UPSC Mains 2017 Anthropology Optional Question Papers with Model Answers
All 56 questions of the 2017 Civil Services Main Examination, Anthropology Paper I and Anthropology Paper II, with marks and a suggested time per part. Solve each part on paper first, then open the model answer, or send it to answer-writing practice for evaluation.
UPSC Mains 2017 Anthropology Paper I
Question 1 (50 marks)
Q1(a) · Kinship · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Consanguinity, Affinity and Principles of Descent
Bilineal and bilateral descents
हिंदी में प्रश्न
उभयपक्षीय और द्विपक्षीय वंशानुक्रम
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(a)
Approach: Define and distinguish bilineal (double) and bilateral descent with examples, and illustrate both with simple diagrams.
Bilineal descent (double or duolineal) places a person at once in the father's patrilineal group and the mother's matrilineal group, each controlling different rights. Daryll Forde described the Yakö of Nigeria, whose patriclans hold land while matriclans control movable wealth and some ritual and funeral obligations; Rivers's Toda are often cited as an Indian case.
Bilateral descent (cognatic) traces kinship equally through both parents. It forms no discrete descent groups, only ego-centred kindreds, and is found among the Inuit, the San, the Andaman Islanders and Western societies.
Bilineal descent applies two unilineal principles for different purposes and creates two sets of permanent corporate groups; bilateral descent treats all relatives equally and creates overlapping networks that end with ego.
Diagram: for bilineal, shade ego's patriline in one colour and matriline in another; for bilateral, shade all relatives on both sides around ego equally.
Bilateral systems usually go with Eskimo terminology and neolocal nuclear families; double descent shows that descent is a social allocation of rights, not a fact of biology.Q1(b) · Religion · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Religion, Magic and Science; Magico-religious Functionaries
Difference between religion and magic
हिंदी में प्रश्न
धर्म और जादू-टोना के बीच अंतर
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(b)
Approach: A short note: define religion and magic, then differentiate them on attitude, aim, practitioner, social organisation and morality (Frazer, Malinowski, Durkheim), noting their overlap, with examples.
Religion, for Tylor, is belief in spiritual beings, and for Frazer the propitiation of powers superior to man; magic is the manipulation of supernatural forces through spells and rites expected to work automatically.
Attitude: religion involves supplication, worship and submission to higher beings; magic involves compulsion and manipulation (Frazer).
Aim: Malinowski (1925) held that magic is a practical art, a means to a definite end such as a good catch, whereas religious acts, such as mortuary rites, are ends in themselves.
Organisation: Durkheim noted that religion binds believers into a moral community, a church, while the magician has only clients: there is no church of magic. Religion is led by priests in public rites, magic by private practitioners, sometimes in secret and for harmful ends (sorcery).
Overlap: in practice they blend: a Santal or Munda ojha both propitiates bongas and uses spells, and Hindu rituals include protective amulets. The distinction is analytical, a continuum rather than a sharp line.Q1(c) · Anthropological Theories · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Functionalism, Structural-Functionalism and Structuralism
Basic tenets of structural-functionalism
हिंदी में प्रश्न
संरचनात्मक-प्रकार्यवाद के मूल सिद्धांत
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(c)
Approach: List and explain the core tenets with Radcliffe-Brown as the main exponent, using the organic analogy and an ethnographic example, then note criticism.
Structural-functionalism, developed by A.R. Radcliffe-Brown from Durkheim’s sociology, explains social institutions by their contribution to maintaining the social structure as a whole.
Tenets: (i) society is a system of interrelated parts, like an organism (the organic analogy); (ii) the function of an institution is its contribution to the continuity of the structure, not to individual needs as in Malinowski; (iii) a society tends towards equilibrium and integration (functional unity); (iv) anthropology is a natural science of society seeking general laws through comparison, avoiding conjectural history; (v) analysis is synchronic.
Example: in The Andaman Islanders (1922) he showed that ceremonies and weeping rites express and renew sentiments of solidarity; in Africa, Evans-Pritchard and Fortes showed how segmentary lineages among the Nuer and Tallensi kept order without a state.
Critique: it was static, ignored conflict, change and individual agency (Leach, Gluckman), and could not explain colonial transformation, though it gave anthropology rigorous comparison.Q1(d) · Culture, Communication and Research Methods · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Culture, Language and Communication
Non-verbal communication
हिंदी में प्रश्न
अवाचिक संप्रेषण
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(d)
Approach: Define non-verbal communication, classify its channels with the scholars who studied them, give cross-cultural and Indian examples, and note its significance.
Non-verbal communication is the transmission of meaning without words, through the body, space, time, touch, voice quality and objects. Much of it is culturally learnt, though some elements are universal.
Channels: (i) kinesics, gestures, posture and facial expression, studied by Ray Birdwhistell; Paul Ekman found basic emotions such as happiness, fear and anger recognised across cultures; (ii) proxemics, the cultural use of space, studied by Edward T. Hall (The Hidden Dimension, 1966), with intimate, personal, social and public zones; (iii) paralanguage, tone, pitch, pauses and silence; (iv) haptics, touch; (v) chronemics, attitudes to time, monochronic or polychronic; (vi) artefacts, dress and ornaments.
Examples: the Indian sideways head movement signalling agreement, the namaste and touching elders’ feet; the thumbs-up, polite in some cultures, offensive in others; tattoos and dress marking clan and status among the Naga and Baiga.
Non-verbal signals often carry emotions and social relations more powerfully than words, so fieldworkers must learn them to avoid misreading.Q1(e) · Culture, Communication and Research Methods · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Tools of Data Collection and Analysis
Questionnaire
हिंदी में प्रश्न
प्रश्नावली
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(e)
Approach: Define the questionnaire, classify its types, contrast it with the schedule, and give merits and limits in anthropological research.
A questionnaire is a set of systematically arranged written questions that respondents read and answer themselves, either on paper, by post or online. Goode and Hatt describe it as a device for securing answers by a form the respondent fills in himself (paraphrase).
Types: structured (fixed, closed questions with options) and unstructured (open-ended); closed, open and mixed; mailed, group-administered and online.
Questionnaire and schedule: a schedule is filled in by the investigator in a face-to-face interview, so it suits non-literate respondents and allows clarification; a questionnaire depends on literacy and involves no interviewer.
Merits: cheap and quick for large, dispersed and literate samples, anonymous for sensitive topics, uniform and easy to quantify. Limits: unsuitable for most non-literate tribal communities, low response rates, misunderstanding of questions, no check on who answers and no contextual depth. Anthropologists therefore use it mainly in urban or educated groups, alongside observation and interviews.
Question 2 (50 marks)
Q2(a) · Culture and Society · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Concept and Characteristics of Culture and Civilization
Discuss the development of the concept of culture in Anthropology.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
नृविज्ञान में संस्कृति की संकल्पना के विकास की विवेचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q2(a)
Approach: Trace the concept historically: evolutionist, historical-particularist, functionalist, culture-and-personality, ecological and materialist, cognitive and structural, interpretive and postmodern stages, each with its scholar, and close with the present view and Indian relevance.
Culture is the central concept of anthropology, and its meaning has changed with each theoretical school; Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952) already counted about 164 definitions.
Evolutionist beginning: E.B. Tylor's Primitive Culture (1871) defined culture as a 'complex whole' acquired by man as a member of society, treating it as one, ranked along stages, as in Morgan's savagery, barbarism and civilization (1877).
Boas and plural cultures: Franz Boas replaced ranking with historical particularism, speaking of many cultures each shaped by its own history; Kroeber (1917) called culture superorganic, and Benedict and Mead saw it as a pattern shaping personality.
Functionalist view: Malinowski treated culture as an instrumental apparatus meeting basic and derived needs, while Radcliffe-Brown shifted attention to social structure and called culture an abstraction.
Material and symbolic turns: Leslie White (1949) linked culture to symbolling and energy capture; Julian Steward's cultural ecology and Marvin Harris's cultural materialism related it to environment and production.
Cognitive, structural and interpretive turns: Ward Goodenough (1957) saw culture as what one must know to behave acceptably; Lévi-Strauss looked for universal mental structures; Clifford Geertz (1973) saw culture as webs of significance to be interpreted through thick description.
Critique and reformulation: Writing Culture (Clifford and Marcus, 1986) and Abu-Lughod (1991) questioned bounded, timeless cultures, stressing power, contest and global flows.
In India, Redfield's great and little traditions, Marriott's universalisation and parochialisation (1955) and Vidyarthi's sacred complex show this layered concept in use; today culture is understood as learned, symbolic and adaptive, yet open, contested and changing.Q2(b) · Kinship · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Kinship Terminology, Filiation, Descent and Alliance
Elucidate the determinants of Kinship terminology.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
बंधुतावाची शब्दावली के निर्धारकों पर प्रकाश डालिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q2(b)
Approach: Elucidate the competing explanations of what shapes kinship terms (Morgan, Kroeber, Rivers and Sapir, Radcliffe-Brown, Murdock) with examples, and conclude that terminology has multiple determinants.
Kinship terminologies differ widely across societies, and anthropologists have debated what determines how relatives are grouped and separated.
Morgan (1871) held that terms are survivals of earlier forms of marriage: calling all of a generation brother and sister reflected past group marriage, a view now rejected.
Kroeber (1909) stressed psychological and linguistic factors: terms follow eight principles such as generation, sex and lineality, and reflect ways of thinking more than institutions.
Rivers (1914) traced terms to social institutions: where cross-cousins marry, the mother's brother is also the father-in-law. Sapir (1916) suggested that the levirate could explain one term for father and father's brother.
Radcliffe-Brown pointed to structural principles: the equivalence of siblings merges father and father's brother, and the unity of the lineage explains Crow and Omaha terms that ignore generation.
Murdock (Social Structure, 1949) showed statistically that descent, residence and marriage rules predict terminology, which changes last. In India, Dravidian terms follow cross-cousin marriage (Dumont), and descriptive north Indian terms fit village exogamy (Karve).
Terminology is therefore shaped by several determinants, social structure being the strongest, and is best read as the set of categories a society uses to organise rights, duties and marriage.Q2(c) · Marriage · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Marriage Regulations and Marriage Payments
Discuss the different forms of preferential marriage with suitable examples from tribal societies in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत के जनजातीय समाजों में अधिमान्य विवाह के विभिन्न रूपों की उपयुक्त उदाहरणों सहित विवेचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q2(c)
Approach: Define preferential marriage and distinguish it from prescriptive marriage, then discuss each form with tribal examples and functions, with a cross-cousin diagram.
Preferential marriage names a preferred spouse without making the union compulsory, unlike prescriptive marriage, where a defined category of kin must be married (Lévi-Strauss).
Cross-cousin marriage is with the mother's brother's daughter (matrilateral) or father's sister's daughter (patrilateral). Among the Gond, marriage with the father's sister's daughter is called dudh lautawa, returning the milk; the Kharia and Oraon also allow cross-cousin unions, and the Garo heiress (nokna) is usually married to her father's sister's son (nokrom).
Levirate: a widow marries her dead husband's younger brother, common among the Santal, Ho, Munda and Oraon; it keeps her and her children in the lineage and protects the bride price paid.
Sororate: a widower marries his deceased wife's younger sister, continuing the alliance between the families.
Exchange marriage: sisters are exchanged between two families, as among the Gond, which avoids bride price and creates restricted exchange. Uncle-niece marriage with the elder sister's daughter is preferred in parts of Dravidian south India.
Diagram: ego (shaded triangle) with father and mother; mother's brother and his daughter marked MBD (cross-cousin), father's sister and her daughter marked FZD (cross-cousin), and father's brother's and mother's sister's daughters marked as parallel cousins (forbidden).
Preferential unions conserve property and bride price, renew alliances and give security to widows and children; they are declining with education, law and individual choice.
Question 3 (50 marks)
Q3(a) · Religion · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Forms of Religion in Tribal and Peasant Societies
Discuss the different traditional forms of religion in tribal societies.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जनजातीय समाजों में धर्म के विभिन्न परम्परागत रूपों की विवेचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q3(a)
Approach: Discuss the traditional forms (animism, animatism, naturism, fetishism, totemism, and ancestor worship and high gods) with the scholar behind each concept and Indian tribal examples, add a classification wheel, and close on change and syncretism.
Tribal religions are rarely of one pure type; anthropologists classify their elements into forms, each first theorised by an evolutionist scholar.
Animism: Tylor's belief in spiritual beings. The Munda, Ho and Santal propitiate bongas living in hills, groves and rivers; Verrier Elwin (1955) described the Saora world crowded with ancestors and spirits who speak through shamans.
Animatism: Marett's impersonal supernatural power, like Melanesian mana (Codrington, 1891); D.N. Majumdar interpreted Ho bonga partly as such diffuse power, calling Ho religion bongaism.
Naturism: Max Müller's worship of natural phenomena. Singbonga (the Sun) is the supreme deity of the Munda and Ho, Marang Buru (great mountain) of the Santal, and Niyam Raja of the Niyamgiri hills of the Dongria Kondh; the karam tree and sal blossoms are central to Karma and Sarhul.
Fetishism: belief that objects hold power, a term from Portuguese feitiço; vermilion-smeared stones representing village deities and amulets tied on children are examples.
Totemism: a mystical relation between a clan and a natural species, with taboo and exogamy, as in Oraon clans such as Ekka (tortoise) and Lakra (tiger) recorded by S.C. Roy, and the killis of the Munda.
Ancestor worship and high gods: Santal and Munda households honour ancestors at the hearth, and Andrew Lang and Wilhelm Schmidt pointed to high gods such as the Oraon Dharmes.
Diagram: a wheel with five segments, animism, animatism, naturism, fetishism and totemism, each with its scholar and one Indian example.
These forms coexist and change through Hinduisation and Christianisation, Vidyarthi's nature-man-spirit complex among the Maler showing them as one integrated worldview.Q3(b) · Political Organisation and Social Control · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Band, Tribe, Chiefdom, Kingdom and State
Mention the characteristic features of band with suitable examples.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
बैंड के विशिष्ट लक्षणों का उपयुक्त उदाहरणों सहित उल्लेख कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q3(b)
Approach: Define the band with Service, list its characteristic features one by one with world and Indian examples, and note the limits of the band model.
The band is the simplest form of political organisation in Elman Service's scheme (Primitive Social Organization, 1962): a small, kin-based, egalitarian group of foragers without formal government.
Small size and kinship: about 25 to 50 people, related by blood and marriage, as in the camps of the !Kung San and the Birhor tanda of a few related families.
Mobility and flexible membership: bands move seasonally and split or merge (fission and fusion) with resources and quarrels; the Mbuti (Colin Turnbull) and Hadza change camps often. Service separated patrilocal bands from composite bands formed of unrelated families.
Egalitarian leadership: there is no chief; a respected man leads by skill and persuasion and decisions are reached by consensus, as among the Inuit, Onge and Chenchu.
Economy: hunting and gathering, shared access to territory and generalized reciprocity, so wealth differences are small.
Social control: gossip, ridicule, withdrawal of cooperation, moving away and supernatural fear; the Inuit settled disputes by song duels.
Bands are not living fossils of early humans: many were shaped by contact with farmers and states, and in India most are now PVTGs under the state's welfare and forest laws.Q3(c) · Economic Organisation · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Production, Distribution and Exchange
With the help of appropriate examples, explain the various forms of exchange system.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
विनिमय प्रणाली के विभिन्न रूपों की उचित उदाहरणों की सहायता से व्याख्या कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q3(c)
Approach: Explain the forms of exchange using Polanyi's three forms of integration and Sahlins's three types of reciprocity, with an ethnographic example for each, and draw Sahlins's rings.
Exchange is the transfer of goods and services between persons or groups; Karl Polanyi identified three forms of integration of an economy: reciprocity, redistribution and market exchange.
Reciprocity (Marshall Sahlins, 1965): generalized reciprocity is giving without counting, as in meat-sharing among the !Kung and Birhor; balanced reciprocity is a return of equal value within a set time, as in the kula of the Trobriand islanders (Malinowski) and gift exchange at Indian marriages; negative reciprocity is trying to get something for nothing, through haggling, theft or raiding, as in Trobriand gimwali barter. Sahlins showed that reciprocity becomes less generous as social distance grows.
Redistribution: goods flow to a centre and back out, creating rank, as in the Kwakiutl potlatch (Boas), Trobriand chiefs' yam stores, Naga feasts of merit and the grain shares of the jajmani system (Wiser, 1936).
Market exchange: impersonal exchange at prices set by supply and demand, usually with money; Bohannan and Dalton (1962) separated marketless, peripheral-market and market-dominated societies, and tribal haats in Bastar are peripheral markets with social and ritual functions (Alfred Gell, 1982).
Other forms: barter and silent trade (Mbuti and Bantu villagers), and spheres of exchange among the Tiv (Bohannan) that money later broke down.
Most societies combine all forms, and the dominant form reflects social structure.
Diagram: concentric circles for household, lineage, village, tribe and outsiders, with an outward arrow labelled generalized, balanced, negative reciprocity.
Question 4 (50 marks)
Q4(a) · Anthropological Theories · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Culture and Personality, Neo-evolutionism and Later Theories
Explain Ruth Benedict's patterns of culture.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
रुथ बेनेडिक्ट के संस्कृति-प्रतिरूपों की विवेचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q4(a)
Approach: Explain Benedict’s concept of patterns (configurations) of culture, illustrate with the Zuni, Kwakiutl and Dobu, bring in her ideas on normality and relativism, and critically evaluate.
Ruth Benedict (1887–1948), a student of Boas, argued in Patterns of Culture (1934) that a culture is not a random collection of traits but an integrated whole with a dominant theme or configuration. From the great arc of possible human behaviours each culture selects some, elaborates them and suppresses others, so that culture is like an individual personality writ large.
Zuni (Apollonian): the Pueblo Zuni of New Mexico valued restraint, moderation, cooperation and ritual exactness; ecstatic experience, drunkenness and personal ambition were shunned.
Kwakiutl (Dionysian, megalomaniac): on the North-West Coast, chiefs sought ecstasy in winter dances and engaged in competitive potlatches in which property was distributed or destroyed to shame rivals, showing a pattern of self-glorification and rivalry.
Dobu (paranoid): drawing on Reo Fortune’s fieldwork in Melanesia, she described the Dobuans as suspicious and treacherous, fearing sorcery even from spouses, with alternating residence between the villages of husband and wife.
Normality and relativism: since each culture rewards a different temperament, what is abnormal in one, such as trance among Americans, may be honoured in another, as with shamans. Hence normality is culturally defined, a strong argument for cultural relativism.
Critique: her portraits were selective (Li An-che on Zuni conflict; Codere showing the Kwakiutl potlatch shaped by colonial wealth and population decline), used literary labels taken from Nietzsche, neglected history and individual variation, and treated cultures as uniform.
Nevertheless, the work popularised anthropology, introduced cultural integration and psychological typology, and paved the way for national character studies.Q4(b) · Culture, Communication and Research Methods · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Fieldwork Tradition, Technique, Method and Methodology
Elucidate the basic characteristics of anthropological fieldwork methods.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
नृवैज्ञानिक क्षेत्र-कार्य विधियों के मूल अभिलक्षणों पर प्रकाश डालिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q4(b)
Approach: Explain the defining characteristics of anthropological fieldwork, anchored in Malinowski’s principles and types of data, with examples, and close with limitations.
Anthropological fieldwork is the intensive, first-hand study of a community in its natural setting. Its characteristics were codified by Malinowski in the introduction to Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922), where he set three conditions: real scientific aims, living among the people away from other Europeans, and special methods of collecting, handling and recording evidence.
Characteristics: (i) long duration, usually at least a year to cover the full annual cycle of economic and ritual life; (ii) participant observation as the core technique; (iii) learning the local language; (iv) holism, studying economy, kinship, politics and religion as interconnected; (v) the emic aim of grasping the native’s point of view; (vi) rapport and key informants; (vii) a combination of techniques: census, genealogy, interviews, case studies, life histories and mapping.
Malinowski’s three kinds of data: the skeleton of tribal constitution recorded through concrete statistical documentation; the imponderabilia of actual life, observed behaviour in daily routine; and a corpus of native statements, narratives and texts revealing their mentality.
Recording and ethics: daily field notes, a diary, photographs, and now informed consent and reflexive awareness of the researcher’s position.
Limitations: small scale limits generalisation, subjectivity and observer effects persist, and long stays are costly; hence restudies and mixed methods supplement it.Q4(c) · Anthropological Theories · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Culture and Personality, Neo-evolutionism and Later Theories
Critically examine the Stewardian view of neo-evolutionism.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
नव-विकासवाद (नियो-इवोल्यूशनिज्म) के स्टीवार्डियन मत की समीक्षात्मक जाँच कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q4(c)
Approach: Explain Steward’s multilinear evolution and cultural ecology with the Shoshone and irrigation-civilization examples, then critically examine strengths and weaknesses.
Julian Steward (1902–1972), in Theory of Culture Change (1955), offered a middle path between the unilinear schemes of the classical evolutionists and the historical particularism of Boas. He called it multilinear evolution: the search for regular, parallel sequences of development in cultures facing similar environments, without claiming one universal path.
Cultural ecology: Steward studied how a society’s technology interacts with its environment. The culture core, the traits most closely tied to subsistence, is shaped by ecology, while secondary features vary through history and diffusion. Among the Western Shoshone of the Great Basin, scattered and unpredictable seeds and game kept people in family-level groups that gathered only seasonally.
Cross-cultural regularities: Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus region (debated), China, Peru and Mesoamerica passed through similar stages, from incipient farming to irrigation states and conquest empires; he also developed levels of sociocultural integration.
Critique: (i) environmental determinism, since similar environments can support different cultures; (ii) Wittfogel-like stress on irrigation is doubted, as states often preceded large irrigation works; (iii) his Shoshone data were later revised; (iv) ideology and history receive little weight. Yet his work founded ecological anthropology and influenced Rappaport, Harris and settlement archaeology.
Question 5 (50 marks)
Q5(a) · Population Genetics, Race and Human Variation · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Hardy–Weinberg Law, Genetic Polymorphism and Inbreeding
Hardy-Weinberg law
हिंदी में प्रश्न
हार्डी-वाइनबर्ग नियम
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(a)
Approach: State the law with its formula, assumptions and a worked example, and note its significance.
The Hardy-Weinberg law, formulated independently by the mathematician G.H. Hardy and the physician Wilhelm Weinberg in 1908, states that in a large, randomly mating population, in the absence of mutation, migration, selection and drift, allele and genotype frequencies remain constant over generations.
Formula: for two alleles A and a with frequencies p and q (p + q = 1), genotype frequencies are AA = p², Aa = 2pq and aa = q², so p² + 2pq + q² = 1. Equilibrium is restored in a single generation of random mating.
Worked example: if 16 per cent of a population are non-tasters of PTC (tt), q² = 0.16, so q = 0.4 and p = 0.6; homozygous tasters are 0.36 and heterozygous tasters 0.48 (48 per cent).
Significance: it is the baseline for detecting evolutionary change, estimating carrier frequencies for genetic counselling (for thalassaemia or sickle-cell trait), measuring inbreeding and calculating forensic DNA probabilities.Q5(b) · Prehistoric Archaeology · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Cultures
Salient features of Mesolithic culture
हिंदी में प्रश्न
मध्यपाषाण संस्कृति के मुख्य लक्षण
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(b)
Approach: A short note listing the salient features of the Mesolithic (climate, microliths, economy, settlement, burial, art, pottery) with Indian and world examples.
The Mesolithic is the cultural stage between the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic, belonging to the early Holocene (after about 11,700 years ago) when a warmer climate brought forests, smaller game and new plant foods.
Microliths, tiny backed blades and geometric shapes (lunates, triangles, trapezes), were hafted into composite tools such as arrows, harpoons and sickles; the bow and arrow became common.
A broad-spectrum economy of hunting deer and pig, fishing and plant gathering developed, with early herding at Bagor and Adamgarh in India. Camps became longer-lasting, with hut floors, hearths and storage, as at Sarai Nahar Rai, Mahadaha and Star Carr.
Burials with ornaments (Mahadaha, Langhnaj), rock art (Bhimbetka) and early handmade pottery (Chopani Mando; Ertebølle in Denmark) appear.
The Mesolithic was thus a gradual transition to food production, and in India microlith-using foragers coexisted with farmers for millennia.Q5(c) · Population Genetics, Race and Human Variation · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Race and Racism
Concept of race
हिंदी में प्रश्न
प्रजाति की संकल्पना
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(c)
Approach: Define race through classical and genetic definitions, outline major classifications (world and India), and give the modern critique.
Classically, a race was defined as a large group of people sharing a combination of inherited physical traits, such as skin colour, hair form, head and nose shape, that distinguish it from other groups. In genetic terms, Theodosius Dobzhansky defined races as populations that differ in the frequencies of some genes.
Classifications: Linnaeus (1758) and Blumenbach (1795, five races) ranked humanity by appearance; Coon, Garn and Birdsell (1950) related races to adaptation.
In India, H.H. Risley (The People of India, 1908) proposed seven types and B.S. Guha (1931, 1935) six main races: Negrito, Proto-Australoid, Mongoloid, Mediterranean, Western Brachycephals and Nordic.
Critique: human variation is continuous and clinal, traits are discordant, most genetic variation lies within groups (Lewontin, 1972), and racial labels have served racism. Hence modern anthropology prefers population, ancestry and ethnic group, treating race as a social construct.Q5(d) · Reproductive Biology, Demography and Applied Anthropology · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Menarche, Menopause and Fertility Patterns
Age at menarche
हिंदी में प्रश्न
प्रथम रजोदर्शन पर आयु
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(d)
Approach: A short note: define menarche, give average ages and the secular trend, list the factors, and state its relevance to fertility and culture.
Menarche is the first menstrual period, a late event of female puberty that usually comes about two years after breast budding and after the adolescent growth spurt. Mean age is about 12.5 to 13 years in well-nourished populations and later in poorer and high-altitude groups.
Secular trend: Tanner's data show a fall in Europe from about 16 to 17 years in the 1850s to about 13 by the late twentieth century; Indian urban girls also mature earlier than rural and tribal girls.
Factors: heredity, nutrition and body fat (Frisch and Revelle's critical weight of about 47 kg, 1970), socio-economic status, disease, altitude, intense physical training and psychosocial stress.
Relevance: menarche opens the reproductive span, but the first one or two years have many anovulatory cycles (adolescent sub-fecundity); culturally it is marked by puberty rites, such as the manjal neerattu ceremony in Tamil Nadu, and often signalled marriageability.
Age at menarche is thus a bio-cultural indicator of nutrition and development, useful in population health monitoring.Q5(e) · Reproductive Biology, Demography and Applied Anthropology · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Applications of Anthropology
Anthropology and designing of equipments
हिंदी में प्रश्न
नृविज्ञान और उपस्कर रूपांकन
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(e)
Approach: A short note: the principle of anthropometric design, percentiles, and examples from defence and civilian life, with an Indian angle.
Anthropology helps design equipment through anthropometry and ergonomics, ensuring that objects fit the bodies and habits of their users; poorly fitting equipment causes fatigue, error and injury.
Designers use population data on stature, reach, sitting height, hand size and strength, typically covering the 5th to 95th percentile, and provide adjustability where variation is wide.
Examples: helmets, uniforms, body armour, cockpits and gun handles in defence; vehicle seats, school and office furniture, hand tools and agricultural implements designed from the CIAE Bhopal data on Indian farm workers (Gite and colleagues, 2009); and clothing and footwear size standards. Cultural habits such as squatting and floor-sitting must also be considered.
Since Indian body dimensions differ from Western ones and change with the secular trend, imported designs often misfit; updated Indian surveys, including women and tribal groups, make design safer and more efficient.
Question 6 (50 marks)
Q6(a) · Foundations of Anthropology · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Main Branches of Anthropology
Define Anthropology. Describe the major branches of Anthropology elaborating on any one branch. (5+15=20)
हिंदी में प्रश्न
नृविज्ञान की परिभाषा दीजिए। नृविज्ञान की प्रमुख शाखाओं का वर्णन करते हुए किसी एक शाखा को सुपरिष्कृत कीजिए। (5+15=20)
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(a)
Approach: Part one (5 marks): define anthropology. Part two (15 marks): list the four major branches with their sub-fields briefly, then elaborate one branch (here social-cultural anthropology) on scope, method and examples; a branch chart helps.
Definition: anthropology (Greek anthropos, human, and logos, study) is the holistic and comparative study of human beings in all places and all times (Ember and Ember). Kroeber saw it as both a natural and a social science, and its hallmarks are holism, fieldwork and cultural relativism.
Major branches: (1) social-cultural anthropology, the study of society and culture; (2) biological anthropology, covering human evolution, primatology, human genetics, variation and adaptation, and forensic anthropology; (3) archaeological anthropology, the reconstruction of past cultures from material remains, with prehistoric archaeology and ethnoarchaeology; (4) linguistic anthropology, covering descriptive and historical linguistics and sociolinguistics. Applied anthropology cuts across all four.
Diagram: a tree with Anthropology at the top, four branches below, and two or three sub-fields under each, with applied anthropology drawn as a band across them.
Social-cultural anthropology elaborated: British social anthropology (Radcliffe-Brown) studied social structure and relations; American cultural anthropology (Boas, Kroeber) studied culture as learned and shared patterns. Its scope covers family, marriage and kinship, economy, polity and law, religion and magic, personality and social change.
Method: Malinowski's long-term participant observation in the Trobriand Islands, Rivers's genealogical method, case studies and comparison, using the emic view.
Ethnographies: Malinowski on the kula (1922), Evans-Pritchard on Nuer segmentary lineages (1940), Margaret Mead on Samoa (1928); in India, S.C. Roy on the Mundas and Oraons, Verrier Elwin on the Baiga, Furer-Haimendorf on the Chenchus and Apatanis, and Srinivas on Coorgs and Rampura.
Relevance: it informs tribal policy (Fifth and Sixth Schedules, PESA 1996, FRA 2006), development, health and conflict studies. The branches together make anthropology the most complete science of humankind.Q6(b) · Primates · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Comparative Anatomy of Man and Apes and Erect Posture
Bring out the comparative anatomical features of man and apes. Discuss their evolutionary significance.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
मनुष्य एवं कपियों के शारीरीय लक्षणों का तुलनात्मक विवरण दीजिए। उनके विकासीय महत्त्व की विवेचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(b)
Approach: Compare man and apes region by region (skull and brain, teeth and jaws, spine and limbs, pelvis and foot, other traits), preferably in a compact comparison, then discuss what the differences mean for human evolution.
T.H. Huxley in Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (1863) showed that humans and the African apes share a common body plan.
Skull and brain: humans average about 1,350 cc against about 400 to 500 cc in great apes; the human skull is globular with a vertical forehead, small brow ridges, no sagittal crest, and a central, downward-facing foramen magnum; apes have a low vault, heavy brow ridges and a rearward foramen magnum.
Face, teeth and jaws: apes are prognathous with a U-shaped dental arcade, large canines with a diastema, a sectorial lower first premolar and a simian shelf; humans have a flat face, a parabolic arcade, small canines, no diastema, a bicuspid premolar and a chin.
Trunk and limbs: humans have an S-shaped spine, against a C-shaped spine in apes; humans have long legs and shorter arms (intermembral index about 70, against about 106 in chimpanzees).
Pelvis and foot: the human pelvis is short and bowl-shaped, the femur angles inward to the knee and the foot is arched with a non-opposable big toe; the ape pelvis is tall and narrow, the femur straight and the big toe grasping.
Evolutionary significance: lower-body changes for bipedalism appear first in fossils such as Lucy, while brain enlargement and facial reduction came later, showing mosaic evolution. Freed hands and a large brain made tool making and culture possible.Q6(c) · Prehistoric Archaeology · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Principles of Prehistoric Archaeology and Dating Methods
What are dating methods? Discuss one absolute method and one relative method in detail.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
काल-निर्धारण प्रणालियाँ क्या हैं? एक परम विधि और एक सापेक्षिक विधि की सविस्तार विवेचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(c)
Approach: Define dating methods and their two classes, then explain radiocarbon (absolute) and stratigraphy (relative) in detail with principle, use and limits.
Dating methods are techniques that place archaeological and fossil material in time. Relative methods tell whether something is older or younger than something else; absolute (chronometric) methods give an age in years with an error range.
Absolute method, radiocarbon: Willard Libby (1949) showed that cosmic rays produce carbon-14, which living organisms absorb along with ordinary carbon. After death, C-14 decays with a half-life of about 5,730 years, so the proportion remaining gives the time since death.
It dates charcoal, wood, seeds, bone and shell up to about 50,000 years; AMS needs only milligrams. Dates must be calibrated with tree rings because atmospheric C-14 varied, and contamination and the marine reservoir effect must be controlled. It dated Mehrgarh, Burzahom and the Harappan cities.
Relative method, stratigraphy: based on Steno's law of superposition and Lyell's uniformitarianism, it holds that in undisturbed deposits lower layers are older. Excavators record each layer and the finds within it, recognising pits, burrows and floods that disturb the order.
At Bhimbetka, Acheulian tools lie below Middle Palaeolithic, Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic layers, giving a cultural sequence; Soan valley terraces were correlated with Himalayan glacial phases.
The two are complementary: stratigraphy supplies the order and context, radiocarbon fixes it in years.
Question 7 (50 marks)
Q7(a) · Human Genetics: Methods, Inheritance and Chromosomes · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Methods of Studying Human Genetics
Briefly describe the various methods used in the genetic study of man.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
मनुष्य के आनुवंशिक अध्ययन में प्रयुक्त होने वाली विभिन्न विधियों का संक्षेप में वर्णन कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(a)
Approach: Describe briefly each method (pedigree, twin, adoption, population-statistical, cytogenetic, biochemical, molecular, linkage and association, somatic cell and consanguinity studies), with what it reveals and an example.
Since controlled breeding experiments are impossible in humans, and generations are long and families small, human genetics relies on a range of indirect methods.
(i) Pedigree method: family trees with standard symbols reveal dominant, recessive, X-linked or mitochondrial inheritance, as in Queen Victoria’s haemophilia pedigree. (ii) Twin method: introduced by Francis Galton (1875); comparing concordance in identical and fraternal twins separates heredity from environment, as for stature or tuberculosis susceptibility. (iii) Adoption and foster-child studies further separate genes from family environment.
(iv) Population or statistical method: the Hardy-Weinberg law, gene frequency surveys and segregation analysis estimate gene frequencies, carrier rates and inbreeding effects, as in sickle-cell surveys among tribes of central India. (v) Consanguinity studies compare children of related and unrelated parents to detect recessive genes.
(vi) Cytogenetic method: karyotyping, banding and FISH identify chromosomal disorders such as Down and Turner syndromes. (vii) Biochemical methods detect enzyme and protein variants, as in Garrod’s inborn errors of metabolism (1909), haemoglobin electrophoresis and G6PD testing.
(viii) Molecular methods: PCR, sequencing, DNA markers and ancient DNA reveal mutations and population history. (ix) Linkage analysis and genome-wide association studies map genes for disease. (x) Somatic cell hybridisation, fusing human and rodent cells, was used to assign genes to chromosomes. (xi) Dermatoglyphics and anthropometry have also served as polygenic markers.
These methods are complementary: modern studies combine pedigree, population and molecular data.Q7(b) · Ecological Anthropology, Epidemiology and Human Growth · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Ecological Anthropology and Bio-cultural Adaptation
Discuss the responses and acclimatization to high altitude stresses.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
उच्च तुंगता प्रतिबलों के प्रति अनुक्रियाओं और पर्यनुकूलन की विवेचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(b)
Approach: Identify high-altitude stresses, then describe immediate responses, acclimatization of sojourners, developmental and genetic adaptation of natives, and maladaptation (mountain sicknesses), with examples, ending with cultural support.
Over 80 million people live above 2,500 metres in the Himalaya and Tibetan plateau, the Andes and the Ethiopian highlands. At 4,000 metres barometric pressure, and so the partial pressure of oxygen, is only about 60 per cent of sea-level values; other stresses are cold, low humidity, high ultraviolet radiation and poor nutrition.
Immediate responses: hyperventilation, raised heart rate and cardiac output, and release of erythropoietin. Acclimatization over weeks: red cell mass and haemoglobin rise, 2,3-DPG increases to unload oxygen, plasma volume falls and capillary density in muscles increases. Soldiers inducted into Ladakh are staged gradually for this reason.
Developmental adaptation: children growing up at altitude, as among Andean Quechua studied by Frisancho and Baker, develop larger chests, lung volumes and diffusing capacity, though growth is slower and birth weight lower.
Genetic adaptation: Tibetans and Sherpas carry EPAS1 and EGLN1 variants associated with lower haemoglobin, higher resting ventilation, more nitric oxide and blood flow, and better birth weights, a pattern Cynthia Beall contrasted with the high-haemoglobin Andean pattern.
Maladaptation: acute mountain sickness and high-altitude pulmonary and cerebral oedema in newcomers, and chronic mountain sickness (Monge’s disease) with excessive red cells among some Andean natives.
Cultural practices such as warm clothing, high-calorie diets and heat-conserving houses support these biological responses.Q7(c) · Reproductive Biology, Demography and Applied Anthropology · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Demographic Theories and Factors of Fertility and Mortality
Describe the biological and socio-ecological factors affecting fertility and mortality.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जननक्षमता (प्रजनन-शक्ति) और मृत्यु-दर को प्रभावित करने वाले जैविक एवं सामाजिक-पारिस्थितिक कारकों का वर्णन कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(c)
Approach: Describe, in two parallel sections, the biological and socio-ecological factors of fertility and then of mortality, with examples; a table can summarise them.
Fertility and mortality are the two engines of population change; anthropologists see both as bio-cultural, since biological potential is realised within an ecological and social setting.
Fertility, biological: menarche, menopause, fecundability, lactational amenorrhoea, nutrition, and disease-related sterility. Fertility, socio-ecological: marriage age and form, abstinence rules, son preference, children's labour value in farming and forest economies, education, urban residence and family planning.
Mortality, biological: age pattern (a U-shaped curve, high in infancy and old age), the female survival advantage, birth weight, maternal age and inherited disorders such as sickle-cell anaemia and G6PD deficiency in malarial tribal belts.
Mortality, socio-ecological: famine and food insecurity, water and sanitation, housing, climate (heat waves, floods), malaria and other ecological diseases, occupational hazards such as silicosis among quarry workers, health care and immunisation, maternal education and gender discrimination, which produced excess female child mortality in north-western India. Introduced diseases devastated isolated groups such as the Great Andamanese, whose numbers fell from several thousand in the 1850s to a few dozen.
Diagram: a two-column table, biological versus socio-ecological, with rows for fertility and mortality and one Indian example in each cell.
As mortality falls first and fertility follows, as demographic transition theory predicts, the same factors, education, nutrition and health care, decide how fast a population moves to low birth and death rates.
Question 8 (50 marks)
Q8(a) · Reproductive Biology, Demography and Applied Anthropology · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Applications of Anthropology
What are the methods of personal identification? Critically examine how personal identification helps in criminal investigations.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
वैयक्तिक पहचान की विधियाँ कौन-कौन सी हैं? आपराधिक जाँच-पड़तालों में वैयक्तिक पहचान कैसे सहायता करती है, इसकी समीक्षात्मक जाँच कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(a)
Approach: Two parts: list the methods of personal identification of the living and the dead, then critically examine their use in criminal investigation, including limits and miscarriages of justice.
Personal identification is the establishment of an individual's identity from physical traits, biological material or remains; it underlies both criminal investigation and civil matters such as inheritance and missing persons.
Methods: Alphonse Bertillon's body measurement system (1880s), soon displaced by dactyloscopy, fingerprints established by Galton (1892) and classified by the Henry system developed in Bengal with Azizul Haque and Hem Chandra Bose; somatoscopic marks (scars, tattoos, deformities); odontology (dental records, bite marks); skeletal profiling of sex, age, stature and ancestry; facial reconstruction and skull-photo superimposition; serology and DNA profiling; and modern biometrics such as iris, face and gait recognition, used in Aadhaar since 2010.
Role in criminal investigation: linking suspects to scenes through fingerprints and DNA, following Locard's principle that every contact leaves a trace; identifying victims of murder or mass disaster; establishing the age of accused juveniles and victims under the POCSO Act; and freeing the wrongly accused. The first DNA conviction, of Colin Pitchfork in England (1988), also cleared an innocent suspect.
Critical view: methods are only as good as collection and chain of custody; contamination and poor scene handling weakened famous Indian cases such as the Aarushi Talwar case (2008); bite-mark and hair comparison have been discredited; skeletal standards drawn from Western samples misestimate Indians; and Indian forensic laboratories face backlogs. Databases also raise privacy concerns, and India's DNA Technology Regulation Bill was withdrawn in 2023.
Diagram: the three basic fingerprint patterns, loop (about 60–65 percent), whorl (about 30–35 percent) and arch (about 5 percent).
Personal identification is thus indispensable to justice, but must be scientifically validated, population-specific and handled by trained experts; the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (2023) makes forensic examination of the scene compulsory for offences punishable with seven years or more.Q8(b) · Ecological Anthropology, Epidemiology and Human Growth · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Human Growth, Development and Ageing
Describe the various methods of studying growth highlighting their merits and demerits.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
वृद्धि के अध्ययन में प्रयुक्त विभिन्न विधियों का वर्णन उनके गुणों और दोषों को स्पष्ट करते हुए कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(b)
Approach: Explain the variables and standard techniques of growth study, then describe the longitudinal, cross-sectional and mixed-longitudinal methods with merits and demerits, and the growth curves each yields.
Growth studies measure standard variables, such as stature, weight, sitting height, head and arm circumference, skinfolds, skeletal age from hand-wrist X-rays, dental age and sexual maturity (Tanner stages), using standardised instruments and techniques to reduce error. Data are plotted as distance curves (size at each age) and velocity curves (rate of growth).
Longitudinal method: the same children are measured repeatedly over years. Merits: individual distance and velocity curves, the true timing and size of the adolescent spurt, and the relation of early to later growth. Demerits: long duration, high cost, loss of subjects, changes in staff and equipment, and delayed results.
Cross-sectional method: different children of each age are measured once. Merits: rapid, economical and suited to large representative samples, so it is used for growth standards and nutritional surveys such as NFHS. Demerits: no individual velocity; the averaged curve flattens the adolescent spurt because children mature at different ages; differences between age groups can reflect sampling or secular change.
Mixed-longitudinal method: overlapping cohorts followed for shorter periods give velocity information in less time, but require complex analysis.
Thus each method suits different aims, and many studies combine them.Q8(c) · Ecological Anthropology, Epidemiology and Human Growth · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Human Growth, Development and Ageing
Discuss Sheldon's method of somatotyping.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
शेल्डन की कायप्ररूपण (सोमेटोटाइपिंग) विधि की विवेचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(c)
Approach: Describe Sheldon’s photographic method (sample, photographs, three components, 7-point rating, ponderal index, somatotype notation), his temperament correlations, and the criticisms that led to the Parnell and Heath-Carter methods.
Somatotyping is the description of human physique as a combination of components rather than as fixed types. William H. Sheldon introduced it in The Varieties of Human Physique (1940), based on standardised photographs of about 4,000 American college men.
Method: each subject was photographed nude in front, side and back views in a standard pose. Sheldon recognised three components: (i) endomorphy, softness and roundness with a predominance of the digestive organs; (ii) mesomorphy, muscle and bone, a rectangular, sturdy build; (iii) ectomorphy, linearity and fragility, with a large surface area relative to mass. Each was rated on a seven-point scale by inspection, aided by measurements on the photographs and the ponderal index (height divided by the cube root of weight). A somatotype is written as three numbers in the order endomorphy, mesomorphy, ectomorphy, so 1-7-1 is an extreme mesomorph and 4-4-4 balanced.
Temperament: in The Varieties of Temperament (1942) he claimed correlations with viscerotonia (sociable, comfort-loving), somatotonia (assertive, active) and cerebrotonia (restrained, intellectual).
Criticism: ratings were subjective, the scale was closed at 7, he assumed somatotype was genetically fixed despite changes with diet and exercise, the temperament links were not confirmed, and the nude photographs raised ethical concerns. R.W. Parnell (1954) introduced an anthropometric method, and Heath and Carter (1967) a fully anthropometric, open-ended one now in standard use.
UPSC Mains 2017 Anthropology Paper II
Question 1 (50 marks)
Q1(a) · Evolution of Indian Culture and Civilization · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Prehistoric Cultures of India
Neolithic cultures of South India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
दक्षिण भारत की नवपाषाण संस्कृतियाँ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(a)
Approach: A short note on the Southern Neolithic: area, sites, dates, economy, ash mounds and significance.
The Southern Neolithic covers the granite hill country of north Karnataka, western Andhra Pradesh and northern Tamil Nadu, from about 3000 to 1200 BCE.
Sites: Utnur and Palavoy (Andhra Pradesh); Kupgal, Budihal, Sanganakallu, Brahmagiri, Maski, Piklihal, Tekkalakota and Hallur (Karnataka); Paiyampalli (Tamil Nadu).
Features: polished stone axes, grey burnished pottery, circular wattle-and-daub huts, cultivation of millets and pulses such as horse gram and green gram, and a strong cattle economy. Its hallmark is the ash mound, formed by burning accumulated cattle dung, which F.R. Allchin, excavating Utnur, interpreted as cattle pens burnt periodically, perhaps in festivals; Budihal has a butchery floor, and Kupgal has rock bruisings of cattle.
The pastoral emphasis and ash mounds find a parallel in present cattle festivals of the region, and the culture forms the base of the later south Indian Iron Age megaliths.Q1(b) · Demographic Profile and the Traditional Indian Social System · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Ethnic and Linguistic Elements in the Indian Population
Austro-asiatic linguistic groups in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत में आस्ट्रो-एशियाई भाषायी समूह।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(b)
Approach: A short note: Austro-Asiatic groups in India by branch and region, with numbers and features.
Austro-Asiatic speakers formed 1.11 percent of India's population in Census 2011 and are regarded by many scholars as among the oldest linguistic groups of eastern India.
Munda groups of the Chota Nagpur plateau and adjoining Odisha, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh: Santal, Munda, Ho, Bhumij, Birhor and Asur (North Munda), Korku of the Satpuras, and Kharia, Juang, Saora, Gadaba and Bondo (South Munda).
Khasi groups of Meghalaya, the Khasi, Pnar (Jaintia), War and Lyngngam, matrilineal communities speaking Mon-Khmer languages; and the Nicobarese of the Nicobar Islands.
Santali, with about 73 lakh speakers (2011), is the largest and is in the Eighth Schedule (2003). Shared traits include megalithic memorials, rice cultivation and similar kin terms, and genetic studies point to links with South-East Asia; the smaller languages are endangered.Q1(c) · Demographic Profile and the Traditional Indian Social System · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Varnashrama, Purushartha, Karma, Rina and Rebirth
Varnashram and the concept of Rina.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
वर्णाश्रम एवं ऋण की संकल्पना।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(c)
Approach: A short note: varnashrama briefly, the three (or four) rinas with sources and how each is repaid at different stages, and social implications.
Varnashrama fixes duty by varna and by the four ashramas (brahmacharya, grihastha, vanaprastha, sannyasa). The concept of rina, sacred debt, tells the individual what is owed in the course of these stages.
The Taittiriya Samhita names three debts with which a Brahmin is born: rishi rina to the sages, repaid by Vedic study in brahmacharya; deva rina to the gods, repaid by sacrifice; and pitri rina to the ancestors, repaid by begetting a son and performing shraddha as a householder. The Shatapatha Brahmana adds a debt to fellow humans, repaid by hospitality.
Only after repaying these debts was a man considered free to seek moksha in the later ashramas, so rina links the life stages to obligations toward society, knowledge and lineage.
Pitri rina underlies the importance of sons, marriage as a sacrament (K.M. Kapadia) and shraddha rites such as pind-daan at Gaya, and it partly explains son preference in Indian demography.Q1(d) · Evolution of Indian Culture and Civilization · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Palaeo-anthropological Evidence and Ethno-archaeology in India
Ethno-archaeology.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
नृजाति-पुरातत्त्व विज्ञान (इथनो-आरकियोलोजी)।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(d)
Approach: A short note: definition and origin of the term, the method, Indian examples and the main caution.
Ethno-archaeology is the archaeological study of living societies to understand how material culture is produced, used and deposited, in order to interpret the archaeological record. Jesse Walter Fewkes used the term ethno-archaeologist in 1900, and Lewis Binford's Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology (1978) and Richard Gould's Living Archaeology (1980) established it.
Methods include observation of crafts, settlement layout and discard, interviews and experimental replication, using analogy to link present and past.
Indian examples: Khambhat agate bead-makers and Harappan beads (Kenoyer, Vidale and Bhan); Dhokra casters and Harappan lost-wax bronzes; southern Neolithic ash mounds and cattle pens (Allchin); Inamgaon houses and Maharashtra villages (Dhavalikar); and Khasi memorial stones and megaliths.
Its main caution is the direct historical fallacy: living communities have their own histories and must not be treated as unchanged survivals of prehistory.Q1(e) · Caste System and Religions in Indian Society · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Sacred Complex, Nature-Man-Spirit Complex and the Impact of Religions
Nature-man-spirit complex.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
प्रकृति-मानव-आत्मा सम्मिश्र।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(e)
Approach: A short note: source, the three components with the Maler example, the core argument, and one present use.
The nature-man-spirit complex was proposed by L.P. Vidyarthi in his study of the Maler (Sauria Paharia) of the Rajmahal hills, published as The Maler (1963).
Nature is the hill-forest habitat that supports shifting cultivation, hunting and gathering. Man is the social order of village, lineage, headman and council. Spirit is the world of hill, forest and ancestral spirits, both benevolent and malevolent, served by ritual specialists.
Vidyarthi argued that these three are interlinked: economic activities are hedged by rituals, social offices have religious duties, and spirits are located in the landscape. A tribe's culture must therefore be studied as a whole, close to Julian Steward's cultural ecology.
The concept is used today to explain sacred groves, tribal resistance to mining such as the Dongria Kondh's defence of Niyamgiri (2013), and to argue for culturally sensitive, community-led forest management.
Question 2 (50 marks)
Q2(a) · Anthropology in India · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Indian Anthropologists and Tribal and Caste Studies
Discuss the contribution of Nirmal Kumar Bose to the understanding of Indian society.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारतीय समाज को समझने में निर्मल कुमार बोस के योगदान की विवेचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q2(a)
Approach: Cover Bose's understanding of Indian society as a whole: civilisational unity in material culture, caste as a production system, tribal absorption, peasant and urban studies, Gandhian thought, and policy, with a short critique.
Nirmal Kumar Bose (1901–1972) approached Indian society as a single civilisation with regional variety, combining anthropology, geography, history and Gandhian social thought.
Unity in diversity: in Peasant Life in India (1961) he and his team mapped the distribution of material culture, such as types of ploughs, oil presses, huts and food, and found a common substratum across regions, an empirical basis for India's cultural unity.
Structure of Hindu society: in Hindu Samajer Garan (1949), translated by André Beteille as The Structure of Hindu Society (1975), he argued that caste was a non-competitive system of production in which each group had a hereditary monopoly of an occupation, giving economic security and allowing diverse groups to coexist under Brahminical ideology. He showed how this system was breaking down under colonial markets and modern employment.
Tribes in civilisation: his 'Hindu method of tribal absorption' (1941) on the Juang showed tribes being incorporated gradually by being given an occupational and ritual place.
Other studies: his social survey of Calcutta (1968) analysed caste and ethnic clustering in a modern city, and his early study of Orissan temple architecture linked craft traditions to texts. As Gandhi's secretary in Noakhali (1946–47) he wrote My Days with Gandhi and studies of Gandhism, seeing non-violent action as a means of social change.
Policy: as Director of the Anthropological Survey (1959–1964) and Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (1967–1970) he highlighted land alienation and exploitation as causes of unrest.
Critics find his picture of caste too harmonious and his absorption model Hindu-centred, but Bose gave Indian anthropology a civilisational and historical perspective that still guides the study of Indian society.Q2(b) · Evolution of Indian Culture and Civilization · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Prehistoric Cultures of India
Describe the salient features of chalcolithic cultures of the Deccan.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
डेक्कन की ताम्रपाषाण (चालकोलिथिक) संस्कृतियों के प्रमुख लक्षणों का वर्णन कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q2(b)
Approach: Describe the Deccan Chalcolithic: phases with dates, key sites, settlement, economy, crafts, burials and decline, using Inamgaon as the main example.
The Chalcolithic cultures of the Deccan were farming villages using copper alongside stone blades, in the black-soil valleys of the Godavari, Pravara, Bhima and Tapi in Maharashtra, from about 2000 to 700 BCE.
Phases: Savalda (about 2000–1800 BCE), a late Harappan phase at Daimabad, the Malwa phase (about 1700–1400 BCE) and the Jorwe culture (about 1400–700 BCE), named after Jorwe near Ahmednagar; sites include Inamgaon, Daimabad, Nevasa, Chandoli, Prakash and Songaon.
Inamgaon (Deccan College, 1968–83, under Sankalia, Dhavalikar and Ansari) shows rectangular houses, granary pits, an embankment and channel to divert the Ghod river, and a large five-roomed house interpreted as a chief's, suggesting ranked society. Crops included barley, wheat, lentils and some rice; cattle, sheep and goats were kept and deer hunted.
Crafts and ritual: Jorwe ware, red with black geometric painting, spouted jars and carinated bowls; copper axes and bangles; the Daimabad bronze hoard of a chariot, rhinoceros, elephant and buffalo; and urn burials of children under house floors, including a late Jorwe four-legged urn.
Increasing aridity after about 1000 BCE brought smaller, poorer late Jorwe settlements and abandonment. These cultures were the first widespread farming villages of the Deccan, and Dhavalikar's ethno-archaeological comparison with present Maharashtra villages shows continuity in houses and storage.Q2(c) · Weaker Sections, Ethnicity and Tribal Change · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Exploitation of SCs, STs and OBCs and Constitutional Safeguards
Critically discuss the constitutional safeguards for the Scheduled Castes.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
अनुसूचित जातियों के संवैधानिक सुरक्षणों की समालोचनात्मक विवेचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q2(c)
Approach: Critically discuss means listing the SC safeguards and weighing their achievements against their failures and debates (creamy layer, promotion, sub-classification), ending with a balanced view.
The constitutional safeguards for Scheduled Castes were B.R. Ambedkar's answer to centuries of untouchability: formal equality (Articles 14, 15, 17) combined with compensatory discrimination, as Marc Galanter called it in Competing Equalities (1984).
The safeguards: abolition of untouchability (Article 17), reservation in education and jobs (Articles 15(4), 15(5), 16(4), 16(4A)), promotion of economic and educational interests (Article 46), reserved seats in legislatures and local bodies (Articles 330, 332, 243D) and the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (Article 338).
Achievements: SC literacy rose from about 10% in 1961 to 66.1% in 2011; reserved posts produced a Dalit middle class, professionals and leaders; reserved seats brought Dalit voices into Parliament and panchayats.
Shortcomings: untouchability and atrocities persist; reservation in promotions has been repeatedly litigated (M. Nagaraj, 2006; Jarnail Singh, 2018), leaving higher grades thinly represented; the Special Component Plan funds were under-spent or diverted; and landlessness was hardly touched.
Debates: critics argue that benefits are captured by a few castes, leading to demands for a creamy layer and sub-classification (allowed in Davinder Singh, 2024); others argue that caste stigma, not income, is the basis of SC status, so a creamy layer would be unjust.
On balance the safeguards have transformed Dalit life chances but not dismantled caste. Sustained enforcement, land and education reforms and attention to the most marginal SC groups are needed.
Question 3 (50 marks)
Q3(a) · Caste System and Religions in Indian Society · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Dominant Caste, Caste Mobility, Jajmani System and the Tribe–Caste Continuum
Discuss the impact of market economy on the Jajmani system.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जजमानी प्रथा पर बाज़ार-अर्थव्यवस्था के प्रभाव की विवेचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q3(a)
Approach: Describe the traditional jajmani system briefly, then analyse the impact of the market economy on its economic, social and ritual sides with field evidence, and assess whether the change has been liberating.
William Wiser (1936) described the jajmani system of Karimpur as a web of hereditary relations in which kamins served jajmans for annual grain shares, food, clothing and gifts at rites. It was a non-market, status-based exchange embedded in caste and ritual.
Economic impact: the spread of the market economy in the colonial period and especially after the Green Revolution replaced grain shares with cash wages and piece rates. Factory goods, plastic and aluminium vessels, and tractors undermined potters, weavers, carpenters and blacksmiths, many of whom became wage labourers or migrated.
Social impact: the bond of patron and client loosened. Service castes now choose employers and negotiate rates, and some have used the market to rise, such as barbers running salons in towns. Jan Breman (1974) found Gujarat's hali bondage turning into casual labour, where employers no longer accept responsibility for workers in bad years.
Ritual side: life-cycle services by barbers, washermen, drummers and priests survive longest because they carry ritual meaning, though they are increasingly paid in cash.
Assessment: Beidelman's view that jajmani was exploitative suggests that its decline has freed lower castes from hereditary dependence and the stigma of polluting work. Yet the market has also brought insecurity, debt and new dependence on contractors, so the shift is from patronage to precarious wage work.
The market has thus largely dissolved jajmani as an economic system, while some ritual forms and patron–client attitudes persist.Q3(b) · Evolution of Indian Culture and Civilization · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Palaeo-anthropological Evidence and Ethno-archaeology in India
Describe the salient features of Ramapithecus.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
रामापिथेकस के प्रमुख लक्षणों का वर्णन कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q3(b)
Approach: Describe the salient features of Ramapithecus (dental, mandibular, facial), how they were interpreted, and how the interpretation changed.
Ramapithecus (G. Edward Lewis, 1934; type specimen an upper jaw from near Haritalyangar collected in 1932) is a Middle to Late Miocene hominoid of the Siwaliks, about 12 to 9 million years old, with related fossils from Potwar, Fort Ternan (Kenya) and Lufeng (China).
Salient features: small, vertically set incisors; small canines with little projection and reduced honing against the premolar; thick enamel on broad, low-crowned molars that wore flat; a robust mandible with a thick body; a short face with a possible canine fossa; and, in early reconstructions, a parabolic arcade with diverging tooth rows.
These features suggested a diet of hard, small objects and led Elwyn Simons and David Pilbeam in the 1960s to call it the first hominid, with Clifford Jolly's seed-eaters model (1970) offering an ecological explanation.
Later evidence reversed this: the molecular clock (1967), V-shaped arcades in complete jaws, the recognition of sexual dimorphism, and the orang-utan-like Sivapithecus face (1982). Ramapithecus is now merged with Sivapithecus as a member of the orang-utan lineage.
Diagram: occlusal views of U-shaped (ape), V-shaped (Sivapithecus) and parabolic (human) dental arcades.
Its salient features are now read as a general Miocene ape adaptation, not as hominid traits.Q3(c) · Indian Village, Minorities and Social Change · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Linguistic and Religious Minorities
Discuss the social, political and economic status of Muslims in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत में मुस्लमानों की सामाजिक, राजनैतिक एवं आर्थिक स्थिति की विवेचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q3(c)
Approach: Discuss the three dimensions separately with data (Census 2011, Sachar 2006) and ethnographic points (internal stratification, regional variation), then conclude with policy needs.
Muslims, numbering 17.22 crore (14.2%) in Census 2011, are India's largest minority, but their status varies by region, class and caste.
Social status: Muslims are internally stratified into Ashraf, Ajlaf and Arzal groups (Imtiaz Ahmad, 1973), and the Pasmanda movement represents the backward majority. Literacy is lower than the national average, and the Sachar Committee (2006) found that school attendance and higher education lagged, especially for girls. Urban Muslims often live in segregated neighbourhoods, and stereotypes and communal violence create insecurity. Kerala's Mappilas, with Gulf migration and education, show that conditions vary widely.
Economic status: Sachar found Muslims concentrated in self-employment and informal work such as weaving, tailoring and trade, with low shares in government jobs (about 3% of IAS officers) and limited access to bank credit; their condition was often below that of Hindu OBCs. The Kundu Committee (2014) found only modest improvement.
Political status: Muslims are under-represented in legislatures relative to population, and their politics has often been reduced to vote-bank arithmetic. Debates on personal law, triple talaq (2017), the CAA (2019) and the Waqf (Amendment) Act (2025) shape their political concerns.
Improving Muslims' status needs education, credit and employment measures, the PM's 15-Point Programme, fair representation and security, as the Sachar Committee recommended.
Question 4 (50 marks)
Q4(a) · Caste System and Religions in Indian Society · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Sacred Complex, Nature-Man-Spirit Complex and the Impact of Religions
Explain how Buddhism influenced the economic and cultural transformations of Indian society.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारतीय समाज के आर्थिक एवं सांस्कृतिक रूपांतरणों को बौद्ध धर्म ने किस प्रकार प्रभावित किया, व्याख्या कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q4(a)
Approach: Set Buddhism in the context of the second urbanisation, then explain its economic influence (trade, guilds, money, monasteries, agriculture) and cultural influence (ethics, language, art, education, spread abroad, revival), and conclude.
Buddhism arose in the sixth–fifth century BCE during the 'second urbanisation' of the Gangetic plain, when states such as Magadha, towns, trade and iron-based agriculture were expanding. It both reflected and shaped these transformations.
Economic influence: the Buddha's rejection of large cattle sacrifices suited an agrarian economy that needed cattle, a link stressed by historians such as R.S. Sharma and D.D. Kosambi. Buddhism valued honest trade and thrift, and wealthy merchants such as Anathapindika of Shravasti became patrons. Guilds (shreni) and traders donated to monasteries, as inscriptions at Sanchi and Bharhut record.
Monasteries later became landholders and centres of exchange along trade routes, and Buddhism travelled with merchants along the Silk Road and sea routes to Central, East and Southeast Asia, carrying Indian goods and ideas.
Cultural influence: the sangha was open to all varnas and to women, challenging Brahmin monopoly over religion. Teaching in Pali and Prakrit rather than Sanskrit widened access. Ashoka's dhamma drew on Buddhist ethics of non-violence and tolerance.
Buddhist art and architecture, including the stupas of Sanchi and Amaravati, the Ajanta caves and the Gandhara and Mathura schools of sculpture, and great monastic universities such as Nalanda and Vikramashila, shaped Indian civilisation and made India a centre of learning for Asia.
Buddhism declined in India by about the twelfth century but revived in 1956, when B.R. Ambedkar's conversion at Nagpur made it a vehicle of Dalit dignity, a cultural transformation of the modern period.
Buddhism thus promoted an ethic suited to trade and agriculture and a more inclusive, humane culture, though it did not overturn the caste order.Q4(b) · Evolution of Indian Culture and Civilization · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Harappan Civilization and Tribal Contributions to Indian Civilization
Describe various aspects of trade and religion of Harappan civilization.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
हडप्पन सभ्यता के व्यापार एवं धर्म के विभिन्न पक्षों का वर्णन कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q4(b)
Approach: Two parts: trade (internal and external, with organisation and evidence) and religion (deities, symbols, ritual structures, burial), noting debated interpretations.
Trade and religion integrated the vast Harappan world: one moved goods and standards, the other shared symbols and rituals.
Internal trade: raw materials moved over long distances, carnelian and agate from Gujarat, copper from the Khetri belt of Rajasthan, lapis lazuli via Shortugai in Afghanistan, chert from the Rohri hills of Sindh for standard cubical weights in a binary-then-decimal system, and shell from the coasts; bullock carts (terracotta models) and boats carried goods.
External trade: Mesopotamian texts name Meluhha, probably the Indus region, as a source of carnelian, timber and ivory; Indus seals and etched carnelian beads occur at Ur, and Persian Gulf seals at Lothal; Dilmun (Bahrain) and Magan (Oman) were intermediaries; seals and sealings show administrative control of goods.
Religion: female figurines interpreted as a mother goddess; the seated horned figure surrounded by animals, which John Marshall called proto-Shiva Pashupati (debated); worship of the pipal tree and animals such as the bull; the Great Bath for ritual bathing; fire altars at Kalibangan and Lothal; amulets and the swastika motif; and burial with pots and ornaments, suggesting belief in an afterlife.
Without readable texts, religious interpretation rests on analogy with later Hinduism and risks reading the present into the past, but the shared symbols across sites show a common ideology that, with trade, held the civilization together.Q4(c) · Indian Village, Minorities and Social Change · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Processes of Socio-cultural Change
Discuss the impact of media as an instrument of social change.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
सामाजिक परिवर्तन में मीडिया के प्रभावों की एक साधन के रूप में विवेचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q4(c)
Approach: Explain how media act as an agent of change (information, values, mobilisation, identity), with Indian cases from print to digital media, then note negative effects and conclude.
Media, from print to radio, television, film and digital platforms, change society by spreading information, shaping values and enabling collective action; Daniel Lerner (1958) saw media as the 'mobility multiplier' that creates empathy with new ways of life.
Historical role: vernacular newspapers spread social reform and nationalism, and Benedict Anderson's idea of print capitalism explains how print helped people imagine a national community. Reformers such as Phule, Ambedkar (Mooknayak, 1920) and Gandhi used the press to challenge caste and colonial rule.
Development and values: SITE (1975–76) and Doordarshan carried education, health and farm messages to villages; serials such as the televised Ramayan (1987–88) created a shared national culture, while later serials and cinema spread new ideas of romance, women's work and consumption, linked to lower fertility and more autonomy for women.
Mobilisation and voice: social media and community media such as Khabar Lahariya give voice to Dalits, tribals and women and supported movements from anti-corruption protests (2011) to the farmer protests (2020–21).
Negative effects: misinformation and hate speech have fuelled lynchings and communal tension, consumerism spreads faster than incomes, and a digital divide excludes many.
Media are thus powerful instruments of change whose direction depends on access, regulation and media literacy.
Question 5 (50 marks)
Q5(a) · Tribal Situation and Problems in India · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Problems of Tribal Communities
Indebtedness among tribal communities.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जनजातीय समुदायों में ऋणग्रस्तता।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(a)
Approach: A short note: causes of tribal indebtedness, its consequences (land loss, bondage), and remedies.
Indebtedness is a chronic problem among tribals, rooted in a subsistence economy suddenly exposed to cash, markets and outside lenders.
Its causes are low and uncertain incomes from rain-fed farming and forest produce; lean-season food shortages; expenditure on illness, bride-price, weddings, funerals and liquor; lack of access to formal credit; and exploitation by moneylenders and traders who charge high interest, manipulate accounts and pay low prices for forest produce.
Debt leads to mortgage and loss of land, bonded labour, distress migration and deeper poverty, and was a major cause of revolts such as the Santal Hul (1855).
Remedies include state moneylending regulations, the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act (1976), cooperative and bank credit, self-help groups, minimum support prices for minor forest produce through TRIFED and Van Dhan centres, and financial inclusion through Jan Dhan accounts.Q5(b) · Weaker Sections, Ethnicity and Tribal Change · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Ethnicity, Tribal Unrest, Regionalism and Pseudo-tribalism
Ethnicity and regionalism.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
नृजातीयता एवं आंचलिकता।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(b)
Approach: A short note on how ethnicity and regionalism interact in India, using the tribal belt (Jharkhand, the north-east) as the main illustration and noting state responses.
Ethnicity is a group identity grounded in a belief in shared descent and culture; regionalism is the political assertion of a territory's interests. In India they often combine because ethnic groups, especially tribes, are concentrated in particular regions.
Ethnicity becoming regionalism: the Jharkhand movement began as an Adivasi movement (Adivasi Mahasabha, 1938; Jaipal Singh's Jharkhand Party, 1950) but widened into a regional demand including non-tribal 'sadans' against the exploitation of Chotanagpur's minerals, which won statehood in 2000.
Regionalism dividing ethnic groups: in the north-east, overlapping homeland claims (Naga, Kuki, Meitei, Bodo) make regional autonomy demands a source of inter-ethnic conflict.
Theory: Paul Brass showed that elites choose which identity, ethnic or regional, to mobilise; Barth's boundary approach explains why groups that share a region still separate.
State response: reorganisation of states, Sixth Schedule councils, Article 371 and accords. Accommodating such demands democratically has generally reduced conflict.Q5(c) · Weaker Sections, Ethnicity and Tribal Change · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Exploitation of SCs, STs and OBCs and Constitutional Safeguards
Other Backward Class.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
अन्य पिछड़ा वर्ग।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(c)
Approach: A short note: define OBCs, give the constitutional basis and commissions, their size and composition, and current issues such as the creamy layer and sub-categorisation.
Other Backward Classes are the socially and educationally backward classes, other than SCs and STs, recognised under Articles 15(4), 16(4) and 340; they are mostly peasant, artisan and service castes.
Identification: the Kaka Kalelkar Commission (report 1955) listed 2,399 castes; the Mandal Commission (report 1980) identified 3,743 castes, about 52% of the population, using 11 social, educational and economic indicators, and recommended 27% reservation, implemented in 1990.
Legal framework: Indra Sawhney (1992) upheld 27% reservation with exclusion of the creamy layer (8 lakh rupees since 2017) and a 50% ceiling; the National Commission for Backward Classes became constitutional under Article 338B in 2018, and the 105th Amendment (2021) restored state lists.
Composition and change: OBCs include dominant landowning castes (Yadav, Kurmi, Vokkaliga) and very poor artisan groups, plus non-Hindu groups such as Muslim Ansaris; Mandal politics produced powerful OBC parties in north India.
Issues: the Rohini Commission (report 2023) found benefits concentrated in a few communities, so sub-categorisation and a caste census are now central debates.Q5(d) · Tribal Administration and Applied Anthropology · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Tribal Administration, Policies and PVTGs
Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (earlier known as PTG).
हिंदी में प्रश्न
विशेषतः सुभेद्य जनजातीय समूह (पहले पी.टी.जी. जाने जाते थे)।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(d)
Approach: A short note on PVTGs: origin and renaming, criteria, number and distribution, examples, and main programmes.
Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups are the most marginalised Scheduled Tribes. Following the Dhebar Commission's observation (1960 to 1961) of inequality among tribes, the government identified Primitive Tribal Groups from 1975 to 1976, reaching 75 by 1993; they were renamed PVTGs in 2006 to drop the stigmatising word 'primitive'.
Criteria: pre-agricultural technology, low literacy, economic backwardness and a stagnant or declining population.
Distribution: 18 states and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, with Odisha having the most (13).
Examples: Jarawa, Onge and Sentinelese (Andaman Islands), Toda and Kurumba (Tamil Nadu), Baiga and Sahariya (Madhya Pradesh), Birhor and Asur (Jharkhand), Bondo and Dongria Kondh (Odisha), Chenchu (Andhra Pradesh and Telangana) and Katkari (Maharashtra).
Programmes: the Development of PVTGs scheme with Conservation-cum-Development plans and, since 2023, PM-JANMAN (24,104 crore rupees), along with habitat rights under the Forest Rights Act; group-specific, participatory planning remains essential.Q5(e) · Religion and Tribes; Tribe and Nation State · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Impact of Religions on Tribal Societies
Impact of Christianity on Indian tribes.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारतीय जनजातियों पर ईसाई धर्म का प्रभाव।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(e)
Approach: A short note on the spread of Christianity among Indian tribes and its main positive and negative impacts, with regional examples and one scholarly view.
Christian missions spread among tribes from the mid-nineteenth century, in Chotanagpur (Gossner Mission, 1845; Jesuits from 1885), the north-eastern hills (Khasi, Naga, Mizo) and parts of Odisha and central India. Christians are majorities in Nagaland, Mizoram and Meghalaya (2011).
Positive impacts: high literacy (Mizoram 91.3% in 2011), Roman-script literatures, mission health care, a tribal professional and political elite (Jaipal Singh Munda), and support against land alienation in Chotanagpur.
Negative impacts: decline of dormitories, dances, sacrifices and oral traditions; divisions between converts and non-converts, as in the Christian-Sarna divide; and communal tension, as in Kandhamal (2008).
Debate: Verrier Elwin feared a 'loss of nerve' through rapid conversion, while later scholars stress tribal agency and the inculturation of churches in tribal language, music and festivals.
Christianity has thus modernised tribes and reshaped, rather than erased, their identity.
Question 6 (50 marks)
Q6(a) · Tribal Situation and Problems in India · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Development Projects, Displacement, Forest Policy and Tribals
Describe the impact of displacement on the health and nutritional status of tribal communities.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जनजातीय समुदायों के स्वास्थ्य एवं पोषण की स्थिति पर विस्थापन के प्रभाव का वर्णन कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q6(a)
Approach: Explain how displacement affects health and nutrition through several pathways (loss of food sources, poor resettlement sites, disease, stress, breakdown of health systems and social support), with cases and data, and suggest measures.
Michael Cernea's impoverishment risks model includes food insecurity and increased morbidity and mortality among the eight risks of displacement; for tribal communities, whose diet and health are tied to land and forest, these risks are acute.
Loss of food sources: displacement removes access to fields, forests and rivers that supplied millets, tubers, greens, fruits, fish and small game. Diets narrow to purchased rice and wheat, reducing protein and micronutrients; child undernutrition rises, in a population where 40.9% of ST children were already stunted (NFHS-5).
Resettlement sites: crowded colonies with poor water, drainage and sanitation spread diarrhoea, skin diseases and tuberculosis; new environments expose people to unfamiliar diseases, while reservoirs of dams can increase malaria and water-borne illness.
Mining and industry: those displaced by mines and plants often stay nearby as labourers and suffer from dust, silicosis and polluted water, as in the coal belts of Jharkhand.
Psychological and social stress: loss of home, sacred sites and community causes grief, depression and alcoholism, which Thayer Scudder described as multidimensional stress of relocation; breakdown of kin networks weakens care for children, the sick and the old.
Women and children: women walk further for water and fuel, their workload rises and their own nutrition suffers, while children's schooling and immunisation are interrupted. Studies of Narmada, Hirakud and Polavaram resettlement have reported such effects.
Measures include baseline health and nutrition surveys in social impact assessment, land-based rehabilitation with access to forests and commons, safe water and health centres at resettlement sites before relocation, ICDS and PDS continuity, mental health support and monitoring by gram sabhas.Q6(b) · Tribal Administration and Applied Anthropology · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Tribal Administration, Policies and PVTGs
Discuss the emergence, salient features and limitations of Tribal sub-plan.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जनजातीय उप-योजना के उद्गमन, प्रमुख लक्षणों एवं परिसीमन की व्याख्या कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q6(b)
Approach: Discuss the emergence of the Tribal Sub-Plan (background, committees, Fifth Plan), its salient features (earmarking, ITDPs, MADA, clusters, PTGs) and its limitations, ending with its later evolution.
Emergence: the first four Plans relied on Community Development, Special Multipurpose Tribal Blocks (1954) and Tribal Development Blocks, which spread thin resources and benefited the better-off; the Dhebar Commission (1960 to 1961) and the Shilu Ao Study Team (1969) called for a focused strategy. The Tribal Sub-Plan was introduced in the Fifth Five-Year Plan (1974 to 1975).
Salient features: funds earmarked from state and central plans at least in proportion to the ST population; an area approach through Integrated Tribal Development Projects in areas with a majority ST population; Modified Area Development Approach pockets (from the Sixth Plan) and clusters for smaller concentrations; identification of Primitive Tribal Groups (1975 to 1976); a dual focus on socio-economic development and protection against exploitation; and Special Central Assistance to fill gaps.
Limitations: states often failed to earmark the due share or diverted funds to general projects; funds lapsed; planning remained departmental rather than tribal-centred; ITDAs lacked authority and staff; beneficiaries had little voice; and the gains went disproportionately to advanced tribes and households, as the Xaxa Committee (2014) noted.
Evolution: after the Planning Commission was replaced by NITI Aayog, the TSP became the Development Action Plan for STs (from 2017 to 2018), with ministries earmarking 4.3% to 17.5% of scheme budgets.
The TSP was a sound idea that suffered from weak implementation; statutory backing and gram sabha planning are needed.Q6(c) · Indian Village, Minorities and Social Change · 15 marks≈ 11 min
The Indian Village
Give a critical evaluation of any one anthropological village study in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत के किसी भी एक ग्राम के नृवैज्ञानिक अध्ययन का समालोचनात्मक मूल्यांकन कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q6(c)
Approach: Choose one study (Srinivas's Rampura), describe its setting, method and main findings and concepts, then evaluate its strengths and weaknesses.
M.N. Srinivas studied Rampura, a multi-caste village near Mysore, in 1948 and 1952, publishing 'The Social System of a Mysore Village' (in Village India, 1955) and later The Remembered Village (1976), written largely from memory after his field notes were destroyed in a fire at Stanford in 1970.
Findings: Rampura was dominated by the peasant Okkaligas, who were numerous and owned most land, though Brahmins ranked higher in ritual; from this came the concept of the dominant caste. Srinivas described the headman's role in disputes, patron–client ties between landowners and service castes, village unity in festivals alongside caste divisions, and changes brought by roads, schools, cash crops and politics.
Strengths: it was a model of long, participant fieldwork by an insider who knew the language; it vividly described everyday life and personalities; and it produced concepts that became central to Indian sociology. The book also showed the village linked to towns and the state.
Weaknesses: written from memory, it is partly reconstructed; it relied mainly on the dominant caste's and the headman's view, giving less voice to Dalits and women; it emphasised harmony and consensus over conflict and exploitation; and Srinivas's own Brahmin position shaped access.
Rampura remains a classic for its method and concepts, but it must be read alongside conflict-oriented studies such as Béteille's Sripuram.
Question 7 (50 marks)
Q7(a) · Religion and Tribes; Tribe and Nation State · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Tribe and Nation State
Critically evaluate the term 'tribe' (as used in India) as compared to the term 'indigenous' in some other countries.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
'जनजाति' ('ट्राइब') पद (जैसा कि भारत में प्रयुक्त होता है) का समालोचनात्मक मूल्यांकन कुछ अन्य देशों में प्रयुक्त 'देशज' ('इंडीजेनस') पद की तुलना में कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q7(a)
Approach: Critically evaluate the Indian term 'tribe' (origin, legal criteria, critiques) against 'indigenous' as used internationally and in settler countries (definitions, ILO and UN), present India's position and the scholarly debate, and conclude.
In India 'tribe' is primarily an administrative and legal category: a Scheduled Tribe is a community notified under Article 342. The category was shaped by colonial censuses.
Indian criteria and critiques: the Lokur Committee (1965) listed primitive traits, distinctive culture, geographical isolation, shyness of contact with the wider community and backwardness. André Béteille (1986) noted that Indian tribes were never fully separate from civilisation; Surajit Sinha and F.G. Bailey placed them on a tribe-caste continuum; critics call 'primitive' evolutionist and stigmatising.
'Indigenous' internationally: José Martínez Cobo's UN study (1986) defined indigenous peoples by historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies, a sense of distinctness from now-dominant sectors, and determination to preserve territory and identity; ILO Convention 169 (1989) made self-identification fundamental; UNDRIP (2007) recognises self-determination and free, prior and informed consent.
India's position: India voted for UNDRIP but holds that all Indians are indigenous, so the term does not single out STs; it ratified ILO 107 (1957) but not ILO 169.
Debate: Béteille ('The Idea of Indigenous People', 1998) and Adam Kuper (2003) warned that 'indigenous' rests on doubtful claims of first settlement and can fuel exclusion; Virginius Xaxa (1999) argued that tribes can legitimately be seen as indigenous because of their prior and continuing relationship with land and their marginalisation.
Evaluation: 'tribe' offers constitutional protection but carries evolutionist baggage and denies self-identification; 'indigenous' offers international rights but fits India's long history of migration and mixing poorly.
A rights-based approach that borrows self-identification and consent from the indigenous framework while keeping India's constitutional safeguards would serve tribes best.Q7(b) · Indian Village, Minorities and Social Change · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Processes of Socio-cultural Change
Discuss the impact of Panchayati Raj institution on the empowerment of rural women in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारतीय ग्रामीण महिलाओं के सशक्तिकरण में पंचायती राज संस्थान के प्रभावों की चर्चा कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q7(b)
Approach: Set out the provisions for women in PRIs, then assess empowerment in political, social, economic and personal dimensions with evidence and examples, followed by obstacles and a way forward.
The 73rd Amendment (1992) reserved at least one-third of panchayat seats and chairpersons' posts for women, including within SC and ST quotas; most states have since raised this to 50%, so women now form close to half of elected panchayat members.
Political empowerment: lakhs of rural women entered public office for the first time, gaining experience, confidence and a path to higher politics. Chattopadhyay and Duflo (2004) found that women-led panchayats in West Bengal and Rajasthan invested more in drinking water and roads, the goods women prioritised.
Social and personal change: women leaders have taken up issues of alcohol, domestic violence, girls' schooling and sanitation; their presence has changed villagers' perceptions of women's competence and raised girls' aspirations. Self-help groups linked to panchayats strengthen women's networks.
Obstacles: proxy rule by husbands ('sarpanch pati'), lack of education and training, the burden of domestic work, caste and patriarchal pressure (especially on Dalit women leaders), rotation of reserved seats that cuts short experience, and limited devolution of funds.
Way forward: capacity building, action against proxy leadership, women's gram sabhas, financial devolution and support networks can turn representation into real empowerment.Q7(c) · Tribal Administration and Applied Anthropology · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Tribal Administration, Policies and PVTGs
Give a critical appraisal of any one tribal development programme during XIIth Five-Year plan. Give your suggestions for any improvement in the programme.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
बारहवीं (XII) पंचवर्षीय योजना के अन्तर्गत किसी एक जनजातीय विकास योजना का आलोचनात्मक मूल्यांकन कीजिए। इसके सुधार के लिए आप अपना सुझाव दीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q7(c)
Approach: Choose one programme of the XII Plan period (2012 to 2017), here the Van Bandhu Kalyan Yojana (2014), describe its aims and design, appraise it critically, and suggest improvements.
The Van Bandhu Kalyan Yojana (VKY) was launched by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs in 2014, during the Twelfth Five-Year Plan (2012 to 2017), to shift tribal development from scattered schemes to outcome-oriented convergence.
Aims and design: it was piloted in one block in each of several states with Scheduled Areas, aiming to improve quality of life through quality education, health, housing, drinking water, irrigation, electricity, livelihoods, sports and protection of tribal culture; it sought to bring together the schemes of various ministries and state departments in the same blocks and to measure outcomes rather than spending.
Strengths: its focus on convergence and outcomes anticipated later mission-mode programmes; block-level planning allowed local priorities; and it used Tribal Sub-Plan and Special Central Assistance funds more coherently.
Weaknesses: coverage was small and piloting slow; convergence depended on the goodwill of other departments; baseline and outcome data were weak; gram sabhas under PESA were rarely involved in planning; funds were modest relative to needs; and the scheme was later merged into broader umbrella programmes, so its impact is hard to isolate.
Suggestions: statutory gram sabha participation, a dedicated block-level team with anthropological and technical expertise, real-time outcome monitoring, mother-tongue education and secure forest rights as core components.
Its convergence idea survives in PM-JANMAN (2023) and the Dharti Aaba Abhiyan (2024), which must avoid VKY's weaknesses to succeed.
Question 8 (50 marks)
Q8(a) · Demographic Profile and the Traditional Indian Social System · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Demographic Profile of India
Give your assessment of the reasons for the imbalance in the sex-ratio in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत में लिंग-अनुपात में असंतुलन के कारणों पर अपना मूल्यांकन दीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q8(a)
Approach: Assess the reasons for India's adverse sex ratio: present the data and regional pattern, then biological, socio-cultural, economic, technological and mortality-related causes, contrast tribal populations, and evaluate policy responses.
India's sex ratio, expressed as females per 1,000 males, was 943 in Census 2011, and the child sex ratio (0–6 years) fell to 918, the lowest recorded. The imbalance is sharpest in the north-west: Haryana had an overall ratio of 879 and a child sex ratio of 834, while Kerala's overall ratio was 1,084. Amartya Sen (1990) drew attention to such 'missing women'.
Biological baseline: about 105 boys are born per 100 girls everywhere, but females survive better at most ages, so a deficit beyond this signals social causes.
Socio-cultural causes: son preference rooted in patrilineal descent, patrilocal residence and inheritance by sons; dowry, which makes daughters a burden; and the son's ritual role in the funeral and in repaying pitri rina. Barbara Miller (The Endangered Sex, 1981) linked the northern deficit to the low value of female labour in plough agriculture, and Dyson and Moore (1983) to northern kinship systems restricting women's autonomy.
Technological and mortality causes: sex-selective abortion after ultrasound spread from the 1980s, especially among prosperous families wanting few children; neglect of girls in nutrition and health care; maternal mortality; and past female infanticide. Male-dominated migration also skews urban ratios.
Tribal contrast: the Scheduled Tribe sex ratio was 990 and child sex ratio 957 in Census 2011, reflecting women's economic role, bride price and weaker son preference, though Sanskritization may erode this.
Assessment: the PCPNDT Act (1994, amended 2003) and Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (2015) have helped, and NFHS-5 (2019–21) reported an overall ratio above 1,000 and a sex ratio at birth of 929; but enforcement is weak and the root, son preference, is cultural, so daughters' inheritance rights (Hindu Succession Amendment, 2005), education and employment matter most.Q8(b) · Evolution of Indian Culture and Civilization · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Palaeo-anthropological Evidence and Ethno-archaeology in India
Discuss the relevance of art and craft traditions in the understanding of Indian archaeology.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारतीय पुरातत्त्व को समझने में कला एवं दस्तकारी परम्पराओं की प्रासंगिकता की व्याख्या करें।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q8(b)
Approach: Discuss how living art and craft traditions help understand Indian archaeology: technology, organisation of production, symbolism and continuity, with paired examples, then cautions.
India has unusually long-lived craft traditions, practised by hereditary artisan castes and tribal communities, which allow archaeologists to see how ancient objects may have been made, used and valued; this is a central field of Indian ethno-archaeology.
Technology: Dhokra metal-casters of Bastar, Odisha and Bengal use the lost-wax process seen in the Harappan bronze dancing girl and the Daimabad hoard; Khambhat agate bead-makers, studied by Kenoyer, Vidale and Bhan (1991), reproduce Harappan heating, flaking, drilling and polishing; Agaria iron smelters (Verrier Elwin, The Agaria, 1942) illuminate early iron technology; and village potters' wheels and kilns explain Chalcolithic ceramics.
Organisation and economy: workshop size, apprenticeship, debitage and division of labour among present artisans help identify craft areas at Lothal and Chanhudaro and estimate specialisation; conch-shell bangle makers of Bengal parallel Harappan shell-working at Bagasra.
Art and symbolism: Warli, Saura and Gond paintings share themes of hunting, dancing and animals with the rock art of Bhimbetka, which V.S. Wakankar compared with local Gond and Korku practices, helping interpret meaning.
These traditions have changed with markets and tools, so they offer tested analogies rather than direct survivals; documenting them, as with GI protection, preserves both living heritage and an archive for archaeology.Q8(c) · Tribal Situation and Problems in India · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Development Projects, Displacement, Forest Policy and Tribals
Discuss the contribution of anthropology in understanding the loss of livelihood of tribal communities due to economic and ecological factors.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जनजातीय समुदायों के जीविकोपार्जन में, आर्थिक एवं पारिस्थितिक कारकों के कारण, हुई क्षति को समझने में नृविज्ञान के योगदान की चर्चा कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q8(c)
Approach: Show what anthropology has contributed: concepts and models (Cernea, Scudder, nature-man-spirit, political ecology), ethnographic studies of economic and ecological loss, methods (fieldwork, SIA), and policy influence, ending with its limits.
Anthropology, through long fieldwork and a holistic view of economy, ecology, society and belief, has been central to understanding how tribals lose livelihoods.
Concepts and models: Michael Cernea's impoverishment risks and reconstruction model (1997) and Thayer Scudder's stages of resettlement explain the economic and social losses of displacement; L.P. Vidyarthi's nature-man-spirit complex shows why loss of forests is also a loss of social and religious order; and political ecology, as in Madhav Gadgil and Ramachandra Guha's This Fissured Land (1992), links forest decline to state and market control.
Ethnographies: C. von Fürer-Haimendorf documented Gond land loss in Adilabad (1982); Vidyarthi's Hatia study (1970) showed displaced tribals becoming unskilled labourers; Amita Baviskar (1995) studied the Bhilala of the Narmada valley; and Nandini Sundar (1997) traced Bastar's forest history. These works reveal economic factors (markets, debt, land alienation) and ecological ones (deforestation, mining, climate) together.
Methods and policy: participant observation, genealogies and social impact assessment give voice to affected people; anthropologists contributed to the Xaxa Committee (2014), to arguments for PESA and FRA, and to rehabilitation policy.
Its limits are that anthropological advice is often ignored by planners, and the discipline itself has been criticised for romanticising tribal life. Still, it remains the best lens for understanding livelihood loss from the community's point of view.