NCERT Textbook - Introducing Indian Society | Old & New NCERTs for IAS Preparation (Must Read) - UPSC PDF Download

 Page 1


Introducing Indian Society
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Introducing Indian Society
1
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Indian Society
2
In one important sense, Sociology is unlike any other subject that you may 
have studied.  It is a subject in which no one starts from zero – everyone 
already knows something about society. Other subjects are learnt because 
they are taught (at school, at home, or elsewhere); but much of our knowledge 
about society is acquired without explicit teaching.  Because it is such an 
integral part of the process of growing up, knowledge about society seems to 
be acquired “naturally” or “automatically”.  No child is expected to already 
know something about History, Geography, Psychology or Economics when 
they come to school.  But even a six year old already knows something about 
society and social relationships.  It is all the more true then, that, as young 
eighteen year old adults, you know a lot about the society you live in without 
ever having studied it.
This prior knowledge or familiarity with society is both an advantage and a 
disadvantage for sociology, the discipline that studies society.  The advantage 
is that students are generally not afraid of Sociology – they feel that it can’t be 
a very hard subject to learn.  The disadvantage is that this prior knowledge can 
be a problem – in order to learn Sociology, we need to “unlearn” what we already 
know about society.  In fact, the initial stage of learning Sociology consists 
mainly of such unlearning.  This is necessary because our prior knowledge 
about society – our common sense – is acquired from a particular viewpoint.  
This is the viewpoint of the social group and the social environment that we are 
socialised into.  Our social context shapes our opinions, beliefs and expectations 
about society and social relations.  These beliefs are not necessarily wrong, 
though they can be.  The problem is that they are ‘partial’.  The word partial 
is being used here in two different senses – incomplete (the opposite of whole), 
and biased (the opposite of impartial).  So our ‘unlearnt’ knowledge or common 
sense usually allows us to see only a part of social reality; moreover, it is liable 
to be tilted towards the viewpoints and interests of our own social group.
What may be of even more interest to you is that sociology can show you what 
you look like to others; it can teach you how to look at yourself ‘from the outside’, 
so to speak.  This is called ‘self-reflexivity’, or sometimes just reflexivity .  This 
is the ability to reflect upon yourself, to turn back your gaze (which is usually 
directed outward) back towards yourself.  But this self-inspection must be 
critical – i.e., it should be quick to criticise and slow to praise oneself.  
A comparable social map would tell you where you are located in society.  
For example, as a seventeen or eighteen year old, you belong to the social 
group called “young people”.  People your age or younger account for about 
forty per cent of India’s population.  You might belong to a particular regional 
or linguistic community, such as a Gujarati speaker from Gujarat or a Telugu 
speaker from Andhra Pradesh.  Depending on your parent’s occupation and 
your family income, you would also be a member of an economic class, such 
as lower middle class or upper class.  You could be a member of a particular 
religious community, a caste or tribe, or other such social group.  Each of 
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Introducing Indian Society
1
Chapter 1.indd   1 6/17/2022   3:29:50 PM
2024-25
Indian Society
2
In one important sense, Sociology is unlike any other subject that you may 
have studied.  It is a subject in which no one starts from zero – everyone 
already knows something about society. Other subjects are learnt because 
they are taught (at school, at home, or elsewhere); but much of our knowledge 
about society is acquired without explicit teaching.  Because it is such an 
integral part of the process of growing up, knowledge about society seems to 
be acquired “naturally” or “automatically”.  No child is expected to already 
know something about History, Geography, Psychology or Economics when 
they come to school.  But even a six year old already knows something about 
society and social relationships.  It is all the more true then, that, as young 
eighteen year old adults, you know a lot about the society you live in without 
ever having studied it.
This prior knowledge or familiarity with society is both an advantage and a 
disadvantage for sociology, the discipline that studies society.  The advantage 
is that students are generally not afraid of Sociology – they feel that it can’t be 
a very hard subject to learn.  The disadvantage is that this prior knowledge can 
be a problem – in order to learn Sociology, we need to “unlearn” what we already 
know about society.  In fact, the initial stage of learning Sociology consists 
mainly of such unlearning.  This is necessary because our prior knowledge 
about society – our common sense – is acquired from a particular viewpoint.  
This is the viewpoint of the social group and the social environment that we are 
socialised into.  Our social context shapes our opinions, beliefs and expectations 
about society and social relations.  These beliefs are not necessarily wrong, 
though they can be.  The problem is that they are ‘partial’.  The word partial 
is being used here in two different senses – incomplete (the opposite of whole), 
and biased (the opposite of impartial).  So our ‘unlearnt’ knowledge or common 
sense usually allows us to see only a part of social reality; moreover, it is liable 
to be tilted towards the viewpoints and interests of our own social group.
What may be of even more interest to you is that sociology can show you what 
you look like to others; it can teach you how to look at yourself ‘from the outside’, 
so to speak.  This is called ‘self-reflexivity’, or sometimes just reflexivity .  This 
is the ability to reflect upon yourself, to turn back your gaze (which is usually 
directed outward) back towards yourself.  But this self-inspection must be 
critical – i.e., it should be quick to criticise and slow to praise oneself.  
A comparable social map would tell you where you are located in society.  
For example, as a seventeen or eighteen year old, you belong to the social 
group called “young people”.  People your age or younger account for about 
forty per cent of India’s population.  You might belong to a particular regional 
or linguistic community, such as a Gujarati speaker from Gujarat or a Telugu 
speaker from Andhra Pradesh.  Depending on your parent’s occupation and 
your family income, you would also be a member of an economic class, such 
as lower middle class or upper class.  You could be a member of a particular 
religious community, a caste or tribe, or other such social group.  Each of 
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Introducing Indian Society
3
these identities would locate you on a social map, and among a web of social 
relationships.  Sociology tells you about what kinds of groups or groupings 
there are in society, what their relationships are to each other, and what this 
might mean in terms of your own life.
But sociology can do more than simply help to locate you or others in this 
simple sense of describing the places of different social groups.  As C.Wright 
Mills, a well-known American sociologist has written, sociology can help you to 
map the links and connections between “personal troubles” and “social issues”.  
By personal troubles Mills means the kinds of individual worries, problems or 
concerns that everyone has.  So, for example, you may be unhappy about the 
way elders in your family treat you or how your brothers, sisters or friends treat 
you.  You may be worried about your future and what sort of job you might 
get. Other aspects of your individual identity may be sources of pride, tension, 
confidence or embarrassment in different ways.  But all of these are about one 
person and derive meaning from this personalised perspective. A social issue, 
on the other hand, is about large groups and not about the individuals who 
make them up.  
This entire book is meant to introduce you to Indian society from a 
sociological rather than common sense point of view.  What can be said by way 
of an introduction to this introduction?  Perhaps it would be appropriate at this 
point to indicate in advance the larger processes that were at work in shaping 
Indian society, processes that you will encounter in detail in the pages to follow.
1.2 A Preview of this Book In this, the first of two textbooks on sociology, you will be introduced to the 
basic structure of Indian society.  (The second textbook will be focussed on the 
specifics of social change and development in India.)
We begin with a discussion of the demographic structure of the Indian 
population (Chapter 2).  As you know, India is currently the second most 
populous country in the world, and in a few decades is projected to overtake 
China and become the most populous country in the world.  What are the ways 
in which sociologists and demographers study a population?  Which aspects of 
the population are socially significant, and what has been happening on these 
fronts in the Indian case?  Is our population simply an obstacle to development, 
or can it also be seen as helping development in some ways?  These are some 
of the questions that this chapter tries to tackle.  
In Chapter 3, we revisit the basic building blocks of Indian society in the 
form of the institutions of caste, tribe and family. As a unique feature of the 
Indian subcontinent, caste has always attracted a lot of scholarly attention. 
How has this institution been changing over the centuries, and what does 
caste really mean today?  What is the context in which the concept of ‘tribe’ 
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Introducing Indian Society
1
Chapter 1.indd   1 6/17/2022   3:29:50 PM
2024-25
Indian Society
2
In one important sense, Sociology is unlike any other subject that you may 
have studied.  It is a subject in which no one starts from zero – everyone 
already knows something about society. Other subjects are learnt because 
they are taught (at school, at home, or elsewhere); but much of our knowledge 
about society is acquired without explicit teaching.  Because it is such an 
integral part of the process of growing up, knowledge about society seems to 
be acquired “naturally” or “automatically”.  No child is expected to already 
know something about History, Geography, Psychology or Economics when 
they come to school.  But even a six year old already knows something about 
society and social relationships.  It is all the more true then, that, as young 
eighteen year old adults, you know a lot about the society you live in without 
ever having studied it.
This prior knowledge or familiarity with society is both an advantage and a 
disadvantage for sociology, the discipline that studies society.  The advantage 
is that students are generally not afraid of Sociology – they feel that it can’t be 
a very hard subject to learn.  The disadvantage is that this prior knowledge can 
be a problem – in order to learn Sociology, we need to “unlearn” what we already 
know about society.  In fact, the initial stage of learning Sociology consists 
mainly of such unlearning.  This is necessary because our prior knowledge 
about society – our common sense – is acquired from a particular viewpoint.  
This is the viewpoint of the social group and the social environment that we are 
socialised into.  Our social context shapes our opinions, beliefs and expectations 
about society and social relations.  These beliefs are not necessarily wrong, 
though they can be.  The problem is that they are ‘partial’.  The word partial 
is being used here in two different senses – incomplete (the opposite of whole), 
and biased (the opposite of impartial).  So our ‘unlearnt’ knowledge or common 
sense usually allows us to see only a part of social reality; moreover, it is liable 
to be tilted towards the viewpoints and interests of our own social group.
What may be of even more interest to you is that sociology can show you what 
you look like to others; it can teach you how to look at yourself ‘from the outside’, 
so to speak.  This is called ‘self-reflexivity’, or sometimes just reflexivity .  This 
is the ability to reflect upon yourself, to turn back your gaze (which is usually 
directed outward) back towards yourself.  But this self-inspection must be 
critical – i.e., it should be quick to criticise and slow to praise oneself.  
A comparable social map would tell you where you are located in society.  
For example, as a seventeen or eighteen year old, you belong to the social 
group called “young people”.  People your age or younger account for about 
forty per cent of India’s population.  You might belong to a particular regional 
or linguistic community, such as a Gujarati speaker from Gujarat or a Telugu 
speaker from Andhra Pradesh.  Depending on your parent’s occupation and 
your family income, you would also be a member of an economic class, such 
as lower middle class or upper class.  You could be a member of a particular 
religious community, a caste or tribe, or other such social group.  Each of 
Chapter 1.indd   2 6/17/2022   3:29:50 PM
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Introducing Indian Society
3
these identities would locate you on a social map, and among a web of social 
relationships.  Sociology tells you about what kinds of groups or groupings 
there are in society, what their relationships are to each other, and what this 
might mean in terms of your own life.
But sociology can do more than simply help to locate you or others in this 
simple sense of describing the places of different social groups.  As C.Wright 
Mills, a well-known American sociologist has written, sociology can help you to 
map the links and connections between “personal troubles” and “social issues”.  
By personal troubles Mills means the kinds of individual worries, problems or 
concerns that everyone has.  So, for example, you may be unhappy about the 
way elders in your family treat you or how your brothers, sisters or friends treat 
you.  You may be worried about your future and what sort of job you might 
get. Other aspects of your individual identity may be sources of pride, tension, 
confidence or embarrassment in different ways.  But all of these are about one 
person and derive meaning from this personalised perspective. A social issue, 
on the other hand, is about large groups and not about the individuals who 
make them up.  
This entire book is meant to introduce you to Indian society from a 
sociological rather than common sense point of view.  What can be said by way 
of an introduction to this introduction?  Perhaps it would be appropriate at this 
point to indicate in advance the larger processes that were at work in shaping 
Indian society, processes that you will encounter in detail in the pages to follow.
1.2 A Preview of this Book In this, the first of two textbooks on sociology, you will be introduced to the 
basic structure of Indian society.  (The second textbook will be focussed on the 
specifics of social change and development in India.)
We begin with a discussion of the demographic structure of the Indian 
population (Chapter 2).  As you know, India is currently the second most 
populous country in the world, and in a few decades is projected to overtake 
China and become the most populous country in the world.  What are the ways 
in which sociologists and demographers study a population?  Which aspects of 
the population are socially significant, and what has been happening on these 
fronts in the Indian case?  Is our population simply an obstacle to development, 
or can it also be seen as helping development in some ways?  These are some 
of the questions that this chapter tries to tackle.  
In Chapter 3, we revisit the basic building blocks of Indian society in the 
form of the institutions of caste, tribe and family. As a unique feature of the 
Indian subcontinent, caste has always attracted a lot of scholarly attention. 
How has this institution been changing over the centuries, and what does 
caste really mean today?  What is the context in which the concept of ‘tribe’ 
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Indian Society
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was introduced into India? What sorts of communities are tribes supposed to 
be, and what is at stake in defining them as such? How do tribal communities 
define themselves in contemporary India?  Finally, the family as an institution 
has also been subjected to tremendous pressure in these times of rapid and 
intense social change. What changes do we see in the diverse forms of the family 
that exist in India?  By addressing questions like these, Chapter 3 builds the 
base for looking at further aspects of Indian society which would pre-suppose 
caste, tribe and family.
Chapter 4 explores the socio-cultural dimensions of the market as a powerful 
institution that has been the vehicle of change throughout world history. Given 
that the most sweeping and rapid economic changes were brought about first 
by colonialism and then by developmental policies, this chapter looks at how 
markets of different kinds have evolved in India, and the chain reactions they 
set in motion.  
Among the features of our society that have been the cause of greatest 
concern are its seemingly unlimited capacity for generating inequality and 
exclusion. Chapter 5 is devoted to this important subject. Chapter 5 looks at 
inequality and exclusion in the context of caste, tribe, gender and the ‘disabled’. 
Notorious as an instrument of division and injustice, the caste system has been 
the object of concerted attempts by the state and by the oppressed castes to 
reform or even abolish it.  What are the concrete problems and issues that this 
attempt faced?  How successful have movements to resist caste exclusion been 
in our recent past? What have been the special problems of tribal movements? 
In what context are tribal identities reasserting themselves today? Similar 
questions are dealt with in the context of gender relations, and the ‘disabled’. 
To what extent is our society responsive to the needs of the disabled? How 
much of an impact has the women’s movement had on the social institutions 
that have oppressed women?  
Chapter 6 deals with the difficult challenges posed by the immense diversity 
of Indian society.  This chapter invites us to step outside our normal, comfortable 
ways of thinking.  The familiar cliches and slogans about India being a land of 
unity in diversity have a hard and complex side to them.  Despite all the failures 
and inadequacies, India has not done too badly on this front. What have been 
our strengths and our weaknesses? How may young adults face issues like 
communal conflict, regional or linguistic chauvinism, and casteism without 
either wishing them away or being overwhelmed by them? Why is it important 
for our collective future as a nation that every minority in India not feel that 
it is insecure or at risk?
Finally, in Chapter 7, some suggestions are provided for you and your 
teachers to think about the practical component of your course.  This can be 
quite interesting and enjoyable, as you will discover.
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