are expected of such women workers and
managers (Reena Patel)
• The impact of the internet and New Social Media on contemporary
Indian society (Sahana Udupa)
Social identities in transformation
• The changing patterns of caste identities in a post
Mandal commission India (D.L. Sheth) and how academic
institutions like the IITs are shaped by the emergent caste
politics now (Ajanta Subramanian)
• The role of dispossession and development in creating
new socially precarious subjects (Michael Levien)
• The transformations in the rural-urban connections in
India due to the expansion of cities in India and the crisis
in the rural agricultural sectors (Dipankar Gupta)
• The cultural and social position of diasporic Indians
(Patricia Uberoi)
You Tube Links
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBZ63pH
_GjI
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuKpclO5
ZjE
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=vCNbK9sYrwk

2023 PPT 1 Iss

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Course Title:

Indian Social Structure

• Class Participation: It is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED by both Prof.

 Students are expected to actively participate in the class discussions

• Or “yeh hi hai right choice baby”?

• Choice related to market

• Re-thinking the role of the Indian state after

• The dependence on market forces including

• From 1947 – 1980s the state as the key motor

• The adoption of industrialization and modernization as a

• Stagnation and lack of development from the

• The huge rise of temporary contractual labor force, even in PSUs

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