UPSC Mains 2018 Anthropology Optional Question Papers with Model Answers
All 56 questions of the 2018 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 2018 Anthropology Paper I
Question 1 (50 marks)
Q1(a) · Foundations of Anthropology · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Meaning, Scope and Development of Anthropology
The Relevance of Anthropology
हिंदी में प्रश्न
नृविज्ञान की प्रासंगिकता
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(a)
Approach: A short note: define anthropology, then show its relevance for understanding humanity, for India's policy and development, and for applied fields, ending with one line on its future.
Anthropology is the holistic and comparative study of human beings in all places and times (Ember and Ember). Its relevance lies in both understanding and application.
Understanding humanity: by showing the range of human ways of life it counters ethnocentrism and racism; Boas's work on immigrant head form (1912) showed that environment alters bodily traits, undermining fixed racial types.
Relevance for India: it informs policy for Scheduled Tribes and PVTGs, from Verrier Elwin's role in Nehru's Panchsheel for tribal development to studies behind the Fifth and Sixth Schedules, PESA (1996) and the Forest Rights Act (2006), and assessments of displacement by dams and mines.
Applied relevance: forensic anthropology identifies victims of disasters and crimes; medical anthropology improves health programmes, such as sickle-cell screening and culturally sensitive maternal care; designers and companies use ethnography to understand users.
In a globalising world of migration, pandemics and climate change, its holistic, people-centred view makes anthropology more relevant than ever.Q1(b) · Religion · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Religion, Magic and Science; Magico-religious Functionaries
Difference between Science and Magic
हिंदी में प्रश्न
विज्ञान और जादू में अन्तर
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(b)
Approach: A short note: define magic and science, state their similarities (Frazer), then the differences on basis, method, verification and attitude (Malinowski, Horton), with an example.
Magic is the attempt to control natural and supernatural forces through spells and rites believed to work automatically; science is systematic knowledge of nature gained by observation and experiment.
Similarities: Frazer noted that both assume an ordered nature in which the same cause produces the same effect, and both aim at control, which is why he called magic a false science, the sister of science.
Differences: magic rests on mistaken associations of similarity and contact, science on tested causal relations; magic is closed, secret and unquestioned, and failures are explained away, whereas science is open, public, self-correcting and accepts falsification, a contrast Robin Horton (1967) drew between closed and open systems of thought.
Malinowski showed that Trobrianders use sound practical knowledge for lagoon fishing and add magic only for dangerous open-sea fishing, so magic supplies confidence where knowledge ends.
Magic therefore expresses hope and reduces anxiety, while science gives verifiable control.Q1(c) · Prehistoric Archaeology · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age
Town Planning of Harappan Culture
हिंदी में प्रश्न
हड़प्पा संस्कृति की शहर योजना
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(c)
Approach: A short note on the layout (citadel and lower town), streets, drainage, houses, public buildings and materials, with named cities and a word on variation.
Town planning is the most striking feature of the mature Harappan civilisation (about 2600 to 1900 BCE), seen at Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, Kalibangan, Dholavira, Lothal and Rakhigarhi.
Layout: most cities had a raised, walled citadel on the west and a larger lower town on the east; Dholavira had three parts (citadel, middle town and lower town) with large water reservoirs. Main streets ran roughly north–south and east–west, forming blocks.
Drainage and houses: covered brick drains with inspection holes ran along the streets; houses opened onto side lanes and had courtyards, bathrooms and, at Mohenjo-daro, private wells. Baked or mud bricks followed a standard ratio of 1:2:4.
Public buildings: the Great Bath and the so-called granary at Mohenjo-daro, the granaries of Harappa, and the dock and warehouse at Lothal.
Planning was not perfectly uniform, but standard bricks, weights and drains point to strong civic organisation.Q1(d) · Kinship · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Kinship Terminology, Filiation, Descent and Alliance
Kinship Terminology
हिंदी में प्रश्न
नातेदारी की शब्दावली
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(d)
Approach: Define kinship terminology, distinguish reference and address and descriptive and classificatory terms, outline Murdock's six systems and the Indian patterns, and state its significance.
Kinship terminology is the set of words used for relatives; it groups some kin and separates others, revealing social categories. Rivers distinguished terms of reference from terms of address.
Morgan (1871) divided terms into descriptive, such as Hindi chacha, mama, phupha and mausa, and classificatory, such as English 'uncle'; Kroeber (1909) replied that all systems classify using principles such as generation, sex and lineality.
Murdock (1949) named six cousin-term systems: Eskimo (cousins distinct from siblings), Hawaiian (all cousins called siblings), Iroquois (parallel cousins called siblings, cross-cousins separate), Crow and Omaha (matrilineal and patrilineal skewing across generations) and Sudanese (separate terms for each cousin).
In India, Dumont showed that Dravidian terms divide kin into parallel and cross, mama meaning both mother's brother and father-in-law, while Karve found north Indian terms largely descriptive.
Terminology thus mirrors descent, marriage rules and residence, and is a quick guide to a society's social structure.Q1(e) · Marriage · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Marriage Regulations and Marriage Payments
Ways of Acquiring Mate in Tribal Society
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जनजातीय समाज में जीवन-साथी प्राप्त करने के तरीके
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(e)
Approach: List the ways of acquiring a mate recognised in tribal India, each with a tribe and local name, and close with causes and change.
Tribal India recognises many ways of acquiring a spouse, each linked to economy, bride price and the local sex ratio.
Probation: the youth lives with the girl's family on trial, and the Bhil gol-gadhedo at Holi tested a young man's courage. Capture: ritual or forcible seizure of the bride, among the Naga, Gond and Ho (oportipi).
Purchase: bride price in cash or kind among the Ho, Santal, Oraon and Munda; D.N. Majumdar (1937) found Ho bride price so high that many men married late. Service: the groom works for the bride's family instead, as in Gond lamsenia and among the Baiga and Birhor.
Exchange: a sister is given in return for a wife, as among the Gond. Mutual consent and elopement: Ho rajikhushi. Intrusion: the girl forces herself into the man's house until accepted, as in Ho anader and Santal nir bolok.
Negotiation by elders remains common. With Hindu and Christian influence and education, capture and intrusion have declined and dowry is spreading.
Question 2 (50 marks)
Q2(a) · Human Evolution: Theories and Concepts · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Biological and Cultural Factors in Human Evolution
Explain the biological changes that made human beings capable of making culture.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
मानव को संस्कृति निर्माण के लिए सक्षम बनाने वाले जैविक (शारीरिक) परिवर्तनों की व्याख्या कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q2(a)
Approach: Define culture as symbolic, learned behaviour, then explain the biological prerequisites (bipedalism and hands, brain, vocal tract, life history, social cognition) with evidence, show feedback, and conclude.
Culture, in Tylor's sense, is the complex whole of knowledge, belief, art, morals, law and custom acquired as a member of society; Leslie White stressed that its basis is symbolling, the ability to give arbitrary meanings to things. Several biological changes made this capacity possible.
Bipedalism and free hands: upright walking, seen from Sahelanthropus and the Laetoli footprints onward, freed the hands for carrying and making tools.
The human hand: a long, fully opposable thumb with a broad pad and strong thumb muscles gave the precision grip (John Napier), needed for knapping Oldowan and Acheulian tools.
The brain: cranial capacity tripled from about 450 cc to about 1,350 cc, with expansion of the prefrontal cortex for planning and of Broca's and Wernicke's areas for language; endocasts of Homo erectus suggest asymmetry linked with handedness.
Vocal apparatus: a lowered larynx, a rounded tongue and fine breathing control allowed articulate speech; the hyoid bone of the Kebara Neanderthal resembles ours, and the FOXP2 gene is involved in speech, though it is not a single language gene.
Eyes and life history: stereoscopic colour vision aided hand-eye coordination; a long childhood, helpless infants and a long life gave time to learn and transmit culture, and the grandmother hypothesis (Hawkes) explains care across generations.
Social cognition: large groups and the capacity to understand others' intentions (theory of mind) support teaching and imitation; Dunbar links brain size to group size.
These changes interacted with culture itself, since tool use and cooking selected for bigger brains and smaller teeth. Biology thus gave humans the capacity for culture, and culture then became their main means of adaptation.Q2(b) · Political Organisation and Social Control · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Social Control, Law and Justice in Simple Societies
How does customary law function in the tribal society? Discuss its different sources.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जनजातीय समाज में परम्परागत क़ानून कैसे काम करता है ? इसके विभिन्न स्रोतों की चर्चा कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q2(b)
Approach: Explain how customary law works in tribal society, its institutions, procedure and sanctions, with Indian examples, then discuss its sources one by one and end with its present status and limits.
Customary law is the unwritten body of rules, rooted in tradition and enforced by community institutions, that regulates marriage, property, inheritance and disputes in tribal society; Malinowski (Crime and Custom in Savage Society, 1926) showed that it rests on binding reciprocal obligations.
Functioning: disputes go first to kin, then to village councils of elders: among the Santal the manjhi's council hears village cases, the pargana council inter-village ones, and the lo bir hunt council historically the gravest; the Apatani buliang (Fürer-Haimendorf) and the Khasi dorbar shnong mediate similarly.
Procedure and sanctions: hearings are public, the aim is reconciliation, and penalties are fines in cash, animals or rice beer, a feast for the village, and in grave cases outcasting (Santal bitlaha).
Sources: (1) tradition remembered by elders; (2) religion and the supernatural, through taboos, oaths and ordeals; (3) myths that charter rights to land and office; (4) kinship rules such as clan exogamy; (5) precedents of earlier council decisions; and (6) today, state recognition under the Sixth Schedule, Article 371A (Nagaland) and PESA (1996).
Limits: customary rules often deny women land, as the challenge in Madhu Kishwar v. State of Bihar (1996) under the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act showed, and can harbour witch-hunting.
Customary law thus works as a flexible, restorative system within legal pluralism, to be reconciled with constitutional rights.Q2(c) · Anthropological Theories · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Culture and Personality, Neo-evolutionism and Later Theories
What do you understand by the National Character Study? Illustrate the concept.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
राष्ट्रीय चरित्र अध्ययन से आप क्या समझते हैं ? संकल्पना को स्पष्ट कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q2(c)
Approach: Define national character study, explain its assumptions and methods, illustrate with two or three classic studies, and close with critique.
National character study is the branch of the culture and personality school that tried to identify the enduring personality traits shared by members of a modern nation, explained by common child-rearing and cultural values. It flourished during and after the Second World War.
Assumptions and method: a nation has a shared culture that produces a typical character; early childhood experiences shape adult personality (a Freudian premise); and since enemy nations could not be visited, culture could be studied “at a distance” through immigrants, films, literature and documents (Mead and Métraux, 1953).
Illustrations: (i) Ruth Benedict’s The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946) portrayed Japan as hierarchical, with strong obligation to repay debts and a shame culture in which outer sanctions matter, contrasted with the guilt culture of the West. (ii) Gorer and Rickman (1949) explained Russian mood swings by tight swaddling. (iii) Mead’s And Keep Your Powder Dry (1942) described Americans as success-driven. (iv) Francis Hsu compared Chinese, Hindu and American ways of life.
Critique: these studies homogenised large, diverse nations, relied on weak samples, and risked stereotyping and political misuse. Today, cross-cultural psychology (Hofstede) uses survey data instead, treating national culture as a statistical tendency.
Question 3 (50 marks)
Q3(a) · Culture, Communication and Research Methods · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Fieldwork Tradition, Technique, Method and Methodology
Define ethnography and present a brief history of ethnographic studies.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
नृजाति वर्णन को परिभाषित कीजिए तथा नृजातीय अध्ययनों का एक संक्षिप्त इतिहास प्रस्तुत कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q3(a)
Approach: Define ethnography as both process and product, then give a brief phased history (early accounts, armchair, survey, classical, Indian, critical and contemporary) with key works.
Ethnography (Greek ethnos, people, and graphein, to write) is both a method and a product: the first-hand, long-term study of a particular community through participant observation and other techniques, and the written description of its way of life. It is holistic, contextual and seeks the insider’s view.
Early and armchair accounts: descriptions by Herodotus, Megasthenes on India, Al-Biruni’s Kitab al-Hind, and later missionaries and colonial officials supplied material; nineteenth-century evolutionists compiled such reports without fieldwork, although Morgan’s League of the Iroquois (1851) drew on direct contact.
Scientific beginnings: the Torres Strait expedition (1898) and Rivers’s The Todas (1906); Boas’s Kwakiutl texts; and Malinowski’s Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922), which set the model of participant observation and the native’s point of view.
Classical monographs: Radcliffe-Brown’s The Andaman Islanders (1922), Mead’s Samoa (1928), Evans-Pritchard’s The Nuer (1940) and Firth’s We, the Tikopia (1936). In India, S.C. Roy’s The Mundas and Their Country (1912), Elwin’s The Baiga (1939), Haimendorf on the Chenchus and Konyak Nagas, and later village ethnographies by Srinivas (The Remembered Village, 1976) and Dube (Indian Village, 1955).
Critical turn: the publication of Malinowski’s diary (1967), feminist critiques and Writing Culture (1986) exposed the authority and politics of ethnographic writing, leading to reflexive and dialogic ethnographies.
Contemporary forms: multi-sited (Marcus, 1995), digital, multispecies, collaborative and applied ethnographies, now used also in health, business and policy.
Ethnography thus remains the core of anthropology, though its methods and writing have become more reflexive and diverse.Q3(b) · Prehistoric Archaeology · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age
Give an account of the consequences of food production of Neolithic culture.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
नवपाषाण संस्कृति के अन्न (खाद्य) उत्पादन के परिणामों का विवरण दीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q3(b)
Approach: Give an account of the consequences under heads (demographic, economic, technological, social, political, religious, health and environmental) with world and Indian examples, and conclude with a balanced view.
V. Gordon Childe called the beginning of food production the Neolithic Revolution because it transformed every part of human life, though the change itself took thousands of years.
Settlement and population: farming tied people to fields, producing permanent villages such as Jericho, Çatalhöyük, Mehrgarh and Burzahom; shorter birth spacing raised population.
Economy and technology: storable surplus required granaries and storage pits (compartmented buildings at Mehrgarh); polished stone axes, sickles, querns, pottery, weaving and mud-brick architecture spread.
Social and political: surplus freed some people for crafts and trade; land and herds became property passed through lineages; differences in wealth and grave goods show emerging ranking, chiefs and, in time, the Urban Revolution.
Religion: fertility figurines, ancestor cults (plastered skulls at Jericho) and shrines reflect concern with land, rain and descent.
Health and environment: skeletons show more dental caries, nutritional stress and infectious disease from crowding and animals; Jared Diamond provocatively called agriculture the worst mistake in human history. Forest clearance and grazing altered landscapes.
Food production thus brought both growth and new costs, and laid the foundation of civilisation.Q3(c) · Culture, Communication and Research Methods · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Culture, Language and Communication
Critically examine that the structure and content of language are influenced by culture.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
समालोचनात्मक परीक्षण कीजिए कि भाषा की बनावट एवं सामग्री संस्कृति से प्रभावित होती है ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q3(c)
Approach: Examine how culture shapes vocabulary, grammar and usage, with examples (kinship, colour, honorifics, environment), then weigh counter-evidence of universals and two-way influence.
Boas and Sapir held that a language’s vocabulary is an index of the culture of its speakers. The claim that culture influences the structure and content of language is largely true for content, but more limited for structure.
Content: (i) cultural emphasis leads to elaborate vocabularies: Evans-Pritchard recorded hundreds of Nuer terms for cattle colours and shapes; Indian farmers name many rice varieties and soil types. (ii) Kinship terms mirror social organisation: Hindi distinguishes chacha, mama, fufa and mausa, reflecting the importance of patrilineal and affinal links, where English has only uncle; Dravidian terminologies merge cross cousins with spouses, reflecting cross-cousin marriage.
Structure: Javanese speech levels and Hindi honorific pronouns grammaticalise hierarchy; Japanese verb forms encode respect. Whorf argued that Hopi grammar reflects a process-oriented world view.
Critique: Berlin and Kay showed colour terms follow a universal sequence; Chomsky argued that deep grammar is innate; the famous many-words-for-snow claim was exaggerated (Pullum, 1991). Influence also runs both ways, since language shapes how culture is learnt and transmitted.
Thus culture strongly shapes lexicon and usage, moderately shapes some grammatical categories, but operates within universal cognitive limits.
Question 4 (50 marks)
Q4(a) · Culture, Communication and Research Methods · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Tools of Data Collection and Analysis
How is case study method helpful in understanding a social phenomena? Explain with suitable example.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
केस (व्यक्ति) अध्ययन विधि एक सामाजिक परिघटना को समझने में कैसे सहायक होती है ? उपयुक्त उदाहरण के साथ स्पष्ट कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q4(a)
Approach: Define the case study method, explain its types (including the extended case method), steps and value, illustrate with a detailed example (Gluckman’s bridge, Bailey’s Bisipara), and note limitations.
The case study method is the intensive, holistic study of a single social unit, a person, family, institution, event, dispute or community, in its context, to understand processes that surveys cannot capture. Pauline Young described it as a method of exploring and analysing the life of a social unit (paraphrase).
Types and features: individual and group case studies, event analysis, and the extended case method of Max Gluckman and the Manchester school, which follows a series of linked events involving the same actors over time. It uses observation, interviews, documents and life histories, and moves from description to analysis of underlying social relations.
How it helps: (i) it reveals process and change rather than static structure; (ii) it shows how people use, bend or contest rules; (iii) it links micro events to wider structures such as colonialism or the market; (iv) it generates hypotheses for comparative study.
Example: in “Analysis of a Social Situation in Modern Zululand” (1940) Gluckman analysed the opening of a bridge in 1938, where Zulu and European officials, chiefs and missionaries gathered. Seating, speeches and behaviour at this single event revealed the colour bar, cooperation and conflict, and the dual position of the chief within the colonial system.
Indian example: F.G. Bailey’s Caste and the Economic Frontier (1957) used cases of land purchase and disputes in the Odisha village of Bisipara to show how distiller castes enriched by trade bought land and challenged the old caste order.
Limitations: cases may be unrepresentative, depend on the researcher’s selection and are hard to generalise. Combining cases with surveys and comparison overcomes this, making the case study an indispensable tool for understanding social phenomena.Q4(b) · Fossil Hominids · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Homo erectus
Describe the culture related to Homo erectus.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
होमो इरेक्टस से संबंधित संस्कृति का वर्णन कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q4(b)
Approach: Only culture is asked: describe tools (Acheulian and chopper-chopping), fire, subsistence, shelter, dispersal and symbolic hints with sites and dates, and end with what they show about cognition.
The culture of Homo erectus belongs to the Lower Palaeolithic, from about 1.8 million to a few hundred thousand years ago, known from stone tools, butchered bones and traces of fire.
Tools: early H. erectus used Oldowan-like choppers and flakes (Dmanisi), and from about 1.76 million years (Kokiselei, Kenya; Konso, Ethiopia) made the Acheulian handaxe and cleaver, bifaces shaped symmetrically to a mental template; in India Acheulian tools occur at Attirampakkam (about 1.5 million years), Isampur and the Hunsgi valley; in East Asia, as at Zhoukoudian, chopper-chopping tools and quartz flakes dominate, the contrast of Hallam Movius's line (1948), now weakened by handaxes from the Bose basin, China.
Fire: burnt bone and plant ash at Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa (about 1 million years), is accepted as evidence of fire; Gesher Benot Ya'aqov in Israel (about 780,000 years) had repeated hearths; the Zhoukoudian ash layers are debated.
Subsistence and dispersal: cut-marked bones show more meat, by hunting and scavenging; this flexible culture helped the first spread out of Africa into Georgia, Java and China.
Symbolic hints: a freshwater shell from Trinil engraved with a zigzag (about 540,000 to 430,000 years) suggests the beginnings of abstract marking.
Thus the culture of H. erectus shows planning, standardised tool-making, control of fire and wide adaptation, the base on which later Middle Palaeolithic culture was built.Q4(c) · Economic Organisation · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Production, Distribution and Exchange
Write the characteristics of hunting and gathering economy.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
शिकार और एकत्रित करने की अर्थव्यवस्था के अभिलक्षणों को लिखिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q4(c)
Approach: List and explain the characteristics of the hunting-gathering economy, each illustrated with world and Indian foragers, and close with the affluence debate and present change.
A hunting and gathering (foraging) economy obtains food from wild plants and animals without cultivation or herding; it was the human way of life for most of our history and survives among the !Kung San, Hadza and Inuit, and in India the Birhor, Chenchu, Onge and Jarawa.
Mobility and small bands: low population density and seasonal movement in bands of a few related families, as in the Birhor tandas described by S.C. Roy (1925).
Simple technology and division of labour: bows, nets, digging sticks and traps, with work divided mainly by age and sex; the Birhor hunt monkeys with nets and make chop-fibre ropes to exchange with farmers.
Sharing and little storage: food, especially meat, is shared through generalized reciprocity; James Woodburn called the Hadza an immediate-return system with little accumulation, which supports egalitarian relations.
Common access to resources: territories are used collectively without private land, and leadership is informal and based on skill.
Close tie with nature and ritual: forests and seas are sacred and known in detail, as for the Onge and the Chenchu.
Marshall Sahlins called foragers the original affluent society, using Richard Lee's evidence that the !Kung needed only a few hours a day for food; later scholars debated these figures. Today forest laws, sedentarisation and wage labour are transforming foraging.
Question 5 (50 marks)
Q5(a) · Anthropological Theories · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Culture and Personality, Neo-evolutionism and Later Theories
Gordon Childe's Theory of Cultural Evolution
हिंदी में प्रश्न
गॉर्डन चाइल्ड का सांस्कृतिक विकास का सिद्धांत
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(a)
Approach: Introduce Childe as a Marxist-influenced archaeologist, explain the Neolithic and Urban revolutions and his criteria of civilization, then evaluate.
V. Gordon Childe (1892–1957), an Australian-born archaeologist influenced by Marxism, explained cultural evolution through changes in the economy and technology in Man Makes Himself (1936), What Happened in History (1942) and Social Evolution (1951).
Neolithic Revolution: the shift from food gathering to food production (cultivation and herding) in the Near East created surplus, settled villages, population growth, pottery and weaving. Childe linked it to post-glacial drying (the oasis theory).
Urban Revolution: in Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Indus, surplus from irrigation agriculture supported cities and full-time specialists. His ten criteria of civilization (1950) include large cities, specialists, surplus concentrated by rulers, monumental buildings, a ruling class, writing, exact sciences, naturalistic art, long-distance trade and a state based on residence rather than kinship.
In Social Evolution he accepted that regions followed different sequences, a step towards multilinear evolution. Critics note that agriculture arose gradually and in several centres, not as a sudden revolution, but his criteria still guide studies of the Harappan civilization.Q5(b) · Human Genetics: Methods, Inheritance and Chromosomes · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Methods of Studying Human Genetics
Advanced Molecular Anthropology Techniques
हिंदी में प्रश्न
उन्नत आण्विक नृविज्ञान तकनीकें
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(b)
Approach: List the main advanced molecular techniques with what each does, and give their anthropological applications with world and Indian examples.
Molecular anthropology uses DNA and proteins to study human variation, evolution and population history. Since the 1980s, a set of advanced techniques has transformed the field.
Techniques: (i) the polymerase chain reaction (PCR, Kary Mullis, 1983) amplifies tiny amounts of DNA; (ii) DNA sequencing, from Sanger’s method (1977) to next-generation and whole-genome sequencing; (iii) markers such as RFLPs, microsatellites (STRs) and SNP arrays; (iv) uniparental markers, mitochondrial DNA tracing maternal lines and Y-chromosome markers tracing paternal lines; (v) DNA fingerprinting (Alec Jeffreys, 1984); (vi) ancient DNA extraction from bones and teeth.
Applications: the mitochondrial Eve study (Cann, Stoneking and Wilson, 1987) supported recent African origin; Svante Pääbo’s Neanderthal genome (2010) showed interbreeding, and a finger bone from Denisova Cave revealed the Denisovans. In India, mtDNA showed deep, ancient lineages among the Andamanese (2005), Reich and colleagues (2009) described Ancestral North and South Indian components, and DNA from a Rakhigarhi skeleton (2019) shed light on Harappan ancestry.
These techniques also serve forensics, paternity testing and disease studies.Q5(c) · Human Genetics: Methods, Inheritance and Chromosomes · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Mendelian Genetics and Patterns of Inheritance in Man
Categorize Genes that influence Human Survival.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जीनों को श्रेणीबद्ध कीजिए जो मानव उत्तरजीविता को प्रभावित करते हैं ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(c)
Approach: Classify genes by their effect on survival (lethal, sublethal, subvital, normal), and also by adaptive value (balanced polymorphism, adaptive genes), with examples.
Genes may be classified by their effect on the probability of surviving to reproduce, which determines how natural selection acts on them.
By viability: (i) lethal genes kill all carriers before reproduction, dominant lethals in heterozygotes and recessive lethals in homozygotes, as in Tay-Sachs disease or homozygous achondroplasia; (ii) sublethal or semi-lethal genes kill more than half, such as untreated sickle-cell anaemia and Duchenne muscular dystrophy; (iii) subvital genes reduce viability by less than half, as in many mild metabolic disorders; (iv) vital or normal genes do not affect survival; (v) conditional lethals act only in particular environments, as with G6PD deficiency and fava beans.
By adaptive value: genes under balanced polymorphism harm homozygotes but protect heterozygotes, as HbS, thalassaemia and G6PD deficiency do against falciparum malaria; adaptive genes favour survival in particular settings, such as EPAS1 variants in Tibetans at high altitude and lactase persistence among herders.
This classification links genetics with population survival and selection.Q5(d) · Population Genetics, Race and Human Variation · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Race and Racism
Race is a Myth. Justify its Present Day Relevance.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
प्रजाति एक मिथक है । इसकी वर्तमान प्रासंगिकता का औचित्य साबित कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(d)
Approach: Explain why race is called a myth (Montagu, genetic evidence), then justify its present-day relevance as a social reality (racism, Indian cases, medicine and forensics), and conclude.
Ashley Montagu called race Man’s Most Dangerous Myth (1942) because the idea of discrete, ranked biological races has no scientific basis: about 85 per cent of genetic variation lies within populations (Lewontin, 1972), traits vary in clines and do not vary together, and humans share about 99.9 per cent of their DNA.
Present-day relevance: although biologically a myth, race is a powerful social reality. Racial discrimination persists, as global protests after George Floyd’s killing in 2020 showed. In India, people from the north-east face racial slurs and violence; after the death of Nido Taniam in Delhi in 2014 the Bezbaruah Committee recommended legal and social remedies. African students have faced attacks in Indian cities.
Race also matters in medicine, where ancestry rather than race helps predict disease risks and drug responses, and in forensic identification of skeletal ancestry.
Studying race critically thus remains necessary to fight racism while using ancestry responsibly.Q5(e) · Ecological Anthropology, Epidemiology and Human Growth · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Human Growth, Development and Ageing
Issues of Elderly and Senescence in Developing and Developed Countries
हिंदी में प्रश्न
विकासशील एवं विकसित देशों में वयोवृद्ध एवं जीर्णता (बुढ़ापे) के मुद्दे
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(e)
Approach: Define senescence briefly, then contrast the issues of the elderly in developed and developing countries (demography, economy, care, health, family), with Indian data and policy.
Senescence is the biological decline of function with age; how it is experienced depends on a society’s demography, economy and family system.
Developed countries: populations are old, with about 29 per cent aged 65 and above in Japan; issues include pension and health-care costs, shrinking workforces, dementia, loneliness and dependence on paid institutional care, though social security is extensive.
Developing countries: ageing is rapid but societies are poorer. In India, people aged 60 and above formed about 10 per cent of the population around 2021, and the UNFPA India Ageing Report (2023) projects about 20 per cent by 2050. Most elderly lack pensions and work in the informal sector; the feminisation of ageing leaves many widows poor; migration of the young and the weakening joint family reduce care; and chronic disease rises.
Responses include the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act 2007, the National Programme for Health Care of the Elderly (2010) and old-age pensions.
Question 6 (50 marks)
Q6(a) · Population Genetics, Race and Human Variation · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Hardy–Weinberg Law, Genetic Polymorphism and Inbreeding
Explain the mechanisms of human variation in gene frequencies.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जीन आवृत्तियों में मानव विविधता के तंत्रों की व्याख्या कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(a)
Approach: Take the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium as the baseline and explain each mechanism that changes gene frequencies (mutation, selection, drift, gene flow, non-random mating), with mathematical sense and human examples, then conclude.
Under the Hardy-Weinberg law, allele frequencies stay constant in a large, randomly mating population free of disturbing forces. Human variation in gene frequencies arises because these conditions are never fully met.
Mutation: changes one allele into another at a low rate (about 1 in 100,000 per gene per generation for many loci), slowly creating new variants such as HbS, HbE and the many beta-thalassaemia mutations found in India. Recurrent mutation balances selection against harmful alleles (mutation-selection balance).
Natural selection: alleles that raise survival and fertility increase. It may be directional (lactase persistence), stabilising (birth weight around an optimum, as Karn and Penrose showed in 1951), or balancing (HbS and malaria). Climate-related selection explains clines in skin colour, and selection by disease explains the high diversity of HLA alleles.
Genetic drift: random sampling in small populations changes frequencies unpredictably and can fix or eliminate alleles. Founder effects (the Amish, Ellis-van Creveld syndrome), bottlenecks (Pingelap) and the Dunkers study of Bentley Glass (1952) show it; small tribes such as the Onge and Jarawa are especially affected.
Gene flow: migration and admixture move alleles between populations and reduce differences, as in the mixed ancestry of most Indian groups from Ancestral North and South Indian sources, or the European admixture of African Americans.
Non-random mating: inbreeding (consanguineous marriages in South India) and assortative mating alter genotype frequencies and expose recessive alleles to selection; caste endogamy keeps groups genetically distinct.
In combination these mechanisms produce the patterned, mostly clinal variation of human gene frequencies, with each population carrying a unique history of mutation, drift, selection and contact.Q6(b) · Ecological Anthropology, Epidemiology and Human Growth · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Ecological Anthropology and Bio-cultural Adaptation
Do Allen's rule and Bergmann's rule hold for human populations? Explain with examples.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
क्या एलेन और बर्गमैन के नियम मानव समष्टियों पर लागू होते हैं ? उदाहरणों के साथ स्पष्ट कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(b)
Approach: State both rules and their thermoregulatory logic, review the evidence from human populations (Roberts, Ruff, examples), then discuss exceptions and complicating factors, and conclude.
Bergmann’s rule (Carl Bergmann, 1847) states that within a widely distributed warm-blooded species, body size tends to be larger in colder regions, since a larger body has a smaller surface area relative to volume and loses less heat. Allen’s rule (J.A. Allen, 1877) states that limbs and other extremities are relatively shorter in colder climates for the same reason.
Evidence in humans: D.F. Roberts (1953, 1978) found a clear negative correlation between average body weight and mean annual temperature across world populations. Christopher Ruff (1994) showed that body breadth (bi-iliac width) is greater in cold-adapted groups whatever their stature. Examples fit well: the stocky Inuit with relatively short limbs, versus tall, linear Nilotic peoples such as the Nuer and Dinka of the hot, dry Sudan, whose long limbs dissipate heat.
Exceptions and complications: small-bodied rainforest peoples such as the Mbuti and the Andamanese fit Bergmann’s rule, but tall Europeans in mild climates and short Andean highlanders in cold climates are exceptions; nutrition and disease strongly affect body size; recent migration, admixture and clothing weaken correlations; and secular trends have reduced them (Katzmarzyk and Leonard, 1998).
Both rules hold broadly as statistical tendencies in humans, especially for body breadth and limb proportions, but culture and nutrition modify their expression.Q6(c) · Prehistoric Archaeology · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age
Explain the impact of discovery of iron technology on contemporary society.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
समसामयिक समाज पर लौह प्रौद्योगिकी के आविष्कार के प्रभाव की व्याख्या कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(c)
Approach: Explain how iron technology spread, then its impact on agriculture, crafts and trade, warfare, urbanisation and state formation, and social structure, with Indian and world examples; close with the debate on how decisive iron was.
Iron smelting, known in Anatolia in the second millennium BCE and often linked with the Hittites, spread across Eurasia and Africa after about 1200 BCE. Unlike copper and tin, iron ore is found almost everywhere, so iron became the metal of ordinary people; Childe regarded cheap iron as having democratised agriculture, industry and warfare.
Agriculture: iron axes, sickles, hoes and ploughshares made it easier to clear forests and till heavy soils. In India, with the Painted Grey Ware culture (about 1200 to 600 BCE) in the upper Ganga plain, farming spread east into the forested middle Ganga plain, producing larger surpluses.
Crafts and trade: blacksmiths became specialists, carpentry and other crafts improved, and surplus supported trade, punch-marked coins and the cities of the second urbanisation associated with Northern Black Polished Ware (about 700 to 200 BCE).
Warfare and polity: iron swords, spearheads and arrowheads equipped larger armies; D.D. Kosambi and R.S. Sharma linked iron to the rise of the mahajanapadas and Magadha. In Africa, iron accompanied the spread of Bantu-speaking farmers.
Society: in the south, megalith builders buried iron weapons and horse equipment with chiefs, showing ranked societies, and in the north stratification sharpened with landholding.
Critics note that rice farming in the Ganga plain predates iron and that fire could clear forests, so iron was an important enabling factor rather than the sole cause.
Question 7 (50 marks)
Q7(a) · Human Genetics: Methods, Inheritance and Chromosomes · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Chromosomes and Chromosomal Aberrations
Describe the mechanisms for structural anomalies of autosomes with diagrams.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
अलिंगसूत्रों (ऑटोसोम्स) की संरचनात्मक विसंगतियों के तंत्रों का रेखाचित्र द्वारा वर्णन कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(a)
Approach: Explain how breakage and faulty rejoining produce each structural anomaly of autosomes (deletion, duplication, inversion, translocation, ring, isochromosome), with the mechanism, consequences and an example for each, and draw each one.
Structural anomalies arise when one or more chromosomes break and the fragments are lost or rejoin in a new arrangement, through radiation, chemicals, defective repair or unequal recombination between repeated sequences in meiosis. They may be balanced (no loss or gain of material) or unbalanced.
(i) Deletion: a terminal or interstitial segment is lost after one or two breaks. Cri-du-chat syndrome (5p−) causes a cat-like cry, microcephaly and intellectual disability; Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome results from 4p−; microdeletions such as 22q11.2 cause DiGeorge syndrome. (ii) Duplication: a segment is repeated, usually through unequal crossing over, which simultaneously produces a reciprocal deletion; duplications are generally milder than deletions.
(iii) Inversion: a segment breaks at two points and rejoins after turning 180 degrees. A paracentric inversion excludes the centromere, a pericentric one includes it; inv(9) is a common harmless variant. Carriers are healthy, but crossing over within the inversion loop in meiosis produces unbalanced gametes and miscarriages.
(iv) Translocation: in a reciprocal translocation, segments are exchanged between non-homologous chromosomes, as in the Philadelphia chromosome t(9;22) of chronic myeloid leukaemia. In a Robertsonian translocation, two acrocentric chromosomes (13, 14, 15, 21, 22) fuse at their centromeres; a balanced t(14;21) carrier has 45 chromosomes and can have a child with translocation Down syndrome.
(v) Ring chromosome: breaks at both ends and the sticky ends join, losing terminal segments. (vi) Isochromosome: the centromere divides transversely, producing two identical arms, as in i(Xq) of some Turner cases or i(12p) in Pallister-Killian syndrome.
Diagram: a row of paired diagrams with segments lettered ABCDEF, showing deletion (ABEF), duplication (ABCDCDEF), inversion (ADCBEF), reciprocal exchange between two chromosomes, Robertsonian fusion of two acrocentrics, a ring and an isochromosome.
Karyotyping, FISH and microarrays detect these anomalies, and identifying balanced carriers is vital for genetic counselling.Q7(b) · Prehistoric Archaeology · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Principles of Prehistoric Archaeology and Dating Methods
Describe the principles of radiocarbon dating. Mention its limitations.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
रेडियोकार्बन तिथि-निर्धारण के सिद्धांतों का वर्णन कीजिए । इनकी सीमाओं का उल्लेख कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(b)
Approach: Explain how C-14 forms, enters organisms and decays, how the age is calculated and measured, then list limitations with remedies; draw the decay curve.
Radiocarbon dating, developed by Willard Libby in 1949 (Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1960), is the most widely used absolute method for the last 50,000 years.
Principles: cosmic-ray neutrons convert nitrogen-14 in the upper atmosphere into radioactive carbon-14, which forms carbon dioxide and enters plants by photosynthesis and animals through food. While alive, an organism keeps the same C-14 to C-12 ratio as the atmosphere. At death, intake stops and C-14 decays back to nitrogen-14 with a half-life of about 5,730 years.
Measuring the C-14 left gives the time since death: half remains after 5,730 years, a quarter after 11,460. It is measured by counting beta decays or, since the late 1970s, by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS), which counts atoms in milligram samples. Dates are given in years BP (before 1950).
Charcoal, wood, seeds, bone collagen and shell can be dated; in India the TIFR laboratory dated Harappan and Neolithic sites from the 1960s.
Limitations: the range ends near 50,000 years; atmospheric C-14 has varied, so dates must be calibrated with tree rings; contamination by older or younger carbon distorts results; marine shells show a reservoir effect; old wood gives too-early dates; fossil-fuel and nuclear-test effects disturb modern samples; inorganic material cannot be dated.
Diagram: decay curve with years (0, 5,730, 11,460, 17,190) on the horizontal axis and C-14 remaining (100, 50, 25, 12.5 percent) on the vertical axis.
Despite these limits, calibrated AMS radiocarbon remains the backbone of Holocene and late Pleistocene chronology.Q7(c) · Ecological Anthropology, Epidemiology and Human Growth · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Epidemiological Anthropology
Narrate evolution of disease and major causes of ill health in human populations.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
मानव समष्टियों में रोगों के विकास और अस्वस्थता के प्रमुख कारणों का वर्णन कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(c)
Approach: Narrate the evolution of disease through the epidemiological transitions (foragers, agriculture, industrial and modern, re-emerging infections), then identify the major causes of ill health today, with Indian reference.
Disease patterns have changed with human ways of life. Abdel Omran’s theory of the epidemiological transition (1971), extended by Armelagos and colleagues, describes this evolution.
Foragers: small, mobile bands suffered mainly from parasites, injuries and zoonoses acquired from wild animals; crowd diseases could not persist in such small groups. Agriculture (first transition): settlement, domestic animals and crowding brought measles, smallpox, tuberculosis and malaria, along with nutritional deficiency, as skeletal evidence shows. Omran’s age of pestilence and famine lasted into the industrial period.
Industrial and modern era (second transition): sanitation, nutrition, vaccines and antibiotics caused an age of receding pandemics, followed by an age of degenerative and man-made diseases, such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes, with longer life expectancy; Olshansky and Ault (1986) added a stage of delayed degenerative diseases. Third transition: newly emerging and re-emerging infections such as HIV, drug-resistant tuberculosis, Nipah, Zika and COVID-19.
Major causes of ill health today: malnutrition, both under- and over-nutrition; infectious diseases linked to poverty; non-communicable diseases; environmental pollution; tobacco and alcohol; genetic disorders such as sickle-cell disease; and inequality in access to care. India faces a double burden of infection and NCDs.
Question 8 (50 marks)
Q8(a) · Ecological Anthropology, Epidemiology and Human Growth · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Ecological Anthropology and Bio-cultural Adaptation
Distinguish between adaptation, adaptability and acclimatization with examples.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
अनुकूलन, अनुकूलनशीलता और पर्यनुकूलन में उदाहरणों के द्वारा अन्तर स्पष्ट कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(a)
Approach: Define and distinguish the three concepts (with Lasker’s levels), give clear examples of each, add a comparison of time scale, reversibility and mechanism, and conclude.
These three terms describe how humans cope with environmental stress at different levels and time scales. Gabriel Lasker (1969) distinguished genetic adaptation, developmental adjustment, short-term physiological adjustment and cultural or behavioural responses.
Adaptation refers to genetic changes in a population, produced by natural selection over many generations, that improve survival and reproduction in a particular environment. It is irreversible within an individual and is inherited. Examples: dark skin pigmentation in high-UV regions; the sickle-cell allele in malarial areas; EPAS1 variants in Tibetans; lactase persistence among dairying peoples.
Adaptability is the capacity of an individual or population to adjust to environmental change without genetic change, that is, human plasticity. It includes developmental plasticity, physiological acclimatization and cultural behaviour. Examples: the larger chests of children raised at high altitude; the taller stature of children of Japanese migrants in Hawaii (Shapiro); use of clothing, fire and housing.
Acclimatization is a specific, reversible physiological adjustment within an individual’s lifetime in response to natural, often multiple, stresses (acclimation refers to adjustment to a single stress under laboratory conditions). Examples: rising haemoglobin in soldiers posted to Ladakh or Siachen, returning to normal after descent; increased sweating and plasma volume after one to two weeks in a hot climate; cold tolerance in fishermen’s hands.
Comparison: adaptation acts on the population across generations; adaptability is the broad capacity; acclimatization is one physiological form of adaptability, operating over days to months and reversible. A highland Tibetan therefore shows adaptation, while a lowlander trekking in the Himalaya shows acclimatization.
Together they explain how humans have colonised almost every environment on earth.Q8(b) · Reproductive Biology, Demography and Applied Anthropology · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Demographic Theories and Factors of Fertility and Mortality
Define fecundity and explain major factors affecting fecundity in Indian populations.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
बहुप्रजता को परिभाषित कीजिए और भारतीय आबादी में बहुप्रजता को प्रभावित करने वाले प्रमुख कारकों की व्याख्या कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(b)
Approach: Define fecundity (with fecundability and sterility), then explain the major factors affecting it specifically in Indian populations, with data and examples from tribes and regions.
Fecundity is the physiological capacity of an individual or couple to produce a live child, as distinct from fertility, the actual births. Its monthly measure is fecundability, about 0.2 to 0.25 in young couples; its absence is sterility, primary if a woman never conceives and secondary after one or more births.
Nutrition and anaemia: undernutrition delays menarche and raises pregnancy loss; NFHS-5 (2019–21) found 57 percent of women aged 15–49 anaemic. Infections: genital tuberculosis is a leading cause of tubal infertility in India; reproductive tract and sexually transmitted infections cause secondary sterility, and malaria in forest tribal belts raises miscarriage.
Genetic factors: consanguineous marriage, common in South India (uncle-niece and cross-cousin unions), increases foetal loss; sickle-cell disease, frequent among tribes of central India such as the Gond, Bhil and Baiga, and thalassaemia affect pregnancy outcomes; chromosomal anomalies cause recurrent miscarriage.
Age, ecology and lifestyle: very early marriage brings adolescent sub-fecundity, while late-marrying urban women face declining fecundity after 35; obesity, polycystic ovary syndrome, smoking, alcohol and pesticide exposure are rising causes, also among men. Small tribal groups such as the Onge have recorded low fertility and childlessness after contact-related disease.
Fecundity in India is thus shaped by poverty-linked disease and affluence-linked lifestyle; nutrition, tuberculosis control and genetic screening are the main remedies.Q8(c) · Prehistoric Archaeology · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Principles of Prehistoric Archaeology and Dating Methods
Give an account of the field methods used in the study of Archaeological Anthropology.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
पुरातात्त्विक नृविज्ञान के अध्ययन में उपयोग होने वाली क्षेत्र विधियों का विवरण दीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(c)
Approach: Describe the field sequence: exploration and survey, excavation methods, recording, sampling and recovery, and post-excavation work, with Indian examples.
Field methods are the techniques by which archaeologists find, excavate and record sites so that objects keep their context: their matrix, exact provenience and associations.
Exploration and survey: village-to-village exploration and field walking, study of river sections and terraces (as in the Narmada and Belan valleys), aerial and satellite imagery, and geophysical methods such as resistivity, magnetometry and ground-penetrating radar locate sites without digging.
Excavation: vertical trenches and test pits reveal the sequence; horizontal or open-area excavation exposes house plans and activity floors. Mortimer Wheeler's grid (box) method, taught to Indian archaeologists at Taxila and used at Arikamedu (1945) and Brahmagiri (1947), keeps baulks for reading sections; mounds are often dug by the quadrant method.
Recording: every find is located in three dimensions with reference to a datum; layers are drawn in section and plan, photographed and logged on context sheets, and the Harris matrix (1973) shows stratigraphic relations.
Recovery and sampling: sieving recovers small bones and microliths; flotation recovers charred seeds; samples are taken for radiocarbon, luminescence, pollen and soil analysis.
Post-excavation work includes cleaning, classification, conservation, scientific analysis and publication. Ethnoarchaeology and experimental tool-making add interpretive depth, as recent excavations at Rakhigarhi illustrate with ancient DNA and planned trenches.
UPSC Mains 2018 Anthropology Paper II
Question 1 (50 marks)
Q1(a) · Tribal Situation and Problems in India · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Tribal Situation in India
Distinctive cultural features of tribes of Andaman islands
हिंदी में प्रश्न
अण्डमान द्वीपों के जनजातियों की विशिष्ट सांस्कृतिक विशेषतायें
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(a)
Approach: A short note distinguishing the Negrito groups of the Andamans from the Nicobar groups, with their economy, social organisation, contact history and protection.
The Andaman Islands are home to four Negrito groups, the Great Andamanese, Onge, Jarawa and Sentinelese, all PVTGs and among the earliest settlers of South Asia; mitochondrial lineages M31 and M32 (Thangaraj et al., 2005) point to a very old settlement.
They are hunter-gatherers who hunt wild pig and turtle, fish with bows and nets, and collect honey and tubers, living in small, egalitarian bands with communal huts and no formal chiefs. A.R. Radcliffe-Brown's The Andaman Islanders (1922) analysed their ceremonies, such as the weeping greeting, as expressions of social sentiment.
Contact has been devastating: the Great Andamanese fell to a few dozen people, the Jarawa came into friendly contact only in the late 1990s and are threatened by the Andaman Trunk Road, and the Sentinelese reject all contact. The Andaman and Nicobar Protection of Aboriginal Tribes Regulation (1956) protects their reserves.
In the Nicobars, the Mongoloid Nicobarese practise coconut horticulture in clan-based households, and the Shompen forage in Great Nicobar.Q1(b) · Demographic Profile and the Traditional Indian Social System · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Varnashrama, Purushartha, Karma, Rina and Rebirth
Philosophy behind Purusharthas
हिंदी में प्रश्न
पुरुषार्थ के परोक्ष तत्त्वज्ञान
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(b)
Approach: A short note on the philosophy behind the purusharthas: meaning of each, their hierarchy and balance, and how they relate to the life course.
The purusharthas, 'objects of human pursuit', express a Hindu philosophy that human life has several legitimate aims which must be balanced rather than one goal pursued alone.
Dharma is the moral and social order and one's duty within it; artha is material well-being and power, treated in Kautilya's Arthashastra; kama is desire, love and aesthetic pleasure, treated in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra; and moksha is liberation from the cycle of rebirth.
The underlying philosophy is integration: the trivarga of dharma, artha and kama belongs to life in the world, with dharma as the guiding frame, while moksha is the ultimate goal; the ashramas sequence them, with the householder pursuing artha and kama and later stages turning to moksha. P.H. Prabhu saw this as a psychologically sound plan that satisfies human drives while directing them morally.
The philosophy accepts worldly life as valuable yet subordinates it to ethics and liberation, though its classical form was framed for elite men.Q1(c) · Demographic Profile and the Traditional Indian Social System · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Ethnic and Linguistic Elements in the Indian Population
Endangered Languages
हिंदी में प्रश्न
संकटापन्न (इन्डेन्जर्ड) भाषाएं
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(c)
Approach: A short note: what makes a language endangered, Indian scale and examples, causes, and measures taken.
A language is endangered when children no longer learn it as a mother tongue and its speakers shift to a dominant language; UNESCO grades vitality from vulnerable to critically endangered and extinct.
UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (2009) listed 197 Indian languages, the largest number for any country. Most are tribal, such as the Great Andamanese languages (Bo died with Boa Sr in 2010), Onge, Toda, Birhor, Asur and many north-eastern languages; the Census counts only languages with 10,000 or more speakers, hiding many small ones.
Causes: small populations, schooling only in state languages, migration, market pressure, loss of land and forest life that carries vocabulary, and low prestige.
Measures: the Scheme for Protection and Preservation of Endangered Languages (2013) of the Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysuru; mother-tongue education under the National Education Policy 2020; scripts such as Ol Chiki for Santali; and the UN International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022–2032). Language loss is also loss of ecological and cultural knowledge.Q1(d) · Weaker Sections, Ethnicity and Tribal Change · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Exploitation of SCs, STs and OBCs and Constitutional Safeguards
OBCs among non-Hindu communities
हिंदी में प्रश्न
गैर-हिन्दू समुदायों में अन्य पिछड़ा वर्ग (ओ.बी.सी.)
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(d)
Approach: A short note explaining caste-like stratification among Muslims, Christians and Sikhs, how such groups were included in OBC lists, with examples, and the debates it raises.
Although Islam, Christianity and Sikhism reject caste in doctrine, Indian converts carried caste-like ranking with them. Imtiaz Ahmad (Caste and Social Stratification among Muslims in India, 1973) described the Muslim divisions of Ashraf (claimed foreign descent), Ajlaf (converted artisan castes) and Arzal (converts from 'unclean' castes).
Inclusion in OBC lists: since reservation under Articles 15(4) and 16(4) is for backward classes, not religions, the Mandal Commission (1980) included non-Hindu occupational groups; examples are Muslim Ansaris or Julahas (weavers), Qureshis (butchers) and Mansuris (cotton carders) and Latin Catholics in Kerala.
Data: the Sachar Committee (2006) found, using NSSO data, that about 40% of Muslims were OBCs.
Debates: the Pasmanda movement argues that backward Muslims, not the Ashraf elite, should receive benefits; Dalit Muslims and Dalit Christians remain outside the SC list under the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950, which is limited to Hindus, Sikhs (1956) and Buddhists (1990), a matter before a commission set up in 2022.
OBC status for non-Hindus thus recognises social reality over religious doctrine.Q1(e) · Evolution of Indian Culture and Civilization · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Palaeo-anthropological Evidence and Ethno-archaeology in India
Ethnoarchaeology as a research strategy
हिंदी में प्रश्न
नृजाति-पुरातत्व विज्ञान एक शोध योजना के रूप में
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(e)
Approach: A short note: ethno-archaeology as a research strategy, its logic (middle-range theory), steps, Indian applications and limits.
As a research strategy, ethno-archaeology means designing fieldwork among living people specifically to answer archaeological questions, rather than borrowing general ethnography; it grew with Lewis Binford's New Archaeology and its call for middle-range theory linking material traces to behaviour.
Steps: frame a problem from the archaeological record; choose a comparable living community; observe and map manufacture, use, discard and abandonment; interview producers; replicate artefacts experimentally; and test the resulting model on excavated data.
Indian applications: Kenoyer, Vidale and Bhan's study of Khambhat bead-makers (1991) to understand Harappan beads; K. Paddayya's study of present settlements in the Hunsgi valley; and F.R. Allchin's work on cattle pens and southern Neolithic ash mounds.
Its limits are the risk of uncritical analogy and of treating tribes as living fossils, but as a hypothesis-testing strategy it remains one of archaeology's most productive tools.
Question 2 (50 marks)
Q2(a) · Evolution of Indian Culture and Civilization · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Harappan Civilization and Tribal Contributions to Indian Civilization
Explain the contribution of tribal cultures to Indian civilization.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारतीय सभ्यता को आदिवासी संस्कृतियों का योगदान ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q2(a)
Approach: Explain tribal contributions domain by domain (language, agriculture and food, religion, arts and crafts, medicine and ecology, politics and freedom struggle, social values), with named examples and processes of exchange, then a balanced conclusion.
Scheduled Tribes numbered about 10.4 crore, 8.6 percent of India's population, in Census 2011. They shaped Indian civilization through a long two-way exchange that N.K. Bose called the Hindu method of tribal absorption and Surajit Sinha a tribe-caste continuum.
Language: Austro-Asiatic (Munda) and Dravidian words entered Sanskrit and Indo-Aryan languages, as F.B.J. Kuiper (1948) and Suniti Kumar Chatterji argued, especially for crops and tools; Santali entered the Eighth Schedule in 2003. Agriculture and food: rice domestication in eastern India, millets, tubers and forest foods; shifting cultivation preserved crop diversity, and millets now feature in national nutrition policy.
Religion: nature worship, sacred groves (sarna, devrai) and village goddesses fed popular Hinduism; the Jagannath cult of Puri is linked to the Sabara (Eschmann, Kulke and Tripathi, 1978). Arts and crafts: Dhokra lost-wax casting, Warli, Gond, Saura and Pithora painting, north-eastern bamboo craft and Chhau dance, many with GI tags.
Knowledge and ecology: the Kani of Kerala guided scientists to arogyapacha, source of the drug Jeevani (1990s), with benefit-sharing. Freedom struggle: the Santal Hul (1855–56), Birsa Munda's Ulgulan (1899–1900), the Tana Bhagat movement and Rani Gaidinliu's struggle; since 2021, 15 November is Janjatiya Gaurav Divas.
Social values: relatively high status of women, bride price rather than dowry, a Scheduled Tribe sex ratio of 990 (Census 2011), community land ownership, youth dormitories such as the ghotul and morung, and village councils offer models for wider society.
Diagram: a web with 'Indian civilization' at the centre and spokes to language, crops, deities, crafts, medicine and freedom struggle, each with one example.
These contributions correct the view of tribes as 'backward' recipients of civilization; Redfield's great and little traditions, applied to India by McKim Marriott, show Indian civilization growing from such exchange, though claims must rest on evidence, not romanticism.Q2(b) · Evolution of Indian Culture and Civilization · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Palaeo-anthropological Evidence and Ethno-archaeology in India
Describe the salient features of Sivapithecus.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
शिवापिथेकस की प्रमुख विशेषताओं का वर्णन कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q2(b)
Approach: Describe Sivapithecus: discovery and dating, dental, facial and postcranial features, then its phylogenetic significance including the 'Sivapithecus dilemma'.
Sivapithecus is a genus of Miocene great apes named by Guy Pilgrim in 1910 from Siwalik fossils; it lived about 12.5 to 8.5 million years ago in the forests of the Himalayan foothills, with fossils from the Potwar plateau, Ramnagar and Haritalyangar, and related forms in Turkey and China. Species include S. indicus, S. sivalensis and S. parvada.
Dental features: thick molar enamel, large flat-wearing molars, robust deep mandibles, large upper central incisors, and canines that vary greatly in size between males and females (strong sexual dimorphism), which explains why small specimens were once named Ramapithecus.
Facial features: the partial skull GSP 15000 (Pilbeam, 1982) shows a concave (dished) face, tall oval orbits, a narrow space between the eyes, a smooth nasal floor and an upward-tilted face, all shared with the orang-utan.
Postcranial features and the dilemma: humeri described in 1990 show a shaft shape suited to above-branch quadrupedal walking, unlike the suspensory orang-utan, so its face says orang-utan while its limbs do not; it may be an early member of the orang-utan lineage that had not yet evolved suspension.
Diagram: side profiles of a Sivapithecus face, an orang-utan and a chimpanzee, labelling the concave face and narrow interorbital region.
Sivapithecus thus marks the Asian branch of great ape evolution and closed the Ramapithecus chapter of human origins.Q2(c) · Indian Village, Minorities and Social Change · 15 marks≈ 11 min
The Indian Village
Discuss the impact of market economy on rural villages.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
ग्रामीण गाँवों पर बाज़ार-अर्थव्यवस्था के प्रभाव की विवेचना कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q2(c)
Approach: Contrast the traditional village economy with a market economy, then discuss the economic, social and cultural impacts of marketisation with examples, and conclude.
The traditional village economy combined subsistence farming with jajmani exchange and periodic markets (haats). A market economy is one in which land, labour and produce are bought and sold for money at prices set by supply and demand.
Economic impact: commercial crops such as cotton, sugarcane and vegetables replaced subsistence crops; cash wages replaced grain shares; credit from banks and microfinance spread alongside moneylenders; and land became a commodity. Farmers gained higher incomes when prices were good but became exposed to price crashes and debt, as agrarian distress in Vidarbha shows.
Social impact: the jajmani system declined as service castes sold goods and labour on the market, and patron–client ties became contractual (Breman). Some lower castes gained mobility through trade, as Bailey showed for Bisipara's distillers, while inequality between large and small farmers widened.
Cultural impact: consumer goods, packaged food and media advertising changed tastes, dowry inflated, and money became a key source of status alongside caste.
The market has freed villagers from hereditary bonds and widened choices, but it has also brought insecurity, which welfare measures such as MGNREGA and minimum support prices try to offset.
Question 3 (50 marks)
Q3(a) · Evolution of Indian Culture and Civilization · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Prehistoric Cultures of India
Examine the regional variations of mesolithic cultures of India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत के मध्यपाषाण संस्कृति की क्षेत्रीय विभिन्नताओं का परीक्षण कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q3(a)
Approach: Define the Mesolithic, then examine regional variants (Rajasthan-Gujarat, central India, Ganga plain, Deccan, south and east coast, north-east) with sites, economy and dates, ending with what the variation shows.
The Mesolithic, from about 10,000 BCE in India, is marked by geometric microliths hafted as composite tools, a broad-spectrum diet in the warmer Holocene, and in places semi-sedentary life, burials and rock art. Because environments differed, regional cultures varied greatly.
Rajasthan and Gujarat: on sand dunes and lake margins; Bagor (V.N. Misra) with stone-paved floors and early domestic sheep and goat; Tilwara; Langhnaj (H.D. Sankalia) with burials and wild animal bones. Central India: rock shelters of Bhimbetka and Adamgarh with rich paintings, and early domestic animals at Adamgarh.
Vindhyas and Ganga plain: Chopani Mando in the Belan valley with circular huts, wild rice and early hand-made pottery; Sarai Nahar Rai, Mahadaha and Damdama by oxbow lakes, with hearths, querns, dozens of burials and tall robust people. Deccan and south: microliths at Nevasa, Patne and Sanganakallu; the teri (red dune) sites of the Tirunelveli coast and coastal shell middens show marine foraging.
East and north-east: microlithic sites in the Chota Nagpur plateau, Odisha and Bengal (Birbhanpur, excavated by B.B. Lal), and few, poorly dated sites in the north-east.
Diagram: a map of India marking these regional clusters, with sketches of lunate, triangle and trapeze microliths.
The variation shows adaptation to dunes, lakes, forests and coasts: some regions moved to herding (Bagor), some to semi-sedentary lake life (Ganga plain), while others stayed mobile foragers, a pattern that survives in tribal foragers such as the Birhor and Chenchu. Dating, however, remains patchy, and some 'Mesolithic' sites overlap with farming communities.Q3(b) · Caste System and Religions in Indian Society · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Caste: Structure, Varna and Theories of Origin
Based on historical and contemporary evidences discuss the future of caste system in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत में, जाति व्यवस्था के भविष्य का, ऐतिहासिक एवं समकालीन प्रमाणों के आधार पर विवेचना कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q3(b)
Approach: Use history (how caste has changed and adapted) and contemporary evidence (data, law, politics) to forecast its future, presenting both the dissolving and the reinforcing forces.
Caste has never been static, and its history of adaptation, shown in Srinivas's work on mobility, is the best guide to its future.
Historical evidence: Buddhism, Jainism, the Bhakti saints and later Sikhism challenged caste but were partly absorbed by it, and caste-like groups appeared among Muslims and Christians. Colonial censuses, especially Risley's ranking in 1901, led caste bodies to petition for higher status.
Contemporary dissolving forces: Article 17, urban anonymity, industrial and service jobs, education and migration have weakened hereditary occupation, jajmani ties and commensal rules. A Dalit middle class and Dalit entrepreneurs have emerged, and the ritual idea of pollution has lost public legitimacy.
Reinforcing forces: endogamy persists, with only about 5% of marriages inter-caste (IHDS 2011–12). Electoral politics, caste associations and reservations give caste an organised, competitive form, as the Rudolphs noted in The Modernity of Tradition (1967). Atrocities and discrimination in hiring continue.
The likely trend is what Dumont called substantialisation: castes become horizontal ethnic-like blocs rather than parts of one ritual hierarchy. Dipankar Gupta (Interrogating Caste, 2000) argues that caste now asserts identity more than it accepts rank.
Caste will thus survive as identity and as a basis of political claims, while its ritual hierarchy declines. Its further weakening depends on inter-caste marriage, equal access to education and jobs, and firm enforcement of anti-discrimination laws.Q3(c) · Indian Village, Minorities and Social Change · 15 marks≈ 11 min
The Indian Village
Examine the colonial administrators' view that Indian villages can be considered as 'little republics'.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारतीय गाँवों को 'लघु गणतंत्र' (लिटिल रिपब्लिक्स) समझा जा सकता है के संबंध में औपनिवेशिक प्रशासकों के दृष्टिकोण का परीक्षण कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q3(c)
Approach: State the colonial view (Metcalfe, Munro, Maine, Baden-Powell, Marx's use of it), then examine it against evidence from village studies and history, and conclude on what is valid in it.
Sir Charles Metcalfe, in a minute of 1830, described Indian village communities as little republics, having nearly everything they wanted within themselves and almost independent of foreign relations, surviving while dynasties rose and fell.
The view was shared by other administrators: Thomas Munro and Mountstuart Elphinstone admired village self-government in the Deccan; Henry Maine (1871) treated the village community as a survival of early collective property; B.H. Baden-Powell (The Land Systems of British India, 1892) distinguished joint villages from raiyatwari villages. Marx used the image of self-sufficient, unchanging villages to explain Asian stagnation.
Examination: village studies showed that villages were never isolated. Srinivas and A.M. Shah wrote of 'the myth of self-sufficiency of the Indian village' (1960); villages paid revenue to kings, traded in regional markets, sent pilgrims to distant centres and married into other villages, as Oscar Lewis found in Rani Khera. Dumont and Pocock (1957) argued that caste and kinship, not the village, were the real units.
The 'republic' was also deeply unequal: power lay with the dominant caste, and Dalits were excluded from wells, temples and councils, which is why Ambedkar called the village a den of localism.
The colonial view captured the real autonomy of village institutions in local matters, but it was largely a construct serving revenue policy and Orientalist ideas of an unchanging East.
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 the impact of Buddhism and Jainism on Indian society.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारतीय समाज पर बौद्ध-धर्म एवं जैन-धर्म के प्रभावों की व्याख्या कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q4(a)
Approach: Introduce both as sramana movements, then compare their impact on religion, society (caste, women), economy, polity, language and art, with a short note on later influence and limits.
Buddhism (Gautama Buddha) and Jainism (Mahavira) arose in the sixth–fifth century BCE as sramana movements in the Gangetic plain, a time of new states, towns, trade and iron-based agriculture, and both challenged Vedic sacrifice and Brahmin dominance.
Religious impact: both rejected costly animal sacrifice and the authority of the Vedas, stressed ethical conduct and karma, and offered paths to liberation open to all. Buddhism taught the Middle Path, the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path; Jainism taught extreme ahimsa and asceticism.
Social impact: the Buddhist sangha admitted all varnas and, after initial hesitation, women, whose verses survive in the Therigatha. Both gave dignity to merchants and artisans. Yet neither abolished caste in lay society, and Jains later formed caste-like groups such as Oswal and Porwal.
Economic impact: opposition to cattle sacrifice suited a growing agrarian economy, as historians such as R.S. Sharma have argued, and both religions were patronised by merchants and guilds. Jains turned to trade and banking, shaping Gujarati and Marwari commerce.
Political and cultural impact: Ashoka's dhamma drew on Buddhist ethics; Buddhism spread Indian culture across Asia. Pali, Prakrit and early Kannada literature, the Sanchi stupa, the Ajanta caves, Nalanda, the Dilwara temples and the Gommateshwara statue at Shravanabelagola enriched Indian heritage.
Later influence: ahimsa and vegetarianism entered Hindu ethics and Gandhian thought, and Buddhism revived in 1956 through Ambedkar's conversion movement.
Both religions humanised Indian society and widened access to religion, though they could not dismantle the caste order.Q4(b) · Demographic Profile and the Traditional Indian Social System · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Demographic Profile of India
What are the various factors influencing population growth in India? Discuss.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत में जनसंख्या वृद्धि को प्रभावित करने वाले विभिन्न कारक क्या हैं ? विवेचना कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q4(b)
Approach: Discuss the factors of population growth in India in phases (history of growth), then demographic, socio-cultural, economic and policy factors, with data, and conclude with present trends.
India's population growth passed through four phases: stagnant (1901–21, famines, plague and the 1918 influenza), steady growth (1921–51), rapid 'population explosion' (1951–81, decadal growth above 21 percent) and high but slowing growth (1981–2011, falling to 17.7 percent in 2001–11).
Demographic factors: the fall in mortality from better food distribution, public health and vaccines, while fertility lagged, the gap that demographic transition theory predicts; high infant mortality prompting more births; and a young age structure creating momentum.
Socio-cultural factors: universal and early marriage, son preference and the ritual value of sons, low female literacy (65.46 percent in Census 2011), joint family norms, and religious attitudes to contraception.
Economic factors: children as labour and old-age security in agrarian economies (Caldwell's wealth flows, Mamdani's Khanna study), poverty, and rural residence (68.8 percent rural in 2011). Policy: the world's first national family planning programme (1952), the National Population Policy 2000, and uneven service delivery across states.
Diagram: India's population pyramid for 2011, broad at the base and narrowing upward.
With TFR now below replacement nationally, future growth depends mainly on momentum and on the high-fertility northern states, so female education and health remain central.Q4(c) · Caste System and Religions in Indian Society · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Caste: Structure, Varna and Theories of Origin
Discuss the view that caste is not social stratification, but a system of hierarchy.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जाति सामाजिक स्तरीकरण नहीं है, बल्कि एक अनुक्रम व्यवस्था है । विवेचना कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q4(c)
Approach: Set out Dumont's argument that caste is a hierarchy based on the pure–impure opposition rather than stratification, contrast it with the stratification view (Bailey, Berreman, Gupta), and conclude with a balanced view.
Social stratification means the ranking of groups by unequal access to wealth, power and prestige. Louis Dumont (Homo Hierarchicus, 1966) argued that caste is not simply an Indian case of stratification but a unique system of hierarchy.
Dumont's view: hierarchy is the ordering of the whole by the religious opposition of pure and impure, not by wealth or power. The Brahmin is ranked above the king, so status encompasses power. Caste is thus a holistic system, unlike stratification in individualistic Western societies.
Stratification view: Gerald Berreman, comparing India with race relations in the American South, argued that caste is an extreme form of birth-ascribed stratification and that low castes do not accept their rank. F.G. Bailey and André Beteille (Caste, Class and Power, 1965) showed that land and political power shape caste rank, as in Sripuram where non-Brahmins gained power.
Dipankar Gupta (2000) argued that there are multiple hierarchies, each caste having its own view of rank, and that caste is better seen as a set of discrete identities. Dalit movements and Ambedkar's critique also show that hierarchy was imposed rather than consensual.
Dumont rightly highlights the ideological basis of caste, but caste in practice combines ritual hierarchy with economic and political stratification. Today the economic and political dimensions are growing in importance.
Question 5 (50 marks)
Q5(a) · Tribal Situation and Problems in India · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Tribal Situation in India
Youth dormitory as an institution
हिंदी में प्रश्न
युवा शयनगृह एक संस्था के रूप में
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(a)
Approach: A short note: define the youth dormitory, give regional examples with ethnographers, list its functions, and note its decline.
A youth dormitory is a village institution where unmarried boys, and in some tribes girls, sleep and live together under elder supervision, serving as a school of tribal life.
Examples include the ghotul of the Muria Gonds of Bastar, described by Verrier Elwin in The Muria and Their Ghotul (1947); the dhumkuria of the Oraon (S.C. Roy); the giti-ora of the Munda and Ho; the morung of the Naga; the nokpante of the Garo; and the zawlbuk of the Mizo.
Its functions are educational (myths, songs, dances, crafts and customary law), economic (organised labour for the village), social and political (discipline, village defence among the Naga, service at festivals) and, in the ghotul, regulated premarital relations and preparation for marriage. It builds age-group solidarity and transmits culture.
Missionary disapproval, formal schooling, Hinduisation and migration have led to the decline of many dormitories, though some are being revived as cultural centres.Q5(b) · Tribal Situation and Problems in India · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Tribal Situation in India
Tribe and scheduled tribe
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जनजाति एवं अनुसूचित जनजाति
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(b)
Approach: A short note contrasting the anthropological concept of tribe with the constitutional-administrative category of Scheduled Tribe, with examples of mismatch.
A tribe is an anthropological concept: a relatively self-contained society with a common name, territory, language, kin-based organisation and its own customs and religion (Imperial Gazetteer, 1911); Beteille stressed that in India tribes have long interacted with castes and states.
A Scheduled Tribe is a legal category: communities notified by the President under Article 342 and defined by Article 366(25), identified using the Lokur criteria (1965) and entitled to reservations, Fifth and Sixth Schedule protections, PESA and FRA rights. Census 2011 counted 10.43 crore STs (8.6%).
The two do not coincide. Some groups with tribal features are not scheduled, or are scheduled in one state but not another; some scheduled groups, like the Minas of Rajasthan, are economically advanced; and groups such as the Gujjars and Meiteis have sought ST status for its benefits.
Thus 'tribe' describes a type of society, while 'Scheduled Tribe' is a policy tool for protection and development.Q5(c) · Indian Village, Minorities and Social Change · 10 marks≈ 7 min
The Indian Village
Agrarian social structure
हिंदी में प्रश्न
कृषिक सामाजिक संरचना
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(c)
Approach: A short note: define agrarian social structure, give Thorner's classes and colonial land systems, and note post-independence change.
Agrarian social structure refers to the pattern of relations among groups in rural society based on ownership, control and use of land, which in India overlaps closely with caste.
Colonial land settlements, zamindari (Permanent Settlement, 1793), ryotwari and mahalwari, created landlords, tenants, sharecroppers and bonded labourers. Daniel Thorner (The Agrarian Prospect in India, 1956) classified rural classes as maliks (landlords), kisans (working peasants) and mazdoors (labourers). Upper and dominant castes were mostly owners, and Dalits mostly labourers.
After independence, zamindari abolition, tenancy reform (such as Operation Barga in West Bengal from 1978) and land ceilings benefited middle peasant castes most. The Green Revolution created capitalist farmers and wage labour, studied by André Béteille (1974) and Jan Breman (1974).
Today 86.2% of holdings are small and marginal (Agriculture Census 2015–16), and migration and non-farm work are reshaping this structure.Q5(d) · Indian Village, Minorities and Social Change · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Processes of Socio-cultural Change
The impact of Panchayati Raj institutions in rural areas
हिंदी में प्रश्न
ग्रामीण क्षेत्रों में पंचायती राज संस्थाओं का प्रभाव
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(d)
Approach: A short note: the PRI framework, positive impacts (representation, development delivery, awareness), and limitations.
Panchayati raj, first launched at Nagaur, Rajasthan, on 2 October 1959 on the Balwantrai Mehta Committee's advice, gained constitutional status through the 73rd Amendment (1992), with three tiers, a gram sabha, regular elections and reservations for SCs, STs and women.
Impacts: PRIs brought lakhs of women, Dalits and tribals into elected office and weakened the monopoly of dominant castes; they deliver schemes such as MGNREGA, rural housing and sanitation; gram sabhas, especially under PESA (1996), give villagers a forum for social audit and decisions on land and forests; and political awareness and participation have risen.
Limitations: devolution of funds, functions and functionaries remains partial; proxy rule by male relatives, elite capture and corruption persist; and panchayats often act as implementing agencies of state schemes rather than self-governing bodies.
Overall, PRIs have democratised rural power and development, but their impact depends on genuine devolution and capacity building.Q5(e) · Indian Village, Minorities and Social Change · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Processes of Socio-cultural Change
Modernization
हिंदी में प्रश्न
आधुनिकीकरण
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(e)
Approach: A short note: definition and attributes of modernization, its Indian character (Yogendra Singh, Rudolphs, Singer), and its effects and limits.
Modernization is the process of change toward rationality, scientific temper, achievement and universalism in values, and toward industrialisation, urbanisation, mass education, media and democratic institutions in structure (Daniel Lerner, The Passing of Traditional Society, 1958).
Unlike Westernization, it is not tied to one source. In India, Yogendra Singh (Modernization of Indian Tradition, 1973) argued that modernization is selective and adaptive, operating at both little-tradition and great-tradition levels and at micro and macro structures. The Rudolphs (1967) showed tradition serving modern ends, as caste associations entered democratic politics, and Milton Singer (1972) found Madras industrialists compartmentalising modern work and traditional ritual.
Modernization has spread education, mobility and rights, but it has also produced uneven development, new inequalities and the revival of tradition in modern forms, so India shows multiple modernities rather than a single path.
For anthropology, the key lesson is that tradition and modernity coexist and reshape each other.
Question 6 (50 marks)
Q6(a) · Tribal Situation and Problems in India · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Tribal Situation in India
Compare and contrast the economic typology of tribes given by different anthropologists.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
विभिन्न मानवशास्त्रियों द्वारा दिए गए आदिवासियों के आर्थिक प्ररूप-वर्गीकरण में सादृश्य एवं विषमता दर्शाएं ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q6(a)
Approach: Present general typologies (Hobhouse, Wheeler and Ginsberg; Forde) and Indian ones (Haimendorf's Hyderabad series, Majumdar and Madan, Vidyarthi and Rai) with examples, compare their criteria, strengths and weaknesses in a short table-like comparison, and conclude.
An economic typology classifies tribes by their main mode of subsistence. Anthropologists have proposed several, differing in criteria and in how they handle change.
General typologies: L.T. Hobhouse, G.C. Wheeler and M. Ginsberg (1915) ranked simpler peoples as lower and higher hunters, pastoralists and three grades of agriculturists, an evolutionary scale. C. Daryll Forde (Habitat, Economy and Society, 1934) grouped them as food gatherers, cultivators and pastoral nomads, stressing habitat and noting that most societies combine several modes.
Indian typologies: C. von Fürer-Haimendorf's Hyderabad trilogy contrasted the food-gathering Chenchu, the shifting-cultivating Reddi and the plough-using Raj Gond. D.N. Majumdar and T.N. Madan distinguished food-gatherers and hunters, shifting cultivators, settled agriculturists, artisans and pastoralists, and industrial labour.
L.P. Vidyarthi and B.K. Rai (The Tribal Culture of India, 1976) gave the most widely used scheme of six types: forest hunting (Birhor, Hill Kharia, Chenchu), hill cultivation or shifting (Maler, Baiga, Juang, Naga groups), plain agriculture (Santal, Oraon, Munda, Gond, Bhil), simple artisan (Lohra, Mahli, Asur), pastoral and cattle-herding (Toda, Gaddi, Bhotia) and industrial-urban workers (tribal miners and factory workers of Jharkhand and tea-garden labourers).
Comparison: the Western schemes are global but evolutionary or ecological and ignore labour migration and the market; Haimendorf's is rich ethnographically but regional; Majumdar and Madan's is simple; Vidyarthi and Rai's alone recognises industrial and urban workers and suits contemporary India. All typologies share one weakness: real tribes have mixed and changing economies, such as Bhils who farm, migrate for labour and collect forest produce.
Typologies are therefore useful heuristic tools for policy, such as identifying PVTGs with pre-agricultural technology, but must be used flexibly, recognising transition and diversity.Q6(b) · Anthropology in India · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Indian Anthropologists and Tribal and Caste Studies
Discuss the contribution of S. C. Roy in the study of tribal cultures in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत में, आदिवासी संस्कृतियों के अध्ययन में, एस. सी. राय के योगदान की विवेचना कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q6(b)
Approach: Organise Roy's contribution to the study of tribal cultures by theme (economy, social organisation, religion, change), citing his monographs, then add his method and a brief critique.
Sarat Chandra Roy (1871–1942) of Ranchi produced the first systematic Indian monographs on the tribes of Chotanagpur and Odisha and founded Man in India (1921).
Economy and ecology: The Birhors (1925) described a nomadic hunting and rope-making people and their monkey-hunting and trapping, while The Mundas and Their Country (1912) and The Oraons of Chota Nagpur (1915) described settled agriculture and the khuntkatti land system.
Social organisation: he documented totemic clans (kili among the Mundas), village headmen and priests, the parha federations, and the Oraon youth dormitory (dhumkuria) as a centre of training and discipline.
Religion: Oraon Religion and Customs (1928) analysed the belief in Dharmes, village spirits and magic, and the Tana Bhagat reform movement among the Oraons.
Method and change: Roy combined long residence, history and law, and recorded how land loss, missions and Hinduisation were changing tribal life. His approach was humanistic and sympathetic, treating tribal culture as rational and worthy of respect.
His speculative histories of migration and descriptive style limit his work theoretically, but it remains the foundation of tribal studies in eastern India.Q6(c) · Tribal Situation and Problems in India · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Development Projects, Displacement, Forest Policy and Tribals
Examine the advancement made in the land acquisition and rehabilitation Act of 2013 over the land acquisition Act of 1894.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
1894 के भूमि अधिग्रहण अधिनियम से, 2013 के भूमि अधिग्रहण एवं पुनर्वास अधिनियमों में जो प्रगति हुई है, उसका परीक्षण कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q6(c)
Approach: Briefly state the weaknesses of the 1894 Act, then compare it point by point with the 2013 Act (public purpose, SIA, consent, compensation, R&R, Scheduled Areas, safeguards), and note the limits of the new law.
The colonial Land Acquisition Act of 1894 let the state acquire land for a vaguely defined 'public purpose', even for companies, with an urgency clause, cash compensation at often undervalued market rates and no duty to rehabilitate; tribals without individual titles to communal land received little or nothing.
The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 (in force from 1 January 2014) made several advances:
(i) Social impact assessment before acquisition, with public hearings; (ii) consent of at least 80% of affected families for private projects and 70% for public-private projects; (iii) compensation up to four times the market value in rural areas and twice in urban areas, plus a solatium; (iv) mandatory rehabilitation and resettlement entitlements for both landowners and livelihood losers, including houses, employment or annuity and transport costs; (v) in Scheduled Areas, acquisition only as a last resort with gram sabha consent, and land-for-land for STs where possible; (vi) return of unused land after five years and limits on acquiring multi-crop irrigated land.
Limits: the Act exempts many projects under other central laws, and several states have passed their own laws or amendments exempting projects from SIA and consent; implementation and land records remain weak.
The 2013 Act thus shifts acquisition from coercion toward consent and rehabilitation, but its tribal safeguards depend on faithful enforcement.
Question 7 (50 marks)
Q7(a) · Caste System and Religions in Indian Society · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Sacred Complex, Nature-Man-Spirit Complex and the Impact of Religions
Critically examine the contributions of Makhan Jha and B. N. Saraswati to the study of sacred complexes in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत में पवित्र संकुलों के अध्ययन में माखन झा एवं बी. एन. सरस्वती के योगदानों का समालोचनात्मक परीक्षण कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q7(a)
Approach: Place both scholars in the Vidyarthi school of sacred complex studies, set out each one's main works and ideas, then critically assess their contribution and limits.
The study of sacred complexes began with L.P. Vidyarthi's The Sacred Complex in Hindu Gaya (1961), which analysed a pilgrimage centre through its sacred geography, sacred performances and sacred specialists. Makhan Jha and B.N. Saraswati extended this civilisational approach, and the three jointly wrote The Sacred Complex of Kashi (1979).
Makhan Jha: in The Sacred Complex in Janakpur (1971), on the pilgrimage town in the Nepal Tarai associated with Sita, he applied Vidyarthi's framework outside India and showed how Mithila's sacred centre linked villages, castes and the kingdom into one cultural region. He later edited studies of pilgrimage and wrote on ancient Hindu kingdoms from a civilisational perspective, stressing the political patronage behind sacred centres.
B.N. Saraswati: in Kashi: Myth and Reality of a Classical Cultural Tradition (1975) and Traditions of Tirthas in India (1983) he moved from structure to meaning, studying how pandits, ascetics and pilgrims understand the sacred. With Surajit Sinha he wrote Ascetics of Kashi (1978). He emphasised the indigenous categories and philosophy of the great tradition.
Contribution: together they showed that sacred centres are nodes where little and great traditions meet, that pilgrimage integrates regions and castes, and that Indian civilisation can be studied through its own institutions. Their work gave Indian anthropology a distinctive field and later helped in managing pilgrim centres.
Limits: the studies focused on Brahminical, Hindu centres and gave less space to Dalit, tribal, Buddhist or Sufi sacred places; they were often descriptive; and they paid limited attention to conflict over priestly control, commercialisation and gender.
Jha broadened the sacred complex in space and politics, and Saraswati deepened it in meaning; together they made it a lasting framework for the anthropology of Indian civilisation.Q7(b) · Weaker Sections, Ethnicity and Tribal Change · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Ethnicity, Tribal Unrest, Regionalism and Pseudo-tribalism
Discuss the various factors resulting in tribal unrest in various parts of India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत के विभिन्न भागों में जनजातीय समुदायों के बीच अशांति परिणामी विभिन्न कारकों की विवेचना कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q7(b)
Approach: Discuss the economic, political, socio-cultural and administrative factors behind tribal unrest, with examples from central India, the north-east and other regions, and conclude with remedies.
Tribal unrest is collective discontent among tribes expressed through protest, movement or armed struggle. Its factors vary by region but usually combine material loss with threats to identity.
Land alienation and displacement: loss of land to moneylenders and settlers drove the Santal Hul (1855) and Ulgulan (1899 to 1900); after independence, dams, mines and industries displaced tribals, as at Koel-Karo in Jharkhand and Kalinganagar in Odisha, where police firing killed tribal protesters in 2006.
Forest restrictions: forest laws curtailed shifting cultivation, grazing and collection of forest produce, a grievance behind the Rampa rebellion (1922 to 1924) and today's conflicts over protected areas.
Exploitation: moneylenders, traders, contractors and officials exploit tribals, and migrant tribal women face sexual exploitation.
Political and identity factors: demands for autonomy and statehood (Jharkhand, Bodoland, Nagaland), fear of being swamped by migrants in the north-east, and competition over ST status (Manipur, 2023).
Cultural and religious factors: resentment of outside domination and conversion tensions, as in Kandhamal (2008); revival movements such as the Sarna code demand.
Administrative failure: weak implementation of PESA and the Forest Rights Act, corruption, and Left-Wing Extremism exploiting these gaps in central India.
Unrest falls where tribals gain secure land and forest rights, gram sabha control, fair rehabilitation and genuine autonomy.Q7(c) · Weaker Sections, Ethnicity and Tribal Change · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Exploitation of SCs, STs and OBCs and Constitutional Safeguards
Discuss the salient features of PESA Act of 1996 and attempt a comparison with the features of the VI Schedule.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
1996 के PESA अधिनियम के प्रमुख लक्षणों की विवेचना कीजिए एवं इसकी तुलना VI अनुसूची के लक्षणों से कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q7(c)
Approach: Describe the salient features of PESA 1996 and then compare it with the Sixth Schedule point by point (area, institution, powers, autonomy, finance, problems), ideally in a short comparison.
The Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996, based on the Bhuria Committee (1995), extended Part IX of the Constitution to Fifth Schedule areas with modifications that respect tribal custom.
Salient features of PESA: state laws must be consistent with customary law, social and religious practices and traditional management of community resources; the gram sabha is competent to safeguard traditions, identity and community resources; it must be consulted before land acquisition and resettlement; it recommends mining leases for minor minerals; and it has powers over intoxicants, minor forest produce, land alienation, village markets and moneylending; at least half the seats and all chairpersons' posts are reserved for STs.
Comparison with the Sixth Schedule: PESA covers Scheduled Areas in ten states, the Sixth Schedule covers tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram. PESA works through gram sabhas within the panchayat system, while the Sixth Schedule creates Autonomous District Councils with legislative, judicial (village courts) and taxing powers.
Sixth Schedule autonomy is constitutionally entrenched and higher, whereas PESA is an Act of Parliament whose effect depends on state laws and rules, several of which came late. PESA embodies direct village democracy, whereas councils are representative bodies that can be elite-dominated.
Both seek self-rule, and each can strengthen the other: PESA needs the financial and legislative strength of district councils, and councils need PESA's village-level participation.
Question 8 (50 marks)
Q8(a) · Tribal Administration and Applied Anthropology · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Role of Anthropology in Tribal and Rural Development
Examine the strengths and weaknesses of anthropology in the context of its role in tribal and rural development.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
मानवविज्ञान की क्षमताओं एवं कमियों, की भूमिका का परीक्षण आदिवासी एवं ग्रामीण विकास के संदर्भ में कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q8(a)
Approach: Examine the strengths of anthropology in tribal and rural development (holistic knowledge, methods, policy record) and its weaknesses (marginal influence, co-option, ethical dilemmas, small-scale focus), with examples, and conclude on how to strengthen its role.
Applied anthropology uses anthropological knowledge to solve practical problems. In India it has shaped tribal and rural development since Verrier Elwin and S.C. Dube, but its role has both strengths and weaknesses.
Strength, holistic and emic knowledge: anthropology understands how economy, kinship, religion and ecology interlock, so it can predict unintended effects; it sees jhum, for example, as an ecological adaptation, as Nagaland's NEPED project recognised.
Strength, methods: participant observation, genealogies, case studies and participatory appraisal reveal felt needs and local power, as Dube's evaluation of Community Development (1958) did.
Strength, policy record: Elwin's influence on Panchsheel and NEFA, Haimendorf's work after the Gond rising (1940), Tribal Research Institutes (from 1953), the People of India project, and inputs into PESA, the FRA and PVTG identification; health models such as SEARCH's newborn care drew on cultural insight.
Weakness, marginal influence: anthropologists are consulted late or not at all; TRIs are understaffed; budgets and engineering decide projects.
Weakness, scale and speed: slow, small-scale ethnography sits uneasily with targets and large programmes; findings are often descriptive rather than prescriptive.
Weakness, co-option and ethics: anthropologists may legitimise displacement or serve state or corporate interests; James Ferguson (1990) warned of development's anti-political effects; the dilemma between neutrality and advocacy remains.
Weakness, romanticism: critics accuse some anthropologists of preserving 'tradition' against people's own aspirations, as in debates over Elwin's isolationism.
Anthropology's role can be strengthened by making social impact assessment mandatory and independent, by embedding anthropologists in planning and monitoring, by training officials, and by adopting action anthropology in which communities set goals.Q8(b) · Caste System and Religions in Indian Society · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Dominant Caste, Caste Mobility, Jajmani System and the Tribe–Caste Continuum
Explain the significance of tribe-caste continuum in the present context.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
वर्तमान परिस्थिति में जनजाति-जाति सातत्यक की सार्थकता की व्याख्या कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q8(b)
Approach: Briefly define the continuum, then give its present significance under heads: policy and scheduling, ST-status demands, development planning, identity and religion, and theory; close with a caution.
The tribe-caste continuum sees tribe and caste as two ends of a scale along which groups move. Bailey (1961) used access to land as the test, Surajit Sinha showed the Bhumij acquiring caste traits through state formation, and N.K. Bose described the gradual absorption of the Juang into Hindu society.
Policy and scheduling: because many groups lie between the poles, the Lokur criteria (1965) of primitive traits and isolation fit poorly; this explains disputes over inclusion and exclusion in the Scheduled Tribe lists, such as the Hattee of Himachal Pradesh added in 2022.
Demands for ST status: the Gujjars of Rajasthan (2007–08), the Meiteis of Manipur, the Kurmis of eastern India and six communities of Assam claim tribal status; their claims rest on being located near the tribal end of the continuum.
Development: sections of one tribe differ in Hinduisation, education and land, so benefits are captured by the advanced sections, as the debate on sub-categorisation of Scheduled Tribes shows.
Identity: the continuum also runs in reverse, as tribal movements assert a distinct identity through the Sarna code demand and language revival.
The continuum therefore remains significant for policy and theory, but it should be used as a multi-directional model rather than as a ladder toward caste.Q8(c) · Tribal Situation and Problems in India · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Development Projects, Displacement, Forest Policy and Tribals
Discuss the significance and implementation of 'Recognition of Forest Right's Act 2006'.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
'2006 के वन अधिकार अधिनियम के मान्यता' की सार्थकता एवं कार्यान्वयन की विवेचना कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q8(c)
Approach: State the Act's main provisions and why it is significant (historical injustice, rights, gram sabha, conservation), then assess implementation with data and issues, and conclude.
The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 recognises individual rights over forest land cultivated before 13 December 2005 (up to 4 hectares), community rights over minor forest produce, grazing, water and habitat (especially for PVTGs), and the right to protect and manage community forest resources; other traditional forest dwellers must show 75 years' residence.
Significance: its preamble admits the 'historical injustice' done by colonial and post-colonial forest laws; it converts tribals from encroachers into rights-holders; it makes the gram sabha the authority to initiate claims and protect forests, extending the spirit of PESA; and it links rights with conservation responsibilities. Its power was shown at Niyamgiri (2013).
Implementation: by 31 May 2025 about 51.23 lakh claims had been filed and 25.11 lakh titles distributed, only about 1.22 lakh of them community titles. Problems include high and arbitrary rejections, titles for smaller areas than claimed, neglect of community and habitat rights, lack of awareness, and resistance from forest departments. Maharashtra and Odisha have done relatively better on community rights, as at Mendha-Lekha.
The Act is a landmark in tribal rights, but its promise depends on recognising community rights and empowering gram sabhas.