UPSC Mains 2021 Sociology Optional Question Papers with Model Answers

All 56 questions of the 2021 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 2021 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
Europe was the first and the only place where modernity emerged. Comment.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
यूरोप पहला और एकमात्र स्थान था जहाँ आधुनिकता का उदय हुआ। टिप्पणी कीजिए।
Practise this question Sociology: The Discipline notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(a)
Approach: Comment by first stating the Eurocentric view (Weber, Giddens), then challenging it with Eisenstadt's multiple modernities, Pomeranz, Goody and Indian scholars, ending with a balanced view.
Classical sociology treated modernity as a European invention. Weber asked why rational capitalism arose only in the West, and Giddens (The Consequences of Modernity, 1990) defines modernity as institutions first established in post-feudal Europe.
The claim has some basis: the scientific revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the nation-state and bureaucratic capitalism did first combine in Western Europe.
However, 'first and only' is contested. S.N. Eisenstadt (2000) argued for multiple modernities, as Japan, China and India combined modern institutions with their own cultures. Kenneth Pomeranz (The Great Divergence, 2000) showed that parts of China matched England economically until about 1800, and Jack Goody criticised Europe's 'theft' of others' achievements.
In India, Milton Singer found Madras industrialists running modern firms while keeping joint families and rituals, and Yogendra Singh (1973) showed selective modernisation of tradition. Colonial modernity also arrived with domination.
Hence Europe was an early site of modernity, but not the only one; modernity is plural.
Q1(b) · Sociology as Science · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Fact, Value, Objectivity and Non-positivist Methodologies
Do you think ethnomethodology helps us in getting reliable and valid data? Justify your answer.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
क्या आप यह समझते हैं कि नृजातीय-पद्धतिशास्त्र, विश्वसनीय और वैध डेटा (आँकड़े) प्राप्त करने में हमारी मदद करता है? अपने उत्तर का औचित्य साबित कीजिए।
Practise this question Sociology as Science notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(b)
Approach: Justify a qualified answer: explain ethnomethodology, then show where it gives valid and reliable data (naturally occurring talk, recordings) and where it falls short (indexicality, small scale, ethics), with an Indian illustration.
Ethnomethodology, founded by Harold Garfinkel (Studies in Ethnomethodology, 1967), studies the methods ordinary people use to make sense of and produce social order. Its tools are breaching experiments, close observation and conversation analysis.
It helps validity because it studies naturally occurring talk and action rather than answers to a researcher's categories. Atkinson's study of coroners and Cicourel's of juvenile justice showed how official data are produced, exposing hidden biases in statistics. Recorded and transcribed conversations can be re-examined by others, which gives a form of reliability.
In India, analysing how people seat guests, share food or address one another can show how caste is still practised in everyday life without being named.
But its limits are real. Indexicality means meanings depend on context, so findings are hard to generalise; studies are small and descriptive; breaching experiments raise ethical problems; and it neglects structure, power and history.
Ethnomethodology therefore yields valid data on everyday practices, but its reliability and scope are limited, so it works best alongside other methods.
Q1(c) · Research Methods and Analysis · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Techniques of Data Collection
Discuss the challenges involved in collecting data through census method.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
जनगणना पद्धति के माध्यम से डेटा (आँकड़े) एकत्रित करने में आने वाली चुनौतियों की चर्चा कीजिए।
Practise this question Research Methods and Analysis notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(c)
Approach: Define the census method, then discuss its challenges under logistical, methodological and political heads using the Indian Census (2011, the postponed 2021 round and Census 2027), and conclude briefly.
The census method collects data from every unit of a population rather than a sample. The decennial Census of India, conducted since 1872 and synchronously since 1881, is the world’s largest such exercise.
Logistical challenges: enormous cost, time and manpower (lakhs of enumerators), training them to apply definitions uniformly, and reaching remote areas. The 2021 round was postponed because of COVID-19; Census 2027 has the reference date 1 March 2027 (1 October 2026 for snow-bound areas) and uses mobile apps and self-enumeration, raising issues of data security.
Methodological challenges: under-coverage of the homeless, migrants and nomadic groups; age heaping and misreporting; respondent fatigue with long schedules; and limited depth, since a census can ask only simple questions.
Social and political challenges: returns on religion, mother tongue and caste are sensitive; caste was last fully enumerated in 1931 and the SECC 2011 caste data were never fully released, and Census 2027 is to include caste enumeration. Hence the census gives unmatched coverage but needs sample surveys for depth.
Q1(d) · Sociological Thinkers: Marx and Durkheim · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Emile Durkheim: Social Fact and Division of Labour
Explain whether Durkheim's theory of Division of Labour is relevant in the present day context.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
स्पष्ट कीजिए कि क्या दुर्खीम का श्रम विभाजन का सिद्धान्त आज के संदर्भ में प्रासंगिक है।
Practise this question Sociological Thinkers: Marx and Durkheim notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(d)
Approach: Summarise the theory briefly, then test its relevance today with current Indian examples of organic solidarity and of the abnormal forms, ending with limits.
In The Division of Labour in Society (1893), Durkheim argued that societies move from mechanical solidarity, based on likeness and a strong collective conscience with repressive law, to organic solidarity, based on specialisation, interdependence and restitutive law.
Relevance today: (i) global supply chains and India’s service economy show deep interdependence, as the 2020 lockdown revealed when migrant workers left cities; (ii) the growth of contract, labour and consumer law fits restitutive law, and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (2023) adds community service; (iii) his abnormal forms remain visible: anomic division in labour unrest and gig precarity, and forced division in caste-based occupations, which Ambedkar called a division of labourers.
Limits: the shift is not linear, since khap panchayats, caste associations and nationalism show strong mechanical solidarity; and Marxists and Dahrendorf stress power and exploitation.
Thus the theory remains relevant as a framework for solidarity and its breakdowns.
Q1(e) · Stratification and Mobility · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Theories of Stratification: Functionalist, Marxist and Weberian
Critically examine Max Weber's theory of Social Stratification.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
मैक्स वेबर के सामाजिक स्तरीकरण सिद्धान्त का समालोचनात्मक परीक्षण कीजिए।
Practise this question Stratification and Mobility notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q1(e)
Approach: Summarise Weber's three-dimensional theory in two or three lines, then examine its strengths and its criticisms (Marxist, feminist, Indian), and conclude.
Max Weber saw stratification as the distribution of power in three orders: class (market situation and life chances), status (social honour and lifestyle) and party (organised pursuit of power).
Strengths: the model is multidimensional and explains the growth of the middle class, the importance of skills and credentials, and cases where wealth and honour diverge, such as the poor Brahmin or the rich but low-ranked trader. It fits India, where caste (status), class and political power (party) interact, as Béteille showed in Sripuram.
Criticisms: Marxists argue that status and party ultimately rest on economic power, and that Weber's market focus hides exploitation in production. His categories are loosely defined, making the number of classes indeterminate. Feminists note that he ignores gender, and his view of caste as an extreme status group was criticised by Dumont for ignoring its religious logic of purity.
Despite these limits, Weber's theory remains the most flexible tool for analysing inequality in plural societies like India.

Question 2 (50 marks)

Q2(a) · Sociology: The Discipline · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Scope of Sociology and Comparison with Other Social Sciences
From the viewpoint of growing importance of multidisciplinarity, how do you relate sociology to other social sciences?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
बहुविषयकता के बढ़ते महत्त्व के दृष्टिकोण से आप समाजशास्त्र को अन्य सामाजिक विज्ञानों से कैसे सम्बन्धित मानते हैं?
Practise this question Sociology: The Discipline notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q2(a)
Approach: Relate sociology to other social sciences in a multidisciplinary frame: why multidisciplinarity has grown, the bridging sub-fields with economics, politics, history, psychology, anthropology and environment, Indian examples and policy (NEP 2020), and the risks.
Multidisciplinarity means studying a problem with the concepts and methods of several disciplines. It has grown because problems such as poverty, migration, climate change and pandemics do not respect disciplinary boundaries. Immanuel Wallerstein's Gulbenkian Commission report Open the Social Sciences (1996) argued that the nineteenth-century division of social sciences had become outdated.
Sociology and economics: economic sociology studies how markets are embedded in social relations (Polanyi, 1944; Granovetter, 1985). In India, caste and kin networks shape trading communities and labour markets.
Sociology and political science: political sociology studies power, parties and voting; Rajni Kothari's work on caste in politics and Lokniti-CSDS surveys combine both.
Sociology and history: historical sociology (Weber, Barrington Moore) and Subaltern Studies link structure with the past. Sociology and psychology: social psychology (Mead, Cooley) studies the social self.
Sociology and anthropology: in India they are nearly one, as Srinivas's and Dube's village studies show. Environment: Madhav Gadgil and Ramachandra Guha (This Fissured Land, 1992) joined ecology, history and sociology.
Flow chart: complex social problem → inputs from economics, politics, history, psychology, anthropology → sociology links them through social structure and meaning → integrated explanation and policy
Policy relevance: the National Education Policy 2020 promotes multidisciplinary education, and sociological inputs on caste, gender and tribe inform schemes and impact studies, such as the social impact assessment required by the Land Acquisition Act of 2013.
Caution: multidisciplinarity can dilute disciplinary rigour; sociology contributes best when it keeps its own concepts, such as structure, institution, norm and identity. Thus sociology is both a contributor to and an integrator of the social sciences.
Q2(b) · Sociology as Science · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Positivism and Its Critique
How far are sociologists justified in using positivist approach to understand social reality? Explain with suitable illustrations.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
सामाजिक वास्तविकता को समझने के लिए प्रत्यक्षवादी दृष्टिकोण का उपयोग करने में समाजशास्त्रियों को कहाँ तक उचित ठहराया जा सकता है? उपयुक्त दृष्टांतों के साथ समझाइए।
Practise this question Sociology as Science notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q2(b)
Approach: Judge 'how far' by showing where the positivist approach is justified (patterns, comparison, policy) and where it fails (meaning, constructed data, reactivity, values), with illustrations from Durkheim and Indian data, and conclude with a qualified answer.
The positivist approach studies society like nature: it seeks observable regularities and causal laws through measurement, surveys, official statistics and comparison, keeping the researcher's values out. Comte proposed it and Durkheim applied it.
Sociologists are justified in using it for several reasons. Many social realities are external and patterned, as Durkheim's Suicide (1897) showed when suicide rates varied with integration and regulation across Europe. Large samples allow generalisation and comparison. In India, NFHS-5 (2019–21) covered about 6.37 lakh households, giving district-level data on health and gender; NITI Aayog's index showed multidimensional poverty falling from 24.85 percent in 2015–16 to 14.96 percent in 2019–21; and the Bihar caste survey (2023) reported Extremely Backward Classes at about 36 percent. Such data guide policy on reservation, welfare and health, which interpretive studies alone cannot do.
But the approach is justified only up to a point. Weber held that action must be understood through its subjective meaning. Statistics are social products: Douglas and Atkinson showed this for suicide, and in India NCRB records far fewer crimes against women than NFHS-5 reveals, because many women never report. Categories are contested, as the debate over counting caste in the next Census shows. People react to observation (the Hawthorne effect), and the choice of topics reflects values, as Myrdal argued.
Indian sociology also shows the value of other methods: Srinivas's Rampura fieldwork found Sanskritisation and dominant caste through participant observation, not surveys.
Therefore sociologists are justified in using positivism to map patterns and test claims, but not in treating it as the only route. Combined with interpretive methods through triangulation, it gives a fuller picture of social reality.
Q2(c) · Sociology: The Discipline · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Sociology and Common Sense
How is sociology related to common sense?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
समाजशास्त्र, सामान्य बुद्धि से कैसे सम्बन्धित है?
Practise this question Sociology: The Discipline notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q2(c)
Approach: Explain the relationship in two parts: how sociology differs from common sense (method, concepts, comparison) and how it builds on and studies it (Schutz, Garfinkel, Giddens), with Béteille and an Indian example.
Common sense is unreflective everyday knowledge learnt through experience; sociology is systematic knowledge based on method and theory. Their relation is both of distance and of dependence.
Distance: Durkheim asked sociologists to set aside prenotions, and Bourdieu called for an epistemological break. Peter Berger (Invitation to Sociology, 1963) saw sociology as debunking, looking beyond official and everyday explanations. Common sense naturalises social arrangements; sociology shows them to be social and variable.
Dependence: Schutz showed that sociology must understand actors' everyday typifications; Garfinkel studied the methods of everyday reasoning; and Giddens' double hermeneutic shows sociological concepts flowing back into common sense.
Indian example: common sense calls dowry an ancient custom, but Srinivas argued that modern dowry spread with new wealth and status competition. André Béteille stressed that comparison distinguishes sociology from common sense.
Thus sociology starts from common sense, questions it and returns refined knowledge to it.

Question 3 (50 marks)

Q3(a) · Research Methods and Analysis · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Qualitative and Quantitative Methods
How do qualitative and quantitative methods supplement each other in sociological enquiry?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
गुणात्मक और मात्रात्मक विधियाँ, कैसे समाजशास्त्रीय जाँच में एक-दूसरे की पूरक हैं?
Practise this question Research Methods and Analysis notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q3(a)
Approach: Contrast the two methods briefly, then show the ways they supplement each other (sequence, triangulation, explaining and generalising) with classic and Indian studies, and conclude on methodological pluralism.
Quantitative methods, rooted in positivism, measure social facts through surveys and statistics and value reliability and representativeness; qualitative methods, rooted in interpretivism, study meanings through observation and interviews and value validity and depth. The old ‘paradigm war’ has given way to the view that each covers the other’s blind spots.
Ways they supplement each other: first, qualitative work generates hypotheses and questionnaire items, and surveys then test them on large samples; second, surveys identify patterns and qualitative work explains them; third, Denzin’s triangulation (1970) cross-checks one method’s findings with another, raising validity; fourth, qualitative case studies are generalised through quantitative data, while statistics are humanised by narratives.
Flow chart: Fieldwork → concepts and hypotheses → survey → statistical patterns → in-depth interviews to explain them → theory.
Classic examples: Durkheim’s statistical Suicide (1897) was later criticised by Douglas (1967) for ignoring the meanings coroners attach to deaths, showing the need for both; the Marienthal study (1933) and Goldthorpe’s Affluent Worker used surveys with interviews.
Indian examples: Srinivas’s concept of dominant caste, found through fieldwork in Rampura, has been tested in many states with land and electoral data; CSDS-Lokniti election surveys show caste-wise voting, while ethnographies explain why caste loyalties shift. NFHS-5 (2019–21) shows that 23.3 percent of women aged 20–24 married before 18, but qualitative studies reveal the family honour and dowry pressures behind these numbers. Similarly, Untouchability in Rural India (2006) combined a 565-village survey with narratives.
Thus the two methods are complementary: numbers tell us how much and how widespread, meanings tell us why and how, and a mature sociology uses both according to the research question.
Q3(b) · Sociological Thinkers: Marx and Durkheim · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Karl Marx: Historical Materialism and Mode of Production
Critically examine the dialectics involved in each mode of production as propounded by Karl Marx.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
कार्ल मार्क्स द्वारा प्रतिपादित उत्पादन की प्रत्येक विधि में शामिल द्वंद्वात्मकता का समालोचनात्मक परीक्षण कीजिए।
Practise this question Sociological Thinkers: Marx and Durkheim notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q3(b)
Approach: Explain Marx’s dialectical method, take each mode of production in turn showing its classes and internal contradiction, then critically examine the scheme with criticism and Indian evidence.
Marx adopted Hegel’s dialectic, change through the conflict of opposites, but grounded it in material life. In each mode of production the forces of production develop until they clash with the existing relations of production; this contradiction appears as conflict between an owning and a labouring class and gives birth to the next mode.
Primitive communism: no classes and common property; the growth of surplus and private property ends it. Ancient (slave) society: masters against slaves, as in the revolt led by Spartacus in Rome. Feudalism: lords against serfs; within it, towns, trade and merchants grow into a bourgeoisie that breaks feudal bonds through revolutions such as 1789 in France.
Capitalism: bourgeoisie against proletariat; production becomes social while ownership stays private, producing crises of overproduction, a reserve army of labour and growing class consciousness, which Marx expected to end in socialist revolution. Communism would end classes and so this form of dialectic.
Flow chart: primitive communism → slavery → feudalism → capitalism → socialism → communism, each driven by forces versus relations
Critical examination: the scheme is criticised as unilinear and Eurocentric; Marx himself placed India in an unchanging Asiatic mode, which Irfan Habib and R.S. Sharma rejected by showing trade, towns and change in pre-colonial India, while D.D. Kosambi applied the method to Indian history. Revolutions came in peasant Russia and China, and in his 1881 letter to Vera Zasulich Marx accepted that Russia might not follow the Western path.
Conclusion: the dialectic is best read as a method for locating contradictions in each society, not as a fixed ladder of stages.
Q3(c) · Sociological Thinkers: Max Weber · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Max Weber: Authority and Bureaucracy
Do you agree with Max Weber's idea that bureaucracy has the potential to become an iron cage? Justify your answer.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
क्या आप मैक्स वेबर के इस विचार से सहमत हैं कि नौकरशाही में लोहे का पिंजरा बनने की क्षमता है? अपने उत्तर का औचित्य साबित कीजिए।
Practise this question Sociological Thinkers: Max Weber notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q3(c)
Approach: Explain the iron cage idea, agree with it using evidence of over-rationalisation, and qualify it with criticism and the possibility of change.
At the end of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904–05), Max Weber warned that the rational economic order, once established, binds individuals like an iron cage. Bureaucracy, the most efficient form of administration, is the core of this cage.
There is good reason to agree. Bureaucracy is technically superior but impersonal; rules become ends in themselves. Robert Merton called this goal displacement and the bureaucratic personality. In India, red tape, file-pushing and the plight of citizens without documents in welfare schemes show how rules can trap people.
Yet the cage is not total. Weber himself hoped that charismatic leadership and politics could check bureaucracy. Peter Blau found informal flexibility inside bureaucracies. The Right to Information Act 2005, social audits and digital grievance systems in India show that bureaucracy can be made accountable.
Hence the danger is real, but it is a tendency, not a fate.

Question 4 (50 marks)

Q4(a) · Stratification and Mobility · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Social Mobility: Open and Closed Systems, Types and Causes
Explain the concept of social mobility. Describe with suitable illustrations how education and social mobility are related to each other.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
सामाजिक गतिशीलता की अवधारणा को स्पष्ट कीजिए। शिक्षा और सामाजिक गतिशीलता एक-दूसरे से कैसे सम्बन्धित हैं, उसका उपयुक्त दृष्टांतों के साथ वर्णन कीजिए।
Practise this question Stratification and Mobility notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q4(a)
Approach: Define social mobility and its types (Sorokin, Goldthorpe), then explain the education–mobility relationship from the functionalist view (Blau and Duncan, Turner) and the conflict view (Bowles and Gintis, Bourdieu, Boudon), with Indian illustrations, and conclude.
Pitirim Sorokin (1927) defined social mobility as movement of individuals or groups from one social position to another. It may be vertical or horizontal, intra-generational (within a career) or inter-generational (between parents and children), and absolute or relative, the latter measuring chances by class origin (Goldthorpe).
Functionalist view: education is the main channel of mobility in modern societies. Blau and Duncan's The American Occupational Structure (1967) found that education explained occupational attainment more than father's status. Ralph Turner (1960) contrasted the American 'contest mobility' with British 'sponsored mobility', showing education systems shape routes to the top.
Indian illustrations: education and reservation produced a Dalit and OBC middle class in government jobs; first-generation graduates from rural families enter the IT sector; Srinivas noted westernisation through English education as a route to status. Expansion is visible in AISHE's gross enrolment ratio of 28.4% in higher education (2021–22).
Conflict view: education also reproduces inequality. Bowles and Gintis (Schooling in Capitalist America, 1976) argued that schools correspond to the hierarchy of work; Pierre Bourdieu showed that cultural capital of the upper classes turns into academic success; Raymond Boudon (1974) explained that poorer families choose shorter courses even at equal ability. In India, English-medium private schooling and costly coaching favour the well-off, and degree inflation weakens the value of credentials.
Flow chart: Family origin → access to quality schooling and cultural capital → credentials → occupation → class destination; reservation and public schools can open the chain, private advantages can close it.
Education is thus a necessary but not sufficient condition for mobility: it opens doors when it is equal in quality, as the Right to Education Act, 2009 and NEP 2020 intend, but otherwise it can legitimise inherited privilege.
Q4(b) · Works and Economic Life · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Formal and Informal Organisation of Work
How has the idea of 'Work From Home' forced us to redefine the formal and informal organisation of work?
हिंदी में प्रश्न
'घर से काम करने' के विचार ने हमें काम के औपचारिक और अनौपचारिक संगठन को पुनःपरिभाषित करने के लिए कैसे मजबूर किया है?
Practise this question Works and Economic Life notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q4(b)
Approach: Show how work from home after the 2020 lockdown blurred the formal–informal line: formal structure (Weber, Taylorist control) moved online, informal organisation (Barnard, Hawthorne) weakened, and home and gender roles were redrawn (Hochschild); end with a redefinition.
Formal organisation is the designed structure of rules, roles and authority that Weber described as bureaucracy; informal organisation is, in Chester Barnard's sense, the web of personal contacts and norms that grows within it, revealed by the Hawthorne studies. Both assumed a shared physical workplace, which the COVID-19 lockdown of March 2020 disrupted.
Formal organisation redefined: authority and coordination moved to digital platforms, video meetings and dashboards. Supervision shifted from presence to output, and monitoring software extended Taylorist control into the home, a form of digital surveillance. Office hours dissolved into 'always-on' availability. Indian IT firms such as TCS announced hybrid models, and the government relaxed rules for other service providers in 2020 to allow remote work.
Informal organisation redefined: corridor talk, lunch groups and peer norms, which Mayo saw as central to morale, became thinner and moved to chat groups. Newcomers found it harder to learn tacit rules, and loneliness rose, a problem Durkheim would see as weakened integration.
Home and gender: the boundary between the public workplace and private home, created by industrialisation, blurred. Arlie Hochschild's 'second shift' intensified for women, who juggled paid work, childcare and domestic chores; the Time Use Survey 2019 had already shown women doing about three times men's unpaid domestic work. Home-based informal work, long performed by women in India, now resembled formal professional work.
Class divide: only a minority of formal white-collar workers could work from home; informal workers such as domestic workers, vendors and construction labourers lost income, showing that WFH was a privilege.
Flow chart: lockdown → remote work → formal control by software and output → informal ties move online and thin → home–work boundary blurs → hybrid organisation.
WFH has thus produced a hybrid organisation in which formal control is digital and informal ties are virtual, demanding new norms on the right to disconnect and equal sharing of care.
Q4(c) · Sociological Thinkers: Parsons, Merton and Mead · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Robert K. Merton: Functions, Conformity and Deviance, Reference Groups
With suitable examples, explain how conformity and deviance coexist in a society as propounded by R.K. Merton.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
आर.के. मर्टन द्वारा प्रतिपादित, एक समाज में अनुरूपता और विचलन कैसे सह-अस्तित्व में रहते हैं, उपयुक्त उदाहरणों के साथ इसकी व्याख्या कीजिए।
Practise this question Sociological Thinkers: Parsons, Merton and Mead notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q4(c)
Approach: Explain Merton's strain theory showing that the same structure produces conformity and deviance through the modes of adaptation, with Indian examples.
Robert K. Merton, in 'Social Structure and Anomie' (1938), argued that deviance is not caused by biological drives but by the social structure. When a culture stresses success goals but offers unequal legitimate means, a strain arises, and individuals adapt in different ways.
Conformity, accepting both goals and means, is the most common response and keeps society stable, for example a student who studies hard for the civil services.
Alongside it, the same pressure produces deviance: innovation (goals accepted, illegitimate means), such as exam paper leaks or financial fraud; ritualism, a clerk who follows rules mechanically; retreatism, drug abuse; and rebellion, as in movements seeking a new social order.
Thus conformity and deviance coexist because both are responses to one structure. Merton also noted that deviance can be functional, signalling the need for change. Critics such as Cohen and Cloward and Ohlin added subcultural and opportunity explanations, but Merton's point that deviance is socially patterned remains valuable.

Question 5 (50 marks)

Q5(a) · Works and Economic Life · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Formal and Informal Organisation of Work
Explain the emerging challenges in establishing gender equality in the informal sector.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
अनौपचारिक क्षेत्र में लैंगिक समानता स्थापित करने में उभरती चुनौतियों की व्याख्या कीजिए।
Practise this question Works and Economic Life notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(a)
Approach: Explain the challenges to gender equality in informal work (invisibility, wage gaps, care burden, harassment, weak legal coverage, digital divide) with feminist theory and Indian evidence, then suggest a way forward.
Most Indian women workers are in the informal sector as home-based workers, domestic workers, agricultural labourers and unpaid family helpers, where equality laws barely reach.
Invisibility: unpaid and home-based work is undercounted, and Maria Mies's idea of housewifisation explains why such work is treated as non-work and paid less. Care burden: the Time Use Survey 2019 recorded 299 minutes of daily unpaid domestic work by women against 97 by men, restricting their choice of jobs.
Weak protection: maternity benefits and equal-pay provisions depend on an employer and records, which informal workers lack; Local Committees under the POSH Act, 2013 are often not functional. Caste compounds disadvantage, as Dalit women dominate sanitation and farm labour.
New challenges: platform work and the digital divide, as fewer women own smartphones; and the 2020 lockdown hit women's jobs hardest.
The way forward lies in collective organisation like SEWA, universal social security through the Code on Social Security, 2020 and e-Shram, and recognising care work.
Q5(b) · Politics and Society · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Theories of Power, Power Elite, Bureaucracy, Pressure Groups and Parties
Critically examine the relevance of Vilfredo Pareto's theory of Circulation of Elites in the present scenario.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
वर्तमान परिदृश्य में विल्फ्रेडो पारेटो के अभिजात-वर्ग के परिभ्रमण के सिद्धान्त की प्रासंगिकता का समालोचनात्मक परीक्षण कीजिए।
Practise this question Politics and Society notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(b)
Approach: Briefly state Pareto's theory of circulation of elites, then assess its relevance today with Indian and world examples, and note its limits (pluralism, democratic institutions, untestable residues).
Vilfredo Pareto (The Mind and Society, 1916) held that every society is ruled by a governing elite. Elites of 'lions', who rule by force, and 'foxes', who rule by cunning, decay and are replaced, so that history is a graveyard of aristocracies; this is the circulation of elites.
Relevance today: the idea helps explain recurrent elite turnover. In India, the decline of the Congress system and the rise of OBC leaders after the Mandal period, Dalit leadership through the BSP, and the shift to a new dominant party after 2014 resemble a circulation of governing elites. Military takeovers in Myanmar and parts of Africa fit his cycle of foxes yielding to lions.
Limits: democracy institutionalises circulation through elections, so change need not be violent; pluralists like Dahl argue that power is dispersed; Marxists say Pareto ignores the economic base; and his residues are psychological and hard to test.
It remains a useful heuristic for elite change, best combined with institutional and class analysis.
Q5(c) · Religion and Society · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Sociological Theories of Religion
Critically compare the views of E.B. Tylor and Max Muller on Religion.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
धर्म पर ई.बी. टायलर और मैक्स मूलर के विचारों की आलोचनात्मक रूप से तुलना कीजिए।
Practise this question Religion and Society notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(c)
Approach: A critical comparison of two evolutionary, intellectualist theories of the origin of religion: Tylor's animism and Max Müller's naturism. Define each, compare their sources and logic, then give the common criticism (Durkheim, Evans-Pritchard) with an Indian example.
E.B. Tylor and Max Müller were 19th-century evolutionary and intellectualist theorists who traced religion to early humans' attempts to explain their experience.
Tylor (Primitive Culture, 1871) defined religion minimally as 'belief in Spiritual Beings'. Reflecting on dreams, trance and death, early humans inferred a soul separate from the body and extended souls to animals, plants and objects. This animism was the earliest religion, from which polytheism and monotheism evolved.
Max Müller, drawing on the Vedas, found the origin in naturism: awe at sun, sky, fire and dawn, personified as gods like Surya, Agni and Varuna.
Tylor starts from inner experience and ethnographic reports, Müller from external nature and philology; both explain religion as an individual's mistaken reasoning.
Durkheim objected that an illusion could not last so long and that neither explains the sacred or collective ritual; Evans-Pritchard called such theories speculative 'if I were a horse' reasoning. Munda worship of bongas alongside nature deities shows elements of both.
Q5(d) · Religion and Society · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Types of Religious Practices: Animism, Monism, Pluralism, Sects and Cults
What is cult? Explain the growth of cults in the contemporary world.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
पंथ क्या है? समकालीन दुनिया में पंथों की वृद्धि की व्याख्या कीजिए।
Practise this question Religion and Society notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(d)
Approach: Define cult (Stark and Bainbridge, Wallis) and its features, then explain its growth with sociological causes and Indian and world examples in a short, structured answer.
A cult is a loosely organised religious group with new or imported beliefs, usually centred on a charismatic leader. Stark and Bainbridge distinguish it from a sect, which breaks away from an existing faith, and Roy Wallis noted that cults are tolerant of other beliefs, unlike sects. The neutral term new religious movement is now preferred.
Growth: first, secularisation and the decline of mainstream churches leave a spiritual vacuum. Second, urban anomie and loneliness create a search for community. Third, affluent groups seek self-improvement, which Wallis's world-affirming cults offer, such as Transcendental Meditation. Fourth, globalisation and media spread imported faiths, as ISKCON spread from New York (1966) and yoga-based movements went global. Fifth, in rational choice terms a free religious market encourages new 'products'.
Indian examples include guru-centred movements and deras, while Jonestown (1978) and Aum Shinrikyo (1995) show dangers.
Bruce sees cults as signs of weakened religion, Heelas as a spiritual revolution.
Q5(e) · Social Change in Modern Society · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Sociological Theories of Social Change
Do you think Talcott Parsons gave an adequate theory of social change? Justify your answer.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
क्या आपको लगता है कि टैलकॉट पार्सन्स के द्वारा दिया गया सामाजिक परिवर्तन का सिद्धान्त पर्याप्त है? अपने उत्तर का औचित्य साबित कीजिए।
Practise this question Social Change in Modern Society notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q5(e)
Approach: Summarise Parsons's account of change (equilibrium, differentiation, evolutionary universals), then judge its adequacy with critics and an Indian illustration; conclude that it is partial.
Talcott Parsons was accused of offering a static theory, but in his later work he did propose an account of change. Society tends towards a moving equilibrium: strains are absorbed by adjustment through the AGIL functions.
In Societies (1966) and 'Evolutionary Universals in Society' (1964) he described a neo-evolutionary process: structural differentiation, adaptive upgrading, inclusion and value generalisation. Universals such as bureaucracy, money and markets, universalistic law and democratic association raise a society's adaptive capacity.
The theory is not fully adequate. Dahrendorf and C. Wright Mills argued it cannot explain sudden, conflict-driven or revolutionary change, since conflict appears only as strain. Its view of change as the gradual unfolding of shared values is consensual and treats the modern United States as the model, which Gunder Frank and other critics saw as ethnocentric. It also neglects power, colonialism and agency.
In India, differentiation explains the separation of work from family, but the Dalit movement reflects conflict. Parsons's theory is useful but partial.

Question 6 (50 marks)

Q6(a) · Works and Economic Life · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Labour and Society
Elucidate the main problems and challenges faced by the migrant labourers in the recent 'Lockdown period'.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
हाल ही में 'लॉकडाउन अवधि' के दौरान प्रवासी श्रमिकों के सामने आई मुख्य समस्याओं और चुनौतियों की विशद व्याख्या कीजिए।
Practise this question Works and Economic Life notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(a)
Approach: Describe the problems migrant workers faced in the 2020 lockdown (income, food, shelter, transport, stigma, invisibility), explain them sociologically (Breman, Standing, Marx, Durkheim) and the policy challenges and responses, ending with lessons.
The nationwide lockdown announced on 24 March 2020 to contain COVID-19 left lakhs of inter-state migrant workers stranded in cities without work. The government later told Parliament that over a crore migrant workers had returned to their home states.
Problems: sudden loss of daily wages and unpaid dues; hunger, as many lacked ration cards valid outside their home states; eviction from rented rooms and worksite shelters; absence of transport, which forced thousands to walk hundreds of kilometres, with tragedies such as the Aurangabad rail accident of May 2020; police harassment, quarantine and stigma as 'carriers' in both cities and villages; and debt and unemployment after return.
Sociological explanation: Jan Breman's 'footloose labour' describes such circular migrants who belong fully neither to city nor village. They are part of Guy Standing's precariat, and Marx's reserve army of labour, hired and discarded as needed. Their invisibility was institutional: the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979 was poorly enforced, so no one knew how many migrants there were. Durkheim would see the crisis as the breakdown of the moral regulation of an anomic division of labour.
Responses: Shramik Special trains from May 2020; free grain under PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana; extension of One Nation One Ration Card; Garib Kalyan Rozgar Abhiyaan and expanded rural employment for returnees; and, after a Supreme Court order in 2021, the e-Shram portal launched in August 2021. Civil society groups and the Stranded Workers Action Network filled gaps.
The lockdown exposed migrants as essential yet unprotected; portable entitlements, registration, housing and the OSH Code's provisions for inter-state workers are the lasting lessons.
Q6(b) · Politics and Society · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Theories of Power, Power Elite, Bureaucracy, Pressure Groups and Parties
Explain how political parties and pressure groups are dialectically related to each other in terms of achieving their goals.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
अपने लक्ष्यों को प्राप्त करने के लिए राजनीतिक दलों और दबाव समूहों के बीच किस प्रकार के द्वंद्वात्मक सम्बन्ध होते हैं, व्याख्या कीजिए।
Practise this question Politics and Society notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(b)
Approach: Distinguish parties and pressure groups, then explain their dialectical relationship (mutual dependence and tension, groups becoming parties and parties creating groups) with Duverger, Kothari, the Rudolphs and Indian cases, ending with a synthesis.
Weber defined political parties as associations aiming to secure power for their leaders, while pressure groups seek to influence policy without contesting power. Their relationship is dialectical: each depends on and opposes the other, and their interaction produces new forms.
Mutual dependence: parties need groups for votes, funds, cadres and information; groups need parties to turn demands into law. Maurice Duverger noted that mass parties grew out of trade unions and other associations, as the British Labour Party did. In India, trade union federations are tied to parties (INTUC to the Congress, BMS to the Sangh family, CITU to the CPI(M)).
Tension and opposition: groups press narrow interests that parties must balance against a wider electorate, and they shift support when ignored. The Bharatiya Kisan Union under Mahendra Singh Tikait remained non-party and bargained with all governments; during 2020–21 farmer unions kept political parties off their platform while pressing the government to repeal the farm laws, which it did in 2021.
Synthesis: pressure groups often become parties, and parties create or absorb groups. The India Against Corruption movement of 2011 gave rise to the Aam Aadmi Party in 2012; caste associations studied by Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph, such as the Vanniyar Kula Kshatriya Sangam, later formed the Pattali Makkal Katchi.
Rajni Kothari's 'Congress system' showed this dialectic at the system level: the dominant party absorbed groups, while groups and opposition parties acted as a margin of pressure that pushed it to change.
Flow chart: group demand → party absorbs or rejects → if rejected, group escalates or forms a party → new party bargains with other groups.
Parties and pressure groups thus complete each other in achieving goals; the contradiction between aggregating and articulating interests keeps democratic competition alive.
Q6(c) · Religion and Society · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Religion in Modern Society: Science, Secularisation, Revivalism and Fundamentalism
Give your comments on the growth of religious revivalism in the present day context.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
वर्तमान संदर्भ में धार्मिक पुनरुत्थानवाद के विकास पर अपनी टिप्पणी दीजिए।
Practise this question Religion and Society notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q6(c)
Approach: Define religious revivalism, give present-day examples (global and Indian), explain the causes with named sociologists, and comment briefly on its consequences.
Religious revivalism is the renewed fervour and public assertion of a religion, often presented as a return to its purer, original form, usually in response to rapid change or perceived threat.
Present-day examples: the global Pentecostal boom, Islamic resurgence since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, evangelical politics in the USA, and in India the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, culminating in the temple consecrated on 22 January 2024, along with the growth of the Tablighi Jamaat and mass pilgrimages such as the Kumbh.
Causes: Giddens and Castells see revival as a defence of identity against globalisation and the network society; Norris and Inglehart link it to insecurity; media and the new middle class spread it; and Christophe Jaffrelot ties Hindu revivalism to political mobilisation.
Comment: revival can restore meaning and community, but when tied to politics it can slide into communalism and threaten pluralism. It contradicts the classical secularisation thesis and supports Berger's desecularisation argument.

Question 7 (50 marks)

Q7(a) · Systems of Kinship · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Patriarchy, Sexual Division of Labour and Contemporary Trends
Explain how the pattern of patriarchy is being altered in a family and at the workplace in the present context.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
वर्तमान संदर्भ में परिवार और कार्यस्थल पर पितृतंत्र का प्रतिरूप (पैटर्न) कैसे बदल रहा है, समझाइए।
Practise this question Systems of Kinship notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(a)
Approach: Define patriarchy (Walby's private and public forms), then explain how it is being altered in the family and at the workplace with theory, Indian laws and data, and show what persists, ending with a balanced view.
Sylvia Walby (Theorizing Patriarchy, 1990) defined patriarchy as a system of social structures and practices in which men dominate, oppress and exploit women, operating through six structures including household production and paid work. She argued that Western societies moved from private patriarchy, based on the household, to public patriarchy, based on segregation in employment and the state.
In the family: nuclear and dual-earner households, later marriage and fewer children give women more say in decisions. Daughters became coparceners under the Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005, and the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 recognised economic and emotional abuse. Young and Willmott's 'symmetrical family' and Giddens's 'pure relationship' describe more equal partnerships.
Persistence in the family: the Time Use Survey 2019 recorded women spending about 299 minutes a day on unpaid domestic work against 97 for men; Hochschild's 'second shift' and Kandiyoti's 'patriarchal bargain' remain visible.
At the workplace: women are entering IT, banking, the armed forces (permanent commission upheld in Babita Puniya, 2020) and local government. The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2013, the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017 and the Companies Act, 2013 requirement of a woman director challenge male norms.
Persistence at work: occupational segregation, the gender pay gap, the 'glass ceiling' and the concentration of women in informal and care work (ASHA and anganwadi workers paid honoraria) show public patriarchy in Walby's sense.
Patriarchy is thus being reshaped rather than abolished: control is shifting from the father and husband in the home to subtler forms in markets and organisations, while in India private patriarchy remains strong among many groups.
Q7(b) · Social Change in Modern Society · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Development and Dependency
Critically examine the contribution of dependency theories in understanding the present global scenario.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
वर्तमान वैश्विक परिदृश्य को समझने में आश्रितता सिद्धान्तों के योगदान का समालोचनात्मक परीक्षण कीजिए।
Practise this question Social Change in Modern Society notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(b)
Approach: Outline dependency theories (Prebisch, Baran, Frank, Amin, Cardoso) and then test their contribution against today's global scenario (China, digital and debt dependence, India), ending with a balanced assessment.
Dependency theory emerged in Latin America in the 1950s–60s as a critique of modernisation theory. It holds that the poverty of the 'periphery' results from its subordinate incorporation into a world capitalist system dominated by the 'core'.
Raúl Prebisch and ECLA showed that terms of trade for primary exports decline. Paul Baran (1957) argued that surplus is drained abroad. Andre Gunder Frank's 'development of underdevelopment' traced a metropolis–satellite chain of extraction. Samir Amin's unequal development and Walter Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa extended the idea, while Cardoso and Faletto (1979) allowed for associated dependent development. Wallerstein's world-systems theory later added a semi-periphery.
Contributions today: the theories highlight persistent North–South gaps, debt crises of countries such as Sri Lanka (2022), commodity dependence in Africa, and unequal access to vaccines during COVID-19. New forms of dependency appear in technology and data: scholars speak of digital or data colonialism, as platforms based in a few countries extract data from the global South. India's reliance on imported semiconductors, defence equipment and crude oil shows ongoing vulnerability.
Limits: the rise of East Asian tigers, China and India through integration into world markets contradicts the claim that dependency blocks development. Critics such as Bill Warren and Laclau found the theory deterministic and too focused on external factors, neglecting internal class structure, governance and state capacity. Remedies like delinking failed in practice.
Flow chart: peripheral export of raw materials → unequal exchange → surplus drain → underdevelopment; versus integration + state capacity → growth (East Asia).
Dependency theories therefore remain useful for analysing global inequality and new technological dependence, but must be combined with attention to the state, internal classes and agency.
Q7(c) · Stratification and Mobility · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Dimensions of Stratification: Class, Status, Gender, Ethnicity and Race
Explain the growing salience of ethnicity in the contemporary world with illustrations.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
समकालीन दुनिया में नृजातीयता के बढ़ते महत्त्व को दृष्टांतों के साथ समझाइए।
Practise this question Stratification and Mobility notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q7(c)
Approach: Define ethnicity, explain why its salience has grown (globalisation, migration, state policies, decline of class politics, identity politics) with world and Indian illustrations, and conclude.
Ethnicity is a sense of collective identity based on shared culture, language, religion or ancestry. Modernisation theorists expected it to fade, but it has become more salient.
Reasons: globalisation and mass migration bring groups into contact and competition, producing anti-immigrant politics in Europe and the USA; the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia released ethnic nationalisms, leading to genocide in Bosnia (1995) and, in Africa, Rwanda (1994). Instrumentalists such as Paul Brass show elites mobilising ethnicity for power, while Fredrik Barth stresses boundary-making against others.
Illustrations from India include the linguistic reorganisation of states (1956), demands such as Gorkhaland, and the ethnic conflict between Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities in Manipur since May 2023. Sri Lanka's Sinhala–Tamil conflict and Myanmar's treatment of the Rohingya show the same pattern in South Asia.
Ethnicity grows salient when it becomes a basis for claiming resources, recognition and political power, so inclusive federalism and minority rights are key to managing it.

Question 8 (50 marks)

Q8(a) · Systems of Kinship · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Patriarchy, Sexual Division of Labour and Contemporary Trends
Discuss the changing nature of kinship relations in the contemporary world.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
समकालीन विश्व में नातेदारी सम्बन्धों की बदलती हुई प्रकृति की विवेचना कीजिए।
Practise this question Systems of Kinship notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(a)
Approach: Discuss the changing nature of kinship worldwide with theory (individualisation, relatedness, families of choice, beanpole and transnational families, reproductive technologies), add Indian illustrations, and note continuities.
In classical anthropology, kinship was the organising principle of society: descent groups held property and power (Fortes, Evans-Pritchard), and marriage alliances linked groups (Lévi-Strauss). In modern societies its functions have shrunk, but its forms have multiplied.
Individualisation: Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim (The Normal Chaos of Love, 1995) and Giddens (The Transformation of Intimacy, 1992) argue that kin ties are now chosen and negotiated rather than prescribed; divorce, remarriage and cohabitation produce reconstituted families with complex step-kin.
New bases of kinship: Janet Carsten's 'relatedness' stresses care and shared living over blood; Kath Weston's 'families we choose' and same-sex marriage (first legalised in the Netherlands, 2001) create queer kinship; IVF and surrogacy separate genetic, gestational and social parenthood.
Demographic shape: low fertility and longer life give Julia Brannen's 'beanpole family' with many generations and few siblings or cousins; ageing makes grandparents and elder care central.
Transnational and digital kinship: migrants maintain families across borders through remittances and digital contact, as Rhacel Parreñas (2001) showed for Filipino families; WhatsApp family groups sustain wider kin networks.
India: kinship is becoming more bilateral in practice (daughters' coparcenary rights, 2005; close ties with the wife's natal family), cross-region marriages appear in sex-ratio-deficit states, and the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021 allows only altruistic surrogacy. Yet caste endogamy and gotra rules remain strong.
Kinship is thus changing from an ascribed, rule-bound structure to a flexible network of chosen ties, though Carol Smart warns that class, gender and culture still limit that choice.
Q8(b) · Social Change in Modern Society · 20 marks≈ 14 min
Education, Science, Technology and Social Change
Describe the role of Science and Technology in enabling us to face the challenges triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
कोविड-19 महामारी से उत्पन्न चुनौतियों का सामना करने हेतु हमें सक्षम बनाने में विज्ञान और प्रौद्योगिकी की भूमिका का वर्णन कीजिए।
Practise this question Social Change in Modern Society notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(b)
Approach: Describe how science and technology helped society face COVID-19 (vaccines, digital platforms, remote work and education, data) with Indian examples, then note limits (divide, surveillance, misinformation) through Beck and Castells, and conclude.
The COVID-19 pandemic was, in Ulrich Beck's terms, a global risk society event: a hazard spread by globalisation that only scientific knowledge and coordinated technology could manage. Science and technology became central to how societies coped.
Medical science: rapid genome sequencing, testing and new vaccine platforms produced vaccines within a year. India manufactured Covishield and the indigenous Covaxin, and administered over 220 crore doses through the CoWIN digital platform; it also supplied vaccines abroad under Vaccine Maitri. Genomic surveillance through INSACOG tracked variants.
Digital technology: in Castells's network society, work, education, commerce and social life moved online. Telemedicine through eSanjeevani, online classes via DIKSHA and SWAYAM, work-from-home in IT, and UPI and Direct Benefit Transfer, which delivered cash to Jan Dhan accounts, sustained livelihoods and welfare. Data dashboards and modelling guided lockdowns.
Limits: technology also deepened the digital divide. NFHS-5 (2019–21) found only 33.3% of women had ever used the internet, so poor, rural and female students lost learning. Contact-tracing apps such as Aarogya Setu raised privacy concerns after the Puttaswamy judgment (2017) recognised privacy as a fundamental right. Social media spread misinformation and communal rumours, and migrant workers' crisis showed that technology could not replace social protection.
Flow chart: pandemic risk → scientific research + digital platforms → vaccines, telemedicine, online work and cash transfers → resilience; unequal access → exclusion.
The experience also showed the value of public science: publicly funded institutions such as ICMR and the Pune-based National Institute of Virology isolated the virus early. Science and technology thus enabled society to face the pandemic, but their benefits depended on public health systems, trust and equitable access.
Q8(c) · Politics and Society · 10 marks≈ 7 min
Nation, State, Citizenship, Democracy, Civil Society and Ideology
Highlight the roles and functions of civil society in a democratic system.
हिंदी में प्रश्न
लोकतांत्रिक व्यवस्था में नागरिक समाज की भूमिकाओं और कार्यों पर प्रकाश डालिए।
Practise this question Politics and Society notes
Model answer
Paper and question: Paper I, Q8(c)
Approach: Define civil society with its thinkers and list its roles and functions in a democracy with Indian examples, adding a short note on limits.
Civil society is the arena of voluntary associations, NGOs, unions, religious and caste bodies, media and movements that lies between family, market and state. Hegel, Tocqueville, Gramsci and Habermas gave the concept its classic forms.
Roles and functions: (1) Watchdog on state power: civil liberties groups such as the PUCL, founded in 1976, document rights violations. (2) Articulating interests and aggregating opinion, forming Habermas's public sphere. (3) Service delivery and partnership: SEWA, founded in 1972, organises informal women workers; NGOs implement health and education programmes. (4) Advocacy for rights-based laws such as the RTI Act 2005 and the Right to Education Act 2009. (5) Building social capital and democratic norms (Putnam). (6) Representing the marginalised and contesting dominant ideas, which Gramsci called counter-hegemony.
Civil society can also be captured by elites, divided on communal lines or dependent on foreign funding, which the state regulates through the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act.
Its democratic value depends on its autonomy and inclusiveness.

UPSC Mains 2021 Sociology Paper II