Course coordinator and team: Teena Anil

Summary

The spirt of the course is to develop a sociological thinking about the multifaceted nature of Indian society, provide an outline of the institutions and processes of Indian society and exploring its enduring structures and the dynamic forces shaping its future. The course focuses on the key arguments as proposed by the intellectual tradition in modern India, examining their response to or experiment with the project of modernity and nation building, traces the history of protest and resistance as a process, nature of   emancipatory politics that has evolved. The course attempts to unpack socio-cultural complexities impacting various social structures, Institutions and reshaping the form of resistance and protest both at the micro and the macro level. Beginning with we will examine persistence joint family systems, conjugal form of nuclear family, changing kinship ties into social networks, changing pattern of resident etc, a metaphor journey will be operationalized: to deconstruct the polarized images village and city, to understand the pollical culture and political idiom as suggested by Indian social thinkers, rise of new form of protest etc. While analysing some of major themes that have preoccupied the disciple of sociology in India, the course also critically engages with some of the very mainstream/western biased sociological concepts in the context of India, this will further help us to critically examine of western theories, concepts, methods have shaped the landscape of Indian sociology. By the end of the course students should be able to have an in-depth understanding of some of the vital complexities and contradiction within Indian society.

Objective:

1. To understand the basic features of Indian society;
2. To identify the forces and factors that have brought about changes in different social institutions, such as family, marriage, kinship.
3. To explain the elements of continuity in different social institutions in contemporary Indian society.
4. To evaluate the impact of modernization, social movements, and other factors on social change in India.
5. To develop a sociological perspective for understanding the dynamics of Indian Society

This course is organized around five modules.

Module No.	Topic	Duration (weeks)*
1	Understanding India: Contradictions, Paradoxes and Possibilities	3
2	Social Institution: Family, Marriage and Kinship	2
3	Social Construction of Village and Urban Communities	3
4	Work, Labour and Organization	3
5	Resistance, Protest and Social Movements	3

With four hours per week

 

Course Outline:

 

Unit 1 Understanding India: Contradictions, Paradoxes and Possibilities

The history of independent India can be visualized in terms of three perspectives. One, as the history of a state - a poor, large, extremely diverse creation, and the shifting of authority from several local heads to a single sovereign agency. Two, as the adventure of a political idea: democracy, and the grand experiment of providing half-a-billion poor, illiterate people access to the same electoral powers as their richer, educated counterparts. Third, as the confrontation of an ancient civilization, somewhat intricately designed with the specific purpose of perpetuating itself as a society, with modernity. (Khilani, 2003, Pg 3-5). This module aims at developing an understanding of some of the key ideas propounded by prominent leaders/thinkers of modern India.  By reading and discussing writings of the figures themselves as well referring to the commentaries, the intention is to develop a first-hand understanding of key ideas of these significant thinkers who majorly shaped India’s entry into modernity and what followed subsequently. This module aims to draw attention to the variety of ideas and debates about India. Further, it critically engages with the multiple socio-political forces and ideologies which shape the terrain of the nation, by exploring some of these concerns.

Approaching Modernity: Embracing, Questioning and Re-visiting

 On the need to be modern: Sir Syed Ahmad Khan.

 Questioning modernity: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

Reflections from within: Religion and Politics

Essentialising religion and the politics of othering: M. S. Golwalkar.

 A case for secular politics: Jawaharlal Nehru

Dissenting Traditions: Interrogating functionality of caste and religious order: Periyar E.V. Ramaswamy and Mahatma Jyotirao Phule and B. R. Ambedkar

Critique to patriarchal foundations of Indian society: Begum Rokeya Shekhawat Hossian and Tarabai Shinde

Literary dissent and conscientious art form: Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Mahasweta Devi.

 

Essentials Readings

Muhammad, Shan (ed.), 1972, Writings and Speeches of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Bombay: Nachiketa

 

Kheer, D, 1990, Ambedkar life and Mission

 

Nehru, Jawaharlal, 2012 (1946), The Discovery of India, (selected chapters) New Delhi: Penguin. 

Parel, Anthony (ed.), 1997, Hind Swaraj and other writings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Golwalkar, M. S. (1939). We, or Our Nationhood Defined. Nagpur: Bharat Publications. pp. 87–88.

 
Hossain, Rokeya. 1988. Sultana's Dream and Selections from "The Secluded Ones (Republished 2005 (1905), by Tara Books

 

G Aloysius. 2008, Periyar & Modernity, Critical Quest.

 

Nagaraj, D. R. 1993. The Flaming Feet: a study of the Dalit Movement in India. South Forum Press.

.

Faiz Ahmad Faiz His poem Subh-e Azaadi (The Dawn of Freedom, August 1947) 

 

Devi, M 1979 Aranyer Adhikar, novel (Tribal Right to the Forest)

 

Devi, M. 1978, Agnigarbha short stories collection)

Nandy, Ashish, 2004, Bonfire of Creeds, New Delhi: OUP.

 

 

Unit 2 Social Institution: Family, Marriage and Kinship

This module aims to introduce students to the social institution of marriage, kinship and family in society and enable you understand their inter-connectedness in shaping the individual’s identity. It will expose you with debates that have marked kinship and family studies by adopting an anthropological perspective, the module aims to examine the key concepts, terminologies and role of ideologies in governing these (FMK) systems. We will further study changes in marriage and family forms and those in definitions of kinship owing to other important developments like coming in of new reproductive technologies etc. This module will further help you to explore the different approaches, issues and debates in the studies of family, marriage and kinship, considering theoretical issues and ethnographies with particular emphasis on diversity of practices by examining the following issues.

 

Family and Marriage in Indian Society- Structural and Functional changes

Kinship System in India- Regional Variations-North and South Outline:

Introduction: Kinship, Critique and the Reformulation (law of inheritance)

Family and Household, Structure and Change, Reimagining Families Contemporary Issues in Marriage, Family and Kinship, Choice and Regulation in Marriage, Power and Discrimination in the Family, Marriage Migration etc.

 

Essential Readings: Classical sociological and anthropological literature, specific to Indian context, readings that problematizes these concepts with new form so of technology.

Fox, Robin, Kinship and Marriage: Anthropological Perspectives, Cambridge University Press, 1967.

Engels, Frederick. The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State, Progress Publishers, 1948.

Ortner, Sherry, Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture? Feminist Studies, 1(2): 5-31,

Claude, Levi Strauss, The Elementary Structures of Kinship, Beacon Press, 1969.

Evans-Pritchard, E.E. Kinship and Marriage Among the Nuer, Clarendon Press, 1951.

Parkin, Robert, Kinship: An introduction to Basic Concept, Blackwell, 1997.

Mallon, Gerald, Gay men choosing parenthood, Columbia University Press, 2004.

Kath Weston, 1991, Families We Choose: Lesbians, Gays, Kinship, New York: Columbia

Schneider, David Schneider, A critique of the study of kinship, University of Michigan Press, selected chapters, 1984.

Sahlins, Marshall. ‘What Kinship is’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 17(1):2-19, 2011.

Butler, Judith, ‘Is Kinship Always Already Heterosexual?’ Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, 13(1): 14-44, 2002.

Uberoi, Patricia. Family, Kinship and Marriage in India, Oxford University Press, 1994.

Das, Veena. 1992. ‘Structure and Cognitions: Aspects of Hindu caste and rituals, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Uberoi, Patricia. 2009. Your Law and My Custom: Legislating the Family in India. New Delhi: Critical Quest. Pp. 1-24.

Jacob S. and Chattopadhyay S. (2016). “Marriage Dissolution in India: Evidence from Census 2011”. Economic and Political Weekly. 51:33. 25-27.

Singh J.P. (2003). “Nuclearization of Household and Family in Urban India”. Sociological Bulletin. 52:1. 53-70

Allendorf K. and Pandian R.K. (2016). “The Decline of Arranged Marriage? Marital Change and Continuity in India”. Population and Development Review. 42:3. 435-464.

 

 

Unit 3: Social Construction of Village and Urban communities:

 

This module will introduce you to the idea of village (as remember village/village republic/ den of ignorance) and Urban (as emancipatory, transformative, promising freedom in place of caste-specific vocation, ascribed status, and the crosscutting obligation of jajmani system (Nandy:2001)) as discussed and debated in the classical sociological literature. However, the traditional and hegemonic perspective understand rural as urban residual by accepting the clear divide between the rural and urban, driven by demographic, cultural and economic factors. The contemporary empirical research in different fields, reflect and proves that the split between rural and urban is impossible. The change of these realities has reformulated the urban and rural relation from the perspectives of a continuum, hybrid or liminal state, which will further help us in examining the various structure of occupations, settlements, economies, social networks, neighbourhood and culture etc.

Essential Readings:

Gupta, Narayani. (2004). The Indian City. In Veena Das (ed.), Handbook of Indian Sociology. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Farias, Ignacio. (2011). “The politics of urban assemblages.” City 15:365-374.

Gupta, Dipankar. (2005). Whither the Indian Village in Economic and Political Weekly Vol. 40, No. 8

Jodhka, Surinder S. (2002). ‘Nation and Village: Images of Rural India in Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar’. Economic and Political Weekly. XXXVII (32): 3343–3353

 

Jodhka, Surinder. (2004). Agrarian Structures and their Transformations in Veena Das (ed.) Handbook of Indian Sociology, OUP, Delhi.

 

Nandy, Ashish. (2001). An Ambiguous Journey to the City: The Village and Other Ruins of the Self in the Indian Imagination. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Peter Schaeffer, Scott Loveridge, and Stephan Weiler Urban and Rural: Opposites No More!

 

March, L. 2020, Queer and trans* geographies of liminality: A literature review, Progress in Human Geography, Sage Publication.

 

 Unit 4: Work, Labour and Organization:

 

To begin with we will examine how the concept of ‘work’ has been studied in classical sociological literature referring to the work of Max Weber (Bureaucracy/ Rational action), Karl Marx (alienation) and Emile Durkheim (division of labour), the central theme of this course is to analyse the growing sectors of informal workers in the Indian economy, polarization of the labour market. Later part of the course centres on exploring and explaining another dimension of labour market segmentation—how categorically distinct types of workers are associated with specific types of jobs, focusing on nativity, vulnerability (children, elderly disabled etc) and gender and the processes that foster segmentation. We will conclude this section by considering how the gendered and segmented nature of work affects family life and how vulnerable section of society is pushed towards work which is more disastrous and hazardous in nature.  Not only segmentation of labour but also division of labourers (risk Bhopal, stigmatized labour). Identity, minority gender, children, service sectors, farmer suicide.

 

Documentary Series ‘Eyes on the Prize’

 ‘The Factory’, 2015 by Rahul Roy

 

 

Essential Readings: Classical Literature, Mapping descriptive, exploratory and explaratory accounts of Informal sector in India

Chhattisgarh, orissa and Jharkhand Role of state  in countering some of the developmental woes of the Indian state, NREGA was operationalised by the government is to flush out the anti-developmentalists by force and then proceed with development,

Examine the Rehabilitation scheme for manual scavengers and role of state in perpetuating caste based occupation.  Identities based vulnerabilities and stigmatization child labour, trafficking,  migrant women becoming  bread winner, leather work, covid and mortuary worker,  farmers and BPO worker as  army docile worker.   Then the nature of work risk, hazardous and dangerous (In the city out of place share the colonial origin of these category of work)

 The Factory 2015 documentary  traces the monumental struggle of Indian auto workers of the Maruti Suzuki factory in Manesar near Delhi, in their historic fight to form a union and the violent repression they faced at the hands of the corporate-sponsored state labour regime.

 

Marx, K. “Alienated Labor”, Weber, M. “Bureaucracy”, Taylor, F. “Fundamentals of Scientific Management”, Braverman, H. “The Division of Labor”, Hochschild, A. “The Managed Heart”. Pp. 44-78 in Wharton, A. (2006) Working in America, Continuity, Conflict and Change, 3rd edition. (Reader).

 

Edgell.S. (2006). The Sociology of Work. United Kingdom: Sage Publications. Fisher, Cynthia. (2006). Human Resource Management.5th Edition. New Delhi:

 

Harriss-White, Barbara and Nandini Gooptu. (2001). ‘Mapping India’s World of Unorganised Labour’. Socialist Register, pp. 89–118.

Bhowmik, Sharit K. (2009). “India: Labour Sociology Searching for Direction’ in Work and Occupations, Volume 36, Number 2, Sage Publications.

 

Breman, Jan. (1993). Footloose labour Working in India’s Informal Economy. Cambridge University Press.

 

Breman, Jan. (2003). Informal Sector in The Oxford Companion to Sociology and Social Anthropology edited by Veena Das. New Delhi.

 

Kaustav, Banerjee. Saha, Partha. (2010). “The NREGA, the Maoists and the Developmental Woes of the Indian State”, Economic and Political Weekly, 10 July,Vol XLV No 28.

 

N, Neetha. (2004). “Making of Female Breadwinners: Migration and social networking of women domestics in Delhi”, Economic and Political weekly, 24 April, pp. 1681-1688.

 

 

Khera, R., Nayak, N. (2009). “Women Workers and Perceptions of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act”, Economic and Political Weekly, October 24, Vol XLIV No 43, pp. 49-57.

 

Burra, Neera. (2005). “Crusading for Children in India’s Informal Economy”, Economic and Political weekly, 3 December, pp. 5199-5207.

 

Accountability Initiative. (2019). ‘Budget Briefs: Self Employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers (SRMS)’, GoI 2018-19, Vol. 10. New Delhi: Centre for Policy Research.

Biztantra Daryaganj. Gill A and Singh L, (2006),” Farmers Suicide and response to public policy, Evidence, Diagnosis and Alternatives from Punjab, Economic and Political Weekly, 30 June.

 

Biggeri, Mario. Mehrotra, Santosh. Sudarshan, Ratna. (2009). “Child Labour in Industrial Outworker Households in India”, Economic and Political weekly, 21 March, Vol XLIV, No F12, pp. 47-56.

 

 

Banerjee, Arpita. Raju, Saraswati. (2009). “Gendered Mobility: Women Migrants and Work in Urban India”, Economic and Political weekly, 11 July, Vol XLIV, No 28, pp 115-123.

 

Ramesh, Babu. (2004). “Cyber Coolies in BPO: Insecurities and Vulnerabilities of Non-Standard work”, Economic and Political weekly, 31 January, pp. 492-497.

 

Desai, Ashok. (2006). ‘Outsourcing Identities-Call Centres and Cultural Transformation in India’, Economic and Political Weekly, January, Vol 41

 

Harriss-White, Barbara. (2014). Dalits and Adivasis in India’s Business Economy: Three Essays and an Atlas. Gurgaon: Three Essays Collective.

 

Bose, Rajanya and Anirban Bhattacharya (2017). ‘Why Ragpickers, Unrecognised And Unpaid, Are Critical For Waste Management In India’. India Spend. Retrieved from http://archive.indiaspend.com/cover-story/why-ragpickersunrecognised- and-unpaid-are-critical-for-waste-management-in-india-43164. Accessed on 1st October 2018.

 

Sarkar, Papiya. (2003). ‘Solid Waste Management in Delhi: A Social Vulnerability Study’. In M.J. Bunch, V.M. Suresh and T.V. Kumaran (eds.), Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Environment and Health, 15-17 December. Chennai: Department of Geography, University of Madras and Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, pp. 451 – 464

 

 Visvanathan, Shiv. 1986, “Bhopal: The Imagination of a Disaster”, Alternatives XI, Pp. 147-165

Zonabend, Francoise. 2009, “The Nuclear Everyday” in Massimiliano Mollona, Geert De Neve and Jonathan Parry (ed.) Industrial Work and Life: An Anthropological Reader, London: Berg, Pp. 167-185

 

Kumari, S., Guite, N. (2019). Occupational Health Issues in Funeral Work: A Study of Dom Caste in Varanasi City, Uttar Pradesh. In: Panneer, S., Acharya, S., Sivakami, N. (eds) Health, Safety and Well-Being of Workers in the Informal Sector in India. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8421-9_19

 

 

Dutta, Prabhash K. (2017). ‘Cattle slaughter economy: How ban on sale of cattle for killing may affect industry, employment’, India Today. Retrieved from https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/cattle-slaughter-economykerala- calf-beef-festival-979880-2017-05-29. Accessed on 10 January 2019.

 

Price, Larry C., and Debbie M. Price, (2017). ‘India: Toxic Tanneries’, Pulitzer Centre. Retrieved from https:// pulitzercenter.org/reporting/india-toxic-tanneries. Accessed on 21 September 2018.

 

 

Unit 5: Protest, Social Movements and Social Change

This module will focus on the important aspects of collective actions of people (also known as social movements) which led to social change. We will begin this module by understating the link between social change and social movements. While social movements can be studied from any disciplinary perspective, The objective of the course is twofold: to introduce students to the various frameworks, concepts and theories developed by sociologists , other social scientists and particularly by employing a distinctly political sociological perspective for understanding the nature and dynamics of social movements by analysing most (but thankfully not all) of the cases that we will draw on related to the  India., as past research has most fully explored movements situated in that time and place.  It focuses on several major social movements and revolutions in India and across the world related to issues of labour, ethnicity, nationalism, gender, caste, identity, environment, etc. Here we will focus on the three factors associated with the emergence of social movements. The three factors described are relative deprivation, structural strain and revitalisation. Then we shall briefly state the stages in the life cycle of a social movement by asking a ask a range of questions about the possibilities for the emergence, organization and strategies/tactics of social movements, as well as consider the range of challenges they face.

 

• Right to information (MKSS)

• Right to housing (Mumbai airport dwellers)

• Environmental movements

• Movement against sexual violence

  Queer Movement Tolstoy Marg 29 th Nov (Delhi Queer Pride Parade)

  Forest Based Chipko 

  Water Based Movement – Narmada

  Land Based Movements – Anti-mining and Seed

 

Essential Readings:  Classical Readings referring to India, readings on role   parks, people and protest, music and social movements apart from introducing literature on  In the Belly of the River talks about two different political movements present in the valley, namely, Khedaat Mazdoor Chetna Sangh (Sangath) and Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) and their strategies. Baviskar has been ctritical of the Andolan’s lack of ability to represent the interests and concerns of the Patidars and its inability to formulate an alternative political culture based on Gandhian principles in the territory.

 

Baviskar, Amrita, 2004, In the Belly of River, Tribal Conflict Over Development in the Narmada Valley, Oxford University Press.

Oommen, T. K. (2010) 'Introduction' in Oommen, T. K. (ed) Social Movements, Vol. I, Oxford University Press: New Delhi Oommen, T. K. (Oct., 1967) ‘Charisma, Social Structure and Social Change’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 85-99.

 

M.S.A. 1979. Social Movements and Social Transformation: A Study of Two Backward Classes Movements in India. Macmillan: Madras.

 

Shah, Ghanshyam (ed.) 2002. Social Movements and the State. Sage Publications: New Delhi Wilson, John 1973. Introduction to Social Movements. Basic Books: New York

 

Kumar, Radha. 1999, „From Chipko to sati: The Contemporary women’s movement‟, in Nivedita Menon (ed.) Gender and Politics in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 342- 369.

 

Klandermans, Bert and Conny Roggeband, (eds.), 2009, Handbook of Social Movements Across Disciplines (Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research), Springer, New York.

 

Marcuse, Peter, 2005, Are Social Forums the Future of Social Movements? International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Volume 29.2 Pp. 417–24.

 

Goodwin, J. & J. Jasper (eds.). 2015. The Social Movements Reader: Cases and Concepts, 3 rd Edition, MA: Wiley Blackwell, p. 3-7

 

Omvedt, Gail. 2005. “Farmer’s Movements and the Debate on Poverty and Economic Reforms in India”. In Raka Ray and Fainsod Katzenstein, eds, Social Movements in India Poverty, Power and Politics. London: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, pp. 179‐202.

 

 

Scott. J. 1987, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance Yale University Press.

Dwivedi, Ranjit. 2010. Parks, People and Protest: The Mediating Role of Environmental Action Groups”, in T. K. Oommen, ed., Social Movements: Concerns of Equity and Security. Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 297-316. 148

Earl, Jennifer, Jayson Hunt, R. Kelly Garrett & Aysenur Dal. 2015. ‘New Technologies and Social Movements’, in Donatella Della Porta & Mario Diani (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Social Movements, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 355-366

Eyerman, Ron & Andrew Jamison. 1998. ‘Politics and Music in the 1960s’, in Music and Social Movements: Mobilizing Traditions in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Hardtman, Eva-Maria. 2009. “Dalit Activities in Lucknow: Buddhism and Party Politics in Local Practice”. In Eva-Maria, Hardtman, The Dalit Movement in India: Local Practices, Global Connections. Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 124-158.

McAdam, Doug. 2000. ‘Culture and Social Movements’, in Lane Crothers & Charles Lockhart (eds). Culture and Politics, Palgrave Macmillan, p. 253-268

McAdam, Doug. 2003. ‘Beyond Structural Analysis: Toward a More Dynamic Understanding of Social movements’, in Social Movements and Networks, Mario Diani and Doug McAdam (eds.), p. 281-298.

Melucci, Alberto. 1985. ‘The Symbolic Challenge of Contemporary Movements’, Social Research, Vol. 52, No. 4, pp. 789-816

Nilsen, Gunvald Alf.2009. “The Author and the Actors of their own Drama: Notes towards a Marxist Theory of Social Movements”, Capital and Class, 33:3, p. 109-139.

 

Meyer, David S. and Nancy Whittier, 1994, Social Movement Spillover, Social Problems, Vol. 41, No. 2, Pp. 277-298. https://webfiles.uci.edu/dmeyer/spillover.sp.pdf Porta Donatella Della.

Crossley, Nick, 2002, Making Sense of Social Movements, Open University Press, Buckingham