Unit 01:Indian Society

Agenda

Constitution of India
Structure Of Indian Society
Indian Social Demography
Social and Cultural differentiation
Institutions of marriage
Family and Kinship
Secularization
Panchayatraj Institutions
Various Reservations and Commissions
CONSTITUTION OF INDIA
 • Fundamental Duties
• Fundamental Duties – It shall be the duty of every citizen of India
• (a) to abide by the Constitution and respect its ideals and
institutions, the National Flag and the National Anthem;
• (b) to cherish and follow the noble ideals which inspired our
national struggle for freedom;
• (c) to uphold and protect the sovereignty, unity and integrity of
India;
• (d) to defend the country and render national service when called
upon to do so;
• (e) to promote harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood
amongst all the people of India transcending religious, linguistic and
regional or sectional diversities; to renounce practices derogatory to
the dignity of women;
• (f) to value and preserve the rich heritage of our
composite culture;
• (g) to protect and improve the natural environment
including forests, lakes, rivers, wildlife and to have
compassion for living creatures;
• (h) to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the
spirit of inquiry and reform;
• (i) to safeguard public property and to abjure violence;
• (j) to strive towards excellence in all spheres of
individual and collective activity so that the nation
constantly rises to higher levels of endeavor and
achievement;
• (k) who is a parent or guardian, to provide opportunities
for education to his child or, as the case may be, ward
between the age of six and fourteen years.
 Part III (Articles 12 – 35)
(Subject to certain conditions, some exceptions
and reasonable restrictions)
guarantees these
Fundamental Rights

• Right to Equality
• before law and equal protection of laws;
• irrespective of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth;
• of opportunity in public employment;
• by abolition of untouchability and titles.
• Right to Freedom
• of expression, assembly, association, movement,
residence and profession;
• of certain protections in respect of conviction for
offences;
• of protection of life and personal liberty;
• of free and compulsory education for children
between the age of six and fourteen years;
• of protection against arrest and detention in certain
cases.
Right against Exploitation
• for prohibition of traffic in human beings and forced labour;
• for prohibition of employment of children in hazardous jobs.
Right to Freedom of Religion
• freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and
propagation of religion;
• freedom to manage religious affairs;
• freedom as to payment of taxes for promotion of any particular
religion;
• freedom as to attendance at religious instruction or religious
worship in educational
institutions wholly maintained by the State.
Cultural and Educational Rights
• for protection of interests of minorities to conserve
their language, script and culture;
• for minorities to establish and administer educational
institutions of their choice.

Right to Constitutional Remedies

• by issuance of directions or orders or writs by the
Supreme Court and High
• Courts for enforcement of these Fundamental Rights.
• The English word "society" emerged in the 15th century and is
derived from the French société. The French word, in turn, had its
origin in the Latin societas, a "friendly association with
others," from socius meaning "companion, associate, comrade or
business partner."
• The Latin word is probably related to the verb sequi, "to follow",
and thus originally may have meant "follower".
• In political science, the term is often used to mean the totality of
human relationships, generally in contrast to the State, i.e., the
apparatus of rule or government within a territory:
• In the social sciences, a society has been used to mean a group
of people that form a semi-closed social system, in which most
interactions are with other individuals belonging to the group.
• Society is sometimes contrasted with culture. For example,
Clifford Geertz has suggested that society is the actual
arrangement of social relations while culture is made up of
beliefs and symbolic forms.
• According to sociologist Richard Jenkins, the term addresses a
number of important existential issues facing people:
• How humans think and exchange information – the sensory
world makes up only a fraction of human experience.
• To understand the world, we have to conceive of human
interaction in the abstract (i.e., society).
• Types of societies
• Society’s are categories of social groups that differ
according to ;
• the way that humans use technology to provide needs
for themselves. Although humans have established
many types of societies throughout history,
anthropologists tend to classify different societies
according to the degree to which different groups
within a society have unequal access to advantages
such as resources, prestige or power.
• Virtually all societies have developed some degree of
inequality among their people through the process of
social stratification-the division of members of a
society into levels with unequal wealth, prestige or
power. Sociologists place societies in three broad
categories:
• Pre-industrial,
• Industrial, and
• Postindustrial.
• Pre-industrial Societies
• In a pre-industrial society, food production; which is carried out
through the use of human and animal labor; is the main economic
activity.
• These societies can be subdivided according to their level of
technology and their method of producing food.
• These subdivisions are hunting and gathering, pastoral,
horticultural, agricultural and feudal.
• Hunting and Gathering Societies
• The main form of food production in such societies is the daily
collection of wild plants and the hunting of wild animals.
• Hunter-gatherers move around constantly in search of food. As a
result, they do not build permanent villages or create a wide
variety of artifacts. and usually only form small groups such as
Bands and Tribes.
• The need for mobility also limits the size of these societies.
• They generally consist of fewer than 60 people and rarely exceed
100.
• Statuses within the tribe are relatively equal, and decisions are
reached through general agreement.
• The ties that bind the tribe are more complicated than those of the
bands.
• Leadership is personal-charismatic-and for special purposes only
in tribal society; there are no political offices containing real
power, and a chief is merely a person of influence, a sort of
adviser; therefore, tribal consolidation for collective action are
not governmental.
• The family forms the main social unit, with most societal
members being related by birth or by marriage.
• This type of organization requires the family to carry out most
social functions; including production and education.
• Pastoral Societies
• Pastorlism is a slightly more efficient form of subsistence. Rather
than searching for food on a daily basis, members of a pastoral
society rely on domesticated herd animals to meet their food
needs.
• Pastoralists live a nomadic life, moving their herds from pasture
to another. Because their food supply is far more reliable, pastoral
societies can support larger populations. Since there are food
surpluses, fewer people are needed to produce food. As a result,
the division of labor; the specialization by individuals or groups
in the performance of specific economic activities; becomes more
complex.
• For example, some people become craft workers, producing tools,
weapons, and jewelry.
• The production of goods encourages trade.
• This trade helps to create inequality, as some families acquire more goods than
others do.
• These families often gain power through their increased wealth.
• The passing on of property from generation to another helps to centralize
wealth and power.
Horticultural Societies
• Fruits and vegetables grown in garden plots that have been cleared from the
jungle or forest provide the main source of food in a horticultural society.
• These societies have a level of technology and complexity similar to pastoral
societies. Some horticultural groups use the slash-and-burn method to raise
crops.
• The wild vegetation is cut and burned, and ashes are used as fertilizers.
Horticulturists use human labor and simple tools to cultivate the land for one
or more seasons.
• When the land becomes barren, horticulturists clear a new plot and leave the
old plot to revert to its natural state.
• Agricultural Societies
• Agricultural societies use technological advances to cultivate
crops over a large area. Sociologists use the phrase Agricultural
Revolution to refer to the technological changes that occurred as
long as 8,500 years ago that led to cultivating crops and raising
farm animals.
• Increases in food supplies then led to larger populations than in
earlier communities.
• This meant a greater surplus, which resulted in towns that became
centers of trade supporting various rulers, educators, craftspeople,
merchants, and religious leaders who did not have to worry about
locating nourishment.
• Greater degrees of social stratification appeared in agricultural
societies. For example, women previously had higher social
status because they shared labor more equally with men. In
hunting and gathering societies, women even gathered more food
than men.
• However, as food stores improved and women took on lesser roles
in providing food for the family, they became more subordinate to
men.
• As villages and towns expanded into neighboring areas, conflicts
with other communities inevitably occurred.
• Farmers provided warriors with food in exchange for protection
against invasion by enemies.
• A system of rulers with high social status also appeared.
• This nobility organized warriors to protect the society from
invasion. In this way, the nobility managed to extract goods from
the “lesser” persons of society.
• Feudal Societies
• From the 9th to 15th centuries, feudalism was a
form of society based on ownership of land.
• Unlike today's farmers, vassals under feudalism
were bound to cultivating their lord's land.
• In exchange for military protection, the lords
exploited the peasants into providing food,
crops, crafts, homage, and other services to the
owner of the land.
• The caste system of feudalism was often
multigenerational; the families of peasants may
have cultivated their lord's land for generations.
• Between the 14th and 16th centuries, a new economic system
emerged that began to replace feudalism.
• Capitalism is marked by open competition in a free market, in
which the means of production are privately owned.
• Europe's exploration of the Americas served as one impetus for the
development of capitalism.
• The introduction of foreign metals, silks, and spices stimulated
great commercial activity in Europe.
 THE FACTORS OF UNITY IN DIVERSITY

• We can discuss the following five factors of unity in diversity of India:

• 1. Geographical and Demographic Factors

– The first striking feature about India is its diversity because of India’s
geographical environment and numerous population.

• 2. Religious Factors
– India is a multi-religious country.
– There are seven major religious groups in India according to 1991 census.
– The Hindus constitute the majority of Indian population, about 82 per cent.
The Muslims constitute (about 12.12 per cent).
– The Christians (about 2.34 per cent), the Sikhs (about 1.94 per cent), the
Buddhists (about 0.76 per cent), the Jains (about 0.40 per cent) and others
the Jews, the Zoroastrians or Parsis and the Animists (about 0.44 per cent) .
• 3. Cultural Factors
– The story of Indian culture is one of continuity, synthesis and
enrichment.
– Culture is also a source of unity as well as diversity like
religion.
– Powerful kingdoms and empires such as the Mauryas and the
Guptas did not aggressively intervene in social and cultural
matters; leaving much diversity intact.
• 4. Political Factors
– It is generally believed that India’s continuity as a civilization
was social and cultural rather than political. Order and stability
were maintained not by means of the state but through culture
and society.
– This also accounts for the fact that political unity is not the
normal characteristic of ancient and medieval Indian history.
5. Linguistic Factors
– India is a multilingual country. Language is another source of
cultural diversity as well as unity.
– It contributes to collective identities and even to conflicts.
Eighteen languages are recognised by Indian Constitution.
– All major languages have regional and dialectical variations, for
example, Hindi has Awadhi, Brij, Bhojpuri, Magadhi, Bundeli,
Pahari, Malwi and several other dialects.
– The situation is further complicated since 179 languages and 544
dialects are recognised in India.
 Social Demography
• The study of human population is known by two
terms:
• (1) population studies:-
• Population studies is commonly taken to mean a
study of population variables, such as birth,
death, migration, marriage, etc. and relationships
between population changes and other variables,
such as social, economic, political, biological,
genetic, geographical and the like.
• (2) Demography:-
• It is taken to mean a mathematical and statistical study of size,
composition, distribution of human population and changes
therein.
• Both the terms are, however, used interchangeably as synonyms by
various population analysts. But the latter term has become more
popular than the former.
• The term ‘demography’ was first used in 1885 by Guillard.
• Demography consists of two roots — ‘demos’ and ‘graphy’.
• The first root refers to ‘people’ while the other refers to
‘descriptive science’.
• These two roots combined together refer to a systematic,
descriptive and scientific study of the people.
• Thus, demography means a science of the logical and systematic
study of people and various related aspects.
• Demography is the study of statistics of births, deaths, and
movement of people, age, rural-urban structures of population etc.
• Thus, two basic sub-divisions of demography are: demographic
processes and demographic structures.
• The demographic processes consist mainly of fertility, mortality and
migration.
• Similarly, demographic structures consist mainly of age
composition of population, male-female composition, size of
population, territorial or regional composition and social
composition of population.
• On the above lines, demography is commonly classified as formal
demography and social (or substantive) demography.
 Socio-demographic Profile
of India
• We have seen that social demography a complex subject because
it combines a number of demographic and social factors.
• Salient features of demographic trends in India.
• India is the second most populous country in the world.
• India’s population is roughly around 16% of the total population
of the world while China’s population is about 22%. But China
has almost attained demographic stability, which has not yet been
achieved in India.
• According to the Human Development Report 2002, prepared by
UNDP, the total fertility rate in India was 5.4 per woman during
1970-75. Whereas during 1995-2000, the total fertility rate was
3.3 per woman.
• Population:1,166,079,217 (2009 est)
• Growth rate:1.548% (2009 est)
• Birth rate:22.22 births/1,000 population (2009 est)
• Death rate:6.4 deaths/1,000 population (2009 est)
• Life expectancy:69.89 years (2009 est)
• –male:67.46 years (2009 est) –female:72.61 years (2009 est)
• Fertility rate:2.72 children born/woman (NFHS-3, 2008)
• Age Structure

• 0-14 years:31.1% (male 190,075,426/female 172,799,553) (2009

est)
• 15-64 years:63.6% (male 381,446,079/female 359,802,209) (2009
est)
• 65-over:5.3% (male 29,364,920/female 32,591,030) (2009 est)
• Sex ratio:
• At birth:1.12 male(s)/female (2009)
• Under 15:1.10 male(s)/female (2009)
• 15-64 years:1.06 male(s)/female (2009)
• 65-over:0.90 male(s)/female (2009)
• Nationality:
• Nationality:noun: Indian adjective: Indic
• Major ethnic:
• Language:
• 1) The birth rate, the death rate and the infant mortality rates of
population in India have declined but they are still quite high as
compared to developed countries.
• The growth rate of population has declined over the years, but the
size of total population in India has increased.
• India has crossed a population of more than one billion now
• National Population Policy (2000) aims at
• Stabilising population at a level consistent with
the requirements of the national economy.
• The problems of over-population and of
development have been examined from varying
perspectives. They may be classified into four
broad categories:
• 1. Demographic perspective
• 2. Economic perspective
• 3. Sociological perspective
• 4. Historical perspective
• In the Population Policy 2000, The following are
the main objectives:
• 1.To reduce crude birth rate, total fertility rate, crude death rate and
infant mortality rate as well as maternal mortality rate to the
sustainable level of development.
• 2. To provide basic reproductive and child health care services.
• 3. To make school education compulsory up to the age of 14 years
all over the country with greater emphasis on the expansion of
population education.
• 4. To enhance the age at marriage and more scrupulously enforce
the child Marriage Restraint Act, 1976.
• 5. To achieve the target of universal immunisation programme for
children.
• 6. To achieve universal access to information, counseling and
services related to measures for fertility reduction.
• 7. To control the spread of Acquired Immuno Deficiency
Syndrome (AIDS) and to prevent and control various other
communicable diseases.
• 8. To integrate reproductive and child health care services into the
Indian system of medicine.
• 9.To vigorously promote the idea of small family norm to achieve
the replacement levels of Total Fertility Rate (TFR).
• 10. To promote the idea of people centered programme of
population and make it an integral part of the overall process of
social development and transformation.
 Caste, Class and Tribe in India
• CASTE SYSTEM
• Caste is an English term, which is derived from the
Portuguese word ‘casta’ which means a group.
• Castes are astrictive groups, membership of which is
determined by birth.
• An individual is born into a caste, and this status is more
or less permanent.
• Initially, European scholars used caste as a synonym for
the Indian concept, Varna, but later on it was also used
for
• other terms like jati and up-jati.
• Most sociologists today translate caste as jati and not as
varna. Caste and varna in Sociology represent two
different orders of reality.
• Varna may be described as an abstract classification of people on
the basis of mythical origin.
• Caste, by contrast, is a concrete empirical grouping based on
social, ritual and occupational criteria. Caste or jati is a concrete,
and generally, endogamous group with characteristics of its own
such as its hereditary occupation.
• The Caste stratification of the Indian society had its origin in
‘chaturvarna’ system.
• According to this the Hindu society was divided into 4 varnas
Brahmins, Kashtriyas, Vaishyas and Shrudras.
• The Varna system was mainly based on division of labour and
occupation.
• There are about 2800 castes and sub-castes in India.
• Definitions Of Caste
1 According to Ghurye, “any attempt to define caste is bound to fail
because of the complexity of phenomenon.
2 “Caste is a collection of families bearing a common name
claiming a common descent from mythical ancestor mythical
ancestor professing to follow the same hereditary calling and
regarded by those who are competent to give an opinion as
forming a single homogeneous community”
Characteristics of caste:
• Based on birth
• Hereditary specialization
• Interdependence
• Stratification
• Cultural pluralism
• Interaction
• Merits and Demerits of the Caste System
• The caste system is credited to ensure the continuity of
the traditional social organisation of India.
• It succeeded in accommodating multiple communities
by ensuring each of them a monopoly of a specific
means of livelihood.
• The caste system has handed down the knowledge and
skills of the hereditary occupation of a caste from one
generation to another.
• It has, thus, helped the preservation of culture and
ensured productivity.
• The caste system creates obstacles to the unity of the country.
• It opposes national consciousness by imposing social restrictions
and ideas of purity and pollution.
• Untouchability is the cancer of society.
• Caste hinders horizontal and vertical social mobility and may,
thus, force an individual to carry on the traditional occupation
against her or his will and capacity.
• This is a great hindrance to the industrial development.
• The caste system usually does not provide opportunity to enhance
the status of women in the public sphere.
 CLASS SYSTEM
• Social class is a type of social stratification which is most
evident in industrial societies. But classes are found in non-
industrial societies also.
• Unlike the other types of strata, classes are neither defined by
law nor sanctioned by religion.
• Social class is generally defined as a stratum of people
occupying similar social position in terms of wealth, income,
occupation and factors like education.
• Classes are related to one another in terms of inequality or
hierarchy.
• Class is a system of stratification in which a person’s social
status depends upon her or his achievement. It permits an
individual to strive for and attain a change in her or his status.
• It encourages individuals to select their occupations. Membership
of a class is not inherited as in the case of the caste system.
• Social status in the caste system is ascribed to a person at the
moment of her or his birth, which she/he bears for life.
• The boundaries between classes are never rigid .
• There are no formal restrictions on inter-marriage between people
from different classes.
• Upward and downward movement within hierarchy or
startification – is much more common in the class
system than in other forms of stratification such as caste
system or caste.
• However, the individual may not achieve upward social
mobility in the class system at
• ease under all the circumstances.
• Further, a social class is also a cultural group sharing a
particular way of life.
• It is related, of course, to the life chances available for
the group.
• Karl Marx talked about two classes in the capitalist
society on the basis of the ownership or lack of
ownership of means of production, viz.,
• Max Weber had, however, suggested that there can be more than
two classes on the basis of social status and political power in
society.
• Cumulative inequality is the characteristic of caste, whereas
dispersed inequality is the characteristic of the class system.
• The class division, understood in a broad sense, existed there
between the ruler and the ruled.
• There were also the classes of administrative officers of various
ranks of merchants, artisans and specialists of different kinds.
• The most important feature of the class structure in modern India
is that all the classes have now come to live as integral parts of a
single national economy and under a single state regime.
• Caste and Class
• They represent two main forms of social stratification.
• There is hierarchy both in caste and class. Caste system is based on a person’s
birth, while class does not depend on birth.
• An individual in the class system remains either at the higher or lower place of
stratification according to her or his wealth, income and position in a society.
• This is not possible in the caste system.
• In terms of mobility, class is more open. One changes one’s class position by
dint of one’s occupation, power and wealth.
• The caste system is usually considered closed. But M.N.Srinivas thinks that
movement is always possible through the process of Sanskritisation and
Westernisation.
• Andre Beteille has also noted some scope of mobility in the caste system.
• In class structure, one chooses one’s own occupation suitable to one’s ability,
temperament and efficiency.
• In caste system, occupation of its members is not so freely available for
adoption.