SOCIOLOGY PAPER: II: 2019: Model Answers with detail Analysis

SECTION A

Q. ELABORATE SRINIVAS’S VIEW ON RELIGION AND SOCIETY AMONG COORGS

MODLE ANSWER

COORG, a small mountainous province bound on north and east by Mysore state and on the west and south by the south Canara and Malabar district of madras presidency.

M.N Srinivas gave an intimate insight into the life, customs and belief of local coorg population One of the most diverse and people.

M.N Srinivas outlined coorg. history from early 9^th century till present time. Srinivas, closely observed the social life of the Coorg, particularly their religious beliefs and practices. He argued that religious rituals and beliefs strengthen unity in the Coorg society at various levels.

For a Coorg Hindu, there are three important social institutions.

They are the okka, the village and the caste.
Almost all Coorg are members of one or the other okka. Okka is a patrilineal group.
The village is a cluster of several okka and within the village-there are a number of hierarchically arranged caste groups.

Religion performs specific functions for these three social institutions.

Most important function of all is the solidarity function. Each okka has a special set of rituals which are performed during festival and other ceremonial occasion.
In the same way, village celebrate the festival of their patron deity and perform certain rituals.
The village festival marks the differences between castes but also bring them together.
At the same time, they bring together several Coorg villages.

Solidarity of the Okka

Okka is a patrilineal grouping as mentioned earlier. Srinivas writes “A group of agnatically related males who descended from a common ancestor and their wives and children” constitute an okka. Only by birth one can become a member of the okka. In the society at large, individuals are generally identified by their okka.

Each okka has ancestral immovable property which is normally not divided. A person is prohibited from marrying within the okka. In other words, marriage is generally a bonding of two unrelated okka. A person can be a member of only a single okka at a time.Members of the okka live and grow together. They perform many rituals in unison.

According to Srinivas “the unity and solidarity of an okka find expression in ritual”

Village and Caste Solidarity

The social differences in the village community are expressed during village festivals, when members of different castes serve different functions.

The collective dance and hand canalise the inter-okka rivalry present in the village, thereby preventing the destruction of social order, observed Srinivas

villagers take a vow collectively to observe certain restrictions till the end of festivals. The restrictions include prohibition of today drinking and slaughter of animals within the village boundary. The prescriptions include keeping the houses clean, lighting the sacred wall-lamp of the house, and joining the singing and dancing. At the end of the village festival, there is a dinner for the entire village. This village dinner is called urorme or village harmony.

Caste finds an expression in the village festival. Srinivas point out the instance of Ketrappa festival in Bengur. During the festival the high caste members bring fowls and pigs as offering to the deity. The fowls are beheaded by a Coorg and the pigs by a Panika. Only a Meda can decapitate the offerings presented by the lower castes.

To take another example, when festivals of certain deities are celebrated, it is customary for certain temples located in other villages to send gifts. Thus religious festivals and rituals unite caste, okka and village of the Coorg society

Q. ILLUSTRATE THE CONTRIBUTION OF TEBHAGA MOVEMENT TO PEASENT STRUGGLE IN INDIA

Model Answer:

Tebhaga literally means ‘three shares’ of harvests.
The Tebhaga movement was the sharecroppers (tenants)‘movement
Tenants were demanding two thirds of the produce from land for themselves and one third for the landlords. Basically from this principle demand the name ‘Tebhaga’ movement comes.
It was a militant campaign initiated in Bengal by the Kisan Sabha (peasants front of Communist Party of India) in 1946-47.
At that time share-cropping peasants had to give half of their harvest to the owners of the land. The demand of the Tebhaga (sharing by thirds) movement was to reduce the share given to landlords to one third.
As a response to the agitations, the then Muslim League ministry in the province launched the Bargadari Act, which provided that the share of the harvest given to the landlords would be limited to one third of the total. But the law was not fully implemented.
The main slogan of the movemnt was – ” nij kamare dhan tolo”.
There was large-scale participation of women in movement.
The landless and poor peasant women formed fighting troops called Nari Bahini and took a front rank role in defending the gains of the movement and in countering the repression of the state

Tebhaga Movement in Bengal:

The word Tebhaga literally means three shares of harvests. It was a sharecropper’s movement, which demanded two-thirds for themselves and one-third for the landlord. Earlier, the sharecroppers used to give fifty-fifty share of the produce on their tenancy. The crop sharing system at that time was known as barga, adhi, bhagi, etc., and the sharecroppers were called as bargadars or adhiars.

These sharecroppers seriously challenged the custom of sharing crops between the bargadar and the landlord in 1946-1947. During the harvest of 1946, the sharecroppers of a few north and northeastern districts of Bengal went to fields and cut down the crops and thrashed them on their own.

There were two reasons why this action led to the insurrection on the part of the sharecroppers.

First, they demanded that the sharing of the produce into half was not justified. As the tenants made most of the labor and other investments and since the land owner’s participation was very less in the production process the tenants believed that the latter should be getting only one-third of the crop share and not half of it.

Secondly, the tenants were required to store their grains at the granary of the landlord and had to share the straw and other by products of the grains on half-sharing basis. The tenants were not prepared to follow this rule. The tenants took the stand that the stock of the harvests would be stored at the tenants’ compound and the landlord would not be getting “any” of the shares from the by-products of the grains.

The Bengal Provincial Kisan Sabha organized the movement of Tebhaga. The sharecroppers under the leadership of the sabha mobilized themselves against the landlords. However, the leadership also came from among the peasants.

The movement spread across the 19 districts of Bengal, but its intensity was more seriously felt in certain districts only. The landlords refused to accept the demands of the tenants and called the police. The police arrested the tenants and many of them were put behind the bars.

This action made the tenants more furious and they started a new slogan to abolish the whole Zamindari system. ”nij kamare dhan tolo”.
The slogan also indicated that the rate of the rents which was raised by the peasants of the Tebhaga movement should be reduced.
In few places of the Tebhaga movement the peasants declared their zones as Tebhaga areas and many Tebhaga committees were set up in order to govern the area locally.
Under the pressure of Tebhaga activists most of the landlords had come to terms with the Tebhaga peasants and withdrew the cases filed against them.
Such kinds of Tebhaga areas were established at the districts of Jessore, Dinajpur, and Jalpaiguri. Later on, the Tebhaga areas were established extensively at Midnapur and in other 24 paraganas.
In early 1947, such developments led the government to introduce a bill in the Legislative Assembly.
The bill proposed to reform the bhagi system of the country, which caused the agrarian unrest. However, due to certain other political developments in the country the government could not enact the bill into a law.
As a response to the agitations, the then Muslim League ministry in the province launched the Bargadari Act, which provided that the share of the harvest given to the landlords would be limited to one third of the total. But the law was not fully implemented.
There was large-scale participation of women in movement.
The landless and poor peasant women formed fighting troops called Nari Bahini and took a front-rank role in defending the gains of the movement and in countering the repression of the state.

The promises of the new government and the partition of Bengal led to the suspension of the Tebhaga movement.

The Tebhaga movement, to an extent, was successful, as it has been estimated that about 40 per cent of the sharecropping peasants were granted the Tebhaga right by the landowners themselves. The illegal exaction in the name of abwabs was also abolished.

The movement was, however, less successful in the East Bengal districts. In 1948-1950, there was another wave of Tebhaga movement in these districts. The government credited this to be a handiwork of the Indian agents which the general public believed and abstained themselves from involving in the movement. However, the East Bengal State Acquisition and Tenancy Act of 1950 was passed due to the initiation of the movement.

Q Examine the changing initiatives of land tenure system in India

Model Answer:

Land tenure refers to the way in which land is held by an individual from the Government. It shows the relationships between the land holder and the State. The absolute ownership of land rests with the Government. Government gives proprietary rights to individuals or communities. Thus, whom we call a land owner, is in that sense is the proprietor of that land and he has to pay land renew for that.

The land tenure system of pre-independence India was broadly divided into three categories:

the Zamindari system,

the Mahalwari system, and

the Ryotwari system.

In the first two categories, the intermediaries—zamindars and village headmen, respectively—were responsible for the collection of rent from the cultivators; in the third category, there were no intermediaries, and cultivators paid the rent directly to the state. The control of intermediaries over land ownership and the tenure system led to exploitation of cultivators.

In order to eliminate intermediaries and to pass on ownership rights to the actual cultivators, the process of land reforms was initiated after independence.

The objective

To abolish intermediaries and to bring changes in the revenue system that would be favourable to cultivators. Tenancy reforms were considered the most important component of land reforms, and many changes were affected in India’s land tenure and revenue system.

Legislation of Land Tenure

First five year plan

Efforts to abolish the landlord system were actually enacted in the early 1950s with the Zamindari Abolition Act.

Large landowners be allowed to evict their tenants and to bring under personal cultivation land up to a prescribed ceiling limit

Tenants of non-resumable land be given occupancy rights on payment of a price to be fixed as a multiple of the rental value of the land.

Second five-year plan

To provide effective protection for tenants and to bring a degree of uniformity across the states, the definition of “personal cultivation” was amended with three elements: risk of cultivation, personal supervision, and personal labour.

3^rd and 4^th five-year plan

The Third Plan reiterated that the final goal should be to confer rights of ownership to as many tenants as possible

Fourth Plan recommended measures such as “to declare all tenancies non-resumable and permanent except in the case of landowners working in defence services or with any disability.”

5^th five-year plan

National Commission on Agriculture (NCA) formed.

6^th five-year plan

the major legislations on land tenure were created in the first three Plans,6^th plan focused on implementation of various policies, made till date.

Progress in the Implementation of Tenancy and Revenue Reforms

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Regulation of rent

With the enactment of legislation for regulating the rent payable by the cultivators in the early 1950s, fair rent was fixed at 20 to 25 percent of the gross produce level.

However, the effectiveness of fair rent was observed only for tenants who actually enjoyed security of tenure. As per the 1981 census, about 80 percent of the tenants were insecure.

As a result, the majority of tenants could not derive benefit from the legislation on fair rent. Further, field studies conducted in Bihar, Orissa, and West Bengal during 1971 and 1972 indicated that though the Tenancy Act in these states fixed the maximum rent payable at 25 percent, most of the tenants, particularly sharecroppers, were paying 50 percent of gross produce.

Security of tenure

Legislation for security of tenure had three essential elements: ejection could not take place except in accordance with the provision of the law; land could be resumed by an owner, but only for personal cultivation; and in the event of resumption, the tenant was assured of a prescribed minimum area.

Conferment of ownership rights to tenants

Another important component of tenancy legislation was the conferment of ownership rights to tenants. Despite repeated emphasis in the plan documents, only a few states, like West Bengal and Kerala, have passed legislation to confer rights of ownership to tenants.

Write a note on Ghurye’s conception of caste system.

Ghurye’s understanding of caste is comparative, historical and Indological as well. Unlike his contemporaries he doesn’t glorify or condemn caste, rather he considers caste as a product of Indian culture, changing with the passage of time. Hence, it is a subject of sociological interest.

In his book “Caste and Race in India”, he agrees with Sir Herbert Risley that caste is a product of race that comes to India along with Aryans.

Ghurye considers it as unfortunate that caste system is mostly understood in terms of Brahminic domination.

Caste has gone through the process of fusion and fission in different ways in Indian history. During Vedic period caste was a product of race. Ghurye points out that caste was considered as central to organized form of division of labour in Aryan society.

G.S Ghurye, identified six different features of the Hindu caste system.

i) Segmental division of society: Castes were groups with well-developed life-styles of their own. The membership of the groups was determined by birth and not by choice. The status of a person depended not on the amount of wealth he possessed but, on the rank, that his caste enjoyed in the Hindu society.

ii) Hierarchy: There was definite scheme of social precedence anlongst castes. Each group was given a specific status in the overall framework of hierarchy.

iii) Restrictions on feeding and social intercourse: There were minute rules as to what sort of food or drink auld be accepted by a person and from what caste.

iv) Civil and religious disabilities and privileges of different sections: Segregation of individual castes or groups of castes in the village was the most obvious mark of civil privileges and disabilities. Certain sacraments could not be perfomled by any caste other than the Brahmins. Similarly, shudras and other lower castes were not allowed to read or learn the sacred scriptures.

v) Lack of unrestricted choice of occupation: Generally each caste coilsidered a particular occupation as its legitimate calling. To abandon the hereditary occupation in pursuit of another, even it was more lucrative. was not considered right.

vi) Restrictions on marriage: Caste groups obsewed strict endogamy. Menlbers of a

caste group married only within their castes. However, there were a few exceptions. In

some regions of India, the upper caste man could nwry a lower caste woman. This kind of marriage alliance is known as hypergamy

Q critically examine Dubey’s contribution to the study of Indian village.

Model Answer:

S C Dube published his full length study of a village Shamirpet near Hyderabad,in his Indian e in 1955. It is a milestone in village studies tradition in India as it was the first full length work on a single village and was holistic in its approach.

As a social anthropologist at Osmania University, Dube was a part of a multidisciplinary team including the departments of agricultural sciences,

economics, veterinary sciences and medicine; that studied Shamirpet. This large collective project was meant not only to study the village but also to develop it. In fact, Shamirpet was meant to be a sort of laboratory where experiments in designing rural development programs could be carried out.

Dube had identified six factors that contributed towards the status differentiation in the village community of Shamirpet which were –

landownership,
position in government service and village organisation,
wealth,
age,
religion and caste,
distinctive personality traits.

Dube described the village on the same lines on which Robert Redfield conducted his first village study in Mexico in 1930. Later on, in 1958, in collaboration with The Cornell-India Program, he came up with India’ s Changing Villages, where he advocated an interventional role of social sciences.

According to S.C. Dube, one should be very critical about their validity and be aware of their limitations. While studying a village.

He speaks of a few limitations of such studies.

(a) Village studies are not often represented in nature.

(b) Village studies exaggerate the unity and self-sufficiency of the village. Here unity and solidarity of the village is over-emphasised. It ignores the connecting links with other units of society,

(c) Village studies are influenced by the alien concepts. Those who undertake village studies, blindly Imitate western methods, western styles and western models.

Village studies post-independence, thus, provided a much holistic, diverse and authentic picture of the Indian village. However, village studies were also constrained by a number of factors.

There is a lot of duplication in data collection.
There is no real comprehension about village studies. There is lack of coordination among the scholars of village studies.
The scholars have tried to study village community in abiotic frame of reference. They practically ignore a basic reality that Indian village is a synthesized community.

Most of the village studies are of mechanical nature. These do not add much to the existing knowledge about villages.

What is caste politics? Substantiate your answer with example of how identities are defined by caste dynamics.

Theoretically speaking, caste and democratic political system stand for opposite value systems. Caste is hierarchical. On the other hand, democratic political system advocates freedom for an individual and equality of status. There is an alternative empirical view as well. Politics, notwithstanding, the ideals in any society, do not function in vacuum and political systems (and democracy) also do not function in an ideal typical manner. They operate within a social milieu. Hence, in practice, in a society like ours which has limited resources, caste and other concepts like kinship seek to establish new identities and strive for positions of power. In such a competitive scenario, politicians also find caste groupings readily available for political mobilisation.

Caste and religion were often used as emotional tools for managing the masses. On the constructive side of it, there were also many groupings like Justice Party in South and leaders like Ambedkar who called for political empowerment of the depressed castes for an equitable society.

Republican Party, formed in 1956 by Dalit leaders under Ambedkar, was perhaps the first formal political venture after independence to mobilise Dalits, Hence, political mobilisation was viewed as a source of social empowerment. Post-independence system of universal franchise, democracy and

Panchayati raj system further fuelled these dynamics.

RAJNI KOTHARI ON CASTE AND POLITICS

Kothari, while analysing the intrusions of caste into politics and politics into caste, distinguishes three stages in the progression of political Modernisation after Independence-

In the first stage, he· says, the struggle for political power was limited to the entrenched and the ascendant castes.
In the second phase, competitions with in these castes for power, led to factionalism.

3. In the third stage, lower castes were mobilised and are now asserting themselves in the political domain.

In his words- ‘It is not politics that gets caste-ridden; it is the caste that gets politicised.’ He has a relatively positive outlook towards caste in politics.

According to him, politics has been able to give voice to the Powerless and has uplifted them from oblivion

The study of Nadar’s of Tamil Nadu is a case in point about the positive role played by politics vis-a-vis caste. Defining the importance of caste in Indian politics, Rudolph and Rudolph, in their The Modernity of Tradition: Political Development in India, 1967, revealed that political clout can also be used to change the status in the caste hierarchy and many rights can be acquired which were once denied to a caste. They took the case of an untouchable community, i.e., Shanan’s of Tamil Nadu and explained how it could change the social status with the help of political mobilisation and association, and ultimately is now known as Nadar’s.

Caste associations have provided a new vitality to the depressed groups. Similar conclusions were also drawn by Beteille. Andre Beteille holds that while westernisation is taking individuals away from caste identity, the role of caste in politics is taking people towards the caste identity and thereby strengthening it. Thus, political process has a dual effect on caste system.

Do you think that Indian saints have brought about social reform and awareness in Indian society? Explain

Indian society has witnessed saints and their teachings since early 11^th century, various saints from different regions of India and their teachings have continuously helped in bringing equality and awareness in society. They spread the message of love and brother hood in Indian society

Various Indian saints

Ramanuja” commonly known as Ramanujacharya or Ilaiya Perumal

He founded Visistadvaita Siddhanta or qualified monism and according to him, the way to salvation lies through Karma, Gyan and Bhakti.

Nimbarka” commonly known as Sri Nimbarkacarya

He founded Dvaitadvaita or dualistic monism. He wrote Vedanta Parijata-saurabha, a commentary on Brahmasutras.

Madhavacharya was also called Ananda teertha or Purna Prajna

He propounded Dvaita or dualism. According to him, the final aim of man is the direct perception of Hari which leads to Moksha or eternal bliss.

Vallabhacharya also was known as Vallabha

He propounded Suddhadvaita Vedanta (Pure non-dualism) and philosophy called Pustimarga (the path of grace) He founded a school called Rudra Sampradaya. According to him, salvation is through Sneha (deep rooted love for God).

Chaitanya also was known as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu

He was responsible for the popularity of Vaishnavism in Bengal through his Kirtans. He began the Achintayabhedabhedavada School of theology. He preached the religion of intense faith in one Supreme Being whom he called Krishna or Hari.

Swami Vivekananda was a prominent Hindu monk and the founder of Ramakrishna Mission

He was one of the most important figures that played an important role to spread and introduce Indian philosophy and yoga and meditation in Indian and the western nations.

Sai Baba of Shirdi also known as Shirdi Sai Baba was one of the famous Indian spiritual leaders who was regarded as an incarnation of Lord Shiva

His teaching always concentrated on charity, love, forgiveness, inner peace etc.

One of the notable things of Sai Baba was that his teachings were based on both Hinduism and Islam

Tulsidas

He was a great poet and a devotee of Rama. He composed the famous. Ramcharitamanas in Hindi

Kabir

A disciple of Ramananda, his mission was to preach a religion of love which would unite all castes and creeds.

He emphasised the unity of god whom he calls by several names, such as Rama, Hari, Allah, etc. He strongly denounced Hindu and Muslim rituals.

He strongly denounced the caste system, especially the practice of untouchability.

All of these saints were in favour of love and brotherhood through religious and non-religious roots.

Q What is ehno-nationalism? Examine the critical factors responsible for tribal discontent in India.

IT Has some similarities to nationalism, but is loyalty to a particular ethnic or racial group rather than to a nation. In the multi ethnic environment of the United States, however, ethnonationalism may cause relative division between various ethnic or racial groups. Certain groups may believe that, due to their common ethnic or racial origin, members have the same ancestors and can be regarded as “relatives.”

Examples of ethnonationalism include the differentiation between the Gujarat and Punjab tribes of India, Croatians, and Bosnians of the former state of Yugoslavia (now divided into several countries) and the Hutus and Tutsis of Rwanda, where ethnonationalism had devastating consequences for part of the national population.

An ethno-nationalist education not only creates resistance to cultural and educational imposition by other groups; it also uses it positively to preserve and extend the particular ethnic group’s identifying characteristics. One way that ethno-nationalism is preserved in education is to use the ethnic “mother tongue” rather than the official national language in the classroom. Another way is to include the ethnic group’s literature, history, and traditions in the curriculum.

critical factors responsible for tribal discontent in India.

During the 19th Century, the British policy towards tribes

Administrative segregation – This policy aimed at isolating tribals from the mainstream. Government of India Act of 1870 provided some protection and Scheduled Districts Act of 1874 led to the creation of certain scheduled tracts. 1919 Act created Excluded and Modified Excluded areas with a different administrative structure than the mainstream which was later slightly modified in 1935 Act as Excluded and Partially Excluded areas.
Proactive forest policy – Forests have been the traditional lifeline of tribes as they were a source of their livelihood apart from having a cultural significance. However, a proactive forest policy, aimed at maximising economic gain at the cost of tribal welfare and alienated tribes from forests. In forests, they saw valuable resources and they passed exclusionary laws like Forest Act of 1865, which took away traditional forest rights. Forest Act of 1878 further tightened the grip of the rulers on forests and it radically changed the nature of common property and made it a state property, thus, declining the tribals, their traditional rights on the forests. Etc. According to Vidyarthi, alienation from forests was not only economic, but also emotional and cultural. Trees, rivers and mountains carried symbolic and religious meanings for tribals.
A reformist approach– British also assumed redemptory role wherever they went. Some British Christian missionaries sincerely believe that the onus is on them to uplift the fallen and the laggards. It manifested in the form of various propositions like The White Man’s Burden. British policy to allow Christian missionaries to proselytise tribals also led to a gulf between mainstream Hindus and tribes, thus, creating further social divide in an already divided society.

Over-exploitation

According to Buddhadeb, in his book – Tribal Transformation in India, 1992, expansion of railways broke down their historical isolation and initiated a process of unchecked and indiscriminate assimilation leading to detribalisaiion of tribes.

Issues of tribal development, integration and autonomy had been highly convoluted right since the inception of British rule in India.
Power and Powerlessness:

Development Projects and Displacement of Tribals, 1991, around three crore people have been displaced by developmental activities in the past 50 years and 42 per cent of them were tribals.

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.
The advent of the concept of private property in land has also adversely affected tribals.
the policy of capital-intensive industrialisation adopted by the Indian government required mineral resources and power-generation capacities which were concentrated in Adivasi areas

Q Is Industrial development in India a bane or a boon to agrarian class structure? Substantiate your answer with example.

In very simple words the agrarian societies are those settlements and groupings of people who earn their livelihood primarily by cultivating land and by carrying out related activities like animal husbandry. Agricultural production or cultivation is obviously an economic activity. However, like all other

economic activities, agricultural production is carried out in a framework of social relationships. Those involved in cultivation of land also interact with each other in different social capacities. Some may self-cultivate the lands they own while others may employ wage labourers or give their land to tenants and sharecroppers. Not only do they interact with each other but they also have to regularly interact with various other categories of people who provide them different types of services required for cultivation of land.

As pointed out by D.V. Dhanagare, “the relations among classes and social composition of groups that occupy specific class position in relation to land-control and land-use in India are so diverse and complex that it is difficult to incorporated them all in a general schema”.

The spread of industrialisation in the Western countries during the 19th century and in rest of the world during 20th century has brought about significant changes in the agrarian class structure as well

Agriculture lost its earlier significance and became only a marginal sector of the economy, though a large proportion of population is still employed in agricultural sector, its contribution to the total national income has come down substantially.
The earlier modes of social organisations, such as, “feudalism” and “peasant societies” have disintegrated giving way more differentiated social structures.
The mechanization of agriculture and its integration in the broader market economy has also in turn transformed the social relations of production in the agrarian sector.
Industrialization lead to a process of differentiation among the peasantry.The peasantry gets divided into different strata or classes.
Attitude of cultivators towards their occupation also changed. They begin to look at agriculture as an enterprise. They work on their farms with modem machines and produce cash crops that are sold in the market. Their primary concern becomes earning profits from cultivation.
The old structure of jajmani relations has more or less completely Disintegrated giving way to more formalised arrangements among the cultivators and those who work for them.
Organising farms like modem industry, employing a manager and wage labourers and producing for the market.
According to M.N Srinivas, rise of local dominant castes and command a considerable degree of influence over the local power structure.
Rise of large no of landless labours mostly belonging to Dalit and untouchables caste groups.

Dilution of caste system according to Lewis Dumont.

Q Give an account of Ranajit Guha’s approach in studying ‘subaltern class’

Subaltern studies began as a revisionist historiography of peasant movements in colonial India. The Subaltern Studies Group was formed in 1979–80 under the tutelage of historian Ranajit Guha at the University of Sussex in England. The first edited volume of Subaltern Studies was published in 1982.

The group consisted of heterodox historians of South Asia, who were critical of the nature of the historiography prevalent at that time because of its elitist biases and “bourgeois-nationalist” and “colonial” mode of history writing. These forms of history distorted the historical portrayal of the subalterns or the “people” and neglected their role in the anti-colonial struggle.

They claimed that the Indian national struggle for independence was the work of a few elites, who were trained in Western educational institutions set up by the British in India. According to them, nationalist politics was led by elites who collaborated with the British to ensure the power of the bourgeoisie in a narrow political economic theory of “interests” as against the role of “ideas” in history. For them, the nationalist movement was an unintended consequence of the reaction to the penetration of the state into society. Thus they grossly neglected the historical subjectivity and desires of the Indian “people” to attain freedom. They believed that the elites mobilized the underclasses along the lines of narrow communal and caste interests, in a “vertical line” of patron-client relationships

They claimed that the Indian national struggle for independence was the work of a few elites, who were trained in Western educational institutions set up by the British in India. According to them, nationalist politics was led by elites who collaborated with the British to ensure the power of the bourgeoisie in a narrow political economic theory of “interests” as against the role of “ideas” in history. For them, the nationalist movement was an unintended consequence of the reaction to the penetration of the state into society. Thus, they grossly neglected the historical subjectivity and desires of the Indian “people” to attain freedom. They believed that the elites mobilized the underclasses along the lines of narrow communal and caste interests, in a “vertical line” of patron-client relationships.

On the other side of this debate were the nationalist historians led by Bipan Chandra and his collaborators, mainly located in Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. They borrowed various theoretical views from the writings of Marx and other variants of Marxism, such as the Latin American dependency and underdevelopment theory school. They saw Indian history as a heroic battle between nationalist elites and colonial intruders. According to them, it was Gandhi’s mobilization and Nehru’s vision that gave birth to the imagination of the “national-popular.” This narrative claim that the “people” were brought into the arena of “politics” from their “pre-political” state under the tutelage of colonialism and the nationalist elite.

Guha’s approach was a radical break from both these schools of history writing. Guha brought the role of subaltern subjectivity into the history of anti-colonial struggle in India.

Guha claimed that both these schools imbibed “elitist biases” and heavily neglected the role of the common “people” or the subalterns in the anti- colonial struggle.

Guha contested the nationalist historiography, which promoted the idea that nationalist leaders shepherded the Indian “masses” from pre-political past to nationalist present, transforming them from being subjects of oriental tyrants to citizens of the modern state. On the contrary, it is evident from the postcolonial experience of the Indian state that, rather than being benevolent, Indian elites were hugely oppressive to all forms of peasant or tribe mobilization that surpassed the concerns of national civil society and its agenda. For instance, the Maoist movements that emerged in the 1970s encountered heavy-handed counterinsurgency measures from the Indian state.

Subalternity in Guha’s terms signified a hierarchical, dialectical, and contextual

relation of superordination and subordination between the elite and the subalterns in colonial India. Guha

defines the “elites” as dominant indigenous and foreign groups in colonial India who controlled the rest of the society. There were bigger national-level elites and relatively smaller regional elites. He defined the “people” or the subaltern classes as the “demographic difference” between the elites and the rest of the Indian population. Thus the subaltern classes were defined as a residual category. In these polarized social categories, a sense of antagonistic and oppositional mentality prevails. The subalterns are oppressed and subjugated by the elites in their everyday life. However, there are moments of outburst when they rebel against their subjugation. The notion of subaltern politics was therefore centered on “resistance to the domination of the elites”

Subalternity in Guha’s terms signified a hierarchical, dialectical, and contextual relation of super ordination and subordination between the elite and the subalterns in colonial India. Guha defines the “elites” as dominant indigenous and foreign groups in colonial India who controlled the rest of the society. There were bigger national-level elites and relatively smaller regional elites. He defined the “people” or the subaltern classes as the “demographic difference” between the elites and the rest of the Indian population.

Thus, the subaltern classes were defined as a residual category. In these polarized social categories, a sense of antagonistic and oppositional mentality prevails. The subalterns are oppressed and subjugated by the elites in their everyday life. However, there are moments of outburst when they rebel against their subjugation. The notion of subaltern politics was therefore centered on “resistance to the domination of the elites”

The subalterns sometimes entered into the arena of nationalist politics. Even when they did so, they maintained their difference from the elites in the modality of their action, goals, strategies, and methods. Subaltern nationalism differed markedly from elite nationalism

Q DEFINE PATRIARCHY? DOES IT HAVE BEARING ON WOMEN’S ENTITELMENT IN INDIAN FAMILY SYSTEM? EXPLAIN 20 MARKS

Patriarchy is a social system in which men hold primary power, predominate in the roles of political leadership, moral authority, special privilege and control of the property. They also hold power in the domain of the family, as fatherly figures.

Historically, patriarchy has manifested itself in the social, legal, political, and economic organization of a range of different cultures. The analysis of patriarchy and its effects is a major topic within the social sciences and humanities.

The Patriarchal Nature Of The Indian Society

Indian debates on socialism and patriarchy are complicated by a significant shift in the analysis. The subject of research and debates was not just capitalism and its relationship to patriarchy. Rather, patriarchy came to be discussed in term of the modes of production and reproduction, specific to Indian realities. These were understood regarding the family and household; kinship and caste; culture and religion, and the Indian state, whose policies have a dynamic beaming on all other social structures

Various studies are available which is documenting the same. Their invisibility, position of women in the social, political and economic system, is clearly more an outcome of the ideology governing public policy relating to women. Hence, women are noticeably absent from the discussions of development theory too.

Bearings of patriarchy on women’s entitlement in Indian Family System

Religious tradition and social institutions have a deep bearing on the role and status of women in a family.

· The patriarchal system and the gender stereotypes in the family and society have always shown a preference for the male child. Sons are regarded as a means of social security and women remained under male domination.

· She became the victim of several social evils like child marriage, sati, polygamy, purdah system, female infanticide, forced pregnancy, marital rapes etc.

· Daughters have equal right of inheritance as sons to their father’s property, as per law but most of the time they hardly gets a share in ancestral property.

Article 21 which deals with right to life has been expanded to include the right to Life with Dignity. This provision has been invoked to safeguard the rights of women such as right to divorce, to live a life free from violence and the right to safe abortions. But still women are forced for abortion, and are victims of violent acts in family, Parda system is still common in Indian rural and urban social system.

The contract of marriage creates a legal obligation upon the husband and his family members to provide a shelter and maintenance to the wife. In our society, a woman is perceived as a home maker, in addition to all other roles she may be required to perform. So, while women have the burden of managing the house, cooking for the family, raising the children and tending to the sick, their chances of earning an adequate income to support themselves or even the chances of retaining their pre-marriage jobs are constrained.
A widow cannot be thrown out from the house in which she was living with her husband, after her husband ‘s death. Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (Domestic Violence Act or DV Act, for short) is shared household, but still we have increased cases of widows in shelter homes etc.
When women leave their matrimonial home, they are often warned that they will not be able to get custody of their children and further, they will not be even able to meet them.
A woman continuously bears physical emotional, sexual and economic abuse in Indian family system
Dowry Harassment and Cruelty Against Wives has been in records throughout Indian judicial system. Despite widespread campaigns against dowry and the stringent laws, the menace is growing, because of patriarchal mind set

Q.4b How do you understand the ‘minority’ question? Examine the violence and discrimination against the religious minorities in India.

Model Answer:

when a group of people is divided on any issue or approach or characteristics the difference usually produces a bigger sub-group and a smaller sub-group. The smaller sub-group is called minority whereas the bigger sub-group is called the majority. It is also possible that the two groups could be of equal strength or the smaller group may have control over power and other resources. So, it is not always the numerical strength or non-strength, which is the deciding factor for a group to be called a minority. If a group is discriminated against on the basis of religion, race or culture it can be considered a minority group.

Arnold Rose has defined minority without any quantitative connotations. He defines it as ‘a group of people differentiated from others in the same society by race, nationality, religion or language, who think of themselves as differentiated group and are thought of by others as a differentiated group with negative connotations. Further, they are relatively lacking in power and hence are subjected to certain exclusions, discrimination and other differential treatments.’

The violence and discrimination against the religious minorities in India.

Religious minorities have long been the target of a range of different forms of persecution, such as hate crimes, threats, attacks on places of worship, and forced conversion.

Key incidents of communal violence affecting India’s religious minorities,

1964, West Bengal / Bihar / Orissa- Riots took place in Calcutta, and later spread to Jamshedpur.
Large-scale riots involving Hindus and Muslims in September 1969 took place in Ahmedabad
November 1980, Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh: An escalation of violence primarily between Muslims and (Hindu) Dalits
1983, Nellie, Assam: Violence during assembly elections occurred against a backdrop of ethnic and linguistic divisions, as well as tensions around the migration of Bangladeshi Muslims into the area.
November 1984, Delhi: Following the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by two Sikh bodyguards, anti-Sikh riots broke out in Delhi
2002, Gujarat: Severe violence resulted in as many as 2,000 killed, 100,000 displaced, and many others injured – the overwhelming majority of them Muslim

2013, Muzaffarnagar and Shamli, Uttar Pradesh

Discriminations against religious minorities in India

While the minority groups are allowed to preserve their distinct characteristics they are also subjected to a great deal of discrimination.

Very often they are discriminated in their social life. They are subjected to ridicule and segregation which further compels them to stay away from the majority.
This discrimination in fact leads to assimilation among some ambitious members of the minority community
The members of minority group ire eliminated by expulsion or by massacre
They are often discriminated in all walks of life, in securing a job, in getting funds for educational institutions, in their social interaction and so on, inspite of the constitutional guarantees.

Q. What do you understand by LGBTQ? Comment on the issues concerning their marriage rights.

LGBTQ is an acronym for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer or questioning. These terms are used to describe a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Issues concerning their marriage rights

While the Special Marriage Act of 1954 provides for people of India and all Indian nationals in foreign countries, irrespective of the religion or faith, to marry, there is no provision for same-sex couples to marry.
The Union cabinet, while considering amendments to the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000, decided to stop same-sex couples from adopting children.
Inheritance of spouse’s property.
There are several petitions on marriage pending with the courts, because of social stigma.
Social acceptance of such marriage.

Q- Comment on the critical issues of commercialization of higher education in India.

The total spends on education in India (Central and State governments together) is 2.7% of GDP. Though lower than the spends by peer BRICS countries the budget alone does not account for the poor state of school education (primary and secondary) and tertiary education, as revealed in various surveys and reports notably the ASER reports for schools and Asian or global rankings of universities and colleges.

Views of various sociological thinkers on education in INDIA

The opening essay ‘Why Educate?’ by eminent historian Romila Thapar posits that the system of education should enable the citizens to acquire information through conveying up-to-date knowledge and enabling them to further update it through critical inquiry.

Sudhanshu Bhushan’s essay ‘Challenges of Higher Education Policy: Accountability vs Capabilities’, is the only one in the volume focused on the country’s higher education policy. It argues that the formal bureaucratic and technological rationality of the current policy imposes too much regulation aimed at uniformity and standardization and is not suited to deal with the heterogeneous reality of higher education with its variations in student body size and composition.

Education India Private Limited’ by Jyotsna Jha is a commentary on the increased and unregulated commercialization of education in India through private, fee-charging institutions which is driving education to become a market determined commodity.

The essay on ‘Right to Education’ by Kishore Singh, on a very critical and relevant topic impacting school education in India seems quite directionless and it is not clear what the author is trying to convey.

The positive and negative impact on commercialization of education

Employment opportunity: Commercialization of education provides employment opportunity. It provides job opportunity as well as hundred percent job9 guarantees to the students. Many private institutions offer various job oriented job oriented courses, various degrees, diplomas, certificate course etc.

Economic Development: Commercialization of education helps in the process of economic development. Commercialization in education helps in increasing the rate of literacy, Gross Domestic Product, Gross national Income, per capital income, provide the job opportunity etc.

To Face the Global Challenges: Commercialization of education helps to face the global challenges of the world. The global challenges are as modernization, industrialization, privatization, globalization, information and communication Technology, Emergence of International knowledge Network, Role of English language etc.

Personality development: commercialization of education helps in the personality development of the students. The commercialization of education provides formal education to students

Quality of education: Commercialization of education give emphasis on quality education. The concept of quality education is broader term which indicates the quality of the learner, quality of the learning environment, quality content, quality process and quality outcomes.

Increased private Institutions: Duo to the presence of commercialization of education a number of private institutions were increased in various region. When the private institutions increased day by day the tendency of commercialization also increased, commercialization can’t take place without privatization.

Social development: Commercialization of education give emphasis on the social development. For the development of the nation, social development is very necessary. In the private institution the students were provide the social education how to adjust with the society, knowledge of the various culture, knowledge about social interaction, provide knowledge to the students to preserve their culture, knowledge of the norms, social customs etc.

Development of professional efficiency of teachers: Commercialization of education helps give attention on the development of professional efficiency of teachers.

Professional and vocational development of learners: commercialization of education gives very much emphasis on professional as well as vocational development of the students. The advertisement made by the school and colleges such as coaching, diploma degree, vocational training, various professional and skill development courses etc

Demerits of commercialization of education:

More emphasis on marks: commercialization of education give more emphasis on marks. It not tries to fulfill all round development of students.

Unable to maintain the principle of quality: Commercialization of education is unable to maintain the principle of equality. In the society there are three types of people were lived – upper class people, middle class people and lower people.

Profit oriented: Commercialization of education always give emphasis on profit. It makes education as a business. People make rise about it but day by day it increased rapidly

Costly: The impact of commercialization in education which make education very costlier. In the private institutions the admission fees, monthly fees, development fees, semester fees etc

Materialistic outlook: Commercialization of education develops the materialistic outlook among the students. The student have the attitude that to take proper education and to get a good job.

Less salary to teachers: The commercialization of education impact on the salary of the teachers. In the private institutions the teachers were provide over burden work pressure.

Over burden curriculum: Due to the impact of commercialization of education of educational institutions become a business enterprise. The curriculum of the institution is very is spread. It includes various additional subjects in general curriculum.

Q. Discuss the challenges in implementing the Rural Development Programmes in India

According to Agarwal (1989) Rural Development is a strategy to improve the economic and social life of a specific group of people- the rural poor, including small and marginal farmers, tenants and landless.

According to World Bank rural development is a strategy designed to improve the economic and social life of a specific group of people by extending the benefits of development to the poorest among those who seek livelihood in the rural areas.

According to National Commission on Agriculture rural development means development of an area and the people through optimum development and utilization of local resources by bringing about necessary institutions, structures and attitudinal changes and by delivering package of services to improve all fields of the rural poor and rural weak.

Objectives of Rural Development:

The objectives are:

Providing goods and services in terms of social and economic infrastructure.
Increasing the income of every rural family on a self-sustaining basis.

iii. Creation of additional employment opportunities in rural areas.

It implies a broad based reorganization and mobilization of the rural masses so as to enhance their capacity to cope effectively with the daily tasks of their lives and with changes consequent upon this.
Improvement of services or rural masses in the process.
Improvement of know-how, which is to be implemented to the rural people.

According to Singh (1998), the main objectives of rural development in all societies, irrespective of their economic, political and socio-cultural systems are:

To make available and improve the distribution of life- sustaining goods, such as food, clothes, shelter, health and security.

2. To raise per capita purchasing power and improve its distribution by providing better education, productive and remunerative jobs and cultural amenities.

3. To expand the range of economic and social choices to individuals by freeing them from servitude and dependence.

The objectives of rural development are manifold. It manifests through the different activities taken up by different societies.

Constraint / Problems in Rural Development:

There are several problems encountered by our rural society. These problems or constraints have to be removed in order to increase the speed of rural development.

Most people are illiterate for such people extension teaching methods like

Demonstrations, individual and group approaches, Training classes require

large number of extension workers.

2. Inadequate communication channels especially Mass Media in rural areas.

3. Limitation of Funds and staff for training the farmers.

As a traditional society with old ways and practices does not want to take risk unless they see the results.

In an illiterate traditional society real leadership could not come forward.

Communities and individuals differ in their needs as their circumstances change.

Organizational constraints.

Vaguely framed objectives of organization.

Some major problems are:

POVERTY
ILLITERACY
SMALL LAND HOLDINGS
Malnutrition and Starvation
Ill-Health
Ignorance and Lack of Scientific Temperament
Caste System
Communication and Transportation
Exploitation by Vested Interest Groups
Gender Inequality

Elaborate urbanism as a way of life in India.

C.B. Mamoria is of the opinion that urbanism is a cultural- social-economic phenomenon which traces interaction between the social and technological processes.

Louis Wirth has mentioned four characteristics of urban system or urbanism – heterogeneity of population, specialisation of function, anonymity and Impersonality and standardisation of behaviour.

Prof. Ram Ahuja says that urbanism Is a way of life which is characterised by certain elements such as transiency (short-term relations), superficiality, (impersonal and formal relations with limited number of people,) anonymity (not knowing names and lacking Intimacy) and individualism (people giving more importance to one’s vested interests).

The dynamics of urban development in a large country like India would be understood by examining the changes in the levels and pace of urbanisation across the states and at the size class level.

The Census data reveals that the levels of urbanisation in most of the economically developed states were high in the post-Independence period. Developed states like West Bengal, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, that had high per capita income, reported a large percentage of population residing in urban areas.

In modern industrialised society, urbanism has become the predominant way of life. According to some, urbanism Indicate a wide acquaintance with things and people. Such acquaintance imbues the city dwellers with the spirit of tolerance. The urban people learn how to lead different lives in different circumstances.

Characteristics of Urbanism:

1. The norm and social role conflicts:

The diversity of social life springs from the size, density and heterogeneity of the population, extreme specialization of the various occupations and class structures existing in the larger communities. These latter factors generally result in divergent group norms and values and conflicting social roles.

2. Rapid social and cultural change:

Rapid social and cultural change also characterize urban life. So there is decline in the significance of traditional and sacred things. The reduced size of the modern family is the result of rapid social and cultural change.

3. Impersonalness and lack of intimate communication:

There is superficiality and impersonalness among the urbanities. Urban society is highly heterogeneous and specialised. So, the result is lack of intimate relationship. The urban people live close together but without emotional ties. Urban social relation takes place between strangers.

4. Materialism:

Urban people give primary importance to material possessions. They live and are known for their status symbols, bank balances, assets, salaries, buildings with modem furnishings etc.

5. Individualism:

In urban society people become more j individualistic, self-centred, selfish and so on. They give primary emphasis to their own interests and personal happiness, they develop the attitude towards competition, conflict in relation to economic goods and social position.

6. Mobility:

Here in urban society there is greater mobility. People move from one job to another, from one locality to another. The ^ residential mobility tends to weaken ties to the local community.

7. Increase in formal social controls:

Social controls in urban society Is more formal. Responsibility for controlling behaviour in cities is largely shifting to the police, the courts and other agencies of government to enforce the norms of certain groups. Cities vary in the extent or the degree to which they are characterised by urban qualities. Some cities have less norm and role conflicts, social change, mobility, individualism and impersonality than others.

According to Morris Janowitz, Sociologists have failed to take into consideration those impressive degrees and patterns of local community life exist within metropolitan limits. He has suggested that the role of mobility and impersonality in urban life should not be overstated in the factory and other work situations. Indeed, urbanism is a matter of degree.

Comment on the changing democratic profile of India.

The notion of democracy is built on the premise that all citizens of a State are equal and that the nation offers an opportunity to all members of the society to participate in the process of self-governance. Democracy, considered by most to be the best way to govern a nation, succeeds only when a full cross section of society takes part in the process in equal measure. This, in turn should lead to the common person’s participation in the political process of the nation as a normal pattern.

In India—the world’s largest democracy by population—this two-step process is still falling short with participation of the general public after the completion of the electoral process being negligible and restricted to the elite few. The poorer sections of society are deprived of a voice and does not take part in the governance process till the next democratic elections. In other words, the democratic success of the nation is not shared by all.

Since becoming independent from British rule, India has practised democracy, and over the past 70 years, has also adapted the concept to create a uniquely Indian model. The democratic process as practised in India has its advantages and also its share of challenges that make it cumbersome and less than optimal in a number of instances.

Ever since the first elections held in 1952, there is no doubt that there has been multi-fold increase in the level of political awareness in the country as a whole. This is a positive move forward in a nation where a large part of the population are still uneducated and live a hand-to-mouth existence.

In the Indian practice of democracy, value-based politics the mainstay for the well-being of any nation, has been squandered and sacrificed at the altar of power worship. The quest for power has subsumed all altruistic purposes and initiatives.

Changing Trends

Indian politics primarily based on the influence of a pluralistic society with many minorities in terms of religion, caste, and language. The prevailing multi-party system emerged as an anti-dote to the monolithic Congress Party.

The politics of coalitions, This was brought on by the regional parties making in-roads into national politics through the election of their representatives into the Central parliament.

Centralisation of power as a trend in Indian political development brings out two disparate but vaguely connected factors, in last decade or so.

National issues at the strategic level, which were then debated as being critical to the nation’s development.

Voters are starting to distinguish and discriminate between State challenges and Central Government issues.

Electorate is becoming progressively younger, better educated and politically more aware.

National security imperatives, have become priorities with the demographic changes.

Indian democracy is in a constant process of developing discontinuities in its political system. Therefore, the evolving trends in democratic development, the electoral process and the political system cannot be predicted based on the analysis of one election.

Challenges to Democracy in the Indian Context

· The Multi-Party System

· Regional Parties

· Communalism in Politics

· Money-power, Corruption and Scandals

Elucidate the concerns of growing urban displacement dynamics in India.

Urbanization is a process which has spatial dimensions. Urbanization is a natural part of development. The urban population is the function of both migration and natural increase of the existing population. Population shifts take place only when certain development is realized and human power is required for functioning. Therefore, urbanization and industrialization are closely associated and had strong relation in the earlier phase of urban growth. It was industrial development which showed a way for modernization both of society and economy.

Problems related growing urban displacement dynamics in India.

UNEVEN URBANIZATION AND GROWTH OF SLUMS

Tisdale postulated that urbanization is a process of population concentration. It proceeds in two ways: the multiplication of points of concentration and the increase in size of individual concentrations. These are the results of shifts of population and spatial growth, changes in social, cultural, economic and demographic settings.

Robert Park had expressed and conceptualized his understanding of the city and its life during 1930s. He had analysed the city growth and chaos following ecological approach which he termed as ‘human ecology’. By this he was trying to understand the apparent chaos of industrial metropolis. According to him nearly every large city has its central business district, residential areas, industrial districts, satellite cities, slums, immigrant colonies, and these are the natural areas.

CURRENT URBAN RESTRUCTURING – PEOPLE, PLANNING AND UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT

Neoliberalization following the structural changes in India has swelled the existing urban challenges and has accelerated the spatial and economic transformation of cities and land use patterns to adapt to scale of growth.

War and criminal violence in cities also generate large-scale displacement. Around 50 million people are estimated to suffer the effects of urban conflict in the world today.
New infrastructure projects in hazard-prone areas not only displace people during the construction phase in the form of evictions. They also increase disaster displacement risk. Examples include the construction of a new metro station on the Jamuna floodplain in central Delhi and the development of a special economic zone on Myanmar’s coast.
Urban housing, public infrastructure including roads, public transport, drainage systems and electricity supplies, private investment in utilities, the creation of green spaces and environmental management all play a role in helping to determine the resilience of cities and their residents, as do urban governance arrangements.

Examine the importance of Developments Planning in Indian Mixed

Economy and analyse its problems and prospects.

The term ‘economic planning’ has been used very loosely in economic literature. Therefore, the term has been often confused with communism, socialism or economic development.

Economic planning is the making of major economic decision, what and how much is to be produced, and to whom it is to be allocated by the conscious decision of a determinate authority, on the basis of a comprehensive survey of the economic system as a whole.

Lewis Lordwin defined economic planning “as a scheme of economic organisation in which individual and separate plants, enterprises, and industries are treated as coordinate units of one single system for the purpose of utilising available resources to achieve the maximum satisfaction of the people’s needs within a given time.”

IMPORTANCE OF PLANNING IN INDIA

Best Utilisation of Natural Resources
Growth in National and per capita Income
Improvement in Living Standard
Balanced Economic Development
Achieving Full Employment
Reduction in Inequalities of Income and Wealth
Creation of a Socialist Society
Removal of Bottlenecks
Industrialization

PROBLEMS OF DEVELOPMENT PLANNING

Planning is central. Decentralized planning is still in nascent stages.
Planning commission is not a constitutional body. It has hijacked the role of finance commission.
Often planning commission fails to understand ground realities. Eg: Unrealistic data on poverty line.
Centralized planning may not touch the peripheral areas.
Coalition politics affects planning.
Planning for 125 crore diverse population is not easy.
Limited resources and funds available.
Lack of visionary leadership and technological expertise.
Lack of proper monitary mechanism to check the implementaion of the plan

PROSPECTS OF PLANNING IN INDIA

The Planning Commission when seeking guidelines from the National Development Council for the formulation of the National Plan should give a tentative framework of the plan considered feasible by it and also indicate other alternative approaches calling for different degrees of effort.
When the Commission lays down the lines of a five year plan, it should have before it a perspective of development over a longer period. The period may be different for different sectors of the economy, ten years for some, fifteen for others and even a longer period for some others.
The five year plan should take into account only such foreign aid as can be reasonably assumed to be forthcoming. It should also take into consideration internal contingencies like failure of monsoons which are a normal cyclical feature.
Each scheme or project involving foreign aid should clearly set out the measures for dispensing with such aid in the shortest possible time.
The composition of Working Groups should be broad based. They should be compact bodies’ presided over by Secretary or other senior officer of the Ministry concerned. The Working Groups at the centre and their counterparts in states should maintain a close and regular communication with each other.
The Planning Commission should, to the maximum extent possible, make use of the special advisory bodies which are set up by the Central Ministries.
Each Ministry concerned with developmental programmes should have a separate Planning Cell which should be small in size.

Q. Highlight the main features of the ‘Inter-linking of Rivers’ project in India. What could be its probable advantages to Indian agriculture?

The Indian Rivers Inter-link is a proposed large-scale civil engineering project that aims to link Indian rivers by a network of reservoirs and canals and so reduce persistent floods in some parts and water shortages in other parts of India.

The Inter-link project has been split into three parts: Himalayan rivers inter-link component in north, Peninsular component in south, and starting 2005, an intrastate rivers linking component.

There are two major reasons that warrant Water Resource Management in India

To bring about a balancein the Flood and Drought prone areas:- Certain areas receive excessive rains as compared to others resulting in flood and drought conditions respectively, during the same period (i.e. the north-eastern region of the country receives heavy precipitation, in comparison with the north-western, western and southern parts). So this project will give an effort to channelize the excess water, where it is actually needed for several primary uses, resuming a water balance across the country.
Water Security across India:-In a tropical, agricultural economy like India, where monsoon plays an erratic role , water security can lead to food security for several irrigation purposes. Moreover, if properly channelized, water security, in turn can also help in harnessing renewable energy with the help of turbines and movement of water from higher elevation to lowland.

Benefits of River linking projects

India receives most of its rain during monsoon season from June to September, most of it falls in northern and eastern part of India, the amount of rainfall in southern and western part are comparatively low. It will be these places which will have shortage of water. Interlinking of rivers will help these areas to have water throughout the year.

The main occupation of rural India is agriculture and if monsoon fails in a year, then agricultural activities come to a standstill and this will aggravate rural poverty. Interlinking of rivers will be a practical solution for this problem, because the water can be stored or water can be transferred from water surplus area to deficit.

3. The Ganga Basin, Brahmaputra basin sees floods almost every year. In order to avoid this, the water from these areas has to be diverted to other areas where there is scarcity of water. This can be achieved by linking the rivers. There is a two-way advantage with this – floods will be controlled and scarcity of water will be reduced.

4. Interlinking of rivers will also have commercial importance on a longer run. This can be used as inland waterways and which helps in faster movement of goods from one place to other.

5. Interlinking creates a new occupation for people living in and around these canals and it can be the main areas of fishing in India.

Q. Has reduction of green cover affected ecological degradation leading to global warming? Elaborate your answer with illustration.

Model answer:

Climate change is one of the greatest threat’s humankind has known. Forests can be part of the solution.

COP 21 marked a defining moment for the global community to come together and collectively show their resolve towards “changing climate change”. The deal reached delivered much of what WWF asked for – the explicit mention of forests in the agreement sent an indisputable signal that actions to halt deforestation and forest degradation will have to be a part of high level domestic political agendas, and no longer a marginal topic.

Forests and climate are intrinsically linked: forest loss and degradation is both a cause and an effect of our changing climate.

The agriculture, forestry and land-use sectors account for about a quarter of all global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and are the largest sources after cars, trucks, trains, planes and ships combined. By reducing forest loss, we can reduce carbon emissions and fight climate change.

As deforestation and forest degradation have such a significant impact on climate change, reducing forest loss can have multiple benefits for ecosystems and people. These include cutting greenhouse gas emissions, sequestering carbon, providing other ecosystems services, and maintaining intact, functioning forests that have the best chance of withstanding climate change.

FOREST IN PRESSURE

As forests are lost or degraded, they can become sources of harmful greenhouse gases instead of carbon sinks. Deforestation and forest degradation are the largest sources of CO2 emissions after the combined emissions from all cars, trucks, trains, planes and ships in the world.
Changing agricultural practices, due to an increased population and shifts in diet, is responsible for most of the world’s deforestation. Illegal and unsustainable logging, usually resulting from the demand for cheap wood and paper, is responsible for most of the degradation of the world’s forests. The threats are so severe that we are losing forests at a rate equivalent to 48 US football fields or 24 international soccer fields per minute.
In the last 25 years alone, the world lost a forested area the size of South Africa. The biggest forest area loss in the last two decades has been in the tropics, particularly Africa and South America.
More than 80% of deforestation between 2010 and 2030 is likely to happen in just 11 places. If business as usual continues, more than a quarter of the Amazon could be treeless by 2030, and we could see a global loss of forests equivalent to the size of Germany, France, Spain, and Portugal combined.
The amount of wood we take from forests and plantations each year may need to triple by 2050 to meet the world’s growing demand, placing additional pressure on forests.

Forests, especially tropical forests, play a crucial role in climate regulation. In aggregate, tropical deforestation and degradation account for 14-21 per cent of all anthropogenic carbon emissions, while CO2 absorption within primary and recovering tropical forests provides 10-15 per cent of carbon mitigation potential.

REDD+ provides one solution to address the drivers of forest loss in developing countries. The framework, created under the UNFCCC, offers financial incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. (REDD), as well as to conserve and enhance their carbon stocks and sustainably manage their forests (the plus in REDD+).

Q. Do you think that ‘demonetization’ has accelerated the economic growth in India? How do you understand the informalization of labour underemployment and gender discrimination in this context?

Merits-Demonetization Favoured India’s Economic Growth

Demonetization policy of the Government has been termed as the greatest financial reform that aimed to curb the black money, corruption and counterfeit currency notes.
All the people who are not involved in malpractices welcomed the demonetization as the right move.
Demonetization was done to help India to become corruption-free as it will be difficult now to keep the unaccounted cash.
Demonetization will help the government to track the black money and the unaccounted cash will now flow no more and the amount collected by means of tax can be better utilized for the public welfare and development schemes.
One of the biggest achievements of demonetization has been seen in the drastic curb of terrorist activities as it has stopped the funding the terrorism which used to get a boost due to inflow of unaccounted cash and fake currency in large volume.
Money laundering will eventually come to halt as the activity can easily be tracked and the money can be seized by the authorities.
Demonetization aimed to stop the running of parallel economy due to circulation of fake currency as the banning of Rs.500 and Rs. 1000 notes will eliminate their circulation.
The unaccounted cash could be deposited in the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana after paying 50% tax. The money will remain deposited for 4 years with the bank without incurring any interest. However, after 4 years the amount will be returned. This amount can be utilized for social welfare schemes and making the life of low income groups better.
The Public Sector Banks which were reeling under deposit crunch and were running short of funds have suddenly swelled with lot of money which can be used for future finances and loans after keeping a certain amount of reserve as per RBI guidelines.
The people who opened the Jan Dhan accounts will now use their accounts and become familiar with banking activitiy. The money deposited in these accounts can be used for the developmental activity of the country.
The tax collected due to launch of demonetization policy will be put to developmental activities in the country.
Demonetization has driven the country towards a cashless society. Lakhs of the people even in remote rural areas have started resorting to use the cashless transactions. The move has promoted banking activities. Now even the small transactions have started going through banking channels and the small savings have turned into a huge national asset.
The high rising price pattern and inflationary trends which the Indian economy was facing are taking a down turn making the living possible within low income group reach.

Demerits-Blow to economic growth and inconvenience all around
The very next day of announcing the demonetization, the BSE Sensex and NIFTY 50 stock indices fell over 6%. The severe cash shortages brought detrimental impact on the economy. People trying to exchange their bank notes had to stand in lengthy queues causing many deaths due to inconvenience and rush.

The sudden announcement has made adverse impact on business and economy. Instead of a growing economy India has become a standstill and no growth economy. It is fearedthat a fall of 2-3% in the GDP growth will be recorded coming year.
India is an agriculture based economy. Due to the cash crunch, the farmers especially small and marginal who largely depend on cash to buy seeds, fertilizers and to pay for sowing, borrowing water for irrigation and for other related agriculture equipments remained worst affected and could not complete the crop related activity.
Since small branches of the banks were also not supplied with adequate cash within time of sowing season of the crop, farmers could not get their crop loans disbursed. This added to the woes of the farmers leading to a weak agriculture production the coming year.
Real Estate sector came to a stand still and is still gasping for buyers of the constructed and half constructed inventory without buyers. This has resulted in poor cash flow leading to a poor demand.
Demonetization has made the situation become chaotic. Tempers are running high among the masses as there is a delay in the circulation of new currency.
Due to the inability to pay cash to poor daily wage workers, the small employers have stopped their business activity.
The poor planning on the part of the government has also added to the woes of the common people with low incomes. The Rs.2000 currency note does not find many takers as it is difficult to get the balance back when you are buying daily needs like vegetables, milk, bread or paying for petty expenses like bus fare. While rs.100 currency notes were not available in sufficient number, Rs.500 note arrived in the market very late.
Demonetization is the 2 way sword in regard to incurring the public expenditure. On the one hand huge cost is to be incurred on printing the new currency and on the other hand managing the lakhs of crores of old currency volume has also become a big expenditure incurring item.
Many Economists are of the view that Rs.2000 currency note will be much easier to hide and can be used to store black money in shorter space.
Entire opposition has stood against demonetization and has called this decision a draconian law.

Demonetization and Its Impact on Employment in India

Implications of ‘demonetization’, its impact on employment is important, particularly in a situation when majority of wage payments are made in cash form.

Informal employment, which constitute as high as 95 percent of all employment is backed with no (or least) social security such as health, education or provident fund benefits.

Workers are subject to be fired (or lay-off) at any point of time during the production (or distribution) process. Since majority of wage payment is made in cash form; they are thus the ones to face misery caused by the recent announcement of ‘demonetization

Financial Express, an estimated 4 lakh workers, largely belonging to this segment were affected by the decision.

According to a Report by ASI (2010-11), roughly a fifth of the almost 32 million people employed in the textile and garment sector, are daily wage earners. Hence, any policy change impacting decline in output growth makes these people be affected more.

Further, according to NCEUS, 2009 Report, since majority of people (78.7 percent) belonging to informal sector are poor, or constituting 90 percent of casual workers and 75 percent of self-employed people. So, these are the ones who bear the major burnt of the decision of ‘demonetization’.

Demonetization and gender discriminations

Demonetization also majorly hits employment prospects of women in the informal sector that accounts for nearly 45 per cent of India’s GDP, but provides almost 80 per cent of employment.

Another section of Indian population facing tremendous hardships due to demonetisation are the third gender, but their travails have largely been ignored. The main source of income for the transgenders is toli-badhai, i.e. getting money from households celebrating functions like weddings and childbirth. Etc.

Lack of easy access to banks, especially in the rural areas; and lack of banking literacy, ie, awareness and unfamiliarity with banking procedures will increase dependence on male members of the family that will eventually lead to lack of control on paltry financial resources for a large number of women.

Q.Discuss the implications of ‘Swachha Bharat Abhiyan’. Do you think that civil society has a role to play here? Substantiate your answer with examples.

ANSWER

A clean India would be the best tribute India could pay to Mahatma Gandhi on his 150 birth anniversary in 2019,” said Shri Narendra Modi as he launched the Swachh Bharat Mission at Rajpath in New Delhi.

Objectives of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan

Construction of community, cluster and individual toilets.
To eliminate or lessen open defecation in rural areas. Open defecation among one of the prime reasons of behind the deaths of under 5 children every year.
Apart from the construction of latrines, the Swachh Bharat campaign also looks to establish an accountable and well-planned mechanism of monitoring their use.
Public awareness programmes to be provided to people in order to tell them about the drawbacks of defecating in open and to promote the use of latrines.
Recruitment of a staunch ground staff to bring about a big behavioural change in people and promote the use of latrines at a micro-level.
Proper management of liquid and solid waste in villages in order to keep them clean and disease-free.
To setup a network of water pipelines in rural areas, ensuring a regular water supply to people by the year 2019.
To construct toilets separately for girls and boys in all Indian schools.
To provide the toilet facility to all Aanganwadis
Construction of community, cluster and individual toilets.
To eliminate or lessen open defecation in rural areas. Open defecation among one of the prime reasons of behind the deaths of under 5 children every year.
Apart from the construction of latrines, the Swachh Bharat campaign also looks to establish an accountable and well-planned mechanism of monitoring their use.
Public awareness programmes to be provided to people in order to tell them about the drawbacks of defecating in open and to promote the use of latrines.
Recruitment of a staunch ground staff to bring about a big behavioural change in people and promote the use of latrines at a micro-level.
Proper management of liquid and solid waste in villages in order to keep them clean and disease-free.
To setup a network of water pipelines in rural areas, ensuring a regular water supply to people by the year 2019.
To construct toilets separately for girls and boys in all Indian schools.
To provide the toilet facility to all Aanganwadis

Things civil societies can do for Swachh Bharat”

Civil Societies can take up the task of educating the people of rural India about keeping their surroundings clean
CS’S could play a role in highlighting the importance of SBM to housewives, shopkeepers and small business owners
CS’s can also do third party quality checks of infrastructure being created under SBM and also do sample verification on a pre-determined check list
CS’s could adopt certain areas/colonies and take the responsibility of keeping them clean
CS’s can set up and monitor waste management systems
CS’s could work closely with the municipality to execute a daily cleaning plan in the area
CS’s can make house visits and ensure that people understand proper sanitation and garbage disposal techniques
CS’s could help in building toilets in rural areas
CS’s can be assigned the task of building and maintaining public toilets
They could also visit schools to teach the kids the importance of cleanliness in their daily lives
CS’s dealing with heath care delivery could have a tremendous role in the area of personal hygiene, optimum use of potable water, basic sanitation etc.
CS’s can ensure people’s participation in Swachh Bharat and put pressure on ULBs to act
CS’s can be authorized to collect money from houses and use it to arrange for segregation and separation of waste
CS’s can submit survey reports on Swachh Bharat Mission, they may be allocated areas to carry out surveys independently substantiated with videos and pictures on the basis of MOUs between the NGO and the monitoring authority
CS’s can also facilitate workshops on how to recycle and reuse non-biodegradable wastes into livelihood programmes
CS’s can be asked to put-up small-scale units for collecting garbage and sorting it into different components for processing
CS’s can also be given access to the Swachh Bharat city local circles to share community initiatives with citizens and mobilize citizens to help where necessary
CS’s should be allowed funding for cleanliness drives and other Swachh Bharat related activities
Certain CS’s can also conduct research on specific areas to scientifically dispose wastes, improved toilets, improved composting processes etc.
CS’s can help societies, colonies setting up unit for decomposing wet waste, water harvesting etc.

Q. Do you agree that social movement are caused by opportunity structures that are generated by media? Why?

Ans.

The Impact of Media on Social Movements

The best example media, especially social media, were used in the Arab Spring protests of early 2011 wherein the youth in the Arab countries leveraged the power of media to overthrow despotic rulers.

Given the fact that such rulers always resort to media manipulation to further their ideology and retain their grip on power, the options before the citizenry in such countries are very limited. Hence, any media that supports their cause and furthers their aims is a favourite with the protest movements.

The other example of how the internet and social media can be used in the pursuit of progressive goals is the way in which President Obama uses these media to communicate with his supporters.

Another example is role of media during ANNA ANDOLAN 2011, against corruption in India.

The other aspect about media and its role in social movements is the power of transmission and repetition of the message of the social activists. Given the rapid dissemination of messages on Twitter and Facebook and the fact that television gives an instant image of the protests or the movements, media can indeed play a prominent role in ensuring that social movements are covered well.

activists and social leaders need to be careful of how they use media and how the media uses them. The best example of this is the way in which the anti-corruption movement in India lost support from the media after the initial euphoria. This was because the media jumps from issue to issue given the way in which the 24/7 news cycle and breaking news rhythms are structured

Social Networks and Media for Mobilizing Structures

First and foremost, social movements need organization and resources. Resource mobilization theory argues that resources – such as time, money, organizational skills, and certain social or political opportunities – are critical to the formation and success of social movements.

The relationship between the media and social movements are of critical importance. Gamson and Wolfs Feld described the three major purposes of the media in social movements as: mobilization, validation, and scope enlargement.

the relationship between social networks, the media, and social movements, is now replaced by social media.

Critics of Shirky argue that social media, in fact has not revolutionized the popular mobilization system. Social movements have happened all over the world and in different times throughout human history, with or without social media.

Opportunity structures provide the motivation for movement organization through its social, economic, and institutional contexts. They are underlying conditions that favor social movement by creating individual grievances

Regulation of rent

Security of tenure

Conferment of ownership rights to tenants

Tulsidas

He was a great poet and a devotee of Rama. He composed the famous. Ramcharitamanas in Hindi

Kabir

The Patriarchal Nature Of The Indian Society

Religious tradition and social institutions have a deep bearing on the role and status of women in a family.

· The patriarchal system and the gender stereotypes in the family and society have always shown a preference for the male child. Sons are regarded as a means of social security and women remained under male domination.

· She became the victim of several social evils like child marriage, sati, polygamy, purdah system, female infanticide, forced pregnancy, marital rapes etc.

· Daughters have equal right of inheritance as sons to their father’s property, as per law but most of the time they hardly gets a share in ancestral property.

Objectives of Rural Development:

Characteristics of Urbanism:

1. The norm and social role conflicts:

2. Rapid social and cultural change:

3. Impersonalness and lack of intimate communication:

4. Materialism:

5. Individualism:

6. Mobility:

7. Increase in formal social controls:

· The Multi-Party System

· Regional Parties

· Communalism in Politics

· Money-power, Corruption and Scandals

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