UPSC Mains 2021 Anthropology Optional Question Papers with Model Answers
All 56 questions of the 2021 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 2021 Anthropology Paper I
Question 1 (50 marks)
Q1(a) · Religion · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion
Animism and Deep Ecology
हिंदी में प्रश्न
सर्वात्मवाद (जीववाद) एवं नितल पारिस्थितिकी
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(a)
Approach: A short note: define animism (Tylor and the new animism) and deep ecology (Naess), show the links with Indian tribal examples, and add a caution.
Animism, for E.B. Tylor (Primitive Culture, 1871), is belief in spiritual beings, the earliest religion in his evolutionary scheme. The new animism of Nurit Bird-David (1999), from her work among the Nayaka of south India, and Philippe Descola treats it as a relational way of knowing in which animals, plants and hills are persons with whom humans share relations.
Deep ecology, a term coined by the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess (1973), holds that all living beings have intrinsic value, and calls for a deep change in worldview rather than shallow technical environmentalism.
Link: both reject a sharp human-nature divide. The Dongria Kondh revere Niyam Raja of the Niyamgiri hills, the Munda and Santal honour bongas of hills and groves in sacred groves, and the Bishnoi protect trees and animals; such beliefs echo deep ecology's ethic.
Caution: tribal animism is also practical and economic, and portraying tribes as ecologically noble savages (Kent Redford, 1991) can romanticise them; yet the convergence has strengthened indigenous claims in conservation.Q1(b) · Marriage · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Marriage Regulations and Marriage Payments
Marriage Regulations and Alliance Theory
हिंदी में प्रश्न
विवाह नियम एवं वैवाहिक बंधन (एलाएन्स) सिद्धांत
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(b)
Approach: Classify marriage regulations, then explain how Lévi-Strauss's alliance theory interprets them as exchange, with types of exchange and examples, and end with criticism; a small exchange diagram helps.
Marriage regulations are proscriptive (incest taboo, exogamy, caste endogamy), preferential (cross-cousin marriage, levirate, sororate) or prescriptive (marriage with a defined category of kin).
Alliance theory, developed by Lévi-Strauss (The Elementary Structures of Kinship, 1949), treats these rules as the core of kinship: the incest taboo forces groups to exchange women, and marriage, not descent, binds society.
Systems with positive rules are elementary structures, those with only prohibitions complex. Sister exchange and bilateral cross-cousin marriage give restricted exchange between two groups; matrilateral cross-cousin marriage gives generalized exchange in a circle, as among the Kachin, where wife-giving mayu rank above wife-taking dama (Leach, 1954).
Diagram: two groups joined by a two-way arrow (restricted exchange) beside three groups A, B, C in a circle with one-way arrows (generalized exchange).
In India, Dumont showed that Dravidian terminology encodes alliance, and Gond dudh lautawa illustrates preferential marriage.
Critics note that few marriages follow the rule statistically and that women appear only as objects of exchange; still, alliance theory explains how marriage rules integrate groups.Q1(c) · Anthropological Theories · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Classical Evolutionism, Historical Particularism and Diffusionism
Historical Particularism and Franz Boas
हिंदी में प्रश्न
ऐतिहासिक विशिष्टतावाद एवं फ्रांज़ बोआस
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(c)
Approach: A short note linking the approach to its founder: define it, give Boas’s core principles and methods, and end with its legacy and criticism.
Historical particularism is the label Marvin Harris gave to the school of Franz Boas (1858–1942), the German-born founder of American anthropology, which holds that each culture is a unique product of its own history and must be studied in detail before any generalisation.
Core ideas: Boas rejected unilinear evolution and the armchair comparative method (1896), showing that similar traits may have different origins. He stressed diffusion and borrowing within limited areas, and held that the meaning of a trait depends on its context in a particular culture.
Method: intensive fieldwork among the Kwakiutl, texts recorded in the native language, and the four fields of cultural, physical, linguistic and archaeological anthropology. His study of immigrant children’s head forms (1910–1912) showed that the cephalic index changed in the American environment, separating race from culture.
Legacy: cultural relativism, anti-racism and a generation of students (Kroeber, Lowie, Sapir, Benedict, Mead). Critics such as Harris called it fact-collecting without theory, but it gave anthropology its empirical base.Q1(d) · Foundations of Anthropology · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Main Branches of Anthropology
"The bio-cultural approach is the hallmark of Biological Anthropology." Explain.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
"जैव-सांस्कृतिक दृष्टिकोण जैविक नृविज्ञान की पहचान है ।" स्पष्ट कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(d)
Approach: A short note: define the bio-cultural approach, show why it defines modern biological anthropology with three or four examples, and conclude.
The bio-cultural approach holds that human biology and culture interact continuously: culture changes the environment in which natural selection works, and biology sets the conditions for culture. It replaced the older typological physical anthropology after Washburn's call for a new physical anthropology (1951).
Examples: yam cultivation in West Africa created standing water that bred malaria mosquitoes, raising the frequency of the sickle-cell gene (Frank Livingstone, 1958). Lactase persistence spread among dairying peoples of Europe and East Africa.
Kuru among the Fore of Papua New Guinea was spread by mortuary cannibalism and declined when the practice stopped. Diet change and sedentary life explain the rising diabetes and obesity among tribal and urban Indians.
Human evolution itself: tool use and cooking reduced jaw and tooth size, and culture buffered humans against climate.
By joining genes, environment and culture, the approach makes biological anthropology useful for nutrition, epidemiology and public health, which is why it is called its hallmark.Q1(e) · Prehistoric Archaeology · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Principles of Prehistoric Archaeology and Dating Methods
Thermoluminescence (TL) dating
हिंदी में प्रश्न
थर्मोल्यूमिनेसेंस (टी.एल.) तिथि-निर्धारण
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(e)
Approach: A short note: principle, laboratory procedure, age formula, material and range, a key application and limitations.
Thermoluminescence (TL) dating measures the time elapsed since a crystalline material was last heated; it is widely used for fired pottery, burnt flint and baked clay.
Minerals such as quartz and feldspar receive a steady low dose of radiation from radioactive elements (uranium, thorium, potassium-40) in the surrounding sediment and from cosmic rays. Electrons released by this radiation are stored in lattice defects called traps. Firing empties the traps, so a newly made pot starts at zero.
When an ancient sample is heated in the laboratory, the stored electrons escape and emit light, recorded as a glow curve. The age equals the equivalent dose (total radiation absorbed) divided by the annual dose rate.
TL covers a few hundred to a few hundred thousand years, filling the gap beyond radiocarbon; it helped date Middle Palaeolithic burnt flints at Qafzeh and Kebara in Israel and exposes fake terracottas.
Its errors (5 to 10 percent) are larger than radiocarbon's because soil moisture and dose rate are hard to estimate.
Question 2 (50 marks)
Q2(a) · Fossil Hominids · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Homo erectus
What are the physical and cultural characteristics of Homo erectus ? Discuss its phylogenetic status.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
होमो इरेक्टस की शारीरिक और सांस्कृतिक विशेषताएँ क्या हैं ? इसकी फाइलोजेनेटिक स्थिति की विवेचना कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q2(a)
Approach: Three demands: physical characteristics, cultural characteristics and phylogenetic status; use sub-headings, a skull comparison diagram, and end with the ergaster and multiregional debates.
Homo erectus (upright man) lived from about 1.9 million to about 110,000 years ago in Africa, Georgia, Java and China; Dubois's Java Man (1891), Peking Man (1927) and the Turkana Boy (1984) are its best-known fossils.
Physical, skull: long, low (platycephalic) and thick-walled vault, continuous supraorbital torus, marked post-orbital constriction, sagittal keel, angular occipital with an occipital torus, widest near the base (pentagonal rear view), receding forehead and no chin.
Physical, brain, teeth and body: cranial capacity about 750 to 1,250 cc (average near 1,000 cc); teeth smaller than in H. habilis, with shovel-shaped incisors in Peking Man; a tall, linear, modern-looking body with thick long bones and a flattened femur shaft.
Diagram: side and rear views of an H. erectus skull (long low vault, brow ridge, keel, occipital torus, pentagonal outline) beside a modern globular skull with a vertical forehead and chin.
Cultural characteristics: the Acheulian handaxe and cleaver from about 1.76 million years (Kokiselei, Kenya; Attirampakkam, India), while East Asia kept chopper-chopping tools (Movius line); probable fire at Wonderwerk Cave (about 1 million years) and debated hearths at Zhoukoudian; more meat, possibly by hunting and scavenging; the first dispersal out of Africa by about 1.85 million years.
Phylogenetic status: the dominant view treats African H. erectus (H. ergaster for Groves and Mazák, 1975, and Bernard Wood) as ancestral to H. heidelbergensis and later humans, while late Asian H. erectus (Ngandong) was a side branch that died out.
Debates: splitters separate ergaster, erectus and georgicus, while Dmanisi Skull 5 (2013) suggests one variable species; multiregionalists (Wolpoff, Thorne, Wu Xinzhi) saw regional erectus populations evolving into modern humans, but genetic evidence favours a recent African origin with limited admixture.
H. erectus thus marks the shift to a human body plan, larger brain, planned tools and fire, and stands as the stem from which later Homo evolved.Q2(b) · Anthropological Theories · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Culture and Personality, Neo-evolutionism and Later Theories
Elucidate the concept of "thick description" of Clifford Geertz with a suitable example.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
एक उपयुक्त उदाहरण के साथ क्लिफोर्ड गीर्ट्ज़ के "ठोस विवरण" की अवधारणा को स्पष्ट कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q2(b)
Approach: Define thick description (Ryle via Geertz), explain it with Ryle’s wink and Geertz’s own example, add an Indian illustration, and close with its value and limits.
In the essay “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture”, opening The Interpretation of Cultures (1973), Clifford Geertz borrowed the term from the philosopher Gilbert Ryle. Thick description is an account of behaviour that records not only what happens (thin description) but the layered meanings and context that make it intelligible to the actors.
Ryle’s example: two boys rapidly contract their right eyelids. Thinly described, both acts are identical. Thickly described, one is an involuntary twitch, the other a conspiratorial wink, a third boy may be parodying the wink, and a fourth rehearsing the parody. Only knowledge of the codes distinguishes them.
Geertz’s own example is a 1912 incident in Morocco in which a Jewish trader, Cohen, was robbed, took revenge sheep from a Berber tribe under the trade-pact system, and was then punished by French authorities; three cultural frames (Jewish, Berber, French) gave the same events different meanings.
Indian illustration: a married woman applying vermilion (sindoor) may be thinly described as using cosmetics, but thickly it signals marital status, auspiciousness and, in some regions, devotion and identity; the same act is absent among many tribal communities.
Thick description made ethnography interpretive, but critics note that the interpreter’s voice may replace the native’s and that power is neglected (Asad, 1983).Q2(c) · Prehistoric Archaeology · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age
Describe the features of early farming cultures and Neolithic of the Near East.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
प्रारंभिक कृषि संस्कृतियों और निकट पूर्व के नवपाषाण काल की विशेषताओं का वर्णन कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q2(c)
Approach: Set out the Near Eastern sequence (Natufian, PPNA, PPNB, Pottery Neolithic) with type sites, then describe the crops, animals, settlements, technology and ritual, and conclude on its significance.
The Near East, especially the Fertile Crescent from the Levant through south-east Turkey to the Zagros mountains of Iraq and Iran, is the earliest known centre of farming.
Sequence: the sedentary Natufian foragers were followed by the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (about 9600 to 8800 BCE), when Jericho had round houses, a stone wall and a tower (Kathleen Kenyon), and Göbekli Tepe its carved T-shaped pillars; the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (about 8800 to 7000 BCE) had rectangular houses, plastered skulls at Jericho and lime-plaster statues at 'Ain Ghazal; the Pottery Neolithic followed after about 7000 BCE.
Crops and animals: the founder crops were emmer and einkorn wheat, barley, lentil, pea, chickpea, bitter vetch and flax; goat and sheep were domesticated in the Zagros and Taurus foothills, followed by cattle and pig.
Settlements: Jarmo in Iraq (Robert Braidwood) and Ali Kosh in Iran were farming villages; Çatalhöyük in Turkey had crowded houses entered through the roof, wall paintings, bull horns and burials under floors.
Technology and exchange: ground and polished stone, sickles, querns, mud brick, plaster and, later, pottery; obsidian from Anatolia was traded across the region. Later cultures such as Hassuna, Samarra and Halaf added irrigation and painted pottery.
These cultures show that sedentism, ritual and monument building began before or alongside farming, and they laid the foundation for the urban civilisations of Mesopotamia.
Question 3 (50 marks)
Q3(a) · Political Organisation and Social Control · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Power, Authority and Legitimacy
How do political organisations of simple societies establish power, authority and legitimacy ?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
साधारण समाजों के राजनीतिक संगठन शक्ति, सत्ता और वैधता कैसे स्थापित करते हैं ?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q3(a)
Approach: Explain the means by which simple societies create power, authority and legitimacy, kinship and age, ritual and the sacred, generosity and achievement, consensus and councils, myth and ritual, with ethnographic and Indian examples, and close with the process view.
Simple societies lack a state, yet they have power (Weber: the chance to impose one's will), authority (power accepted as rightful) and legitimacy (the values that make it rightful). Swartz, Turner and Tuden (1966) defined legitimacy as support derived from values held by those affected; simple societies build it in several ways.
Kinship and descent: seniority in lineage or clan gives office, as in Polynesian conical clans and the Khasi syiem chosen from a royal clan and confirmed by the dorbar; among the Nuer, lineage segments unite and divide by segmentary opposition.
Age and experience: elders rule because they know custom and stand near the ancestors, as in Maasai age-sets and the Santal village council under the hereditary manjhi with the paranik, jog manjhi and naeke.
Ritual and sacred status: the Nuer leopard-skin chief owes his role to ritual power to cleanse homicide, the Shilluk king embodied the founder Nyikang (Evans-Pritchard, 1948), and the Konyak Naga Ang was regarded as sacred.
Generosity and achievement: the Melanesian big man wins followers by feasts and oratory (Sahlins, 1963), the potlatch validated Kwakiutl titles, and Naga feasts of merit conferred rank.
Consensus and councils: band leaders like Inuit headmen persuade rather than command; Munda parha and Santal pargana councils decide jointly, making decisions legitimate.
Myth and ritual: myths act as charters (Malinowski) justifying rank and land, while Gluckman's rituals of rebellion among the Zulu and Swazi renewed royal legitimacy by letting tension out.
Power is also negotiated: Leach's Kachin manipulated gumsa and gumlao ideals and Barth showed followers choosing leaders. Thus legitimacy in simple societies is personal, kin-based and sacred rather than legal-rational, and it is now reshaped by PESA (1996) and elected panchayats.Q3(b) · Human Evolution: Theories and Concepts · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Synthetic Theory and Concepts of Evolutionary Biology
Explain the genetic mechanisms of micro and macro evolution.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
सूक्ष्म और दीर्घ उद्विकास के आनुवंशिक तंत्रों की व्याख्या कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q3(b)
Approach: Define micro- and macroevolution, explain the genetic mechanisms of each (mutation, recombination, drift, gene flow, selection; isolation, speciation, regulatory change, punctuated equilibrium) with human examples, and conclude on their continuity.
Microevolution is change in allele frequencies within a population over a few generations; macroevolution is change at or above the species level, producing new species, genera and higher groups over long periods.
Mechanisms of microevolution: mutation creates new alleles, such as HbS in the beta-globin gene; recombination in meiosis reshuffles them; gene flow through migration and intermarriage reduces differences between populations; genetic drift changes small populations at random, as in the founder effect among the Old Order Amish and the low diversity of the Onge.
Natural selection sorts genotypes: balanced polymorphism keeps sickle-cell heterozygotes in malarial zones, and lactase persistence spread among dairying peoples.
Mechanisms of macroevolution: reproductive isolation, pre-zygotic (geographic, behavioural, seasonal) or post-zygotic (hybrid sterility, as in the mule), allows populations to diverge into species (Mayr's biological species concept). Allopatric speciation, as in Darwin's finches, and adaptive radiation, as in the Miocene apes or the hominin radiation between about 3 and 1.5 million years, follow.
Chromosomal change also matters: human chromosome 2 arose by the fusion of two ancestral ape chromosomes, giving 46 chromosomes against 48 in chimpanzees.
Debate: the synthetic theory holds that macroevolution is accumulated microevolution; Eldredge and Gould (1972) argued for punctuated equilibrium, with long stasis broken by rapid speciation.
Most biologists see the two levels as continuous, driven by the same genetic forces acting over different spans of time.Q3(c) · Prehistoric Archaeology · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Cultures
Discuss the salient features of different traditions of European Mesolithic.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
मध्यपाषाणकालीन यूरोप की विभिन्न परंपराओं की मुख्य विशेषताओं की चर्चा कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q3(c)
Approach: Set the Holocene context, then describe the main European Mesolithic traditions one by one with type sites and features, and conclude on their common traits and transition to farming.
The European Mesolithic (about 9600 to 4000 BCE, ending earlier in the south-east) followed the end of the Ice Age, when forests replaced tundra, reindeer and mammoth gave way to red deer, roe deer and wild boar, and sea levels rose.
Azilian (Mas d'Azil, France, and northern Spain): a transitional tradition with short scrapers, small backed points, flat red-deer antler harpoons and pebbles painted with dots and lines.
Sauveterrian and Tardenoisian (France and western Europe): named after Sauveterre-la-Lémance and Fère-en-Tardenois; very small geometric microliths, triangles in the Sauveterrian and trapezes in the later Tardenoisian, used as arrow armatures.
Maglemosian (Denmark, north Germany and Britain): forest and lakeside hunters with core axes, bone and antler points and wooden equipment. At Star Carr in England, Grahame Clark (1949–51) found red-deer antler frontlets, a wooden paddle and evidence of domestic dogs.
Kongemose and Ertebølle (southern Scandinavia): coastal fishers, sealers and gatherers; Ertebølle (about 5400 to 3900 BCE) left huge shell middens (kitchen middens), made pottery and lived in nearly settled villages. Lepenski Vir on the Danube had trapezoidal houses and carved boulder sculptures.
Common traits are microliths and composite tools, the bow and arrow, broad-spectrum food use, dugout canoes and greater sedentism. These foragers interacted with incoming Neolithic farmers, and many adopted farming gradually.
Question 4 (50 marks)
Q4(a) · Foundations of Anthropology · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Meaning, Scope and Development of Anthropology
Elaborate the scope of anthropology and elucidate its uniqueness in the field of other social sciences.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
नृविज्ञान के दायरे को विस्तारपूर्वक प्रस्तुत कीजिए और अन्य सामाजिक विज्ञानों के क्षेत्र में इसकी विशिष्टता को स्पष्ट कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q4(a)
Approach: Two parts: first the scope of anthropology in time, space, subject matter and application; then its uniqueness compared with sociology, economics, political science and psychology (holism, fieldwork, comparison, biocultural view).
Anthropology is the study of humankind in all its biological and cultural dimensions; Clyde Kluckhohn in Mirror for Man (1949) described it as holding up a mirror in which people can see themselves in their variety.
Scope: in time it covers primate origins, fossil hominids, prehistoric cultures and living societies; in space, every society from the Onge and Jarawa of the Andamans to peasant villages and modern cities. Its subject matter spans human evolution and variation (biological anthropology), past material cultures (archaeological), language in society (linguistic) and kinship, economy, polity and religion (social-cultural).
Applied scope: forensic identification, public health (sickle-cell screening among tribes of central India), nutrition, tribal development and PVTG policy, rehabilitation of people displaced by dams, and impact assessment. In India the Anthropological Survey of India (1945) and tribal research institutes apply it to policy for 705 notified Scheduled Tribes (Census 2011).
Uniqueness: first, holism, since no other social science studies biology and culture together. Second, the comparative method across all societies, so that a Western pattern is not taken as universal. Third, long-term fieldwork with participant observation, which gives depth that surveys in sociology or economics cannot. Fourth, the emic view and cultural relativism.
Other disciplines study one sector of life: economics the market, political science the state, psychology the individual mind. Anthropology shows how they interlock, as Malinowski showed the kula ring to be economic, political and magical at once, and as political anthropology studied stateless Nuer order (Evans-Pritchard, 1940).
The boundaries are now blurred, since sociologists use ethnography and anthropologists study cities, but anthropology keeps its distinctive identity through holism, time depth and the biocultural approach.Q4(b) · Culture, Communication and Research Methods · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Culture, Language and Communication
Mention the major branches of linguistic anthropology and discuss language use in social and cultural settings.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भाषाई नृविज्ञान की प्रमुख शाखाओं का उल्लेख कीजिए तथा सामाजिक और सांस्कृतिक पृष्ठभूमि में भाषा के उपयोग पर चर्चा कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q4(b)
Approach: Two parts: list and explain the branches of linguistic anthropology, then discuss language use in social and cultural contexts (ethnography of speaking, speech community, diglossia, code-switching, honorifics, taboo) with Indian examples.
Linguistic anthropology, one of Boas’s four fields, studies language as a cultural resource and speaking as a cultural practice.
Branches: (i) descriptive or structural linguistics, the analysis of sounds (phonology), word forms (morphology), sentence structure (syntax) and meaning (semantics) of unwritten languages; (ii) historical linguistics, which reconstructs language families and divergence, including glottochronology; (iii) ethnolinguistics, the relation of language to culture and thought (Sapir-Whorf, ethnoscience); (iv) sociolinguistics, variation of speech by class, caste, gender and situation.
Language in social settings: Dell Hymes’s ethnography of speaking asks who says what, to whom, when and how, summarised in his SPEAKING model, and his idea of communicative competence means knowing what is appropriate, not merely grammatical. Gumperz, partly from work in Khalapur, north India, developed the idea of the speech community.
Examples: Charles Ferguson’s diglossia (formal versus colloquial Tamil); code-switching between Hindi, English and a tribal language by educated Santal or Munda youth; pronouns of respect (tu, tum, aap) marking hierarchy; avoidance of a husband’s name by many Hindu wives; and secret or ritual registers used by shamans.
Language use thus encodes status, identity and relationships.Q4(c) · Human Genetics: Methods, Inheritance and Chromosomes · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Chromosomes and Chromosomal Aberrations
"Chromosomal aberrations can play havoc with the human body and mind." Explain with suitable examples.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
"क्रोमोसोमल विपथन मानव शरीर और दिमाग पर कहर बरपा सकते हैं ।" उपयुक्त उदाहरणों सहित स्पष्ट कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q4(c)
Approach: Show, with examples of numerical and structural aberrations, their effects on the body (malformation, infertility, cancer, pregnancy loss) and on the mind (intellectual and behavioural effects), while noting myths such as the XYY criminal and that some carriers are normal.
Because each chromosome carries hundreds of genes, gaining or losing even part of one upsets gene dosage and disrupts development of both body and brain. Chromosomal aberrations occur in roughly half of first-trimester miscarriages and about 1 in 150 live births.
Havoc on the body: Down syndrome (trisomy 21) brings heart defects, low muscle tone, leukaemia risk and early ageing; Edwards and Patau syndromes cause multiple malformations and early death; Turner syndrome (45,X) causes short stature, ovarian failure and heart defects; Klinefelter syndrome (47,XXY) causes infertility; balanced translocations cause recurrent miscarriage; and acquired changes such as the Philadelphia chromosome drive cancer.
Havoc on the mind: intellectual disability is the commonest effect of autosomal imbalance, as in Down syndrome and cri-du-chat syndrome. Some deletions give characteristic behaviour: Williams syndrome (7q11.23) brings striking sociability with poor spatial skills; Prader-Willi syndrome brings compulsive eating; the 22q11.2 deletion raises the risk of schizophrenia. Klinefelter males may have language and learning difficulties, while Turner women usually have normal intelligence with spatial difficulties.
Caution: the 1965 claim that XYY men are prone to crime has been discredited, and carriers of balanced rearrangements and many with sex-chromosome aneuploidy live normal lives. Early diagnosis, therapy and inclusive care greatly reduce the havoc.
Question 5 (50 marks)
Q5(a) · Ecological Anthropology, Epidemiology and Human Growth · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Human Growth, Development and Ageing
Human adolescent growth spurt
हिंदी में प्रश्न
मानव किशोर वृद्धि में उछाल
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(a)
Approach: Define the adolescent growth spurt, give its timing, magnitude and sex differences, the hormonal basis and associated changes, and its evolutionary significance.
The adolescent growth spurt is the rapid acceleration in growth of height, weight and most body dimensions at puberty, following the slow growth of the juvenile period. It is measured as peak height velocity (PHV) on a velocity curve.
Timing and size: girls begin about two years earlier, with PHV around 12 years and a peak of roughly 8 cm a year; boys reach PHV around 14 years at about 9 to 10 cm a year. Because boys grow for longer and faster, adult men are on average taller. Menarche typically follows PHV by about a year. Timing varies with nutrition, health and population, and has become earlier with the secular trend.
Hormones: rising growth hormone, oestrogens and androgens drive the spurt and then close the growth plates. The spurt also brings sex differences in shoulder and hip breadth, muscle and fat, and secondary sexual characteristics (Tanner stages).
Barry Bogin argues that this skeletal spurt is a distinctive human feature, allowing late learning before rapid maturation.Q5(b) · Primates · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Comparative Anatomy of Man and Apes and Erect Posture
The losses and gains of erect posture
हिंदी में प्रश्न
सीधे खड़ी मुद्रा के नुकसान और लाभ
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(b)
Approach: A short note in two halves: the gains (advantages) of erect posture and the losses (costs) it imposed, with anatomical reasons, and a balanced conclusion.
Habitual erect posture and bipedalism, the first hominin trait, reorganised the skeleton and brought both gains and losses.
Gains: hands freed for carrying food, infants and tools, which led to tool making; energy-efficient walking over long distances (Sockol, Raichlen and Pontzer, 2007); a wider view over tall grass; less body surface exposed to the midday sun (Peter Wheeler); and, later, endurance running.
Losses for the spine and limbs: lower back pain, slipped discs and spondylolysis because the lumbar curve carries the weight of the upper body; flat feet, fallen arches, knee injuries and ankle sprains since two limbs bear all the weight.
Other costs: varicose veins and haemorrhoids from blood pooling in the legs; inguinal hernia; slower sprinting than quadrupeds; and a narrow birth canal that, with a large-headed baby, makes birth difficult (the obstetric dilemma, now debated).
On balance the gains outweighed the losses, because freed hands and efficient travel opened the way to tools, culture and the large human brain.Q5(c) · Population Genetics, Race and Human Variation · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Race and Racism
Is race a valid and biologically meaningful concept ?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
क्या नस्ल एक वैध और जैविक रूप से सार्थक अवधारणा है ?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(c)
Approach: State the traditional concept, present the genetic evidence against discrete races (within-group variation, clines, discordance) and the counter-argument about population structure, and give a balanced conclusion.
The traditional concept held that humankind could be divided into a few discrete races, such as Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Negroid, each with a fixed set of inherited traits.
Against biological validity: (i) Richard Lewontin (1972) found that about 85 per cent of genetic variation lies within populations and only about 6 per cent between so-called races, a result confirmed by later DNA studies; (ii) human traits vary gradually across space as clines, so Frank Livingstone (1962) wrote that there are no races, only clines; (iii) traits are discordant: skin colour, blood groups and sickle-cell frequencies do not vary together; (iv) many racial traits, such as head form, are plastic, as Boas showed in 1912.
Counter-view: genome studies (Rosenberg and colleagues, 2002) can cluster individuals by continental ancestry, which matters for medicine and forensics.
Conclusion: ancestry and population structure are real, but race as discrete, ranked, biologically bounded units is not meaningful, as the American Association of Biological Anthropologists’ statement (2019) affirms.Q5(d) · Kinship · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Descent Groups: Lineage, Clan, Phratry, Moiety and Kindred
Descent Groups
हिंदी में प्रश्न
वंश समूह
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(d)
Approach: Define descent groups, explain corporateness, list the types from lineage to moiety with examples, distinguish the kindred, and add the theoretical debate.
A descent group is a permanent group whose members claim common ancestry through a rule of descent. Unilineal groups do not overlap, so each person belongs to only one group at each level.
Following Henry Maine's idea that corporations never die, Fortes and Radcliffe-Brown treated descent groups as corporate groups that hold property, act as units in law, feud and ritual, and outlast their members.
Types: the lineage, with demonstrated descent from a known ancestor (Nuer segmentary lineages, Munda khunt); the clan, with stipulated descent, often totemic and exogamous (Santal paris, Oraon Ekka and Lakra, Khasi kur); the phratry, a group of related clans (Garo chatchi such as Sangma and Marak); and the moiety, one of two halves of a society (Australian Aboriginal groups).
The kindred is not a descent group, being ego-centred and bilateral.
Descent groups regulate exogamy, land, succession and ritual; J.A. Barnes (1962) showed that New Guinea Highland groups recruit by residence and choice, so the African model is not universal.Q5(e) · Economic Organisation · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Production, Distribution and Exchange
Modes of Subsistence
हिंदी में प्रश्न
निर्वाह के तरीके
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(e)
Approach: A short note: define mode of subsistence, list the main types in order of intensity with world and Indian examples, and note how each shapes social organisation.
A mode of subsistence is the way a society obtains its food and basic needs from its environment; Yehudi Cohen called these adaptive strategies, and Julian Steward's cultural ecology linked them to social organisation.
Foraging (hunting and gathering): small mobile bands, sharing and egalitarian relations, as among the !Kung San (Richard Lee) and, in India, the Birhor (S.C. Roy), Chenchu and Onge.
Pastoralism: herding as the main livelihood, nomadic or transhumant, with exchange with farmers, as among the Nuer and Maasai and the Toda, Gaddi, Bakarwal and Raika in India.
Horticulture and shifting cultivation: hand-tool farming with long fallows, supporting villages, big men and chiefs, as in Trobriand yam gardens, jhum in the North-East and the Baiga bewar.
Intensive agriculture: plough, irrigation and draught animals produce surplus, private land, markets and stratification, the basis of peasant societies; most Santal, Munda, Gond and Bhil today are settled cultivators.
These modes are not rigid stages; most communities combine several, and ecology and technology decide which dominates.
Question 6 (50 marks)
Q6(a) · Ecological Anthropology, Epidemiology and Human Growth · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Ecological Anthropology and Bio-cultural Adaptation
What is acclimatization ? Discuss adaptive responses to high altitude and cold climate.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
पर्यनुकूलन क्या है ? अधिक ऊँचाई और ठंडी जलवायु के लिए अनुकूली प्रतिक्रियाओं पर चर्चा कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(a)
Approach: Define acclimatization and its types, then discuss responses to high altitude (stresses, short-term, acclimatization, developmental, genetic differences among Tibetans, Andeans and Ethiopians, cultural) and to cold (physiological types, examples), concluding on the bio-cultural nature of adaptation.
Acclimatization is the reversible physiological adjustment an individual makes during its lifetime to a natural environmental stress, such as low oxygen or cold, as distinct from genetic adaptation. It may be short-term (days to weeks) or developmental, when exposure during growth produces lasting changes.
High altitude: above about 2,500 metres the main stress is hypobaric hypoxia, along with cold, dryness and intense ultraviolet radiation. Newcomers respond at once with faster breathing and heart rate; within weeks red cell and haemoglobin levels rise through erythropoietin, and 2,3-DPG eases oxygen release. Highlanders raised at altitude, such as the Quechua studied by Paul Baker and Roberto Frisancho, develop larger chests and lung volumes. Cynthia Beall found three patterns: Andeans have high haemoglobin, Tibetans normal haemoglobin but high breathing rates and blood flow, linked to EPAS1 and EGLN1 variants (EPAS1 probably inherited from Denisovans), and Ethiopian Amhara near-normal haemoglobin with good oxygen saturation. Culture helps through clothing, butter tea, yak herding and, among Ladakhis and Sherpas, house design.
Cold: responses include shivering, non-shivering heat production, peripheral vasoconstriction and a raised metabolic rate. Inuit show high metabolic rates and strong cold-induced vasodilation of the hands, keeping fingers functional; Australian Aborigines, studied by Scholander (1958), tolerated cold nights with lowered skin temperature and no shivering (insulative response). Body shape follows Bergmann’s and Allen’s rules, and culture adds igloos, fur clothing and fat-rich diets.
Acclimatization thus combines with genetic adaptation and culture, so human adaptation to extreme environments is always bio-cultural.Q6(b) · Reproductive Biology, Demography and Applied Anthropology · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Applications of Anthropology
How are the cases of disputed paternity solved ? Discuss the recent techniques.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
विवादित पितृत्व के मामलों को कैसे सुलझाया जाता है ? हाल की तकनीकों पर चर्चा कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(b)
Approach: Explain how disputed paternity was settled earlier (exclusion by blood groups) and now (DNA profiling with probability of paternity), list recent techniques, and add the Indian legal position.
Paternity diagnosis uses Mendelian inheritance: a child receives one allele at each locus from each parent, so any allele in the child not present in the mother must come from the biological father.
Classical method (exclusion): ABO, Rh, MN blood groups, serum proteins, red cell enzymes and HLA typing; a man lacking the obligatory paternal allele is excluded (for example, an AB child cannot have an O father). These markers could exclude, but never prove, paternity.
Recent techniques: Alec Jeffreys' DNA fingerprinting with multilocus minisatellite probes (1985), adapted in India by Lalji Singh in the late 1980s; today multiplex PCR of 15 to 24 short tandem repeat (STR) loci gives a combined paternity index and a probability of paternity usually above 99.99 percent; Y-STRs trace the paternal line when the alleged father is dead, using his male relatives; SNP panels help with degraded samples; and non-invasive prenatal paternity testing reads foetal DNA in the mother's blood.
Diagram: STR bands of mother, child and two alleged fathers at three loci, each child band matched to the mother or to one man.
In India, Section 112 of the Indian Evidence Act (now Section 116 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023) presumes legitimacy, so courts order DNA tests cautiously; the Delhi High Court's 2012 disclosure that N.D. Tiwari was the biological father of Rohit Shekhar is a well-known example. Consent, privacy and the child's welfare remain central concerns.Q6(c) · Family · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Types of Family
Critically evaluate Lewis Morgan's classification of family.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
लुईस मॉर्गन के परिवार के वर्गीकरण का समालोचनात्मक मूल्यांकन कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(c)
Approach: Outline Morgan's five stages of the family and their basis in kinship terminology, then evaluate merits and criticisms, concluding on his place in kinship studies.
L.H. Morgan, in Ancient Society (1877), building on Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1871), arranged the family in an evolutionary sequence after a hypothetical stage of promiscuity, inferring each form from kinship terminology.
The consanguine family was group marriage of brothers and sisters, inferred from Hawaiian (Malayan) terms that call all of a generation brother and sister. The punaluan family was group marriage of brothers with each other's wives, excluding sisters, inferred from Hawaiian punalua and classificatory terms.
The syndyasmian or pairing family was a loose union of one couple, dissolvable at will; the patriarchal family was one man with several wives under paternal power, as among Hebrew pastoralists; the monogamian family came with private property and descriptive terminology in civilisation.
Merits: Morgan founded the comparative study of kinship terms, showed that terms express social relations, and influenced Engels (1884).
Criticism: no society with consanguine or group marriage as its main form has been found; Hawaiian terms reflect generation, not past sibling marriage; Rivers and Lowie argued that terms reflect present institutions, not survivals; and simple foragers such as the Andamanese were monogamous. Boas rejected such unilinear, conjectural schemes.
Morgan's classification is thus rejected as history but valued as the beginning of kinship studies.
Question 7 (50 marks)
Q7(a) · Culture and Society · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Society, Social Institutions, Groups and Stratification
Critically evaluate different types of social stratifications with suitable examples.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
उपयुक्त उदाहरणों के साथ विभिन्न प्रकार के सामाजिक स्तरीकरणों का समालोचनात्मक मूल्यांकन कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(a)
Approach: "Critically evaluate" the types: define stratification, describe slavery, estate, caste and class (with race, gender and age) with examples, compare open and closed systems, and evaluate the typology.
Social stratification is a durable hierarchy of groups with unequal access to resources, power and prestige; Morton Fried (1967) separated egalitarian, rank and stratified societies, and sociologists classify stratified systems by how open they are.
Slavery: the most extreme closed form, in which some people are owned as property, as in ancient Greece and Rome and the Atlantic plantation economies; it was legally abolished, though bonded labour persisted in India until the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act of 1976.
Estates: legally defined strata of clergy, nobility and commoners in feudal Europe, with limited mobility through the church or royal favour; Polynesian chiefdoms such as Tonga and Hawaii had hereditary ranked chiefs.
Caste: a closed, hereditary and endogamous system ranked by purity and pollution; G.S. Ghurye listed six features, Dumont saw hierarchy as its core, and Srinivas showed mobility through Sanskritization and the dominant caste.
Class: an open system based on economic position; Marx defined it by ownership of the means of production, Weber by market situation, separating status and party; mobility occurs through education and occupation.
Other bases: race (apartheid in South Africa), gender and age; among tribes, hereditary Konyak Naga chiefs (Ang) and Toda divisions show ranking, though most Indian tribes are relatively egalitarian.
Evaluation: the typology is ideal-typical; real societies combine forms, as caste and class overlap in modern India, and the tribe-caste continuum (Bailey, Surajit Sinha) blurs categories; Berreman argued caste-like systems exist beyond India, which Dumont denied.
Hence the types are useful tools for comparison, but stratification is best analysed as a combination of birth, wealth, power and honour that changes over time.Q7(b) · Reproductive Biology, Demography and Applied Anthropology · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Demographic Theories and Factors of Fertility and Mortality
Discuss the bio-social determinants of fertility and fecundity.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
उर्वरता और प्रजनन-क्षमता के जैव-सामाजिक निर्धारकों की चर्चा कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(b)
Approach: Define fecundity and fertility, then discuss biological and social determinants of each using the Davis-Blake framework, with Indian examples.
Fecundity is the physiological capacity to reproduce and fertility its actual realisation in live births. Their determinants are bio-social because social conditions alter biology (nutrition, disease) and biology limits social choice.
Determinants of fecundity: age (peak in the twenties, decline after 35), age at menarche and menopause, nutrition and body fat (Frisch's critical fatness), anaemia, which affected 57 percent of Indian women aged 15–49 in NFHS-5, genital tuberculosis and sexually transmitted infections, polycystic ovary syndrome, chromosomal anomalies, consanguinity, which increases foetal loss in South Indian uncle-niece and cross-cousin unions, high altitude and male factors such as smoking and occupational toxins.
Determinants of fertility: Davis and Blake (1956) grouped them into exposure to intercourse (age at marriage, celibacy, widowhood, abstinence), exposure to conception (contraception, breastfeeding, sterilisation) and gestation (miscarriage, abortion). Social conditions work through these: early marriage, son preference, the economic value of children in agrarian and tribal homes, religion, female education and work, and family planning access.
Examples: fraternal polyandry among the Khasa of Jaunsar-Bawar lowers total fertility by leaving some women unmarried; long breastfeeding among foragers spaces births; Kerala's female literacy produced low fertility early, while Bihar's TFR was about 3.0 in NFHS-5.
Fecundity is mostly biological but socially conditioned, while fertility is mostly social but biologically bounded; health, nutrition and women's empowerment act on both.Q7(c) · Reproductive Biology, Demography and Applied Anthropology · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Applications of Anthropology
What is Anthropometry ? Discuss its role in assessing the nutritional status and sports capability of a person.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
मानवमिति क्या है ? किसी व्यक्ति की पोषण स्थिति और खेल क्षमता का आकलन करने में इसकी भूमिका की चर्चा कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(c)
Approach: Define anthropometry, then show its role in two areas: nutritional assessment (indices and cut-offs with NFHS data) and sports capability (somatotype, proportions, body composition).
Anthropometry is the systematic measurement of the human body, its lengths, breadths, girths, weight and skinfolds, using standard landmarks and instruments such as the anthropometer, callipers and tape; Rudolf Martin's manual standardised it in the early twentieth century.
Nutritional status: in children, height-for-age shows stunting (chronic undernutrition), weight-for-height wasting (acute) and weight-for-age underweight, compared with WHO growth standards (2006); NFHS-5 (2019–21) found 35.5 percent of Indian children under five stunted, 19.3 percent wasted and 32.1 percent underweight. Mid-upper arm circumference below 11.5 cm marks severe acute malnutrition; in adults body mass index (with lower Asian cut-offs), skinfolds and waist-hip ratio detect undernutrition and obesity. Poshan Abhiyaan (2018) relies on such measurements.
Sports capability: anthropometry gives somatotype (Heath-Carter), body composition and proportions such as arm span, leg length and sitting height. Tanner's Olympic study (1964) showed event-specific physiques: tall long-limbed swimmers and basketball players, mesomorphic sprinters and lifters, light ectomorphic distance runners. Measurements guide talent identification, as in Khelo India and sports hostels, and monitor training and growth.
Anthropometry is cheap and non-invasive, but must use population-specific references and be combined with dietary, clinical and physiological data.
Question 8 (50 marks)
Q8(a) · Culture, Communication and Research Methods · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Tools of Data Collection and Analysis
Discuss various tools of data collection in conducting anthropological research.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
मानवशास्त्रीय अनुसंधान के संचालन में डेटा संग्रह के विभिन्न साधनों की चर्चा कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(a)
Approach: Classify and explain the main tools (observation, interview, schedule and questionnaire, genealogy, case study, life history, secondary sources, participatory and audio-visual tools), with uses and limits, and conclude on triangulation.
Anthropological research combines several tools of data collection, chosen according to the problem, the community and the kind of data needed. They may be grouped as observation-based, question-based, record-based and participatory.
Observation: participant observation, established by Malinowski, involves living with and joining in community life to record behaviour in context; non-participant observation records activities such as markets or rituals from outside. Structured observation uses checklists and time allocation studies.
Interviews: unstructured and in-depth interviews for meanings, key informant interviews, focus group discussions and structured interviews. A schedule is a set of questions filled by the investigator face to face, suited to non-literate tribal respondents; a questionnaire is filled by respondents themselves and suits literate populations.
Special anthropological tools: the genealogical method (Rivers, 1910) for kinship, marriage and demography; the case study and extended case method (Gluckman, Turner) for disputes and processes; life histories (Radin’s Crashing Thunder, 1926) and oral histories for individual experience and the past.
Records and media: census and village records, gazetteers, colonial ethnographies, maps, photographs, film and audio recordings; anthropometric instruments and biological samples in physical anthropology.
Participatory tools: PRA techniques such as social mapping, seasonal calendars and wealth ranking, which involve the community in analysis.
No single tool is sufficient; triangulation across tools increases validity, while informed consent and sensitivity to local culture are essential in using any of them.Q8(b) · Ecological Anthropology, Epidemiology and Human Growth · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Human Growth, Development and Ageing
Discuss the physiological and evolutionary theories of aging.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
वयोवृद्धि के शरीर-क्रियात्मक और विकासवादी सिद्धांतों पर चर्चा कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(b)
Approach: Define ageing, then explain physiological (cellular and systemic) theories and evolutionary theories with their proponents, and conclude on how they complement each other.
Ageing is the progressive, time-related decline in physiological function that raises vulnerability to disease and death. Theories explain either how it happens (physiological, proximate) or why it evolved (evolutionary, ultimate).
Physiological theories: (i) wear-and-tear theory: cells and tissues wear out with use; (ii) free radical theory (Denham Harman, 1956): reactive oxygen species from metabolism damage DNA, proteins and lipids; (iii) cross-linkage theory: proteins such as collagen become cross-linked and stiff; (iv) telomere and cellular senescence theory: Leonard Hayflick (1961) found that normal human cells divide only about 50 times, and telomere shortening limits division; (v) somatic mutation and DNA damage theory; (vi) neuroendocrine and immunological theories: decline of hormonal control and immune function (immunosenescence) underlies many age changes.
Evolutionary theories: (i) mutation accumulation (Peter Medawar, 1952): selection is weak after reproduction, so late-acting harmful mutations accumulate; (ii) antagonistic pleiotropy (George Williams, 1957): genes that benefit the young may harm the old, and are favoured; (iii) disposable soma (Thomas Kirkwood, 1977): organisms invest limited energy in reproduction rather than perfect repair. The grandmother hypothesis (Kristen Hawkes) explains long human post-reproductive life by grandmothers’ help in rearing grandchildren.
Evolutionary theories explain why repair is imperfect; physiological theories describe the damage that results. Together they guide research on healthy ageing.Q8(c) · Kinship · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Kinship Terminology, Filiation, Descent and Alliance
Explain the structural analysis of kinship as proposed by Lévi-Strauss.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
लेवी-स्ट्रॉस द्वारा प्रस्तावित नातेदारी के संरचनात्मक विश्लेषण की व्याख्या कीजिए ।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(c)
Approach: Explain the linguistic basis of Lévi-Strauss's method, the exchange principle, the atom of kinship and its law of attitudes with examples, and end with criticism; draw the atom of kinship.
Lévi-Strauss applied structural linguistics (Jakobson, Trubetzkoy) to kinship: like phonemes, kin terms and attitudes gain meaning only as elements of a system of relations, an argument he made in 1945 and in Structural Anthropology (1958).
In The Elementary Structures of Kinship (1949) the incest taboo forces men to exchange women between groups, so reciprocity, not descent, underlies kinship; elementary structures prescribe a category of spouse while complex ones only forbid, and prescriptive systems produce restricted, generalized or delayed exchange.
The atom of kinship consists of a brother, his sister, her husband and their son, giving four relations: brother-sister, husband-wife, father-son and mother's brother-sister's son. The affinal tie is irreducible because a man must receive a wife from another man.
Its law: the mother's brother-sister's son relation is to brother-sister as father-son is to husband-wife, so attitudes alternate. Among the matrilineal Trobrianders, husband-wife and father-son relations are relaxed while brother-sister and uncle-nephew are strict; among the patrilineal Circassians the pattern is reversed.
Diagram: a triangle (brother) beside a circle (sister) joined by a sibling line, the sister married by an equals sign to a triangle (husband), and their son below; mark each of the four links plus or minus.
Critics point to the gap between models and actual marriages (Ackerman on the Purum), and Gayle Rubin (1975) to women's treatment as objects; yet the method shifted kinship study from descent to alliance and inspired Dumont.
UPSC Mains 2021 Anthropology Paper II
Question 1 (50 marks)
Q1(a) · Demographic Profile and the Traditional Indian Social System · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Varnashrama, Purushartha, Karma, Rina and Rebirth
Purushartha and righteous living today
हिंदी में प्रश्न
आज के परिवेश में पुरुषार्थ और न्यायसंगत जीवन
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(a)
Approach: A short note: the four purusharthas and their balance, then how they can guide ethical living today, with examples and a caution.
The purusharthas are four goals of human life in Hindu thought: dharma (righteous duty), artha (wealth and power), kama (desire and pleasure) and moksha (liberation). The first three form the trivarga, with dharma regulating artha and kama, an idea found in the Mahabharata, Manusmriti and Kautilya's Arthashastra.
Relevance today: pursuing wealth and pleasure is legitimate but must be bounded by ethics, a balance relevant to corporate ethics, consumerism and corruption; dharma as duty to family, profession and society supports civic responsibility and environmental care; and moksha can be read as inner freedom and detachment that reduce stress and greed.
The scheme avoids both world-denial and hedonism, offering a holistic model of well-being, as P.H. Prabhu argued.
Its traditional form tied dharma to varna and gender, so righteous living today must reinterpret it through constitutional values of equality and dignity.Q1(b) · Caste System and Religions in Indian Society · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Dominant Caste, Caste Mobility, Jajmani System and the Tribe–Caste Continuum
Relevance of tribe-caste continuum
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जनजाति-जाति सातत्य की प्रासंगिकता
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(b)
Approach: Define the continuum with its scholars, then give its present relevance for identification of Scheduled Tribes, ST-status demands and identity politics.
The tribe-caste continuum holds that tribe and caste are not separate boxes but positions on a scale. F.G. Bailey (1961) placed groups by their access to land, Surajit Sinha traced the Bhumij moving toward caste, and N.K. Bose described the Hindu method of tribal absorption among the Juang.
Relevance today: (i) it explains why the Lokur criteria (1965) are hard to apply and why lists of Scheduled Tribes differ from state to state; (ii) it frames demands for ST status by groups such as the Meiteis of Manipur, the Kurmis of Jharkhand and West Bengal and six communities of Assam, which sit on the border between tribe and caste.
(iii) It helps explain identity politics, such as the demand for a Sarna religious code and debates on delisting converts. (iv) It reminds planners that Hinduised and less Hinduised sections of one tribe need different policies.
The continuum thus remains a useful tool, provided it is not read as a one-way path toward Hinduism.Q1(c) · Evolution of Indian Culture and Civilization · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Harappan Civilization and Tribal Contributions to Indian Civilization
Harappan seals
हिंदी में प्रश्न
हड़प्पन मोहरें
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(c)
Approach: A short note: material and manufacture, motifs and script, functions, and distribution including finds abroad.
Harappan seals are the civilization's most distinctive artefacts: mostly square, about 2 to 3 cm across, carved in intaglio on soft steatite, then fired to harden and glaze, with a perforated boss at the back.
Motifs: a short line of Indus script above an animal, most often the one-horned 'unicorn' before a standard, and also the humped bull, elephant, rhinoceros, tiger and buffalo; ritual scenes include the seated horned figure called Pashupati by John Marshall and a figure in a pipal tree.
Functions: sealing goods and storerooms, as shown by clay sealings with cloth and string marks at Lothal; marking the identity of merchants, clans or officials; and possibly amulets.
Found at all major sites and in Mesopotamia, the Gulf and Central Asia, the seals show standardisation and trade networks; their uniform style across a vast area is a key sign of the civilization's integration, though their script remains undeciphered.Q1(d) · Caste System and Religions in Indian Society · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Caste: Structure, Varna and Theories of Origin
Caste and social capital
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जाति और सामाजिक पूँजी
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(d)
Approach: Define social capital (Bourdieu, Putnam), then show how caste works as both bonding capital that helps members and as a barrier that excludes others, with Indian examples.
Social capital refers to the resources a person can draw on through durable networks of relationships (Pierre Bourdieu) and to the trust and norms of reciprocity that make cooperation easier (Robert Putnam).
Caste is a ready-made network of kin, marriage partners and fellow members. It provides bonding social capital: credit, jobs, migration contacts and marriage alliances. The Marwari and Gujarati trading castes, the Chettiars of Tamil Nadu and the Patidars used caste-based trust to build business networks across India and abroad.
Caste associations, hostels and cooperatives, such as the Vanniyar Kula Kshatriya Sangham studied by the Rudolphs, turned caste ties into political and educational resources.
The same capital excludes. Dalits have thinner networks reaching land, credit and formal jobs, so referral-based hiring reproduces disadvantage (Thorat and Attewell, 2007), and strong bonding ties also enforce endogamy.
Thus caste is a source of social capital for the well-placed and a barrier for the excluded. Policy can widen bridging capital through education, self-help groups and open recruitment.Q1(e) · Indian Village, Minorities and Social Change · 10 marks≈ 7 min
The Indian Village
Factionalism and politics in rural India
हिंदी में प्रश्न
गुटबंदी और ग्रामीण भारत में राजनीति
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(e)
Approach: A short note: define factions, give classic village evidence, show their link to electoral politics and panchayats, and note their effects.
Factions are informal, vertical political groupings formed around leaders, usually from the landowning dominant caste, and their clients from several castes, competing for power and resources.
Oscar Lewis (Village Life in Northern India, 1958) found that factions, based largely on kinship among the dominant Jats, organised social and political life in Rani Khera near Delhi. Ralph Nicholas and F.G. Bailey treated factions as unstable coalitions built by leaders through patronage, and Paul Brass (1965) traced factional politics within the Congress in Uttar Pradesh.
Panchayat elections, cooperatives and development funds since the 1950s gave factions new resources to fight over, and parties use them as vote banks.
Factions can let lower castes bargain with rival patrons, but they also obstruct collective work and fuel violence, showing that rural politics mixes caste, kinship and patronage.
Question 2 (50 marks)
Q2(a) · Evolution of Indian Culture and Civilization · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Harappan Civilization and Tribal Contributions to Indian Civilization
Critically discuss the origin of Indus Valley Civilization. Mention the evidences of its endogenous origin from the pre-Harappan sites.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
सिन्धु घाटी सभ्यता की उत्पत्ति का समीक्षात्मक वर्णन कीजिए। पूर्व-हड़प्पन स्थलों से इसकी देशज उत्पत्ति के प्रमाणों का उल्लेख कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q2(a)
Approach: Critically discuss theories of origin (diffusionist versus indigenous), then give evidence of endogenous origin from pre-Harappan sites in sequence, ending with the present consensus.
The origin of the Indus civilization was long debated because its mature cities seemed to appear suddenly around 2600 BCE.
Diffusionist view: Mortimer Wheeler and others suggested that the 'idea of civilization' came from Mesopotamia through trade or migration, citing writing, planned cities and bronze. Critics note that the Indus script, seals, town plans and brick standards are quite unlike Mesopotamian forms, so at most ideas, not a ready-made civilization, could have travelled.
Indigenous view: Walter Fairservis, M. Rafique Mughal (who defined the Early Harappan phase in 1970), Jean-François Jarrige, Gregory Possehl and Mark Kenoyer showed a long local evolution from village farming to cities.
Evidence from pre-Harappan sites: Mehrgarh (from about 7000 BCE) with wheat, barley, cattle, mud-brick houses and later craft specialisation; Kot Diji with a fortified town and a horned-deity motif on pottery; Amri and Rehman Dheri with planned layouts; early Kalibangan with a fortification, the Sothi pottery and a ploughed field (about 2800 BCE); Banawali, Kunal, Bhirrana and Rakhigarhi in Haryana with Hakra and early Harappan levels; the Hakra ware sites of Cholistan; and at Harappa itself the Ravi phase (from about 3300 BCE) with potters' marks that may precede the script (Kenoyer and Meadow).
Diagram: a timeline from Mehrgarh (7000 BCE) through the Regionalisation era (3300–2600 BCE) to the Integration era (2600–1900 BCE), with sites placed in each.
The transition from regional cultures to integration was relatively rapid, and its trigger, trade, population growth or elite formation, is still debated; but the continuity of crops, crafts, motifs and brick ratios makes the endogenous origin the accepted view, with external contact as a stimulus rather than a cause.Q2(b) · Evolution of Indian Culture and Civilization · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Prehistoric Cultures of India
Give the distribution and characteristic features of Upper Paleolithic culture in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत में उच्च पुरापाषाण संस्कृति के विस्तार और विशेषताओं का वर्णन कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q2(b)
Approach: Give the distribution of Upper Palaeolithic sites region by region, then their characteristic features (tools, raw material, bone and art, economy, chronology); a map is essential.
The Upper Palaeolithic of India, about 45,000 to 10,000 years ago, is the last Pleistocene stage, linked with modern humans and with a cooler, drier climate. It was recognised as a separate stage from the 1970s onward, after the Belan valley work of G.R. Sharma.
Distribution: central India (Belan and Son valleys, Baghor, Bhimbetka, Mehtakheri); western India (Patne in Maharashtra, Budha Pushkar in Rajasthan, Visadi in Gujarat); the south-east (Renigunta, Yerragondapalem, the Kurnool caves, Jwalapuram); Karnataka (Shorapur Doab); and eastern India (sites in Odisha and Jharkhand). The Ganga plain, Kerala and the north-east have very few sites.
Features: blade-and-burin technology with backed blades, scrapers and points on chert, chalcedony and jasper; microblades appear early; bone tools in the Kurnool caves; ostrich eggshell beads and the engraved eggshell of Patne; the possible shrine at Baghor I; and mobile hunting-gathering of deer, antelope and wild cattle.
Diagram: a map of India with the sites above, and sketches of a blade, burin and backed blade.
The Indian Upper Palaeolithic shows gradual change rather than the sharp revolution seen in Europe; it flows into the Mesolithic and marks the spread of symbolic behaviour in South Asia.Q2(c) · Evolution of Indian Culture and Civilization · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Palaeo-anthropological Evidence and Ethno-archaeology in India
Discuss the morphological features and phylogenetic position of Ramapithecus.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
रामापिथीकस की आकृति-संबंधी विशेषताओं और जातिवृत्तीय स्थान का वर्णन कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q2(c)
Approach: Describe the morphological features of Ramapithecus as originally claimed and as re-read, then trace its changing phylogenetic position to the present consensus; a dental arcade diagram helps.
Ramapithecus was named by G. Edward Lewis in 1934 from Siwalik jaws found near Haritalyangar, Himachal Pradesh, dated broadly to about 12 to 9 million years; related material came from the Potwar plateau, Fort Ternan in Kenya and Lufeng in China.
Morphological features: small incisors and canines with little canine projection, thick molar enamel, low-crowned flat-wearing molars, a robust mandible and a short face (hence 'brevirostris'); Simons and Pilbeam reconstructed a parabolic, human-like dental arcade and a canine fossa.
Phylogenetic position, first view: in the 1960s and 1970s it was hailed as the earliest hominid, ancestral to Australopithecus, supported by Jolly's seed-eaters model.
Revised view: the molecular clock (Sarich and Wilson, 1967) placed the human-ape split at about 5 million years; complete mandibles showed a V-shaped arcade; thick enamel proved common to many Miocene apes; small specimens fitted females of dimorphic Sivapithecus; and the GSP 15000 face (1982) showed orang-utan features. Ramapithecus was sunk into Sivapithecus, a member of the orang-utan clade (Ponginae).
Diagram: three dental arcades side by side, U-shaped ape, V-shaped Sivapithecus-Ramapithecus and parabolic human.
Some postcranial bones of Sivapithecus do not resemble the orang-utan, so its exact position is still discussed, but it is no longer considered a human ancestor.
Question 3 (50 marks)
Q3(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 the concept of nature-man-spirit complex on sustainable use of natural resources with suitable examples.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
प्राकृतिक संसाधनों के सतत उपयोग पर प्रकृति-मानव-अलौकिक आत्मा संकुल अवधारणा के प्रभाव का उपयुक्त उदाहरण के साथ वर्णन कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q3(a)
Approach: Explain Vidyarthi's concept and its three elements, show with Indian examples how belief in spirits regulates resource use, add a diagram, and assess its limits and policy value.
L.P. Vidyarthi's nature-man-spirit complex (The Maler, 1963) holds that among tribes such as the Maler of the Rajmahal hills, the physical environment, the social group and the world of spirits are bound together, so that economy, society and religion must be studied as one whole.
Because hills, forests, rivers and animals are inhabited by spirits, people take only what ritual rules allow. Among the Maler, clearing for shifting cultivation and hunting were preceded by offerings to hill and forest spirits, and certain groves were left uncut.
Examples of sustainable use: the sarna groves of the Munda, Oraon and Santal, the devrai of Maharashtra, the kavu of Kerala and the law kyntang forests of the Khasi conserve biodiversity through religious sanction. The Dongria Kondh worship Niyam Raja as the deity of the Niyamgiri hills and their twelve gram sabhas rejected bauxite mining in 2013. The Bishnois protect khejri trees and blackbuck, recalling the sacrifice led by Amrita Devi at Khejarli in 1730.
Totemic taboos on killing clan animals, seasonal bans on hunting and fishing, and rituals before harvest also limit overuse. The Apatani of Ziro combine wet rice, fish culture and managed bamboo and pine groves under ritual and clan rules.
Diagram: a triangle with Nature, Man and Spirit at the corners, arrows in both directions along each side labelled 'resources', 'rituals' and 'taboos', and 'sustainable use' written in the centre.
Limits: sacred sanction weakens when population grows, markets expand, land is alienated or people convert, and not every belief is ecologically sound; the danger of romanticising tribes as natural conservationists is real.
The concept nevertheless supports community-based conservation under the Forest Rights Act (2006), the protection of sacred groves and the involvement of gram sabhas, offering a model of development that respects tribal worldviews.Q3(b) · Anthropology in India · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Indian Anthropologists and Tribal and Caste Studies
Examine the contributions of S. C. Roy in highlighting the role of customary laws in tribal life.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जनजातीय जीवन में प्रथानुगत विधि की भूमिका को प्रमुखता देने पर एस० सी० राय के योगदानों का परीक्षण कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q3(b)
Approach: Focus on customary law: Roy's documentation of Munda and Oraon land tenure, village and inter-village councils, inheritance and dispute settlement, his use of this in courts, and its lasting value.
S.C. Roy (1871–1942) was both an ethnographer and a practising lawyer at Ranchi, and the role of customary law in tribal life runs through his work on the Mundas, Oraons, Birhors and Kharias.
Land tenure: in The Mundas and Their Country (1912) he described the khuntkatti system, in which the descendants of the lineage that first cleared the forest held the village land collectively. He showed how zamindars, thikadars and moneylenders had turned these owners into tenants, a central cause of the Birsa uprising.
Political and judicial institutions: he documented the village headman (munda) and priest (pahan), and the parha, a federation of villages under a parha raja that settled disputes over land, marriage and breaches of clan exogamy. Among the Oraons he described similar parha councils and the role of the dhumkuria (youth dormitory) in teaching norms.
Inheritance and family law: his monographs recorded patrilineal inheritance, the limited rights of daughters and widows, bride-price and divorce, which courts later consulted.
Advocacy: Roy used this knowledge to argue Munda land cases, and his records supported the recognition of khuntkatti and customary rights in the tenancy law of Chotanagpur.
His work showed that tribal societies had their own systems of law and justice, an idea later reflected in PESA (1996), which asks states to respect customary law and the gram sabha.Q3(c) · Religion and Tribes; Tribe and Nation State · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Impact of Religions on Tribal Societies
Critically assess the impact of Christianity on tribal culture and identity.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जनजातीय संस्कृति एवं अस्मिता पर ईसाईयत के प्रभाव का समीक्षात्मक मूल्यांकन कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q3(c)
Approach: Critically assess both the gains and losses Christianity brought to tribal culture and identity, using Chotanagpur and north-eastern examples and the views of Elwin, Ghurye and later scholars, and end with a balanced judgement.
Christian missions worked among Indian tribes from the 1840s, in Chotanagpur (Gossner Mission, 1845) and the north-eastern hills (Khasi 1841, Ao Naga 1872, Mizo 1894). In Census 2011 about a tenth of STs were Christian, forming large majorities in Nagaland, Mizoram and Meghalaya.
Gains for culture: mission schools produced high literacy and tribal professionals; Roman-script writing of Khasi, Mizo and Naga languages created literatures; mission hospitals improved health; and in Chotanagpur the church helped Munda and Oraon cultivators resist land alienation.
Gains for identity: Christianity gave dignity outside the caste hierarchy and a pan-tribal organisation, supporting movements such as the Jharkhand movement under Jaipal Singh and Naga and Mizo nationalism.
Losses: dormitories, feasts of merit, sacrifices, dances and oral myths declined; Verrier Elwin's essay on the 'loss of nerve' (1941) argued that rapid conversion destroyed tribal self-confidence, and the Niyogi Committee (Madhya Pradesh, 1956) criticised missionary methods.
Divisions: converts and non-converts split over rituals and land, as in the Christian-Sarna divide in Jharkhand, and communal violence against Christian tribals occurred in Kandhamal (2008).
Later view: scholars stress tribal agency and inculturation: tribes chose Christianity for education and protection, and churches adopted tribal languages, music and festivals, so Christianity became indigenised.
Christianity has therefore both eroded and reshaped tribal culture, turning identity from a ritual to an ethnic and political basis.
Question 4 (50 marks)
Q4(a) · Anthropology in India · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Indian Anthropologists and Tribal and Caste Studies
Discuss the contributions of N. K. Bose in understanding tribal communities and their place in Indian civilization.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जनजातीय समुदायों और भारतीय सभ्यता में उनके स्थान को समझने में एन० के० बोस के योगदानों का वर्णन कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q4(a)
Approach: Introduce Bose, then explain his tribal studies (Juang and the Hindu method of tribal absorption), his civilisational view (material culture, unity in diversity, caste as a production system), his policy role, and a critique.
Nirmal Kumar Bose (1901–1972), a Calcutta anthropologist, geographer and Gandhian, studied tribes not as isolates but as communities placed within Indian civilisation.
Hindu method of tribal absorption: in his 1941 essay on the Juang of Odisha, Bose showed how tribes were drawn into Hindu society gradually and without force. As the Juang took up plough agriculture and trade, they adopted Hindu deities and festivals, employed Brahmin or other priests, and were assigned a place as a caste with a specialised occupation. Hindu society absorbed them by guaranteeing an economic niche and ritual recognition while allowing them to keep many customs.
Civilisational frame: in Peasant Life in India (1961) he mapped the distribution of material traits such as oil presses, ploughs, huts and food habits across the country, showing a shared cultural base beneath regional diversity. In The Structure of Hindu Society (Bengali 1949, English 1975) he described caste as a non-competitive system of production that gave each group a secure hereditary occupation, which made absorption of tribes attractive.
Policy role: as Director of the Anthropological Survey of India (1959–1964) and Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (1967–1970), he warned that land alienation and exploitation by outsiders were fuelling tribal unrest, and he favoured integration with protection rather than isolation or forced assimilation.
Critique: the absorption model takes Hindu society as the natural destination and can underplay coercion, inequality within the caste order and the active resistance of tribes; it also fits eastern and central India better than the north-east. Scholars such as Virginius Xaxa stress tribes' distinct identity.
Bose's contribution lies in showing tribes as part of a dynamic Indian civilisation and in linking that understanding to protective policy.Q4(b) · Indian Village, Minorities and Social Change · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Processes of Socio-cultural Change
Discuss the role of Panchayati Raj Institutions in transforming traditional power hierarchy in rural India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
ग्रामीण भारत में परम्परागत शक्ति सोपान को परिवर्तित करने में पंचायती राज संस्थानों की भूमिका का वर्णन कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q4(b)
Approach: Describe the traditional rural power hierarchy, explain the PRI framework (73rd Amendment, PESA), then assess with evidence how far PRIs have transformed power for SCs, STs, OBCs and women, and where hierarchy persists.
Traditional rural power rested on the dominant caste's control of land, caste panchayats and patron–client ties; Dalits, tribals and women were largely excluded from decision-making.
The 73rd Amendment (1992, in force 1993) made panchayats constitutional bodies with a three-tier structure, a gram sabha, regular elections and reservation of seats and chairpersons' posts for SCs and STs in proportion to population and at least one-third for women, raised to 50% in most states. PESA (1996) gave gram sabhas in Fifth Schedule areas powers over land, forest produce and customary law.
Transformation: lakhs of Dalit, tribal and women representatives now hold office, creating new leadership and making the state reachable. Chattopadhyay and Duflo (2004) found that women heads invested more in drinking water and roads that women valued. OBC and Dalit leaders have challenged the monopoly of upper castes, and PESA gram sabhas, as in the Niyamgiri decision (2013), asserted tribal voice.
Persistence of hierarchy: proxy rule by husbands ('sarpanch pati'), dominant-caste control of reserved Dalit sarpanches, violence against Dalit leaders, weak devolution of funds, functions and functionaries, and elite capture of development funds limit change.
PRIs have thus begun to democratise rural power, but real transformation needs fiscal devolution, capacity building and protection for leaders from marginalised groups.Q4(c) · Tribal Situation and Problems in India · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Problems of Tribal Communities
Elucidate the problems and challenges in educational attainment of the Scheduled Tribes.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
अनुसूचित जनजातियों को शैक्षणिक दक्षता प्राप्त करने में आने वाली समस्याओं और चुनौतियों को स्पष्ट कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q4(c)
Approach: Present data on ST educational attainment, then explain the problems under heads (access and infrastructure, language and curriculum, economic, socio-cultural, teacher and quality, conflict), and list measures and gaps.
ST literacy was 58.96% in Census 2011 against 72.99% nationally, and only 49.4% for ST women, with far lower levels among PVTGs; dropout rises sharply after the elementary stage, and STs remain under-represented in higher education.
Access: scattered hamlets in hills and forests are far from schools, especially secondary schools, and roads are poor; many schools lack teachers, buildings and hostels.
Language and curriculum: tribal children often start school in a language they do not speak, such as Odia or Hindi, and textbooks ignore their culture, knowledge and history, making school alien and leading to early failure.
Economic and social factors: poverty, children's work in fields, forest collection and sibling care, seasonal migration of families, early marriage of girls, and parents' limited education reduce attendance.
Quality and conflict: teacher absenteeism, non-tribal teachers unfamiliar with local life, poor learning outcomes, and in Left-Wing Extremism areas the occupation or destruction of schools.
Measures include Eklavya Model Residential Schools (revamped 2018–19), scholarships, ashram schools, multilingual education in Odisha's tribal languages and NEP 2020's mother-tongue emphasis; success needs local teachers, culturally relevant curricula and secondary schools near tribal habitations.
Question 5 (50 marks)
Q5(a) · Weaker Sections, Ethnicity and Tribal Change · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Social Change in Contemporary Tribal Societies
Urbanization and tribal institutions
हिंदी में प्रश्न
शहरीकरण और जनजातीय संस्थाएँ
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(a)
Approach: A short note on how urban life affects tribal institutions (family, clan, council, dormitory, religion), with examples of both decline and adaptation in towns.
Urbanisation draws tribals into towns through education, government jobs, industry and distress migration; about 10% of STs were urban in 2011, with higher shares in north-eastern capitals and industrial Jharkhand.
Family and kinship: joint families split into nuclear households, clan exogamy weakens as inter-tribal and inter-community marriages increase, and bride price gives way to dowry among some educated families.
Political and judicial institutions: traditional councils such as the Santal manjhi system or Munda parha lose authority to municipal bodies, police and courts, since townspeople settle disputes through formal law.
Youth dormitories and religion: institutions such as the Oraon dhumkuria have almost disappeared in towns, and church, temple or Sarna associations replace village rituals.
Adaptation: towns also create new tribal institutions: student unions, ethnic welfare associations, urban Sarna sthals in Ranchi, Naga and Mizo church and tribe organisations in Shillong and Delhi, and festivals that become identity markers.
Urbanisation thus transforms rather than destroys tribal institutions, shifting them from kinship-based to associational forms.Q5(b) · Indian Village, Minorities and Social Change · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Processes of Socio-cultural Change
Ethnic media and social awareness
हिंदी में प्रश्न
पारम्परिक संचार-माध्यम और सामाजिक जागरूकता
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(b)
Approach: A short note: define ethnic media, give Indian examples (tribal-language press, community radio, digital platforms), explain how they build awareness, and note limits.
Ethnic media are media produced by and for a particular ethnic, linguistic or tribal community, in its own language and around its own concerns.
In India they include Santali periodicals in the Ol Chiki script, Khasi and Mizo newspapers, the rural women's newspaper Khabar Lahariya (from 2002, in Bundeli), Sangham Radio (2008), a community radio station run by Dalit women in Telangana, and CGNet Swara (2010), a mobile voice portal through which Gondi- and Hindi-speaking villagers in central India report local problems.
Such media build social awareness by giving voice to marginalised groups, spreading information on health, rights and schemes in the mother tongue, preserving language and oral culture, and bringing local grievances to officials.
Their reach is limited by funding, licensing, literacy and connectivity, and they can also be used for divisive identity politics, so supportive policy and media literacy are needed.Q5(c) · Weaker Sections, Ethnicity and Tribal Change · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Ethnicity, Tribal Unrest, Regionalism and Pseudo-tribalism
Cultural diversity and multiculturalism
हिंदी में प्रश्न
सांस्कृतिक बहुरूपता एवं बहुसंस्कृतिवाद
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(c)
Approach: Define cultural diversity and multiculturalism (as fact, ideology and policy), cite key thinkers, and contrast the Indian model with Western ones, using tribal examples.
Cultural diversity is the coexistence of different languages, religions, customs and ways of life within a society. India is an extreme case: the People of India project (K.S. Singh, from 1985) identified 4,635 communities, and Census 2011 recorded over 700 notified Scheduled Tribes and 22 scheduled languages.
Multiculturalism is a normative and policy response to diversity that recognises cultural groups rather than merely tolerating them. Charles Taylor (The Politics of Recognition, 1992), Will Kymlicka (Multicultural Citizenship, 1995) and Bhikhu Parekh (Rethinking Multiculturalism, 2000) argued that equal citizenship may require group-differentiated rights.
Models: Canada adopted official multiculturalism in 1971 (Multiculturalism Act, 1988), contrasting with the American 'melting pot'. India practises multiculturalism through the Fifth and Sixth Schedules, Article 29, linguistic states, Article 371 and personal laws.
Debates: critics fear that group rights freeze cultures and trap women in patriarchal custom; supporters reply that recognition reduces conflict.
Anthropology's cultural relativism supports multiculturalism, provided individual rights are protected.Q5(d) · Tribal Situation and Problems in India · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Tribal Situation in India
Concept of tribe and Indian census
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जनजाति की अवधारणा एवं भारतीय जनगणना
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(d)
Approach: A short note: the anthropological concept of tribe, how the Census has labelled and counted tribes from colonial times to Scheduled Tribes, and current debates.
Anthropologically, a tribe is a kin-based society with a common name, territory, dialect and culture, usually endogamous and politically autonomous (Imperial Gazetteer, 1911); no single definition fits Indian reality, as Beteille noted.
Colonial Censuses struggled to classify tribes, using labels such as forest tribes and 'animists' (1901, 1911) and 'primitive tribes' under J.H. Hutton in 1931, mixing religion, habitat and supposed primitiveness. Since 1951 the Census counts only Scheduled Tribes notified under Article 342, so 'tribe' became a legal category.
Census 2011 counted 10.43 crore STs (8.6%), about 90% rural, with literacy of 58.96%. Debates include the absence of a separate religion code for tribal faiths such as Sarna, the omission of non-notified groups, and differences in lists between states.
The Census thus shapes how tribes are seen, and Census 2027 will provide the first new figures since 2011.Q5(e) · Weaker Sections, Ethnicity and Tribal Change · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Ethnicity, Tribal Unrest, Regionalism and Pseudo-tribalism
Politics of recognition and deprivation
हिंदी में प्रश्न
पहचान और वंचितकरण की राजनीति
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(e)
Approach: Explain the politics of recognition (Taylor, Honneth) and of deprivation (relative deprivation, redistribution), link them through Nancy Fraser, and illustrate with Indian tribal and caste examples.
Politics of recognition: Charles Taylor (1992) argued that identity is formed through recognition by others, and misrecognition, such as stereotyping tribes as 'primitive', inflicts real harm; Axel Honneth (The Struggle for Recognition, 1992) saw social conflict as a struggle for respect.
Politics of deprivation: movements also arise from material deprivation, especially relative deprivation, the gap between what a group expects and what it gets compared with others (W.G. Runciman, 1966; Ted Gurr, Why Men Rebel, 1970).
Linking the two: Nancy Fraser (1995) argued that justice requires both redistribution and recognition, since cultural disrespect and economic exclusion reinforce each other.
Indian examples: recognition struggles include the demand for a Sarna religion code, inclusion of Santali and Bodo in the Eighth Schedule (2003) and demands for ST status; deprivation struggles include resistance to land alienation and displacement, as at Niyamgiri; the Jharkhand and Dalit movements combined both.
Effective policy must address both dignity and resources.
Question 6 (50 marks)
Q6(a) · Tribal Situation and Problems in India · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Development Projects, Displacement, Forest Policy and Tribals
Discuss the impact of the Forest Rights Act (2006) on the livelihood and culture of tribal people in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत के जनजातीय लोगों की आजीविका और संस्कृति पर वन अधिकार अधिनियम (2006) के प्रभाव का वर्णन कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q6(a)
Approach: Outline the FRA's provisions and progress (data to 2025), then analyse its impact on livelihoods and on culture with positive cases (Mendha-Lekha, Niyamgiri) and shortcomings, and conclude.
The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, with rules of 2008 amended in 2012, aims to undo the 'historical injustice' of colonial and post-colonial forest laws. It recognises individual rights over forest land cultivated before 13 December 2005 (up to 4 hectares), community rights to minor forest produce, grazing and water, and the right to protect and manage community forest resources, with the gram sabha as the key authority.
Progress: by 31 May 2025 about 51.23 lakh claims had been filed and about 25.11 lakh titles distributed (23.90 lakh individual and 1.22 lakh community), roughly half the claims.
Livelihood impact: individual titles have given tenure security to cultivators long treated as encroachers, enabling access to housing, irrigation and credit schemes. Community forest rights have transformed some villages: Mendha-Lekha in Gadchiroli, among the first to receive such rights, earned substantial income from selling bamboo through its gram sabha, and many gram sabhas in Gadchiroli now auction tendu leaves themselves, raising earnings and ending contractor exploitation.
Cultural impact: FRA recognises tribal knowledge, sacred groves and customary institutions; in Niyamgiri (2013) it protected the Dongria Kondh's sacred hills; and it has revived gram sabhas and collective forest management, strengthening identity and self-governance.
Shortcomings: high rejection rates, often without reasons; titles for smaller areas than claimed; very slow recognition of community forest rights; neglect of PVTG habitat rights and of pastoralists; resistance from forest departments; and conflicts with conservation, as in the Supreme Court's 2019 eviction order in Wildlife First, stayed weeks later. The 2023 amendment to forest conservation law and compensatory afforestation raise further concerns.
FRA can transform tribal livelihoods and culture if community rights are recognised faster and gram sabhas are supported.Q6(b) · Tribal Situation and Problems in India · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Problems of Tribal Communities
Examine the factors responsible for malnutrition in tribal India and suggest interventions required to overcome the problem.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जनजातीय भारत में कुपोषण के उत्तरदायी कारकों का परीक्षण कीजिए और समस्या के समाधान हेतु हस्तक्षेपों को बताइए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q6(b)
Approach: Give the scale with NFHS-5 data, analyse the factors (food, health, maternal, ecological and structural, cultural), then suggest specific interventions.
Malnutrition is severe in tribal India: NFHS-5 (2019–21) found 40.9% of ST children under five stunted, against 35.5% for all children, with high wasting, underweight and anaemia among children and women. Repeated child deaths among the Korku of Melghat have drawn court attention since the 1990s.
Food factors: poverty (45.3% of rural STs poor in 2011–12), loss of land and forest access, and a shift from diverse millets, tubers, greens and small game to polished rice have reduced dietary diversity; lean-season food shortages are common.
Health and maternal factors: malaria, diarrhoea and worm infections drain nutrients; maternal anaemia, early marriage and closely spaced births produce low-birth-weight babies; and anganwadi and health services reach remote hamlets poorly.
Structural and cultural factors: displacement, seasonal migration of parents, poor water and sanitation, women's heavy workload limiting childcare, and some food taboos during pregnancy.
Interventions: secure land and forest rights (FRA) and MGNREGA work; include millets, eggs and local foods in ICDS and the PM POSHAN mid-day meal; community-based management of acute malnutrition; local tribal health and nutrition workers; malaria control and sickle cell screening; and nutrition-sensitive schemes under PM-JANMAN (2023), monitored through gram sabhas.Q6(c) · Demographic Profile and the Traditional Indian Social System · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Demographic Profile of India
Delineate the factors influencing fertility in Indian population.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारतीय जनसंख्या में जनन-क्षमता को प्रभावित करने वाले कारकों का उल्लेख कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q6(c)
Approach: Delineate biological, socio-cultural, economic and policy factors that influence fertility in India, using the proximate determinants and Indian data and examples.
Fertility, the actual number of births, has fallen steeply in India, from a TFR of about 6 in the 1950s to 2.0 in NFHS-5 (2019–21) and 1.9 in SRS 2023, but with wide differences between regions and groups. Following Davis and Blake (1956), social factors act through intermediate variables of marriage, contraception and pregnancy outcome.
Biological: age at menarche, fecundity, breastfeeding (which spaces births), anaemia and infections such as genital tuberculosis that cause sterility.
Socio-cultural: early and universal marriage; son preference linked to patriliny, dowry and pitri rina, so couples continue until a son is born; low status and education of women (NFHS-5 TFR about 2.8 for women with no schooling against about 1.8 with 12 or more years); joint family pressures; and religion and caste, whose differences shrink with education. Tribal norms vary: bride price and women's work coexist with high fertility in some groups and very low fertility in small PVTGs.
Economic and policy: the value of child labour in agriculture (Mamdani, 1972); urbanisation and rising costs of schooling; income and media exposure; and the family planning programme since 1952, which relies heavily on female sterilisation, with the coercive drive of 1975–77 provoking resistance.
Fertility in India is thus bio-cultural: female education, later marriage and health services explain the fall, while son preference and poverty explain where it remains high.
Question 7 (50 marks)
Q7(a) · Tribal Situation and Problems in India · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Development Projects, Displacement, Forest Policy and Tribals
Explain the impact of successive Land Acquisition Acts on tribal social organization.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जनजातीय सामाजिक संगठन पर आनुक्रमिक भूमि अधिग्रहण अधिनियमों के प्रभाव की व्याख्या कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q7(a)
Approach: Trace the successive land acquisition laws (1894 Act and amendments, 2007 policy, 2013 Act, later dilutions), then analyse their impact on tribal social organisation (kinship and clan territory, village and leadership, customary law, economy and gender, religion), with examples, and conclude.
For tribal communities land is not only property but the basis of clan identity, village organisation and religion. The laws governing its acquisition by the state have therefore deeply shaped tribal social organisation.
The 1894 Act: the colonial Land Acquisition Act gave the state eminent domain for any 'public purpose', with an urgency clause, compensation in cash at market value to individual titleholders and no obligation to rehabilitate. It was used after independence for dams, mines and steel plants (Hirakud, Rourkela, Bokaro), and since tribals often lacked individual titles to communal land, many received nothing.
Reforms: the National Rehabilitation and Resettlement Policy (2007) introduced some entitlements, and the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, required social impact assessment, consent of 70–80% of affected families for private and PPP projects, gram sabha consent in Scheduled Areas, higher compensation and rehabilitation. A 2014 ordinance to dilute these provisions lapsed in 2015, but several states amended the Act or passed their own laws exempting many projects from SIA and consent.
Impact on social organisation: acquisition scattered clan villages whose land belonged to the founding lineage, breaking kinship networks and what Michael Cernea calls social disarticulation. Traditional leaders such as the Munda manki or Santal manjhi lost authority when the territory they governed disappeared, and customary law lost its base. Cash compensation paid to individual men individualised communal property, caused disputes within families and favoured men over women, who lost use rights and status.
The 2013 Act was a major advance toward consent and rehabilitation, but its dilution by states and weak implementation mean that acquisition still threatens tribal social organisation; respecting PESA and community consent is essential.Q7(b) · Tribal Situation and Problems in India · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Development Projects, Displacement, Forest Policy and Tribals
Discuss the problems involved in rehabilitation and resettlement of tribals displaced due to development projects in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत में विकास परियोजनाओं के कारण विस्थापित जनजातियों को पुनर्वासित एवं पुनःस्थापित करने में आई समस्याओं का वर्णन कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q7(b)
Approach: Give the scale of tribal displacement, then discuss the problems of rehabilitation under heads (land and livelihood, compensation and titles, community and culture, sites and services, process and participation), using Cernea's model and cases, and suggest remedies.
Walter Fernandes estimated that about 60 million people were displaced or affected by development projects between 1947 and 2004, roughly 40% of them tribals, though tribals were only about 8% of the population; most were never adequately rehabilitated.
Land and livelihood: land-for-land is rarely given because suitable land is scarce, and cash compensation is quickly spent, so displaced cultivators become wage labourers; forest-based livelihoods cannot be recreated in the plains. Michael Cernea's impoverishment risks model lists landlessness, joblessness, homelessness, marginalisation, food insecurity, morbidity, loss of common property and social disarticulation.
Compensation and eligibility: tribals often lack titles to communal or forest land, so they are excluded or undercompensated; women and adult daughters are ignored; and delays and corruption reduce payments.
Community and culture: resettlement scatters clan villages, breaks leadership and destroys sacred sites, while host communities may be hostile.
Sites and process: colonies lack water, schools, health care and fertile land, as with many Narmada and Polavaram sites; affected people are rarely consulted, and rehabilitation begins after displacement rather than before.
The 2013 land acquisition Act requires social impact assessment, consent and rehabilitation entitlements; these must be implemented with land-based rehabilitation, community resettlement, women's titles and gram sabha participation.Q7(c) · Tribal Administration and Applied Anthropology · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Role of Anthropology in Tribal and Rural Development
Discuss the interventions made by the Non-Governmental Organizations for empowering tribal women.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जनजातीय महिलाओं के सशक्तिकरण में गैर-सरकारी संगठनों के हस्तक्षेपों का वर्णन कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q7(c)
Approach: Discuss specific NGO interventions for tribal women in health, livelihoods, rights, political participation and against violence, with named organisations, and assess their impact and limits.
Tribal women carry heavy workloads in farming, forest collection and the household, and face malnutrition, anaemia, witch-hunting, trafficking and exclusion from land and customary councils. NGOs have intervened in several ways.
Health: Ekjut's participatory women's groups in Jharkhand and Odisha discussed pregnancy and newborn care and cut neonatal mortality (The Lancet, 2010); SEARCH in Gadchiroli trained village women as health workers; Jan Swasthya Sahyog serves tribal women in Chhattisgarh.
Livelihoods and finance: PRADAN organised tribal women into self-help groups and federations for savings, credit, agriculture and poultry; women-led Van Dhan clusters process forest produce such as mahua and tamarind.
Land and forest rights: NGOs helped women obtain joint titles and community forest rights under the Forest Rights Act (2006).
Political participation: training of women panchayat members and support for women's voices in PESA gram sabhas, including anti-liquor campaigns.
Violence: campaigns and legal aid against witch-hunting, supporting laws such as Jharkhand's Prevention of Witch (Daain) Practices Act (2001), and against trafficking of girls from Jharkhand to cities.
Assessment: these interventions raise income, health and confidence, but coverage is limited, customary councils still exclude women, and dependence on project funding threatens sustainability; partnership with the state and tribal women's own organisations is the way forward.
Question 8 (50 marks)
Q8(a) · Indian Village, Minorities and Social Change · 20 marks≈ 14 min
The Indian Village
Examine how structural transformation in economy is affecting traditional social relationships in agrarian society.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
परीक्षण कीजिए कि कृषिक समाज की अर्थव्यवस्था में संरचनात्मक परिवर्तन, पारम्परिक सामाजिक संबंधों को कैसे प्रभावित कर रहा है।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q8(a)
Approach: Describe the structural transformation (decline of agriculture's share, commercialisation, mechanisation, non-farm work, migration, welfare), then analyse its effects on caste, patron–client, labour, gender and power relations, with studies, and conclude.
Structural transformation means the shift of an economy's output and labour from agriculture to industry and services. In India agriculture now produces under a fifth of output but still employs about 46% of workers (PLFS 2023–24), and villages are becoming more commercial, mechanised and dependent on non-farm income.
Patron–client to contract: traditional agrarian society rested on jajmani ties and attached labour. With the Green Revolution, cash wages and machines, these relations have become contractual; Jan Breman traced the shift from hali bondage to casual labour in south Gujarat, where employers no longer accept responsibility for workers.
Caste and labour: non-farm work, education and reservations have let many Dalits withdraw from agricultural labour for landowners. Surinder Jodhka found Dalits in Haryana and Punjab seeking independence from Jat landowners, and conflict sometimes followed. Dominant castes, facing smaller holdings and stagnant farm incomes, have launched agitations for reservation (Jats, Patidars, Marathas).
Land and power: land remains a source of status but less of livelihood; Dipankar Gupta (2005) argued that the village is shrinking as a site of livelihood and that villagers want to leave farming. Panchayati raj and reservations have shifted some local power to lower castes and women.
Gender and family: male migration has led to the feminisation of agriculture, giving women more work and some decision-making, while joint families break into nuclear units and inheritance disputes over small plots increase.
Welfare such as MGNREGA (2005) and direct benefit transfers has reduced dependence on landlords for survival.
Traditional agrarian relations based on hierarchy and dependence are thus giving way to market and state-mediated relations, more individual and contractual but also more insecure, while caste identity persists in new, competitive forms.Q8(b) · Indian Village, Minorities and Social Change · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Linguistic and Religious Minorities
Delineate the constitutional safeguard for religious minorities in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत में धार्मिक अल्पसंख्यकों के लिए संवैधानिक सुरक्षा का उल्लेख कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q8(b)
Approach: Delineate the safeguards systematically: fundamental rights (Articles 14–15, 25–28, 29–30), other provisions, statutory bodies and schemes, and judicial interpretation, with a short concluding comment.
The Constitution protects religious minorities through equal citizenship combined with group-specific cultural rights, within a secular state that keeps a 'principled distance' from religion.
Equality: Articles 14, 15 and 16 guarantee equality before law and prohibit discrimination on grounds of religion in public places and public employment; Article 325 bars exclusion from electoral rolls on religious grounds.
Religious freedom: Article 25 guarantees freedom of conscience and the right to profess, practise and propagate religion; Article 26 lets denominations manage their own affairs and property; Article 27 bars taxes for promoting any religion; Article 28 restricts religious instruction in state-funded institutions.
Cultural and educational rights: Article 29 protects distinct culture and bars denial of admission to state-aided institutions on religious grounds; Article 30 gives minorities the right to establish and administer educational institutions, upheld by an eleven-judge bench in T.M.A. Pai Foundation (2002).
Institutions and schemes: the National Commission for Minorities (statutory, 1992), the National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions (2004), the Ministry of Minority Affairs (2006) and the Prime Minister's New 15-Point Programme (2006) give effect to these rights.
These safeguards are strong on paper; gaps lie in implementation, socio-economic backwardness and communal tension rather than in the text.Q8(c) · Weaker Sections, Ethnicity and Tribal Change · 15 marks≈ 11 min
Ethnicity, Tribal Unrest, Regionalism and Pseudo-tribalism
Identify the causes of tribal unrest with special reference to North-East India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
उत्तर-पूर्व भारत के विशेष संदर्भ में जनजातीय अशांति के कारणों को चिह्नित कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q8(c)
Approach: Identify the historical, political, economic, demographic and cultural causes of tribal unrest in the north-east with specific movements, and close with the state's response and a way forward.
North-east India, home to over two hundred tribal communities, has seen the longest tribal unrest in the country, from the Naga movement of the 1940s to the Manipur conflict of 2023.
Historical causes: colonial policies such as the Inner Line (1873) and excluded areas kept the hills apart from the plains, so many tribes, the Nagas above all, did not see themselves as part of India in 1947; Partition cut the region's links to its hinterland.
Political causes: demands for sovereignty or statehood (NNC under Phizo, the MNF uprising of 1966), resentment of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (1958), and disputed boundaries such as the greater Nagalim claim.
Demographic causes: fear of being swamped by migrants drove the Assam movement (1979 to 1985), Bodo violence and Tripura's insurgency after tribals became a minority.
Economic causes: underdevelopment, unemployment among educated youth, and disputes over land, forests and oil revenue.
Inter-ethnic competition: rivalry over territory and ST benefits, as in Naga-Kuki clashes (1990s) and the Meitei-Kuki-Zo conflict (2023).
Response and way forward: statehood, the Sixth Schedule, Article 371 provisions and accords (Mizo 1986, Bodo 2020, Tipra Motha 2024) have brought peace where they enjoyed genuine local ownership; inclusive autonomy and development under the Act East policy are the way forward.