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Change and
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Change and
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Social Change and Development in India
60
Bollywood in Mumbai, Maharashtra may be a place of dreams for you and
me, but for many, it is their place of work. Like any industry, the workers there
are part of unions. For instance, the dancers, stunt artists and the extras are
all part of a junior artists association, whose demands include 8 hours shifts,
proper wages and safe working conditions. The products of this industry are
advertised and marketed through film distributors and cinema hall owners or
through shops in the form of music cassettes and videos. And the people who
work in this industry, as in any other, live in the same city, but depending on
who they are and how much they earn, they do very different things in that
city. Film stars and textile mill owners live in places like Juhu, while extras and
textile workers may live in places like Girangaon. Some go to five star hotels
and eat Japanese sushi and some eat vada pav from the local handcart. The
residents of Mumbai are divided by where they live, what they eat and how much
their clothes cost. But they are also united by certain common things that a city
provides – they watch the same films and cricket matches, they suffer from the
same air pollution and they all have aspirations for their children to do well.
How and where people work and what kind of jobs they have is an important
part of who they are. In this chapter, we will see how changes in technology or
the kind of work that is available has changed social relations in India. On the
other hand, social institutions like caste, kinship networks, gender and region
also influence the way that work is organised or the way in which products are
marketed. This is a major area of research for sociologists.
For instance, why do we find more women in certain jobs like nursing or
teaching than in other sectors like engineering? Is this just a coincidence or
is it because society thinks that women are suited for caring and nurturing
work as against jobs which are seen as ‘tough’ and masculine? Yet nursing is
physically much harder work than designing a bridge. If more women move
into engineering, how will that affect the profession? Ask yourself why some
coffee advertisements in India display two cups on the package whereas in
America they show one cup? The answer is that for many Indians drinking
coffee is not an individual wake up activity, but an occasion to socialise with
others. Sociologists are interested in the questions of who produces what, who
works where, who sells to whom and how. These are not individual choices, but
outcomes of social patterns. In turn, the choices that people make influences
how society works.
5.1 Images of Industr Ial s oc Iety Many of the great works of sociology were written at a time when industrialisation
was new and machinery was assuming great importance. Thinkers like Karl
Marx, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim associated a number of social features
with industry, such as urbanisation, the loss of face-to-face relationships
that were found in rural areas where people worked on their own farms or
Chapter 5.indd 60 14 September 2022 12:04:15
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Page 3
Change and
Development in
Industrial Society
5
Chapter 5.indd 59 14 September 2022 12:04:14
Reprint 2024-25
Social Change and Development in India
60
Bollywood in Mumbai, Maharashtra may be a place of dreams for you and
me, but for many, it is their place of work. Like any industry, the workers there
are part of unions. For instance, the dancers, stunt artists and the extras are
all part of a junior artists association, whose demands include 8 hours shifts,
proper wages and safe working conditions. The products of this industry are
advertised and marketed through film distributors and cinema hall owners or
through shops in the form of music cassettes and videos. And the people who
work in this industry, as in any other, live in the same city, but depending on
who they are and how much they earn, they do very different things in that
city. Film stars and textile mill owners live in places like Juhu, while extras and
textile workers may live in places like Girangaon. Some go to five star hotels
and eat Japanese sushi and some eat vada pav from the local handcart. The
residents of Mumbai are divided by where they live, what they eat and how much
their clothes cost. But they are also united by certain common things that a city
provides – they watch the same films and cricket matches, they suffer from the
same air pollution and they all have aspirations for their children to do well.
How and where people work and what kind of jobs they have is an important
part of who they are. In this chapter, we will see how changes in technology or
the kind of work that is available has changed social relations in India. On the
other hand, social institutions like caste, kinship networks, gender and region
also influence the way that work is organised or the way in which products are
marketed. This is a major area of research for sociologists.
For instance, why do we find more women in certain jobs like nursing or
teaching than in other sectors like engineering? Is this just a coincidence or
is it because society thinks that women are suited for caring and nurturing
work as against jobs which are seen as ‘tough’ and masculine? Yet nursing is
physically much harder work than designing a bridge. If more women move
into engineering, how will that affect the profession? Ask yourself why some
coffee advertisements in India display two cups on the package whereas in
America they show one cup? The answer is that for many Indians drinking
coffee is not an individual wake up activity, but an occasion to socialise with
others. Sociologists are interested in the questions of who produces what, who
works where, who sells to whom and how. These are not individual choices, but
outcomes of social patterns. In turn, the choices that people make influences
how society works.
5.1 Images of Industr Ial s oc Iety Many of the great works of sociology were written at a time when industrialisation
was new and machinery was assuming great importance. Thinkers like Karl
Marx, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim associated a number of social features
with industry, such as urbanisation, the loss of face-to-face relationships
that were found in rural areas where people worked on their own farms or
Chapter 5.indd 60 14 September 2022 12:04:15
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Change and Development in Industrial Society
61
for a landlord they knew, and their substitution by
anonymous professional relationships in modern
factories and workplaces. Industrialisation involves a
detailed division of labour. People often do not see the
end result of their work because they are producing
only one small part of a product. The work is often
repetitive and exhausting. Yet, even this is better
than having no work at all, i.e., being unemployed.
Marx called this situation alienation, when people
do not enjoy work, and see it as something they have
to do only in order to survive, and even that survival
depends on whether the technology has room for any
human labour.
Industrialisation leads to greater equality, at least
in some spheres. For example, caste distinctions do
not matter any more on trains, buses or in cyber cafes.
On the other hand, older forms of discrimination may
persist even in new factory or workplace settings.
And even as social inequalities are reducing, economic or income inequality
is growing in the world. Often social inequality and income inequality overlap,
for example, in the domination of upper caste men in well-paying professions
like medicine, law or journalism. Women often get paid less than men for
similar work.
5.2 Industr Ial Isat Ion In Ind Ia The Specifici Ty of i ndian i ndu STriali Sa Tion The experience of industrialisation in India is in many ways similar to the western
model and in many ways different. Comparative analysis of different countries
suggests that there is no standard model of industrial capitalism. Let us start
with one point of difference, relating to what kind of work people are doing. In
developed countries, the majority of people are in the services sector, followed
by industry and less than 10% are in agriculture (ILO figures). In India, in
2018–19, nearly 43% were employed in the primary sector (agriculture and
mining), 17% in the secondary sector (manufacturing, construction and
utilities), and 32% in the tertiary sector (trade, transport, financial services, etc.)
However, if we look at the contribution of these sectors to economic growth, the
share of agriculture has declined sharply, and services contribute approximately
more than half. This is a very serious situation because it means that the
sector where the maximum people are employed is not able to generate much
income for them. In India, in 2018–19 the share of employment in agriculture
was 42.5%, in mining and quarrying 0.4%, in manufacturing it was 12.1%, in
trade, hotel and restaurant it was 12.6%, in transport, storage, communication
it was 5.9%, in community, social and personal services it was 13.8%.
According to the convergence thesis
put forward by modernisation theorist
Clark Kerr, an industrialised India of
the 21st century shares more features
with China or the United States in the
21st century than it shares with 19th
century India. Do you think this is true?
Do culture, language and tradition
disappear with new technology or does
culture influence the way people adapt
to new products? Write a page of your
own reflections on these issues, giving
examples.
a c Tivi Ty 5.1
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Change and
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Industrial Society
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Social Change and Development in India
60
Bollywood in Mumbai, Maharashtra may be a place of dreams for you and
me, but for many, it is their place of work. Like any industry, the workers there
are part of unions. For instance, the dancers, stunt artists and the extras are
all part of a junior artists association, whose demands include 8 hours shifts,
proper wages and safe working conditions. The products of this industry are
advertised and marketed through film distributors and cinema hall owners or
through shops in the form of music cassettes and videos. And the people who
work in this industry, as in any other, live in the same city, but depending on
who they are and how much they earn, they do very different things in that
city. Film stars and textile mill owners live in places like Juhu, while extras and
textile workers may live in places like Girangaon. Some go to five star hotels
and eat Japanese sushi and some eat vada pav from the local handcart. The
residents of Mumbai are divided by where they live, what they eat and how much
their clothes cost. But they are also united by certain common things that a city
provides – they watch the same films and cricket matches, they suffer from the
same air pollution and they all have aspirations for their children to do well.
How and where people work and what kind of jobs they have is an important
part of who they are. In this chapter, we will see how changes in technology or
the kind of work that is available has changed social relations in India. On the
other hand, social institutions like caste, kinship networks, gender and region
also influence the way that work is organised or the way in which products are
marketed. This is a major area of research for sociologists.
For instance, why do we find more women in certain jobs like nursing or
teaching than in other sectors like engineering? Is this just a coincidence or
is it because society thinks that women are suited for caring and nurturing
work as against jobs which are seen as ‘tough’ and masculine? Yet nursing is
physically much harder work than designing a bridge. If more women move
into engineering, how will that affect the profession? Ask yourself why some
coffee advertisements in India display two cups on the package whereas in
America they show one cup? The answer is that for many Indians drinking
coffee is not an individual wake up activity, but an occasion to socialise with
others. Sociologists are interested in the questions of who produces what, who
works where, who sells to whom and how. These are not individual choices, but
outcomes of social patterns. In turn, the choices that people make influences
how society works.
5.1 Images of Industr Ial s oc Iety Many of the great works of sociology were written at a time when industrialisation
was new and machinery was assuming great importance. Thinkers like Karl
Marx, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim associated a number of social features
with industry, such as urbanisation, the loss of face-to-face relationships
that were found in rural areas where people worked on their own farms or
Chapter 5.indd 60 14 September 2022 12:04:15
Reprint 2024-25
Change and Development in Industrial Society
61
for a landlord they knew, and their substitution by
anonymous professional relationships in modern
factories and workplaces. Industrialisation involves a
detailed division of labour. People often do not see the
end result of their work because they are producing
only one small part of a product. The work is often
repetitive and exhausting. Yet, even this is better
than having no work at all, i.e., being unemployed.
Marx called this situation alienation, when people
do not enjoy work, and see it as something they have
to do only in order to survive, and even that survival
depends on whether the technology has room for any
human labour.
Industrialisation leads to greater equality, at least
in some spheres. For example, caste distinctions do
not matter any more on trains, buses or in cyber cafes.
On the other hand, older forms of discrimination may
persist even in new factory or workplace settings.
And even as social inequalities are reducing, economic or income inequality
is growing in the world. Often social inequality and income inequality overlap,
for example, in the domination of upper caste men in well-paying professions
like medicine, law or journalism. Women often get paid less than men for
similar work.
5.2 Industr Ial Isat Ion In Ind Ia The Specifici Ty of i ndian i ndu STriali Sa Tion The experience of industrialisation in India is in many ways similar to the western
model and in many ways different. Comparative analysis of different countries
suggests that there is no standard model of industrial capitalism. Let us start
with one point of difference, relating to what kind of work people are doing. In
developed countries, the majority of people are in the services sector, followed
by industry and less than 10% are in agriculture (ILO figures). In India, in
2018–19, nearly 43% were employed in the primary sector (agriculture and
mining), 17% in the secondary sector (manufacturing, construction and
utilities), and 32% in the tertiary sector (trade, transport, financial services, etc.)
However, if we look at the contribution of these sectors to economic growth, the
share of agriculture has declined sharply, and services contribute approximately
more than half. This is a very serious situation because it means that the
sector where the maximum people are employed is not able to generate much
income for them. In India, in 2018–19 the share of employment in agriculture
was 42.5%, in mining and quarrying 0.4%, in manufacturing it was 12.1%, in
trade, hotel and restaurant it was 12.6%, in transport, storage, communication
it was 5.9%, in community, social and personal services it was 13.8%.
According to the convergence thesis
put forward by modernisation theorist
Clark Kerr, an industrialised India of
the 21st century shares more features
with China or the United States in the
21st century than it shares with 19th
century India. Do you think this is true?
Do culture, language and tradition
disappear with new technology or does
culture influence the way people adapt
to new products? Write a page of your
own reflections on these issues, giving
examples.
a c Tivi Ty 5.1
Chapter 5.indd 61 14 September 2022 12:04:15
Reprint 2024-25
Social Change and Development in India
62
Another major difference
between developing and
developed countries is the
number of people in regular
salaried employment. In
developed countries, the majority
are formally employed. In India,
over 52% of the workers are self-
employed, only about 24% are
in regular salaried employment,
while approximately 24% are
in casual labour. The adjacent
chart shows the changes between
1972–73 and 2018–2019.
Economists and others often
make a distinction between the organised or formal and unorganised or informal
sector. There is a debate over how to define these sectors. According to one
definition, the organised sector consists of all units employing ten or more people
throughout the year. These have to be registered with the government to ensure
that their employees get proper salaries or wages, pension and other benefits.
In India, over 90% of the work, whether it is in agriculture, industry or services
is in the unorganised or informal sector. What are the social implications of
this small size of the organised sector?
First, it means that very few people have the experience of employment in
large firms where they get to meet people from other regions and backgrounds.
Urban settings do provide some corrective to this – your neighbours in a city
may be from a different place – but by and large, work for most Indians is still
in smallscale workplaces. Here personal relationships determine many aspects
of work. If the employer likes you, you may get a salary raise, and if you have
a fight with him or her, you may lose your job. This is different from a large
organisation with well-defined rules, where recruitment is more transparent
and there are mechanisms for complaints and redressal if you disagree with
your immediate superior. Second, very few Indians have access to secure jobs
with benefits. Of those who do, two-thirds work for the government. This is why
people strive hard to get into government jobs. The rest are forced to depend on
their children in their old age. Government employment in India has played a
major role in overcoming boundaries of caste, religion and region. One sociologist
has argued that the reason why there have never been communal riots in a
place like Bhilai is because the public sector Bhilai Steel Plant employs people
from all over India who work together. Others may question this. Third, since
very few people are members of unions, a feature of the organised sector, the
unorganised or informal sector workers do not have the experience of collectively
fighting for proper wages and safe working conditions. The government has
laws to monitor conditions in the unorganised sector, but in practice they are
left to the whims and fancies of the employer or contractor.
Distribution of workers in India by employment status, 1972–2019
Chapter 5.indd 62 14 September 2022 12:04:15
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Page 5
Change and
Development in
Industrial Society
5
Chapter 5.indd 59 14 September 2022 12:04:14
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Social Change and Development in India
60
Bollywood in Mumbai, Maharashtra may be a place of dreams for you and
me, but for many, it is their place of work. Like any industry, the workers there
are part of unions. For instance, the dancers, stunt artists and the extras are
all part of a junior artists association, whose demands include 8 hours shifts,
proper wages and safe working conditions. The products of this industry are
advertised and marketed through film distributors and cinema hall owners or
through shops in the form of music cassettes and videos. And the people who
work in this industry, as in any other, live in the same city, but depending on
who they are and how much they earn, they do very different things in that
city. Film stars and textile mill owners live in places like Juhu, while extras and
textile workers may live in places like Girangaon. Some go to five star hotels
and eat Japanese sushi and some eat vada pav from the local handcart. The
residents of Mumbai are divided by where they live, what they eat and how much
their clothes cost. But they are also united by certain common things that a city
provides – they watch the same films and cricket matches, they suffer from the
same air pollution and they all have aspirations for their children to do well.
How and where people work and what kind of jobs they have is an important
part of who they are. In this chapter, we will see how changes in technology or
the kind of work that is available has changed social relations in India. On the
other hand, social institutions like caste, kinship networks, gender and region
also influence the way that work is organised or the way in which products are
marketed. This is a major area of research for sociologists.
For instance, why do we find more women in certain jobs like nursing or
teaching than in other sectors like engineering? Is this just a coincidence or
is it because society thinks that women are suited for caring and nurturing
work as against jobs which are seen as ‘tough’ and masculine? Yet nursing is
physically much harder work than designing a bridge. If more women move
into engineering, how will that affect the profession? Ask yourself why some
coffee advertisements in India display two cups on the package whereas in
America they show one cup? The answer is that for many Indians drinking
coffee is not an individual wake up activity, but an occasion to socialise with
others. Sociologists are interested in the questions of who produces what, who
works where, who sells to whom and how. These are not individual choices, but
outcomes of social patterns. In turn, the choices that people make influences
how society works.
5.1 Images of Industr Ial s oc Iety Many of the great works of sociology were written at a time when industrialisation
was new and machinery was assuming great importance. Thinkers like Karl
Marx, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim associated a number of social features
with industry, such as urbanisation, the loss of face-to-face relationships
that were found in rural areas where people worked on their own farms or
Chapter 5.indd 60 14 September 2022 12:04:15
Reprint 2024-25
Change and Development in Industrial Society
61
for a landlord they knew, and their substitution by
anonymous professional relationships in modern
factories and workplaces. Industrialisation involves a
detailed division of labour. People often do not see the
end result of their work because they are producing
only one small part of a product. The work is often
repetitive and exhausting. Yet, even this is better
than having no work at all, i.e., being unemployed.
Marx called this situation alienation, when people
do not enjoy work, and see it as something they have
to do only in order to survive, and even that survival
depends on whether the technology has room for any
human labour.
Industrialisation leads to greater equality, at least
in some spheres. For example, caste distinctions do
not matter any more on trains, buses or in cyber cafes.
On the other hand, older forms of discrimination may
persist even in new factory or workplace settings.
And even as social inequalities are reducing, economic or income inequality
is growing in the world. Often social inequality and income inequality overlap,
for example, in the domination of upper caste men in well-paying professions
like medicine, law or journalism. Women often get paid less than men for
similar work.
5.2 Industr Ial Isat Ion In Ind Ia The Specifici Ty of i ndian i ndu STriali Sa Tion The experience of industrialisation in India is in many ways similar to the western
model and in many ways different. Comparative analysis of different countries
suggests that there is no standard model of industrial capitalism. Let us start
with one point of difference, relating to what kind of work people are doing. In
developed countries, the majority of people are in the services sector, followed
by industry and less than 10% are in agriculture (ILO figures). In India, in
2018–19, nearly 43% were employed in the primary sector (agriculture and
mining), 17% in the secondary sector (manufacturing, construction and
utilities), and 32% in the tertiary sector (trade, transport, financial services, etc.)
However, if we look at the contribution of these sectors to economic growth, the
share of agriculture has declined sharply, and services contribute approximately
more than half. This is a very serious situation because it means that the
sector where the maximum people are employed is not able to generate much
income for them. In India, in 2018–19 the share of employment in agriculture
was 42.5%, in mining and quarrying 0.4%, in manufacturing it was 12.1%, in
trade, hotel and restaurant it was 12.6%, in transport, storage, communication
it was 5.9%, in community, social and personal services it was 13.8%.
According to the convergence thesis
put forward by modernisation theorist
Clark Kerr, an industrialised India of
the 21st century shares more features
with China or the United States in the
21st century than it shares with 19th
century India. Do you think this is true?
Do culture, language and tradition
disappear with new technology or does
culture influence the way people adapt
to new products? Write a page of your
own reflections on these issues, giving
examples.
a c Tivi Ty 5.1
Chapter 5.indd 61 14 September 2022 12:04:15
Reprint 2024-25
Social Change and Development in India
62
Another major difference
between developing and
developed countries is the
number of people in regular
salaried employment. In
developed countries, the majority
are formally employed. In India,
over 52% of the workers are self-
employed, only about 24% are
in regular salaried employment,
while approximately 24% are
in casual labour. The adjacent
chart shows the changes between
1972–73 and 2018–2019.
Economists and others often
make a distinction between the organised or formal and unorganised or informal
sector. There is a debate over how to define these sectors. According to one
definition, the organised sector consists of all units employing ten or more people
throughout the year. These have to be registered with the government to ensure
that their employees get proper salaries or wages, pension and other benefits.
In India, over 90% of the work, whether it is in agriculture, industry or services
is in the unorganised or informal sector. What are the social implications of
this small size of the organised sector?
First, it means that very few people have the experience of employment in
large firms where they get to meet people from other regions and backgrounds.
Urban settings do provide some corrective to this – your neighbours in a city
may be from a different place – but by and large, work for most Indians is still
in smallscale workplaces. Here personal relationships determine many aspects
of work. If the employer likes you, you may get a salary raise, and if you have
a fight with him or her, you may lose your job. This is different from a large
organisation with well-defined rules, where recruitment is more transparent
and there are mechanisms for complaints and redressal if you disagree with
your immediate superior. Second, very few Indians have access to secure jobs
with benefits. Of those who do, two-thirds work for the government. This is why
people strive hard to get into government jobs. The rest are forced to depend on
their children in their old age. Government employment in India has played a
major role in overcoming boundaries of caste, religion and region. One sociologist
has argued that the reason why there have never been communal riots in a
place like Bhilai is because the public sector Bhilai Steel Plant employs people
from all over India who work together. Others may question this. Third, since
very few people are members of unions, a feature of the organised sector, the
unorganised or informal sector workers do not have the experience of collectively
fighting for proper wages and safe working conditions. The government has
laws to monitor conditions in the unorganised sector, but in practice they are
left to the whims and fancies of the employer or contractor.
Distribution of workers in India by employment status, 1972–2019
Chapter 5.indd 62 14 September 2022 12:04:15
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Change and Development in Industrial Society
63
Globali Sa Tion , l iberali Sa Tion and Chan Ge S in i ndian Indu STry Since the 1990s, the government has followed a policy of liberalisation. Private
companies, especially foreign firms, are encouraged to invest in sectors earlier
reserved for the government, including telecom, civil aviation, power, etc. Licenses
are no longer required to open industries. Foreign products are now easily
available in Indian shops. As a result of liberalisation, many Indian companies—
small and large, have been bought over by multinationals. At the same time some
Indian companies are becoming multinational companies. An instance of the
first is when, Parle drinks was bought by Coca Cola. Parle’s annual turnover was
` 250 crores, while Coca Cola’s advertising budget alone was ` 400 crores. This
level of advertising has naturally increased the consumption of coke across
India replacing many traditional drinks. The next major area of liberalisation is
in retail. Do you think that Indians will prefer to shop in grocery stores, small
textile shops in your neighbourhood or in small towns, departmental stores,
or will they go out of business?
The government is trying to sell its share in several public sector companies,
a process which is known as disinvestment. Many government workers are
scared that after disinvestment, they will lose their jobs. In ‘Modern Foods’,
which was set up by the government to make healthy bread available at cheap
prices, and which was the first company to be privatised, 60% of the workers
were forced to retire in the first five years.
More and more companies are reducing the number of permanent
employees and outsourcing their work to smaller companies or even to homes.
For multinational companies, this outsourcing is done across the globe,
with developing countries like India providing cheap labour. Because small
companies have to compete for orders from the big companies, they keep wages
low, and working conditions are often poor. It is more difficult for trade unions
to organise in smaller firms. Almost all companies, even government ones, now
practice some form of outsourcing and contracting. But the trend is especially
visible in the private sector.
To summarise, India is still largely an agricultural country. The service
sector – shops, banks, the IT industry, hotels and other services are employing
more people and the urban middle class is growing, along with urban middle
class values like those we see in television serials and films. But we also see
that very few people in India have access to secure jobs, with even the small
number in regular salaried employment becoming more insecure due to the
rise in contract labour. So far, employment by the government was a major
avenue for increasing the well-being of the population, but now even that is
coming down. Some economists debate this, but liberalisation and privatisation
worldwide appear to be associated with rising income inequality. You will be
reading more about this in the next chapter on globalisation.
At the same time as secure employment in large industry is declining,
the government is embarking on a policy of land acquisition for industry.
Chapter 5.indd 63 14 September 2022 12:04:15
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