UPSC Mains 2019 Sociology Optional Question Papers with Model Answers
All 56 questions of the 2019 Civil Services Main Examination, Sociology Paper I and Sociology 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 2019 Sociology Paper I
Question 1 (50 marks)
Q1(a) · Sociology: The Discipline · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Modernity, Social Change in Europe and the Emergence of Sociology
Discuss the historical antecedents of the emergence of Sociology as a discipline.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
एक अनुशासन के रूप में समाजशास्त्र के आविर्भाव के ऐतिहासिक पूर्ववृत्तों की विवेचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(a)
Approach: Discuss the historical antecedents: the three revolutions (intellectual, political, economic), urbanisation and colonialism, with Nisbet, and close with the institutional birth of the discipline and its Indian parallel.
Sociology became a separate discipline in the nineteenth century as a response to the deep changes of European modernity. Robert Nisbet (1966) traced it to the 'two revolutions', industrial and democratic.
Intellectual revolution: the Renaissance, the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment replaced faith with reason and observation, giving Comte the idea of a positive science of society (1838).
Political revolution: the French Revolution of 1789 overthrew monarchy and Church privilege, raising questions of order, authority and citizenship.
Economic revolution: the Industrial Revolution produced factories, wage labour, urban slums and class conflict, which Marx and Engels analysed.
Urbanisation and colonialism: growing cities created anonymity and new social problems, while colonial contact supplied comparative material.
These changes led Durkheim, Weber and Marx to study solidarity, rationalisation and capitalism. In India, colonial rule and reform movements played a similar role, and sociology was set up at Bombay in 1919.
Thus sociology arose as society's attempt to understand its own transformation.Q1(b) · Stratification and Mobility · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Theories of Stratification: Functionalist, Marxist and Weberian
Davis and Moore made it clear that social stratification is a functional necessity and also an unconscious device. Discuss.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
डेविस और मूर ने यह स्पष्ट किया कि सामाजिक संस्तरण एक प्रकार्यात्मक आवश्यकता और अचेतन युक्ति भी है। विवेचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(b)
Approach: Explain the two parts of the Davis–Moore thesis (functional necessity and unconsciously evolved device), then give Tumin's criticism and an Indian illustration.
In 'Some Principles of Stratification' (1945) Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore argued that every society must place and motivate individuals in its positions, and that unequal rewards do this. They described social inequality as "an unconsciously evolved device" by which societies ensure that the most important positions are filled by the most qualified persons.
Functional necessity: some positions are functionally more important and need scarce talent and long training; higher rewards of income, prestige and leisure attract people to them, so stratification is universal. Unconscious device: no one plans it; it evolves as a society's response to its needs, like an invisible sorting mechanism.
Melvin Tumin (1953) objected that functional importance is hard to measure, that stratification itself limits the pool of talent, and that rewards often reflect power rather than function.
In India, caste allotted positions by birth rather than talent, which contradicts the thesis; yet the competitive civil services and IITs partly fit its logic of rewarding scarce skills.Q1(c) · Sociological Thinkers: Marx and Durkheim · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Karl Marx: Alienation and Class Struggle
What is the Marxist concept of 'fetishism of commodities'?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
'फीटिशिज़्म ऑफ़ कॅमोडिटीज़' की मार्क्सवादी संकल्पना क्या है?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(c)
Approach: Define the concept from Capital, explain how it arises and what it hides, and give an Indian example and its later use.
In Capital, Volume I (1867), Marx described commodity fetishism as the way in which, under capitalism, social relations between producers appear as relations between things. A commodity seems to have value in itself, as if by nature, when its value actually comes from the human labour that made it.
Every commodity has a use-value and an exchange-value; in the market only prices are seen, so the labour and exploitation behind goods are hidden, much as a religious fetish seems to have powers that people have given it.
Indian example: a branded smartphone or a meal ordered on a delivery app is valued for its brand and convenience, while the factory workers and riders who produce and deliver it remain invisible.
Georg Lukács developed the idea into reification (1923), and the Frankfurt School applied it to consumer culture. It shows how ideology works through everyday market life.Q1(d) · Stratification and Mobility · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Dimensions of Stratification: Class, Status, Gender, Ethnicity and Race
Present a sociological review on the 'new middle-class'.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
'नव मध्यम-वर्ग' पर एक समाजशास्त्रीय समीक्षा प्रस्तुत कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(d)
Approach: Define the new middle class (Mills, Lockwood), review the debates on its nature (embourgeoisement vs proletarianisation, Wright), then the Indian new middle class after liberalisation (Varma, Fernandes, Deshpande), and conclude.
The new middle class refers to salaried white-collar employees, professionals and managers, unlike the old middle class of small owners and traders. C. Wright Mills's White Collar (1951) described them as dependent employees with status anxieties, and Weber had predicted their growth with bureaucracy.
Debates: David Lockwood (The Blackcoated Worker, 1958) found clerks distinct from manual workers in market, work and status situation. Harry Braverman (1974) argued routine white-collar work was being deskilled, a proletarianisation; Erik Olin Wright placed managers and experts in contradictory class locations.
In India, the new middle class expanded after the 1991 reforms through IT, services and finance. Pavan Varma (1998) criticised its consumerism and civic withdrawal; Leela Fernandes (2006) saw it as a political project of liberalisation; Satish Deshpande noted its upper-caste dominance, though reservation has created a Dalit middle class.
It is thus internally divided and insecure, but culturally and politically influential.Q1(e) · Research Methods and Analysis · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Variables, Sampling, Hypothesis, Reliability and Validity
Explain the probability sampling strategies with examples.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
प्रायिकता नमूना-चयन रणनीतियों की सोदाहरण व्याख्या कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(e)
Approach: Define probability sampling, then explain simple random, systematic, stratified and cluster or multi-stage strategies, each with an Indian example and a merit or limit.
Probability sampling gives every unit of the population a known, non-zero chance of selection, which removes selection bias and allows generalisation.
Simple random sampling: each unit has an equal chance, by lottery or random numbers; for example, 200 students drawn from a university’s enrolment list. It needs a complete sampling frame.
Systematic sampling: every nth unit after a random start, such as every tenth household in a village voter list; simple, but biased if the list has a periodic pattern. Stratified sampling: the population is divided into strata, such as SC, ST, OBC and others or rural and urban, and random samples are drawn from each, ensuring small groups are represented.
Cluster and multi-stage sampling: groups such as villages or urban blocks are selected first and households within them later; India’s NSS, PLFS and NFHS use stratified multi-stage designs because no national list of individuals exists. It is cheaper but has higher sampling error.
The choice depends on the frame, the diversity of the population and resources.
Question 2 (50 marks)
Q2(a) · Sociological Thinkers: Parsons, Merton and Mead · 20 marks≈ 14 min
George Herbert Mead: Self and Identity
According to Mead, "We play a key role in our own socialisation." Explain.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
मीड के अनुसार, "हम अपने स्वयं के समाजीकरण में एक मुख्य भूमिका अदा करते हैं।" व्याख्या कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q2(a)
Approach: Explain how in Mead's theory the individual is active in socialisation (role-taking, the I, interpretation), contrast with Parsons and Durkheim, add examples and critics.
Classical functionalists like Durkheim and Parsons treated socialisation as society moulding the individual by internalising norms. George Herbert Mead, in Mind, Self and Society (1934), gave a more active picture: we play a key role in our own socialisation because the self is formed through our own interpretation and role-taking.
First, socialisation happens through role-taking. The child actively imagines being others, first particular significant others in play, then many roles together in organised games, finally the generalised other. This is something the child does, not something done to the child.
Second, the self has two phases. The 'me' is the internalised attitudes of others, the conventional, socialised part. The 'I' is the spontaneous and creative response of the individual to those attitudes. Because the 'I' is never fully predictable, people can reinterpret, resist and change norms; the self is a process, not a finished product.
Third, interaction involves interpretation of symbols. As Herbert Blumer later put it, people act towards things on the basis of meanings that arise in interaction and are modified through an interpretive process.
Flow chart: others' attitudes → 'me' → response of 'I' → new action → modified attitudes of others → changed self.
Examples: Indian girls who take educated women, not traditional elders, as models and negotiate marriage choices; Dalit youth who reject stigmatised identities through education and Ambedkarite associations; children who reinterpret religious rituals in their own way.
Critics note limits. Structural theorists say the active self works within class, caste and gender constraints; Mead ignored power and inequality in socialisation. Yet his view corrects the oversocialised picture of humans that Dennis Wrong criticised.Q2(b) · Research Methods and Analysis · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Qualitative and Quantitative Methods
Bring out the significance of Ethnography in social research.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
सामाजिक शोध में नृजाति वर्णन (Ethnography) के महत्त्व को दर्शाइए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q2(b)
Approach: Define ethnography (Malinowski’s fieldwork tradition), bring out its significance point by point with world and Indian village studies, then note its limits and the reflexive turn before concluding.
Ethnography is the study of a group’s way of life from within, through prolonged fieldwork, participant observation, informal interviews and field notes, producing a holistic written account. Bronisław Malinowski’s Trobriand fieldwork (Argonauts of the Western Pacific, 1922) made it the core method of anthropology, and the Chicago School carried it into urban sociology.
Significance: first, it grasps ‘the native’s point of view’, as Malinowski put it, rather than imposing the researcher’s categories. Second, it is holistic, linking kinship, economy, religion and politics, as Srinivas’s The Remembered Village (1976) did for Rampura. Third, it records behaviour in natural settings and so exposes the gap between ideal norms and actual practice; Srinivas’s ‘field view’ of caste corrected the ‘book view’ drawn from texts.
Fourth, it generates concepts and hypotheses: dominant caste, Sanskritisation and Marriott’s universalisation and parochialisation (Kishan Garhi) emerged from village ethnography. Fifth, it gives voice to marginal groups; Whyte’s Street Corner Society (1943) and Verrier Elwin’s tribal ethnographies showed the internal order of groups outsiders saw as disorganised. Sixth, Béteille’s Sripuram study (Caste, Class and Power, 1965) and Kathleen Gough’s Kumbapettai showed how caste, class and power were changing on the ground.
Seventh, it adapts to new settings: digital ethnography now studies online communities, WhatsApp groups and platform work.
Limitations: it is time-consuming, small in scale and hard to replicate; the researcher may ‘go native’ or be misled, as Berreman’s Behind Many Masks (1962) showed. Clifford and Marcus’s Writing Culture (1986) argued that ethnographies are partial, authored texts shaped by power, which led to greater reflexivity.
Ethnography therefore remains indispensable for understanding meaning and process, especially in a diverse society like India, and gains further strength when combined with survey data.Q2(c) · Works and Economic Life · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Labour and Society
What is 'reserve army of labour'? Present the position of feminist scholars on this.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
'आरक्षित श्रमिक सेना' क्या है? इस पर स्त्रीवादी विद्वानों के दृष्टिकोण को प्रस्तुत कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q2(c)
Approach: Two parts: define Marx's reserve army of labour and its forms, then present feminist positions (Beechey, Bruegel, Mies) with their criticism and an Indian illustration.
In Capital, Volume I (1867), Marx described the reserve army of labour, or relative surplus population, as the unemployed and underemployed whom capitalism creates through mechanisation. It exists in floating, latent and stagnant forms, is drawn in during booms and expelled in slumps, and keeps wages down and workers disciplined.
Feminist positions: Veronica Beechey (1977) argued that married women form a flexible reserve army: because they are seen as dependent on a husband's wage, employers can pay them less and dismiss them easily. Irene Bruegel (1979) tested this in 1970s Britain and found that women in manufacturing did lose jobs faster, but job segregation protected women in the growing service sector, so the thesis held only partly.
Maria Mies extended the idea globally through housewifisation: women's labour is defined as supplementary, making it a cheap, disposable resource for capital.
Critics note that the thesis ignores gendered occupational segregation. In India, women's distress entry into work during agrarian crises and exit when household incomes rise show both reserve-army and cultural dynamics.
Question 3 (50 marks)
Q3(a) · Sociology as Science · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Fact, Value, Objectivity and Non-positivist Methodologies
Discuss the importance of interpretative understanding of social phenomena and explain its limitations.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
सामाजिक घटनाओं के व्याख्यात्मक ज्ञान के महत्त्व की विवेचना कीजिए तथा इसकी सीमाओं की व्याख्या कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q3(a)
Approach: Explain interpretative understanding (Weber's verstehen and later strands), show its importance with classic and Indian studies, then explain its limitations with named critics, and conclude.
Interpretative understanding means grasping social phenomena through the meanings actors attach to their actions. Weber defined sociology as a science that interprets social action in order to explain its course and consequences causally, and called this method verstehen. Wilhelm Dilthey's contrast between explanation in natural sciences and understanding in human sciences lay behind it.
Its importance is great. Human beings act on meanings, so the same act, such as fasting, may be religious duty, protest or dieting; only interpretation tells them apart. Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904–05) explained capitalism through the meaning of the calling. Later strands built on this: Schutz's phenomenology, Mead and Blumer's symbolic interactionism, Goffman's dramaturgy and Garfinkel's ethnomethodology.
In India, interpretation produced key concepts. Srinivas's fieldwork in Rampura revealed Sanskritisation and the dominant caste; S.C. Dube's Indian Village (1955) on Shamirpet sought the villagers' own view; and Sharmila Rege's Dalit feminist standpoint showed how Dalit women's experience differs from that of upper-caste women.
Its limitations are also clear. Findings are hard to verify or replicate, and samples are small, so generalisation is weak. The researcher's own values and position may colour interpretation. Schutz faulted Weber for not explaining how meanings are formed, while Marxists and functionalists argue that interpretive sociology ignores structure, power and unintended consequences that actors themselves do not see. Ethnographies may also give voice to some groups and silence others.
Flow chart: action → actor's meaning → interpretive understanding → causal explanation → test by comparison.
Hence interpretative understanding is indispensable for grasping meaning, but it must be checked by comparison, evidence and structural analysis, as Weber himself intended.Q3(b) · Religion and Society · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Sociological Theories of Religion
Are all world religions patriarchal? Substantiate your answer with examples.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
क्या सभी विश्व धर्म पितृसत्तात्मक हैं? अपने उत्तर को सोदाहरण प्रमाणित कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q3(b)
Approach: The question asks for a judgement on whether world religions are patriarchal. Define patriarchy, give the feminist case with examples from several religions, then the counter-evidence of women's agency and egalitarian strands, and conclude that religions are largely patriarchal in organisation but not uniformly so.
Patriarchy, in Sylvia Walby's sense, is a system of social structures and practices in which men dominate, oppress and exploit women. Feminist sociologists argue that most world religions have legitimised it, though the picture is not uniform.
Evidence of patriarchy: in organisation, the Catholic priesthood, most Islamic religious leadership and Hindu temple priesthood remain male. Sacred texts often prescribe female subordination, as in the Manusmriti's insistence that a woman be guarded by father, husband and son. Purity rules restrict women: menstrual taboos kept women of reproductive age out of Sabarimala until the Supreme Court's 2018 verdict, and the Bombay High Court opened the inner sanctum of Haji Ali dargah to women in 2016. Uma Chakravarti calls the Indian form brahmanical patriarchy, linking caste purity to control over women's sexuality.
Counter-evidence: religions also contain egalitarian strands. Sikh teaching rejects the inferiority of women, the Buddha admitted women to the order of nuns, and bhakti saints such as Mirabai and Akka Mahadevi defied male authority. Goddess worship (Shakti) is central to Hinduism. Linda Woodhead and Karen Armstrong argue that women often use religion to gain space, community and dignity, and Saba Mahmood's study of the women's mosque movement in Egypt shows agency within piety.
Founders' messages were often more egalitarian than later institutions, which absorbed their societies' patriarchy; patriarchy is thus social rather than inherent in religion.
Reform is visible today: women priests in some Protestant churches and the Shayara Bano judgment (2017) against instant triple talaq.
Therefore most world religions are patriarchal in their institutions and dominant interpretations, but not all of their teachings are, and women's agency is reshaping them.Q3(c) · Sociological Thinkers: Parsons, Merton and Mead · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Robert K. Merton: Functions, Conformity and Deviance, Reference Groups
What, according to Merton, is the difference between 'unanticipated consequences' and 'latent functions'? Give examples to elaborate.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
मर्टन के अनुसार 'अप्रत्याशित परिणामों' तथा 'अव्यक्त प्रकार्यों' में क्या अन्तर है? विस्तारणार्थ उदाहरण दीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q3(c)
Approach: Distinguish Merton's latent functions from his 1936 concept of unanticipated consequences, with examples of each.
Merton developed both ideas but at different points. In 'The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action' (1936) he showed that purposive actions often produce outcomes the actor did not intend, because of ignorance, error, immediate interest overriding long-term interest, basic values, or the self-defeating prophecy.
Unanticipated consequences is the broader idea: it includes all unintended outcomes, whether good, bad or irrelevant to the system. Example: a ban on liquor in an Indian state may lead to illicit brewing and hooch tragedies.
Latent functions, introduced in Social Theory and Social Structure, are a narrower category: unintended and unrecognised consequences that contribute to the adaptation or adjustment of a system. Example: the Hopi rain dance strengthens group solidarity; a village festival or a political rally creates a sense of community.
So every latent function is an unanticipated consequence, but not every unanticipated consequence is functional; harmful unintended outcomes are latent dysfunctions. Merton also noted that once recognised, a latent function may become manifest.
Question 4 (50 marks)
Q4(a) · Stratification and Mobility · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Dimensions of Stratification: Class, Status, Gender, Ethnicity and Race
Modernisation presupposes class society; however caste, ethnicity and race are still predominant. Explain.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
आधुनिकीकरण वर्गगत समाज की पूर्वकल्पना करता है; किन्तु जाति, नृजातीयता एवं प्रजाति अभी भी प्रभुत्वशाली हैं। व्याख्या कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q4(a)
Approach: Explain why modernisation theory expected class to replace ascriptive divisions (Parsons, Marx, Weber), then show with Indian and world evidence why caste, ethnicity and race persist and are even revitalised, and conclude on their coexistence with class.
Modernisation theory held that industrialisation, urbanisation and education would replace ascription with achievement. Talcott Parsons's pattern variables predicted a shift from particularism to universalism, and Marx expected class to sweep away all 'fixed, fast-frozen relations'. Modern society would therefore be a class society with open, market-based strata.
Partly this happened. In India, occupations are less tied to caste, ritual restrictions have weakened in cities, and the new middle class is defined by education and income. Béteille's Sripuram showed class and power separating from caste.
But caste, ethnicity and race remain powerful. Caste persists in endogamy, in occupational concentration such as Dalits in sanitation work, and in politics: Srinivas's 'vote bank' and Kothari's politicisation of caste show modern democracy reviving caste as an interest group. Thorat and Attewell (2007) found caste discrimination in modern private hiring.
Ethnicity has grown with globalisation and migration: ethnic conflicts in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and in India the Manipur conflict since 2023. Race persists despite civil rights laws, as the Black Lives Matter movement (2013 onward) shows.
Explanations: Weber's status groups use closure to protect privilege; Fredrik Barth shows boundaries maintained through interaction; Marxists argue capitalism uses ethnic and racial divisions to split workers and cheapen labour; and democratic competition rewards identity mobilisation. Yogendra Singh described Indian modernisation as selective adaptation of tradition.
Flow chart: Industrialisation + education → class formation; competition for scarce jobs and votes → mobilisation of caste, ethnicity, race → coexistence of class and ascriptive identities.
Modernisation has therefore not replaced ascription but reshaped it: class and ascriptive identities now intersect, and inequality must be studied along all of them.Q4(b) · Stratification and Mobility · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Theories of Stratification: Functionalist, Marxist and Weberian
Compare and contrast the contributions of Marx and Weber on social stratification in capitalist society.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
पूँजीवादी समाज में सामाजिक संस्तरीकरण पर मार्क्स और वेबर के योगदानों में तुलना और भेद कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q4(b)
Approach: Present Marx's view of stratification in capitalism and Weber's view, then compare and contrast them on basis, classes, middle class, consciousness, status and future, with Indian examples, and conclude on their complementarity.
Both Marx and Weber studied stratification as a product of modern capitalism, but from different standpoints: Marx from relations of production, Weber from the distribution of power in the market and beyond.
Marx: in capitalism the bourgeoisie owns the means of production and extracts surplus value from the proletariat, who own only labour power. Intermediate strata would sink into the proletariat, polarisation and immiseration would grow, and class-in-itself would become class-for-itself, leading to revolution.
Weber: class is a shared market situation determining life chances; besides property, skills and credentials create classes such as the propertyless intelligentsia. Status groups based on honour and party based on power are separate dimensions.
Similarities: both see class as central to capitalism, both link property to life chances, and both treat stratification as a source of conflict and change. Differences: Marx sees two main classes, Weber many; Marx predicts a shrinking middle class, Weber a growing white-collar class; Marx treats status and politics as superstructure, Weber gives them autonomy; Marx expects class action, Weber thinks classes rarely act as communities; Marx foresees socialism, Weber an iron cage of bureaucracy.
Flow chart: 2 × 2 view: Marx = production + two classes + revolution; Weber = market + many classes + status and party + bureaucratisation.
History has favoured Weber on the middle class: in India the salaried middle class grew after liberalisation, and caste status still shapes life chances alongside class. Yet Marx is vindicated by rising wealth concentration and informal workers' insecurity. Erik Olin Wright combined both by placing managers and experts in 'contradictory class locations'.Q4(c) · Systems of Kinship · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Lineage and Descent
What, according to Irawati Karve, are the major differences between North Indian and South Indian Kinship systems?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
इरावती कर्वे के अनुसार उत्तर भारतीय और दक्षिण भारतीय नातेदारी तन्त्रों के मध्य प्रमुख अन्तर क्या हैं?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q4(c)
Approach: Introduce Karve's Kinship Organisation in India (1953) and her zones, then contrast North and South on marriage rules, terminology, status of bride-givers and the bride's position, ending with a note on change.
Irawati Karve (Kinship Organisation in India, 1953) divided India into northern, central, southern and eastern kinship zones, broadly matching language families.
Marriage rules: the North forbids marriage between close kin and practises gotra and village exogamy (often the four-gotra rule); the South prefers cross-cousin and uncle–niece (elder sister's daughter) marriage within a close circle of kin.
Distance and the bride: in the North the bride joins a distant, unfamiliar family under close control; in the South she marries among known kin and keeps ties with her natal home.
Hierarchy: northern kinship is hypergamous, with wife-givers ritually inferior to wife-takers and gifts flowing one way; southern marriage repeatedly links the same families as equals.
Terminology: northern terms separate consanguines from affines; Dravidian terms separate parallel cousins (siblings) from cross-cousins (potential spouses), as Dumont (1957) later analysed.
Karve's map remains useful, though migration and education are reducing close-kin marriage in the South.
Question 5 (50 marks)
Q5(a) · Stratification and Mobility · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Dimensions of Stratification: Class, Status, Gender, Ethnicity and Race
Differentiate between 'Life-chances' and 'Life-style' with suitable examples.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
'जीवन-अवसरों' और 'जीवन-शैली' के मध्य उपयुक्त उदाहरणों सहित विभेद कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(a)
Approach: Define life chances and lifestyle in Weber's sense (class and status), differentiate them clearly, illustrate each with Indian examples, and link them through Bourdieu.
Both terms come from Max Weber. Life chances are the typical probabilities of access to goods, outward living conditions and personal life experiences, determined by one's class situation in the market. Lifestyle (style of life) is the pattern of consumption, manners, tastes and conduct through which a status group expresses its honour.
Differences: life chances belong to the economic order (class), lifestyle to the social order (status). Life chances are about what one can obtain, such as health, education and security; lifestyle is about how one lives and displays distinction.
Examples: a child born to a landless labourer has lower life chances of schooling and survival than one born to a doctor. A newly rich trader may have high life chances but be denied honour until he adopts the lifestyle of vegetarianism and ritual purity, as in Sanskritisation.
Pierre Bourdieu (Distinction, 1979) linked the two: lifestyle and taste convert into cultural capital that improves life chances.Q5(b) · Social Change in Modern Society · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Education, Science, Technology and Social Change
Discuss the issues of access and exclusion in higher education in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत में उच्चतर शिक्षा में पहुँच एवं बहिष्करण सम्बन्धी विषयों की विवेचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(b)
Approach: Set out access (GER, expansion, reservations) and exclusion (caste, class, gender, region, language, cost) in Indian higher education using Bourdieu and Indian data, and close with remedies.
Higher education is a key route to mobility, but access to it remains unequal. AISHE 2021–22 reported a gross enrolment ratio of 28.4%, and NEP 2020 targets 50% by 2035. Expansion, scholarships and reservation for SCs, STs and OBCs (extended to OBCs in central institutions in 2006) have brought many first-generation learners into colleges.
Yet exclusion persists. Enrolment among STs, SCs and Muslims remains below the national average; rural students, women from conservative regions and persons with disabilities face barriers of distance, cost and safety. Bourdieu's cultural capital explains why English-medium, urban upper-caste students dominate elite institutions, aided by costly coaching. Students from marginal groups report discrimination on campuses, highlighted after Rohith Vemula's death in 2016.
Privatisation has widened choice but also raised fees, creating a two-tier system.
Inclusive access requires public investment, mother-tongue support, hostels, scholarships and anti-discrimination mechanisms.Q5(c) · Politics and Society · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Nation, State, Citizenship, Democracy, Civil Society and Ideology
What is civil society? Present a note on civil society engagement with science and technology policy in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
नागरिक समाज क्या है? भारत में नागरिक समाज का विज्ञान एवं प्रौद्योगिकी नीति के साथ आबन्धन पर एक टिप्पणी प्रस्तुत कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(c)
Approach: Define civil society briefly, then give Indian examples of its engagement with science and technology policy (people's science movements, Bhopal, GM crops, nuclear power, digital rights), ending with an assessment.
Civil society is the sphere of voluntary associations, NGOs, movements and media between family, market and state, where, in Habermas's sense, citizens debate public questions.
In India it has engaged with science and technology policy in several ways. People's science movements such as the Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad (founded 1962) spread scientific literacy and helped stop the Silent Valley hydroelectric project in the early 1980s by questioning its ecological costs.
After the Bhopal gas disaster of 1984, activist groups pressed for corporate liability and better industrial safety. In 2010, after public consultations and objections from farmers' and consumer groups, the government placed a moratorium on Bt brinjal. Protests against the Kudankulam nuclear plant raised questions of risk and consultation, and digital rights groups have debated Aadhaar and data protection.
Such engagement democratises technology choices, as Ulrich Beck's idea of risk society suggests, though critics say some campaigns slow innovation.Q5(d) · Social Change in Modern Society · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Development and Dependency
Critique A.G. Frank's 'development of underdevelopment'.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
ए.जी. फ्रैंक के 'अल्पविकास का विकास' की समालोचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(d)
Approach: State Frank's thesis briefly and devote most of the answer to critique: Laclau, Cardoso, Warren, East Asia and India.
Andre Gunder Frank (1966) argued that underdevelopment is not an original state but a product of capitalism's metropolis–satellite chain, which drains surplus from satellites to metropoles. Satellites develop only when ties weaken, so he advocated delinking.
Critique: first, Ernesto Laclau (1971) argued that Frank defined capitalism by market exchange rather than by relations of production, wrongly calling colonial Latin America capitalist. Second, Cardoso and Faletto showed that 'associated dependent development' occurs, with internal class alliances shaping outcomes. Third, Bill Warren (Imperialism: Pioneer of Capitalism, 1980) argued that capitalism was spreading industry in the Third World.
Fourth, the rise of South Korea, Taiwan and China through world-market integration contradicts the thesis. Fifth, it ignores internal factors such as land structure, caste and governance; India's growth after 1991 and the failure of autarkic models weaken the case for delinking.
Yet Frank rightly exposed historical exploitation, which Naoroji's drain theory had noted for India, and the persistence of global inequality.Q5(e) · Sociology: The Discipline · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Modernity, Social Change in Europe and the Emergence of Sociology
How well do you think Tonnies, Durkheim, Weber and Marx predicted the character of modern society? Critique.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
आपके विचार से टॉनीस, दुर्खीम, वेबर और मार्क्स ने आधुनिक समाज के चरित्र की कितनी ठीक भविष्यवाणी की? समालोचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(e)
Approach: Critique: state each thinker's prediction briefly (Tönnies, Durkheim, Weber, Marx), judge what came true and what did not, and use contemporary and Indian evidence.
The classical thinkers each described the direction of modern society, with mixed success.
Tönnies predicted a shift from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft. Impersonal, contract-based relations did spread, but community survives in caste associations, religious networks and online groups.
Durkheim expected organic solidarity based on the division of labour, with anomie as a passing pathology. Specialisation grew, but anomie persists in high suicide rates and the gig economy.
Weber predicted rationalisation and the 'iron cage' of bureaucracy, perhaps the most accurate forecast, as Ritzer's McDonaldization shows. Yet charisma and religion have revived.
Marx predicted class polarisation and proletarian revolution. Inequality and alienation remain, but revolution did not occur in advanced capitalism, and the middle class expanded.
India shows the limits of all four: Srinivas and Yogendra Singh found caste and religion adapting to modern institutions, as in caste-based politics.
Hence they captured the trends of modernity but underestimated its plural and reflexive character.
Question 6 (50 marks)
Q6(a) · Stratification and Mobility · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Dimensions of Stratification: Class, Status, Gender, Ethnicity and Race
Why is gender a dimension of social stratification? How does gender intersect other dimensions of inequality based on caste, class, race and ethnicity?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जेंडर सामाजिक संस्तरीकरण का एक आयाम क्यों है? जेंडर जाति, वर्ग, प्रजाति और नृजातीयता पर आधारित असमानता के अन्य आयामों को कैसे प्रतिच्छेदित करता है?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(a)
Approach: First explain why gender is a dimension of stratification (social construction, unequal resources, patriarchy as structure, Walby, Oakley), then show its intersection with caste, class, race and ethnicity (Crenshaw, Collins, Rege, Chakravarti) with Indian data, and conclude.
Stratification is the structured ranking of groups with unequal access to wealth, power and prestige. Gender qualifies as a dimension because the difference between men and women is socially constructed (Ann Oakley, 1972) and systematically converted into unequal rewards.
Why gender is a dimension: women have lower access to property, paid work and political power across societies. Sylvia Walby (1990) described patriarchy as a system of six structures: household production, paid work, the state, male violence, sexuality and culture. In India, PLFS 2023–24 put the female labour force participation rate at about 41.7%, women own a small share of land, and only the Women's Reservation Act, 2023 promises one-third of seats in legislatures. The gender division of labour assigns unpaid care to women, which is ranked lower.
Intersection: Kimberlé Crenshaw's intersectionality (1989) showed that black women faced discrimination that neither race nor sex law captured, and Patricia Hill Collins described a matrix of domination.
With caste: Uma Chakravarti's Brahmanical patriarchy shows upper-caste purity maintained through control of women's sexuality and marriage, while Dalit women face both caste violence and patriarchy, which Sharmila Rege's Dalit feminist standpoint highlights. With class: poor women carry a double burden of paid informal work and domestic work, while middle-class women can hire domestic workers. With ethnicity and race: tribal women in conflict zones and migrant women of colour face compounded vulnerability.
Flow chart: Gender + caste + class + ethnicity → a distinct, combined position (e.g. a Dalit landless woman) → specific forms of discrimination and life chances.
Gender is thus not a separate ladder but cuts through every other hierarchy; analysis and policy must address these intersections together.Q6(b) · Politics and Society · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Theories of Power, Power Elite, Bureaucracy, Pressure Groups and Parties
What are the theoretical models of societal power? Which one of them is most applicable in advanced industrial societies?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
सामाजिक शक्ति के सैद्धान्तिक प्रतिमान क्या हैं? उनमें से कौन उन्नत औद्योगिक समाजों पर सर्वाधिक लागू होता है?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(b)
Approach: Outline the main models of societal power (elite, pluralist, Marxist, with neo-pluralism and Foucault), then argue which best fits advanced industrial societies; a reasoned conclusion favouring a combined elite-pluralist (neo-pluralist) view is expected.
Models of societal power ask how power is distributed in a society as a whole: concentrated in a minority, dispersed among groups, or rooted in class.
Elite model: Pareto, Mosca and Michels held that an organised minority always rules; C. Wright Mills (The Power Elite, 1956) found an interlocking corporate, military and political elite in the USA.
Pluralist model: Robert Dahl (Who Governs?, 1961), studying New Haven, found that different groups prevailed on different issues, so power is dispersed and competitive; Schumpeter's competitive elitism sees democracy as elites competing for votes.
Marxist model: power derives from ownership of the means of production. Ralph Miliband (1969) stressed the shared class background of state and business elites; Nicos Poulantzas argued that the state serves capital structurally, with relative autonomy. Gramsci added hegemony through consent.
Critiques and newer views: Bachrach and Baratz and Steven Lukes (1974) showed that pluralists miss non-decisions and the shaping of preferences; Charles Lindblom's neo-pluralism notes the privileged position of business; Foucault sees power spread through disciplinary institutions.
Most applicable: advanced industrial societies combine competitive elections, organised interests and free media with strong concentration of corporate power, so a neo-pluralist or elite-pluralist model fits best. Lobbying and campaign finance in the USA, and the role of large business houses alongside farmer and caste groups in India, show both concentration and contest.
No single model is sufficient: pluralism describes the visible process, while elite and Marxist models explain whose interests set its limits.Q6(c) · Stratification and Mobility · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Equality, Inequality, Hierarchy, Exclusion, Poverty and Deprivation
What is affirmative action? Substantiate theoretical positions on affirmative actions with examples.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
सकारात्मक क्रिया क्या है? सकारात्मक क्रियाओं पर सैद्धान्तिक दृष्टिकोणों को उदाहरणों सहित प्रमाणित कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(c)
Approach: Define affirmative action, then set out the theoretical positions for (compensatory justice, Rawls, substantive equality) and against (merit, Nozick, creamy layer), with Indian examples.
Affirmative action means positive measures to raise the representation of historically disadvantaged groups in education, jobs and politics. In India it takes the form of reservation for SCs, STs and OBCs.
Supporting positions: compensatory justice holds that groups harmed by untouchability deserve redress, as Ambedkar argued. John Rawls's difference principle (A Theory of Justice, 1971) allows inequalities only if they benefit the least advantaged. Marc Galanter's Competing Equalities (1984) described India's policy as a pursuit of substantive rather than formal equality.
Opposing positions: libertarians such as Robert Nozick see it as violating individual entitlement and merit; others say it benefits a creamy layer and stigmatises beneficiaries. In Indra Sawhney (1992) the Supreme Court upheld OBC reservation but excluded the creamy layer and set a 50% ceiling; the 103rd Amendment (2019) added a 10% EWS quota.
André Béteille accepts it as a corrective for group exclusion but warns against making caste identities permanent; its value lies in widening opportunity together with education.
Question 7 (50 marks)
Q7(a) · Works and Economic Life · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Formal and Informal Organisation of Work
What is 'informal labour'? Discuss the need for and challenges in regulating informal labour in the post-industrial society.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
'अनौपचारिक श्रम' क्या है? औद्योगिकोत्तर समाज में अनौपचारिक श्रम को विनियमित करने की आवश्यकता एवं उसकी चुनौतियों की विवेचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(a)
Approach: Three parts: define informal labour (Hart, ILO 2003), explain the need to regulate it in post-industrial society (precarity, Standing, Beck), and the challenges (invisibility, platforms, mobility, state capacity), with Indian laws and schemes.
Informal labour is work without a written contract, social security or legal protection. Keith Hart (1973) introduced the concept, and the 17th International Conference of Labour Statisticians (2003) defined informal employment to include unprotected jobs even inside formal enterprises. In India the NCEUS (2007) estimated about 92% of workers to be informal.
Need for regulation: Daniel Bell's post-industrial society was expected to bring secure knowledge work, but it has also expanded insecure service, platform and contract jobs. Guy Standing describes a growing precariat, and Ulrich Beck spoke of the 'Brazilianisation' of Western work, meaning the spread of informal, insecure work into rich countries. Without regulation, workers face low wages, long hours, unsafe conditions and no old-age security, while the state loses revenue and social cohesion weakens, which Polanyi would see as a call for a 'double movement' of social protection.
Challenges: informal workers are scattered, mobile and invisible in records; many have several employers or none; platforms classify workers as independent 'partners'; small enterprises fear compliance costs, the point stressed by de Soto's legalist view; unions are weak; and the state lacks inspection capacity. Barbara Harriss-White shows that informal markets are regulated by caste and kinship rather than law.
India's response: the Unorganised Workers' Social Security Act, 2008; PM Shram Yogi Maan-dhan pension (2019); the e-Shram database (2021); and the Code on Social Security, 2020, which recognises gig and platform workers. Globally, ILO Recommendation 204 (2015) guides the transition from informal to formal economy, and SEWA shows the value of organising.
Regulation must therefore be portable, universal and based on registration rather than employer-linked status, combining state protection with workers' collective voice.Q7(b) · Social Change in Modern Society · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Education, Science, Technology and Social Change
Feminist scholars argue that 'New media' is masculine and hence reinforces structural hierarchies rather than reconfiguring them. Comment.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
स्त्रीवादी विद्वान तर्क करते हैं कि 'नया मीडिया' मरदाना है और इसीलिए पुनर्संरूपण के बजाय संरचनात्मक पदानुक्रमों को पुनर्बलित करता है। टिप्पणी कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(b)
Approach: Explain the feminist claim (Wajcman's technofeminism, Noble on algorithms) with evidence on access, design and online violence in India, then the counter-view (Haraway, #MeToo, digital activism), and conclude that new media both reproduce and contest hierarchy.
New media, the internet, smartphones, social platforms and algorithms, were once hailed as democratic spaces. Feminist scholars of technology argue instead that they are gendered: designed largely by men, shaped by male norms and therefore likely to reinforce existing structural hierarchies.
Judy Wajcman (Feminism Confronts Technology, 1991; TechnoFeminism, 2004) showed that technology and gender are mutually shaped and that women are under-represented in its design. Safiya Noble (Algorithms of Oppression, 2018) showed how search engines reproduce racist and sexist stereotypes. Online harassment, trolling and image-based abuse push women out of public debate, a digital version of the public–private divide.
Indian evidence supports this. NFHS-5 (2019–21) found that only 33.3% of women aged 15–49 had ever used the internet, against 57.1% of men; families often control girls' phone use in the name of honour, and women journalists and politicians face organised trolling. Caste and class compound the gap: Dalit and rural women are least connected, illustrating intersectionality.
The counter-view: Donna Haraway's 'Cyborg Manifesto' (1985) and cyberfeminists saw technology as a resource for transgressing gender boundaries. In India, #MeToo (2018) exposed powerful men, Dalit feminist collectives built online platforms, and women entrepreneurs use social media to sell products. SHG members use digital payments to gain financial autonomy.
Flow chart: male-dominated design + unequal access + online violence → reproduction of hierarchy; digital literacy + collective action → contestation and reconfiguration.
New media therefore reflect existing hierarchies but also open spaces to contest them; outcomes depend on access, digital literacy, safer platform governance and women's participation in technology design.Q7(c) · Politics and Society · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Theories of Power, Power Elite, Bureaucracy, Pressure Groups and Parties
Discuss the concept of circulation of elite.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
संभ्रांत वर्ग के संचरण की संकल्पना की विवेचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(c)
Approach: Define circulation of elites with Pareto's lions and foxes and the two forms of circulation, add Mosca's view, an Indian illustration and a brief criticism.
The circulation of elites is Vilfredo Pareto's idea (The Mind and Society, 1916) that governing elites decay and are replaced by new elites, so that history is a graveyard of aristocracies.
Pareto saw circulation in two forms: individuals moving between the elite and the non-elite, and the replacement of one whole elite by another. Elites are of two types: lions, who rule by force and value order, and foxes, who rule by cunning and bargaining. Each decays through its own excess, and when able people are blocked from rising, a counter-elite forms and overthrows the old one, sometimes by revolution.
Mosca similarly saw a ruling class renewed from a middle stratum. In India, the decline of upper-caste dominance in the Congress system and the rise of OBC and Dalit leaders after the 1990s are often read as a circulation of elites.
Critics say Pareto's residues are psychological and untestable, and that elections now make circulation routine rather than violent.
Question 8 (50 marks)
Q8(a) · Systems of Kinship · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Patriarchy, Sexual Division of Labour and Contemporary Trends
In the light of judicial intervention on 'Live-in relationships', discuss the future of marriage and family in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
'सह-सम्बन्धवास' पर न्यायिक हस्तक्षेप के आलोक में, भारत में विवाह एवं परिवार के भविष्य की विवेचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(a)
Approach: Summarise the judicial position on live-in relationships (Lata Singh, Khushboo, Velusamy, Indra Sarma and later cases), then discuss sociologically what it means for the future of marriage and family, weighing individualisation theories against Indian continuity.
A live-in relationship is cohabitation of an unmarried couple in a domestic relationship. Indian courts have gradually given it legal space.
Judicial intervention: in Lata Singh v. State of U.P. (2006) the Supreme Court said that adults living together commit no offence; in S. Khushboo v. Kanniammal (2010) it linked living together to the right to life under Article 21. D. Velusamy v. D. Patchaiammal (2010) set out when a live-in is a 'relationship in the nature of marriage' under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, and Indra Sarma v. V.K.V. Sarma (2013) gave guidelines. Courts have also presumed marriage after long cohabitation and treated children of such unions as legitimate for inheritance of their parents' property.
Sociological meaning: Giddens's 'pure relationship' and Beck and Beck-Gernsheim's individualisation suggest that partnerships are increasingly chosen and kept only while satisfying. Live-ins among urban professionals reflect education, migration, later marriage and the wish to test compatibility, as well as the cost and stigma of divorce.
Future of marriage: live-ins are unlikely to replace marriage soon. Patricia Uberoi (2006) shows the strength of arranged and 'love-cum-arranged' marriage, and caste endogamy remains strong (only about 5% inter-caste marriages, IHDS 2011–12). Many live-ins end in marriage, much as Western cohabitation often precedes it.
Future of family: legal protection may produce more diverse households and push the law towards recognising partners' rights, as Uttarakhand's Uniform Civil Code (2025) does by requiring registration of live-ins, though critics see registration as state surveillance of intimacy.
Judicial intervention thus widens choice without dismantling marriage; Indian family life is likely to become more plural rather than to abandon marriage.Q8(b) · Sociological Thinkers: Parsons, Merton and Mead · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Robert K. Merton: Functions, Conformity and Deviance, Reference Groups
How, according to Merton, are deviant subcultures generated?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
मर्टन के अनुसार विचलित उपसंस्कृतियाँ किस प्रकार उत्पन्न होती हैं?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(b)
Approach: Explain Merton's means–goals strain and modes of adaptation, show how shared strain among those blocked from means generates deviant subcultures, add Cohen and Cloward–Ohlin, and give Indian examples.
Robert K. Merton, in 'Social Structure and Anomie' (1938), argued that some social structures exert a definite pressure on certain persons to engage in non-conforming rather than conforming conduct. Deviance is therefore normal in the sense of being socially produced.
The source is structural strain: American culture stresses monetary success as a goal for all, but legitimate means such as education and good jobs are unequally distributed by class and race. When goals are emphasised more than means, norms lose force and anomie results.
Merton gave five modes of adaptation: conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism and rebellion. Deviant subcultures grow out of the shared strain of those similarly placed. Innovation among lower-class youth produces criminal patterns such as theft or organised rackets; retreatism produces drug and vagrant subcultures; rebellion produces counter-cultures and movements with new goals and means.
Flow chart: success goal for all → blocked legitimate means for some → anomie and strain → shared adaptation → deviant subculture.
Merton explained individual adaptations; later scholars developed the subcultural side. Albert Cohen (Delinquent Boys, 1955) showed that lower-class boys who fail in middle-class schools form gangs with status reversal. Cloward and Ohlin (1960) added illegitimate opportunity structures, producing criminal, conflict and retreatist subcultures.
In India, organised cheating rackets in competitive exams, cyber-fraud hubs such as those reported in Jamtara, and drug use among unemployed youth illustrate innovation and retreatism among those whose aspirations outstrip opportunities.
Critics note that Merton's theory relies on official statistics that overstate lower-class crime, neglects white-collar crime and assumes a value consensus. Yet it remains a foundational explanation of how social structure generates deviance.Q8(c) · Politics and Society · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Protest, Social Movements, Collective Action and Revolution
How is terrorism a new form of asymmetrical warfare? What are some of the challenges in trying to win the war on terrorism?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
आतंकवाद किस प्रकार से विषम युद्ध का एक नया रूप है? आतंकवाद से युद्ध जीतने के प्रयास में कुछेक चुनौतियाँ क्या हैं?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(c)
Approach: Explain terrorism as asymmetrical warfare (weaker non-state actors against strong states, targeting civilians, Kaldor's new wars), with examples, then list the challenges of countering it (no clear enemy, radicalisation, state sponsorship, rights trade-offs).
Asymmetrical warfare is conflict between parties of very unequal military strength, in which the weaker side avoids direct battle and uses unconventional means. Terrorism, the use of violence against civilians to spread fear for political ends, is its typical form.
Non-state groups cannot match state armies, so they strike soft targets, use suicide attacks and digital propaganda, and rely on media attention to magnify small actions, as in 9/11 (2001) and the Mumbai attacks of 26/11 (2008). Mary Kaldor (New and Old Wars, 1999) described such 'new wars' as fought by networks around identity rather than by states over territory; Mark Juergensmeyer showed how religious terrorists imagine a 'cosmic war'.
Challenges: there is no clear enemy, front or victory; groups are decentralised and recruit through online radicalisation; cross-border sponsorship complicates response; and heavy-handed counter-terrorism under laws such as the UAPA can alienate communities and erode civil liberties.
Winning requires intelligence, international cooperation and addressing grievances, not force alone.
UPSC Mains 2019 Sociology Paper II
Question 1 (50 marks)
Q1(a) · Perspectives on the Study of Indian Society · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Structural Functionalism: M. N. Srinivas
Elaborate Srinivas's views on religion and society among the Coorgs.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
कूर्गों के धर्म और समाज पर श्रीनिवास के विचारों का विस्तारण कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(a)
Approach: Describe Srinivas's 1952 Coorg study: its functional link between ritual and caste, purity–pollution, and the concept of Sanskritisation; end with its significance.
Religion and Society among the Coorgs of South India (1952) was M.N. Srinivas's Oxford thesis, written under Radcliffe-Brown's influence. It applied structural-functionalism to show how religion maintains the social structure of the Coorgs (Kodavas) of Karnataka.
Srinivas showed that ritual at the levels of the okka (patrilineal joint family), the village and the whole Coorg community expressed and reinforced social bonds. The idea of purity and pollution ordered relations between castes and governed birth, death and marriage rites.
The study also introduced Brahminisation, later renamed Sanskritisation: Coorgs and lower castes adopted Brahmin customs such as vegetarianism and teetotalism to raise their status. He also distinguished all-India Hinduism, peninsular Hinduism and local Hinduism, showing how religion spreads at different levels.
Critics say it understated conflict, but the study was a landmark: it brought the field-view into Indian sociology and gave a concept of caste mobility still used today.Q1(b) · Social Movements in Modern India · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Peasant and Farmers' Movements
Illustrate the contributions of the Tebhaga Movement to the peasants struggle in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत में कृषक संघर्ष में तेभागा आन्दोलन के योगदानों को स्पष्ट कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(b)
Approach: Illustrate contributions: describe Tebhaga (1946–47) briefly, then its contributions to peasant struggle (sharecroppers' rights, organisation, women, later laws), with scholars.
The Tebhaga Movement (1946–47) was a struggle of sharecroppers (bargadars) in Bengal, led by the Bengal Provincial Kisan Sabha, demanding that their share of the crop be raised from half to two-thirds (tebhaga) and that harvests be stored in their own granaries.
Contributions: it was one of the largest sharecroppers' movements, mobilising Rajbanshi, Santhal and Muslim peasants in north Bengal across caste and religion; it put tenancy and share rights at the centre of agrarian politics, leading to the Bengal Bargadars Act (1950) and, much later, Operation Barga (1978) in West Bengal, which registered sharecroppers. Women played militant roles, forming Nari Bahini, as Peter Custers documented. A.R. Desai and Sunil Sen treated it as a classic case of class-based peasant mobilisation, and Kathleen Gough classed such movements as armed insurrection for land reform.
It was suppressed by police and overshadowed by Partition.
Its legacy was to show that tenants could organise against landlords, inspiring later Left peasant struggles.Q1(c) · Rural and Agrarian Social Structure · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Agrarian Social Structure: Land Tenure and Land Reforms
Examine the changing initiatives of the land tenure system in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत में पट्टेदारी प्रणाली की परिवर्तनशील पहलों का परीक्षण कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(c)
Approach: Trace the changing initiatives in land tenure: colonial systems, post-1947 reforms, and recent initiatives (leasing law, digital records, SVAMITVA, FRA), with a short assessment.
Land tenure refers to the terms on which land is held and used. In India it has changed through three phases of policy.
The colonial phase created the zamindari (Permanent Settlement, 1793), ryotwari and mahalwari systems, making land private property and producing landlordism and tenancy. After 1947, states abolished zamindari, passed tenancy and ceiling laws, and encouraged consolidation; the First Amendment (1951) placed these laws in the Ninth Schedule. Vinoba Bhave's Bhoodan movement (1951) sought voluntary gifts of land.
Recent initiatives shift from redistribution to security and markets: NITI Aayog's Model Agricultural Land Leasing Act (2016) to legalise tenancy, the Digital India Land Records Modernisation Programme, SVAMITVA (2020) property cards for rural homes, and the Forest Rights Act (2006) for forest dwellers.
Critics fear that the market-oriented shift may favour larger owners, so tenure security for tenants and women remains the key test.Q1(d) · Caste System · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Perspectives on Caste: Ghurye, Srinivas, Dumont and Béteille
Write a note on Ghurye's conception of caste in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत में जाति का घुर्ये के संकल्पन पर एक टिप्पणी लिखिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(d)
Approach: State Ghurye's conception: Indological and historical-diffusionist, the six features of caste, its Indo-Aryan origin; add criticism.
G.S. Ghurye, in Caste and Race in India (1932), studied caste through texts, history and census data. He held that caste was so complex that no single definition would do, so he described it through its features.
He gave six features: segmental division of society; hierarchy; restrictions on feeding and social intercourse; civil and religious disabilities and privileges of different sections; lack of unrestricted choice of occupation; and restrictions on marriage, that is, endogamy. He saw endogamy as the most important feature.
On origin, he argued that caste was a product of Brahmanic culture of the Indo-Aryans in the Gangetic plain and spread by diffusion to other regions. He also noted that British rule strengthened caste consciousness through the census.
Critics found the racial theory dated and the view textual and static, as Srinivas's field studies showed. Still, his features remain the standard starting point for describing caste.Q1(e) · Tribal Communities in India · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Issues of Integration and Autonomy
Comment on the growing assertion of tribal community for autonomy in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत में स्वायत्तता हेतु जनजातीय समुदाय के बढ़ते स्वाग्रहों पर टिप्पणी कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(e)
Approach: Comment on the growing assertion for autonomy: forms (statehood, Sixth Schedule, PESA and gram sabha power, ethno-nationalism), causes, examples, and a balanced comment.
Tribal communities increasingly assert autonomy, meaning control over their land, resources, institutions and identity. The demand rests on constitutional promises in the Fifth and Sixth Schedules and on Nehru's Panchsheel, which spoke of tribal self-government.
This assertion takes several forms: statehood, as in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh (2000); Sixth Schedule councils, such as the Bodoland Territorial Council (2003); gram sabha power under PESA 1996, used at Niyamgiri in 2013; the Pathalgadi movement in Jharkhand (2017–18), which erected stone plaques declaring gram sabha sovereignty; and ethno-nationalist demands in the North-East.
The causes are land alienation and displacement, weak implementation of protective laws, growing education and a tribal middle class that articulates identity. Sociologists such as K.S. Singh and Virginius Xaxa see these movements as a shift from protest against exploitation to claims of rights and recognition.
Autonomy within the constitutional frame strengthens democracy, though elite capture within councils and inter-tribal conflict are risks.
Question 2 (50 marks)
Q2(a) · Rural and Agrarian Social Structure · 20 marks≈ 14 min
The Idea of the Indian Village and Village Studies
Critically examine Dube's contributions to the study of Indian villages.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारतीय ग्रामों के अध्ययन में दुबे के योगदानों का समालोचनात्मक परीक्षण कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q2(a)
Approach: Critically examine: describe Dube's Indian Village (Shamirpet, 1955) and India's Changing Villages (1958) and his main contributions, then the criticisms, and conclude on his place in village studies.
S.C. Dube (1922–1996) was among the first Indian sociologists to write a full monograph on a village. His Indian Village (1955) studied Shamirpet near Hyderabad as part of a multidisciplinary project of Osmania University, and his India's Changing Villages (1958) studied the impact of community development in western Uttar Pradesh.
His first contribution was a holistic description of village life: its social structure of Hindu and Muslim castes, economy, ritual, family and the life cycle. He showed that the village had a distinct identity and that intercaste relations were governed by both hierarchy and mutual dependence.
Second, he stressed that the village was not isolated. Shamirpet was linked to Hyderabad city through markets, administration and communication, challenging the colonial image of self-sufficient republics. Third, he was a pioneer of applied sociology: India's Changing Villages showed that community development benefited richer, upper-caste farmers more, that officials were seen as outsiders, and that change depended on the cultural fit of programmes. His concept of a gap between the village and officials influenced planning.
He also wrote on modernisation and development, later criticising Western models in Modernization and Development: The Search for Alternative Paradigms (1988).
The criticisms are that his descriptive, functionalist approach underplayed conflict and exploitation; that a single village cannot represent India; and that the views of women and Dalits received less space. Marxists such as A.R. Desai saw community development itself as strengthening rural elites.
Even so, Dube's work set the template for holistic and policy-relevant village studies and remains a key source on rural change.Q2(b) · Politics and Society in India · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Political Parties, Pressure Groups and Elites
What is caste politics? Substantiate your answer with examples of how identities are defined by caste dynamics.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जाति राजनीति क्या है? अपने उत्तर की पुष्टि सोदाहरण कीजिए कि कैसे पहचान जाति गत्यात्मकता द्वारा परिभाषित होती हैं।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q2(b)
Approach: Define caste politics, explain its mechanisms with theory (Kothari, Rudolphs, Srinivas), then substantiate with regional examples of how caste dynamics define identities (OBC, Dalit, dominant castes, sub-caste assertion), and conclude.
Caste politics is the use of caste as a basis of political mobilisation, representation and bargaining. Rajni Kothari (Caste in Indian Politics, 1970) argued that it is not that politics gets caste-ridden but that caste gets politicised; the Rudolphs showed caste associations becoming interest groups; and M.N. Srinivas linked it to dominant castes and vote banks.
Mechanisms: parties choose candidates by caste arithmetic, build social coalitions, and promise reservations or representation; caste associations (sabhas) bargain with the State; and caste census and sub-classification debates turn numbers into claims.
How caste dynamics define identities: (i) the Mandal Commission's implementation (1990) created a broad 'OBC' political identity out of many jatis, carried by the SP and RJD; (ii) the BSP under Kanshi Ram forged a 'Bahujan' identity uniting Dalits and other backward groups against the 'manuwadi' order; (iii) in Tamil Nadu, the Dravidian movement defined a non-Brahmin Tamil identity; (iv) dominant castes such as Jats, Patidars and Marathas redefined themselves as 'backward' in quota agitations (2015–16), showing that identity follows political interest; (v) within categories, sub-caste assertion produced 'Maha Dalit' (Bihar, 2007) and non-Yadav OBC identities, and the Supreme Court allowed SC sub-classification in Davinder Singh (2024); (vi) Bihar's caste survey (2023) made numbers central to identity claims.
Caste politics has thus democratised representation and dignity for lower castes, though critics such as Dipankar Gupta argue it can harden identities and sideline class and gender issues.
Caste identities in politics are therefore constructed and changing, not fixed survivals of tradition.Q2(c) · Impact of Colonial Rule on Indian Society · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Gandhi, Ambedkar and Other Thinkers on Indian Society
Do you think that the Indian saints have brought about social reform and awareness in Indian society? Explain.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
क्या आप सोचते हैं कि भारतीय सन्त भारतीय समाज में सामाजिक सुधार एवं जागरूकता लाए हैं? व्याख्या कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q2(c)
Approach: Answer yes with qualification: show how saints (Bhakti and Sant tradition, Basava, Kabir, Ravidas, Nanak, Tukaram, Narayana Guru) spread awareness and reform, then their limits (sects becoming castes), and conclude.
Indian saints of the Bhakti and Sant traditions brought significant social reform and awareness, mainly by challenging ritualism and caste in the name of personal devotion.
Basava (12th century) founded the Virashaiva movement, rejecting caste and temple ritual. Kabir and Ravidas mocked caste pride and priestly authority, and Guru Nanak's langar made people of all castes eat together. Tukaram and Chokhamela of the Varkari tradition used Marathi rather than Sanskrit, making religion accessible to ordinary people. In modern times, Narayana Guru and Swami Vivekananda linked spirituality with education and service.
Their limits were real. As Srinivas noted, change was largely within the cultural sphere; many anti-caste sects such as the Lingayats themselves became endogamous castes, and the economic base of caste remained untouched.
So the saints created moral awareness and spaces of equality, which later reformers built upon, but deep structural change required modern movements and law.
Question 3 (50 marks)
Q3(a) · Tribal Communities in India · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Issues of Integration and Autonomy
What is ethno-nationalism? Examine the critical factors responsible for tribal discontent in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
नृजातीय राष्ट्रवाद क्या है? भारत में जनजातीय असन्तोष हेतु उत्तरदायी समीक्षात्मक कारकों का परीक्षण कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q3(a)
Approach: Define ethno-nationalism with North-East examples, then examine the critical factors of tribal discontent (land and displacement, forests, exploitation, development failure, identity and immigration, governance and insurgency), with data and studies.
Ethno-nationalism is a form of nationalism in which a group defines the nation by shared ethnicity, language, culture and territory, and seeks political recognition, autonomy or even a separate state. In India it is seen most clearly in the North-East: the Naga movement since the 1940s, the Mizo National Front's revolt (1966) ending in the Mizo Accord (1986), and the Bodo movement leading to accords in 2003 and 2020.
Several factors explain tribal discontent. First, land alienation and displacement: tribals form a large share of those displaced by dams, mines and industry, as Walter Fernandes's estimates show, often with poor rehabilitation. Second, forests: colonial and post-colonial forest laws restricted access to livelihoods until the Forest Rights Act (2006), whose implementation remains uneven.
Third, exploitation by moneylenders, traders and contractors, and the weak enforcement of land transfer laws in Fifth Schedule areas. Fourth, development deficits: ST literacy was about 59% in Census 2011, and tribal areas lag in health and incomes. Fifth, identity fears from immigration and demographic change, as in Tripura and Assam, and from cultural assimilation.
Flow chart: Land loss, displacement, forest restrictions + exploitation + development gaps + identity threat → discontent → peaceful movements (Jharkhand, Pathalgadi) or armed conflict (Naxalism, NE insurgency) → accords, new states, PESA, FRA.
Sixth, governance: the Xaxa Committee (2014) noted the poor working of the Fifth Schedule and PESA, and in central India this vacuum allowed Left-wing extremism to recruit among tribals. Tribal discontent is thus rooted in loss of resources and voice, and is best addressed by implementing protective laws, consent-based development and genuine self-governance.Q3(b) · Social Classes in India · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Agrarian Class Structure
Is industrial development in India a bane or a boon to agrarian class structure? Substantiate your answer with suitable examples.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
कृषिक वर्ग संरचना के लिए भारत में औद्योगिक विकास एक अभिशाप है या एक वरदान? अपने उत्तर की पुष्टि उपयुक्त उदाहरणों सहित कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q3(b)
Approach: Take a balanced position: show how industrial development benefited agrarian classes (markets, non-farm jobs, mechanisation, remittances) and how it harmed them (land acquisition and displacement, inequality, pollution, distress), with examples, and conclude.
The agrarian class structure consists of landlords, rich and middle peasants, small and marginal farmers, tenants and landless labourers, as described by Daniel Thorner and André Béteille. Industrial development has affected these classes in both positive and negative ways.
It has been a boon in several ways. Industry supplied fertilisers, tractors and pumps that drove the Green Revolution, creating a class of prosperous capitalist farmers in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. Urban and industrial jobs absorbed surplus rural labour; Jan Breman and others show how migration and remittances raised incomes of labourers and small farmers. Agro-industries such as dairy cooperatives (Amul in Gujarat) and sugar mills in Maharashtra gave farmers markets and political power.
It has also been a bane. Land acquisition for industry, dams and special economic zones displaced peasants and tribals, sparking protests at Singur (2006–08) and Nandigram (2007), which led to the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013. Benefits went mainly to larger farmers, widening the gap with marginal farmers and labourers, and mechanisation reduced demand for farm labour.
Flow chart: Industrial growth → inputs and markets → capitalist farmers prosper (boon) and labour moves to cities; but → land acquisition, displacement, inequality, pollution → protests and the 2013 land law (bane).
Industrial pollution has damaged farmland and water in places such as the Noyyal river region near Tiruppur, and slow industrial job growth means agriculture still employs about 46% of workers (PLFS 2023–24), keeping many in low-income farming.
Industrial development has thus been a boon for the upper agrarian classes and a mixed blessing for the poor; making it a boon for all requires fair land acquisition, rural industry and labour-intensive growth.Q3(c) · Social Movements in Modern India · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Theories of Social Movements and Subaltern Perspectives
Give an account of Ranajit Guha's approach in studying 'subaltern class'.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
'सबाल्टर्न वर्ग' के अध्ययन में रणजीत गुहा के उपागम का एक विवरण दीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q3(c)
Approach: Give an account of Guha's approach: the Subaltern Studies project, his critique of elitist historiography, the autonomy and consciousness of peasant insurgency (Elementary Aspects), method, and critiques.
Ranajit Guha founded the Subaltern Studies project, whose first volume appeared in 1982; borrowing the term 'subaltern' from Antonio Gramsci, he used it for the general attribute of subordination in South Asian society, whether of class, caste, age, gender or office.
Approach: Guha criticised both colonialist and bourgeois-nationalist historiography as 'elitist', since they saw Indian nationalism as the work of elites and treated peasants as followers. He argued that there was an autonomous 'politics of the people' alongside elite politics. In Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India (1983), he showed that rebellions such as the Santhal hul (1855) had their own consciousness, expressed in forms such as negation, ambiguity, solidarity and transmission, and were not 'spontaneous' or pre-political. Methodologically, he read colonial records 'against the grain' to recover rebels' voices.
Critiques: Gayatri Spivak's 'Can the Subaltern Speak?' (1988) questioned whether historians can recover subaltern voices; Sumit Sarkar later criticised the project's shift towards cultural studies.
Guha's approach nonetheless made peasants and the oppressed subjects of history, shaping the sociology of movements.
Question 4 (50 marks)
Q4(a) · Kinship, Family and Religion in India · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Patriarchy, Entitlements and Sexual Division of Labour
Define patriarchy. Does it have bearings on women's entitlement in Indian family system? Explain.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
पितृसत्ता को परिभाषित कीजिए। क्या भारतीय परिवार प्रथा में महिलाओं की हक़दारी पर इसका प्रभावोत्पादन है? व्याख्या कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q4(a)
Approach: Define patriarchy, then explain its bearing on women's entitlements in the Indian family (property and inheritance, intra-household allocation, decision-making, mobility, work and income, marriage and residence), with Sen, Agarwal, Dube and data; note legal change and conclude.
Patriarchy is a system of social structures and practices in which men dominate, oppress and exploit women (Sylvia Walby). Entitlements, in Amartya Sen's sense, are the set of resources and opportunities a person can legitimately command. In the Indian family, patriarchy strongly shapes women's entitlements.
First, property: under patrilineal inheritance, land and houses passed to sons. Bina Agarwal's A Field of One's Own (1994) showed that lack of land rights is the single most important source of rural women's weakness. Though the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act 2005 and the Vineeta Sharma judgment (2020) give daughters equal coparcenary rights, many women give up their share to brothers; NFHS-5 (2019–21) found that about 43% of women owned a house or land alone or jointly.
Second, intra-household allocation. Amartya Sen's model of cooperative conflict shows that women receive less food, health care and education within the household because their contribution is undervalued and their fallback position is weak. Third, marriage and residence: patrilocality makes the bride a newcomer under her in-laws' authority, and Leela Dube showed that girls are raised as ‘paraya dhan’, temporary members of their natal family.
Flow chart: Patriliny + patrilocality + son preference → limited property rights, less food and education, little say in decisions, restricted mobility → weak fallback position → dependence → reinforced patriarchy.
Fourth, work and decisions: much of women's labour is unpaid, and PLFS 2023–24 shows that the rise in female labour force participation to 41.7% is mostly in self-employment and unpaid family work. Decision-making on large purchases and mobility outside the home are still often controlled by men, and dowry transfers wealth to the husband's family rather than to the woman.
Patriarchy therefore has deep bearings on women's entitlements in the Indian family; laws have expanded formal rights, but real entitlement depends on changing norms of inheritance, marriage and the value of women's work.Q4(b) · Kinship, Family and Religion in India · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Religious Communities and Problems of Religious Minorities
How do you understand the 'minority' question? Examine the violence and discrimination against the religious minorities in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
'अल्पसंख्यक' प्रश्न को आप कैसे समझते हैं? भारत में धार्मिक अल्पसंख्यकों के प्रति हिंसा और भेदभाव का परीक्षण कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q4(b)
Approach: Explain the minority question (numerical, cultural and political definitions; constitutional and legal frame; who counts as minority), then examine violence and discrimination (riots, lynching, discrimination in housing and jobs, Sachar evidence), with balanced conclusions.
The minority question concerns how a democracy protects groups that are smaller in number and distinct in religion, language or culture from domination by the majority. In sociology, a minority is defined not just by numbers but by relative powerlessness and a sense of collective identity, as Louis Wirth argued.
In India, the Constitution does not define minority but protects religious and linguistic minorities through Articles 29 and 30. Six religious communities are notified under the National Commission for Minorities Act 1992. The question is debated: some argue for strong group rights to protect diversity, while others see them as dividing citizens.
Violence against minorities has taken several forms. Large communal riots, such as the anti-Sikh violence of 1984, the Bombay riots of 1992–93 and Gujarat in 2002, and attacks on Christians in Kandhamal in 2008, caused heavy loss of life. Paul Brass and Ashutosh Varshney showed that riots are often politically organised and concentrated in cities lacking inter-community civic associations. In recent years, mob lynchings linked to cow protection led the Supreme Court to issue guidelines in Tehseen Poonawalla (2018).
Flow chart: Minority identity + political mobilisation of religion → communal riots and lynching (violence); exclusion in jobs, credit, housing (discrimination) → ghettoisation and insecurity → constitutional and civic remedies.
Discrimination is subtler. The Sachar Committee (2006) found Muslims under-represented in government jobs and banks' lending, and noted discrimination in housing that pushes them into segregated localities. Field experiments, such as Thorat and Attewell's study of job applications (2007), found lower callbacks for Muslim names. Christians and Dalit converts face exclusion from Scheduled Caste benefits, which are limited to Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists.
The minority question in India is therefore about both security and equal citizenship. Strengthening police accountability, inter-community civic life, which Varshney found prevents riots, and inclusive development is the way to resolve it within the constitutional framework.Q4(c) · Kinship, Family and Religion in India · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Gender and Sexuality: Transgender and LGBTQ Rights
What do you understand by LGBTQ? Comment on the issues concerning their marriage rights.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
एल० जी० बी० टी० क्यू० से आप क्या समझते हैं? उनके विवाह अधिकारों से सम्बन्धित विषयों पर टिप्पणी कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q4(c)
Approach: Explain LGBTQ, then comment on marriage rights: legal history (Section 377, Navtej Johar 2018), the marriage-equality case (Supriyo 2023), arguments for and against, and later developments.
LGBTQ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer persons, groups whose sexual orientation or gender identity differs from the heterosexual, cisgender norm. Sociologists such as Nivedita Menon question the naturalness of this norm.
In Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India (2018) the Supreme Court decriminalised consensual same-sex relations by reading down Section 377 of the IPC. But marriage rights remain unrecognised. In Supriyo Chakraborty v. Union of India (October 2023) a five-judge bench held that there is no fundamental right to marry and left the recognition of same-sex marriage to Parliament; the government then formed a committee to examine entitlements of queer couples.
Supporters argue that without marriage, couples lack rights to inheritance, adoption, insurance and medical decisions. Opponents cite religious and cultural views of marriage as between a man and a woman.
The issue shows the tension between changing ideas of family and traditional definitions of marriage.
Question 5 (50 marks)
Q5(a) · Visions of Social Change in India · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Education and Social Change in India
Comment on the critical issues of commercialization of higher education in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत में उच्चतर शिक्षा के वाणिज्यीकरण के समीक्षात्मक विषयों पर टिप्पणी कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(a)
Approach: Comment on critical issues: define commercialisation, then list issues (access and equity, quality, capitation and debt, regulation, values) with judgments and theory, and conclude.
Commercialisation of higher education means treating education as a market commodity sold for profit; after 1991, with limited public funds, private self-financing colleges expanded rapidly, and today most Indian colleges are privately managed (AISHE).
Access and equity: high fees exclude the poor, Dalits, Adivasis and rural women, so higher education reproduces class, as Bourdieu's cultural capital argument predicts. Capitation and debt: despite the Supreme Court's rulings in Mohini Jain (1992) and Unni Krishnan (1993), and limits set after TMA Pai (2002) and P.A. Inamdar (2005), hidden capitation fees persist, especially in medical and engineering seats, pushing families into debt.
Quality: many 'degree shops' lack faculty and research, producing unemployable graduates and what Craig Jeffrey called 'timepass'. Values: education shifts from a public good and a means of citizenship to a private investment, the McDonaldisation that George Ritzer describes.
Private capital is needed to reach NEP's 50% GER target, but strong regulation, scholarships and public universities are essential to keep higher education an instrument of equality.Q5(b) · Rural and Agrarian Transformation in India · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Rural Development: Community Development, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation
Discuss the challenges in implementing the Rural Development Programmes in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत में ग्रामीण विकास कार्यक्रमों के क्रियान्वयन में चुनौतियों की विवेचना कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(b)
Approach: Discuss the challenges in implementation under clear heads (bureaucratic, social structure, participation, design, finance), with studies, and a brief way forward.
Rural development programmes, from the Community Development Programme (1952) to MGNREGA, NRLM and PMAY-G, have repeatedly met similar obstacles in implementation.
Social structure: S.C. Dube (1958) found benefits captured by dominant landowning castes, and Béteille's Sripuram study showed brokers mediating access. Bureaucracy: top-down targets, red tape and corruption; Akhil Gupta (Red Tape, 2012) showed how arbitrary procedures exclude the poor, and Rajiv Gandhi's 1985 remark that only about 15 paise of a rupee reached the poor became famous.
Low participation: gram sabhas are weak, and women, Dalits and Adivasis have little voice. Design and finance: delayed wage payments, Aadhaar-related exclusion and poor targeting; states with low capacity spend less.
Social audits (pioneered by MKSS in Rajasthan), direct benefit transfer and strong panchayats under the 73rd Amendment can reduce these gaps.Q5(c) · Industrialisation and Urbanisation in India · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Modern Industry and the Growth of Urban Settlements
Elaborate urbanism as a way of life in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत में नागरवाद का एक जीवन-पद्धति के रूप में विस्तारण कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(c)
Approach: Explain Wirth's urbanism, then elaborate how far it describes Indian urban life, with Indian studies on both sides.
Louis Wirth ('Urbanism as a Way of Life', 1938) argued that the size, density and heterogeneity of cities produce a distinctive urbanism: secondary, impersonal and segmental relations, weakened kinship, formal social control and tolerance of difference.
In Indian metros such features are visible: nuclear households, anonymity in public transport, professional associations, apartment living, and the relative freedom of women and Dalits from village surveillance, which Ambedkar valued. Simmel's blasé attitude can be seen in commuters' indifference.
Yet Indian urbanism is distinctive: M.S.A. Rao and Sylvia Vatuk found caste and kin networks reproduced in cities, caste-based matrimonial sites and caste associations flourish, religious festivals such as Ganesh Chaturthi build neighbourhood solidarity, and Partha Chatterjee shows the urban poor relating to the State through community-based 'political society'.
Urbanism in India is therefore a blend, in which modern impersonal relations coexist with ascriptive ties.Q5(d) · Politics and Society in India · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Nation, Democracy and Citizenship in India
Comment on the changing democratic profile of India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत की परिवर्तनशील लोकतान्त्रिक रूपरेखा पर टिप्पणी कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(d)
Approach: Comment on how the profile of Indian democracy has changed: participation, social composition of the elected, party system, women voters, and concerns, with data.
India's democratic profile has changed from an elite-led, Congress-dominated system to a mass, competitive democracy.
Participation: turnout has risen, reaching 65.79% in 2024, and women's turnout now equals or exceeds men's. Social composition: Yogendra Yadav's 'second democratic upsurge' of the 1990s brought OBCs, Dalits and Adivasis into power, and Jaffrelot called it a 'silent revolution'. Party system: Rajni Kothari's 'Congress system' (1952–67) gave way to coalitions and regional parties, and since 2014 to a new dominant-party phase. Local democracy: the 73rd and 74th Amendments (1992) created about 14.5 lakh women local representatives.
Concerns: money power (ADR reported that most 2024 MPs are crorepatis), MPs with criminal cases, dynastic politics, polarisation and debates over institutional autonomy.
Indian democracy is thus broader and deeper in participation, though the quality of representation remains a challenge.Q5(e) · Challenges of Social Transformation · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Crisis of Development: Displacement, Environment and Sustainability
Elucidate the concerns of growing urban displacement dynamics in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत में बढ़ती नगरीय विस्थापन गत्यात्मकता के सरोकारों की व्याख्या कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(e)
Approach: Elucidate the concerns of urban displacement: causes (infrastructure, beautification, events, redevelopment), who is displaced, social consequences, legal position, and a line on remedies.
Urban displacement is the forced removal of people, mostly the urban poor, from their homes and workplaces for infrastructure, beautification, redevelopment or real estate.
Dynamics: metro and highway projects, riverfront development (such as Sabarmati in Ahmedabad), Smart Cities, mega-events such as the Commonwealth Games (2010) and the G20 summit (2023) in Delhi, and slum redevelopment such as the Dharavi project drive evictions. Those displaced are slum dwellers, street vendors, waste pickers and migrants, many of them Dalits and Muslims. Concerns: relocation to distant colonies such as Bawana and Savda Ghevra after the Yamuna Pushta demolitions (2004) cut people off from work and schools; women and children suffer most; eligibility cut-off dates exclude recent migrants; and Amita Baviskar called such drives 'bourgeois environmentalism'.
Legally, Olga Tellis (1985) linked shelter to the right to livelihood, but evictions continue, as urban projects fall outside the 2013 land law's rehabilitation for informal occupants.
In-situ upgrading, rental housing and the 'right to the city' (Lefebvre) offer better paths.
Question 6 (50 marks)
Q6(a) · Visions of Social Change in India · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Development Planning and the Mixed Economy
Examine the importance of Development Planning in Indian Mixed Economy, and analyze its problems and prospects.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारतीय मिश्रित अर्थव्यवस्था में विकास नियोजन के महत्त्व का परीक्षण कीजिए तथा इसकी समस्याओं व सम्भावनाओं का विश्लेषण कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q6(a)
Approach: Three demands: importance, problems, prospects. Give a short introduction, then three clear sections with thinkers and data, and a forward-looking conclusion.
In India's mixed economy, planning was the instrument through which the State tried to combine growth, self-reliance and social justice, beginning with the First Five Year Plan in 1951.
Importance: in a poor, unequal ex-colony, markets alone would not build steel, power, irrigation or schools. Planning created the heavy-industry base of the Second Plan, the Community Development Programme (1952), the Green Revolution and bank nationalisation (1969). Yogendra Singh saw planning, democracy and education as exogenous forces that moved Indian society from particularistic to universalistic norms.
Problems: benefits were captured by rich peasants and the urban middle class (A.R. Desai; Pranab Bardhan's dominant proprietary classes); implementation suffered from what Myrdal called the 'soft state'; the Green Revolution widened regional and class gaps; big projects displaced Adivasis; and social sectors and women were neglected, as Drèze and Sen and the Towards Equality report (1974) showed. The licence-permit system slowed growth until the 1991 crisis.
Prospects: since 2015 NITI Aayog has moved to cooperative federalism, competitive ranking (Aspirational Districts, 2018), direct benefit transfer and mission schemes. Multidimensional poverty fell from 29.17% (2013–14) to 11.28% (2022–23) by NITI Aayog's estimate. Future planning must address jobs for the young, climate change, the care economy and regional inequality.
Planning is therefore less about controlling the economy and more about guiding social transformation; its success will depend on participation through Panchayati Raj and on accountability, not on targets alone.Q6(b) · Challenges of Social Transformation · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Crisis of Development: Displacement, Environment and Sustainability
Highlight the main features of the 'Inter-linking of Rivers' project in India. What could be its probable advantages to Indian agriculture?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
भारत में 'नदियों के अंतःसम्बन्धन' परियोजना की मुख्य विशिष्टताओं को आलोकित कीजिए। भारतीय कृषि को उससे क्या-क्या सम्भावित लाभ मिल सकते हैं?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q6(b)
Approach: Two parts: main features of the ILR project (origin, components, agencies, first link), then probable advantages to agriculture, with a brief sociological and ecological caution; conclude.
The Inter-linking of Rivers (ILR) project aims to transfer water from surplus to deficit basins through canals, tunnels and reservoirs, to reduce regional imbalance in water availability.
Main features: (i) it is based on the National Perspective Plan of 1980 prepared by the then Ministry of Irrigation and the Central Water Commission; (ii) the National Water Development Agency (1982) identified 30 links, 14 in the Himalayan component and 16 in the Peninsular component; (iii) the Supreme Court in 2012 asked the government to implement the project in a time-bound manner and set up a special committee; (iv) the Ken–Betwa link in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh is the first to be taken up, with its foundation stone laid in December 2024; other proposed links include Par–Tapi–Narmada and Godavari–Cauvery; (v) water is a state subject, so projects require inter-state agreements, as on Ken–Betwa (2021).
Probable advantages to agriculture: (i) the NWDA estimated that the full project could add irrigation to about 35 million hectares, reducing dependence on erratic monsoons; (ii) drought-prone regions such as Bundelkhand, Marathwada and Rayalaseema could stabilise crop output and reduce distress migration and farmer suicides; (iii) flood moderation in the Ganga–Brahmaputra basin could protect crops; (iv) hydropower (estimated around 34,000 MW) could support pumps and rural industry; (v) assured water could enable crop diversification and higher incomes, strengthening food security.
Caution: sociologists and ecologists warn of large-scale displacement, submergence of forests (part of Panna Tiger Reserve under Ken–Betwa), disputes between states, high costs and the risk of reproducing the Green Revolution's unequal benefits for larger farmers.
ILR could transform agriculture in water-scarce regions, but only with careful assessment, fair rehabilitation and local water conservation alongside it.Q6(c) · Challenges of Social Transformation · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Crisis of Development: Displacement, Environment and Sustainability
Has reduction of green cover affected ecological degradation leading to global warming? Elaborate your answer with illustration.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
क्या हरित आवरण में ह्रास ने पारिस्थितिकी अवनयन को प्रभावित कर भूमण्डलीय तापन को अग्रगमित किया है? अपने उत्तर का दृष्टान्तों सहित विस्तारण कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q6(c)
Approach: Elaborate with illustrations: explain how forests act as carbon sinks and regulators, show reduction of green cover in India with examples and its ecological effects, and link to warming; add a nuance and remedy.
Yes. Forests and other green cover absorb carbon dioxide, regulate rainfall and temperature, hold soil and protect biodiversity, so their loss releases stored carbon and weakens natural cooling, contributing to global warming.
Illustrations from India: although official forest and tree cover is about 25% of the country (ISFR 2023), much of the gain is in plantations, while dense natural forests have been lost to mining in central India (Hasdeo Arand, Odisha), linear projects and dams. Mangrove loss in the Sundarbans and Mumbai weakens protection against cyclones and storm surges. Deforestation and road building in the Western Ghats and Himalaya have been linked to landslides, as in Wayanad (2024) and Joshimath (2023). In cities such as Bengaluru, the loss of trees and lakes has created urban heat islands. Shifting land use reduces local rainfall and soil moisture.
Global warming is driven mainly by fossil-fuel emissions, so green cover is one important factor among several.
India's NDC aims at an additional carbon sink of 2.5–3 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent by 2030, and community forest rights can protect natural forests better than plantations alone.
Question 7 (50 marks)
Q7(a) · Industrialisation and Urbanisation in India · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Working Class, Informal Sector and Child Labour
Do you think that 'demonetization' has accelerated the economic growth in India? How do you understand the informalization of labour, underemployment and gender discrimination in this context?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
क्या आप सोचते हैं कि 'विमुद्रीकरण' ने भारत में आर्थिक वृद्धि को गतिमानित किया है? इस सन्दर्भ में श्रम के अनौपचारीकरण, अल्परोज़गारी और लैंगिक (जेंडर) भेदभाव को आप कैसे समझते हैं?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q7(a)
Approach: Two parts: first assess whether demonetisation accelerated growth (it did not, in the short run, with evidence); then explain its effects on informal labour, underemployment and gender with data and theory; conclude.
On 8 November 2016 the government withdrew ₹500 and ₹1,000 notes, about 86% of currency in circulation, to fight black money, counterfeiting and terror finance and to push a cashless economy. The RBI reported in 2018 that about 99.3% of the withdrawn value returned to banks, so little black money was extinguished.
Growth: it did not accelerate growth in the short run. GDP growth slowed in the quarters that followed, and cash-dependent sectors such as construction, small trade, agriculture markets and small manufacturing were hit hardest. Supporters point to long-term gains: wider tax base, digital payments (UPI grew rapidly) and formalisation. Sociologically, money is a social institution, as Simmel argued in The Philosophy of Money, and a sudden shock to it disrupts trust-based informal networks.
Informalisation of labour: the informal economy, about nine-tenths of workers, runs on cash; daily wagers, migrants and artisans lost work and wages, and many migrants returned home. Azim Premji University's State of Working India 2019 estimated that about 50 lakh men lost jobs between 2016 and 2018, a period that includes demonetisation. Paradoxically, formal firms pushed more work to contractors, deepening informality, as Breman's thesis predicts.
Underemployment: workers moved to lower-paid, part-time or self-employment, and disguised unemployment rose in agriculture.
Gender discrimination: women's cash savings, kept outside the husband's control, were exposed or lost; women in home-based work and domestic service lost income first; and women's lower access to bank accounts and phones made the shift to digital money harder, reinforcing patriarchal control over household finances.
Demonetisation thus imposed its heaviest costs on the informal, poor and female workforce; formalisation needs gradual, inclusive transition rather than a shock.Q7(b) · Rural and Agrarian Transformation in India · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Rural Development: Community Development, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation
Discuss the implications of 'Swachha Bharat Abhiyan'. Do you think that civil society has a role to play here? Substantiate your answer with examples.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
'स्वच्छ भारत अभियान' के निहितार्थों की विवेचना कीजिए। क्या आप सोचते हैं कि इसमें नागरिक समाज की कोई भूमिका है? अपने उत्तर की पुष्टि सोदाहरण कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q7(b)
Approach: Two parts: the social, health, gender and caste implications of Swachh Bharat, then the role of civil society with concrete examples; conclude on partnership.
The Swachh Bharat Mission, launched on 2 October 2014, aimed to make India open-defecation free by 2 October 2019 and improve solid-waste management; over ten crore household toilets were built, and rural India was declared open-defecation free in 2019, with Phase II (2020–25) focusing on ODF Plus and waste management.
Implications: (i) Health: sanitation reduces diarrhoea and stunting, a major cause of child under-nutrition. (ii) Gender: toilets give women safety, privacy and dignity, reducing harassment during open defecation at night. (iii) Behaviour and culture: sanitation is a matter of norms, not only hardware; Diane Coffey and Dean Spears (Where India Goes, 2017) showed that purity–pollution ideas made many villagers reluctant to use pit latrines whose emptying is seen as a Dalit task. (iv) Caste: unless sanitation work is mechanised, the mission may reproduce caste-based manual scavenging, banned by the 2013 Act. (v) Urban: waste-picking, landfills and informal workers' livelihoods are affected.
Civil society's role: yes, it is essential. Sulabh International (founded by Bindeshwar Pathak in 1970) built low-cost toilets and freed scavengers; the Safai Karmachari Andolan led by Bezwada Wilson fought manual scavenging; NGOs like WaterAid and community-led total sanitation groups used triggering and peer pressure; and self-help groups, schools and religious leaders spread awareness. Waste-picker organisations such as SWaCH in Pune integrated informal workers into door-to-door collection.
Thus Swachh Bharat is as much a social movement for changing norms as a construction programme, and civil society supplies the persuasion, monitoring and dignity of labour that the State alone cannot.Q7(c) · Social Movements in Modern India · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Theories of Social Movements and Subaltern Perspectives
Do you agree that social movements are caused by opportunity structures that are generated by media? Why?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
क्या आप सहमत हैं कि सामाजिक आन्दोलन मीडिया द्वारा उत्पन्न अवसर संरचनाओं से प्रेरित होते हैं? क्यों?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q7(c)
Approach: Give a reasoned partial agreement: explain political opportunity structure (Eisinger, Tarrow, McAdam) and media's role in creating opportunity, with Indian examples, then show other causes (grievance, resources, organisation, identity) and that media can also close opportunities.
I agree only partly. The political opportunity structure approach (Peter Eisinger, 1973; Sidney Tarrow; Doug McAdam) holds that movements arise when the political environment opens: elite divisions, access to institutions, allies and declining repression. Media can generate such 'discursive opportunities' by publicising grievances and legitimising claims.
Indian examples support this: round-the-clock television coverage magnified the India Against Corruption movement (2011); media outrage after the Delhi gang rape (2012) produced mass protest and the Justice Verma Committee; and social media spread #MeToo (2018) and the Una protests (2016).
But media rarely cause movements. Grievances and relative deprivation (Gurr), resources and organisation (McCarthy and Zald), collective identity (Melucci) and leadership matter more; Chipko, Narmada and Dalit movements grew long before media attention. Media can also close opportunities through biased framing, neglect of rural issues, or State-influenced narratives that label protesters as anti-national.
Media is therefore an amplifier and a part of the opportunity structure, not the root cause of movements.
Question 8 (50 marks)
Q8(a) · Population Dynamics · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Emerging Issues: Ageing, Sex Ratio, Mortality and Reproductive Health
Why has 'active aging' become a glocal goal? Do you agree that the role of elderly care-giving is disproportionately gendered in developing countries? Why?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
'सक्रिय आयुर्वृद्धि' एक भूस्थानीय (glocal) लक्ष्य क्यों बन गया है? क्या आप सहमत हैं कि विकासशील देशों में बुज़ुर्गी देखभाल का दायित्व लैंगिक अनुपातहीनता से घिरा है? क्यों?
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q8(a)
Approach: Two parts: explain active ageing (WHO 2002) and why it is a 'glocal' goal (global frameworks, local implementation in India); then agree that care-giving is disproportionately gendered in developing countries, with reasons and evidence; conclude.
Active ageing, defined by the World Health Organization's policy framework (2002), is the process of optimising opportunities for health, participation and security to enhance quality of life as people age. It rejects the view of the elderly as dependants, in line with activity theory and against disengagement theory.
Why a glocal goal: it is global because populations everywhere are ageing; the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing (2002), the SDGs and the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing (2021–2030) set common goals. It is local because its meaning depends on culture, family systems and economies: in India it is pursued through senior citizens' associations, elder self-help groups promoted by HelpAge India, Kerala's Vayomithram, re-employment of retired professionals and digital literacy for the old. With the 60+ share projected to rise from about 10% (2021) to 15% (2036), active ageing reduces dependency and health costs and uses the experience of the old.
Is care-giving disproportionately gendered? Yes. In developing countries, care for the elderly is mostly unpaid work by women, especially daughters-in-law under patrilocal norms; India's Time Use Survey 2024 found women spending far more time than men on unpaid care and domestic work. Weak public care systems shift the burden to families and therefore to women, who give up paid work, lowering female labour participation. Paid care is also feminised: domestic workers and nurses, many of them migrant women, provide care with low pay and little protection, forming global 'care chains' as Arlie Hochschild describes. Elderly women themselves face the 'feminisation of ageing', living longer with fewer assets.
Way forward: recognise, reduce and redistribute care work through public services, caregiver support and men's participation.
Active ageing is thus achievable only if care is socialised and de-gendered.Q8(b) · Challenges of Social Transformation · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Violence against Women and Caste Conflicts
What is POSH Act? "Identification of tormentor by women at workplace does not come easily even today." Examine the statement with substantive examples from India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
पी० ओ० एस० एच० अधिनियम क्या है? "आज भी कार्यस्थल पर उत्पीड़क की पहचान महिलाओं द्वारा सरलता से नहीं हो पाती है।" इस कथन का वास्तविक भारतीय उदाहरणों सहित परीक्षण कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q8(b)
Approach: Two parts: explain the POSH Act 2013 (origin, definitions, Internal and Local Committees, duties), then examine why identifying the harasser remains difficult (power hierarchies, fear, stigma, weak committees, informal sector, legal process), with Indian examples; conclude.
The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act 2013, known as the POSH Act, grew out of the Supreme Court's Vishaka guidelines (1997), issued after the gang rape of Bhanwari Devi, a sathin of Rajasthan's Women's Development Programme. It defines sexual harassment broadly (unwelcome physical contact, sexual demands, remarks, showing pornography and a hostile work environment), requires every employer with ten or more employees to set up an Internal Committee headed by a senior woman with an external member, and requires districts to have Local Committees for the informal sector and small workplaces. Employers must publicise the policy and conduct awareness programmes.
Why identifying the tormentor is still difficult: (i) Power hierarchies: harassers are often superiors, mentors or powerful public figures, so complaints threaten careers; the protests by women wrestlers in 2023 against the then chief of the Wrestling Federation showed how hard it is to proceed against the powerful. (ii) Fear of retaliation and stigma: women fear being labelled troublemakers, losing jobs or facing defamation suits, as M.J. Akbar's case against journalist Priya Ramani (acquitted in 2021) showed. (iii) Weak or absent committees: the Supreme Court in Aureliano Fernandes (2023) found serious lapses in setting up Internal Committees, and the Hema Committee report (2024) revealed a culture of silence in the Malayalam film industry. (iv) Informal sector: domestic workers, construction workers and farm labourers rarely know of Local Committees. (v) Patriarchal culture: normalisation of harassment as 'harmless', victim-blaming and lack of witnesses, especially in hierarchical workplaces such as hospitals, as the RG Kar case in Kolkata (2024) highlighted.
Movements such as #MeToo (2018) made it easier to name harassers, but mainly for educated urban women.
The statement is therefore largely true; effective enforcement, independent committees, protection from retaliation and a culture of workplace equality are needed to make the law work.Q8(c) · Challenges of Social Transformation · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Poverty, Deprivation and Inequalities
What is 'social security'? Examine recent security measures adopted by the Government in India.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
'सामाजिक सुरक्षा' क्या है? भारत में सरकार द्वारा अपनाए गए अभिनव सुरक्षा उपायों का परीक्षण कीजिए।
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper II, Q8(c)
Approach: Define social security (ILO), then examine recent measures (insurance, pension, health, informal and gig workers, the Social Security Code) and their limits.
Social security, as the ILO describes it, is the protection a society provides to individuals and households to ensure access to health care and income security, especially in old age, unemployment, sickness, disability, work injury, maternity or loss of a breadwinner. In India, Articles 38, 39, 41 and 42 direct the State towards it.
Recent measures: Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana and Suraksha Bima Yojana (2015) offer low-cost life and accident insurance; Atal Pension Yojana (2015) and PM Shram Yogi Maan-dhan (2019) give contributory pensions to informal workers; Ayushman Bharat PM-JAY (2018) covers hospital costs, extended in 2024 to all people aged 70 and above; the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act 2017 raised leave to 26 weeks; the e-Shram portal (2021) registers unorganised workers; and the Code on Social Security 2020, in force from 21 November 2025, recognises gig and platform workers for the first time.
Limits: benefits are small, many schemes are contributory and voluntary, coverage of informal workers remains low, and digital processes exclude some.
A universal, tax-funded social protection floor is the next step.