Social Classes In India

Answer : Some upper middle and middle class women in urban India have reaped some benefits of modernization through educational opportunities provided by educational institutions and the tertiary sector of urban industrial India is need of kinds of these skills women can provide.

Though it has provided benefits to urban women but their status still low in Indian society is still patriarchal and male dominant society, which becomes a subject matter of sociology in contemporary India. R. Bhatia ....

Answer : Historically, Indian society was not divided in classes. It was the caste system which was central to the Indian social arrangement. The application of class model to understand the inequalities present in rural India is a relatively new phenomenon.

Karl Marx pointed out that there is class dimension hidden behind the caste system. As most of the poor belong to lower castes, this assertion can’t be neglected.

This idea became more relevant when capitalistic transformation of ....

Answer : Other Backward Classes refers to the shudra group in the four fold classification of Indian caste system. They must not be confused with the scheduled castes or dalits or untouchables which were placed outside the four fold chaturvarna system. It was the British administrators who called them as backward classes as they failed to take to western education and government employment in a significant way. As Rudolph and Rudolph has pointed out these are the ....

Answer : Formal sector is a sector where the working hours are regulated, wages are fixed and employees get some benefits. The relations here are contractual. It is characterized by high productivity and efficiency. As opposed to this, the informal sector consists of economic activities characterized by small scale, low capital intensity, inferior and simple technology, low productivity, reliance primarily on family resources and labor. These are largely unregulated by labor legislation, have no formal training, and ....

Answer : Industrialization has to be seen in the overall context of modernization, urbanization and spread of secular education. It means the movement of society from agricultural society to non-agricultural society.

With industrialization, people from different castes come together and work together. It is difficult to maintain the caste based segregations in an industrial setting. Therefore, industrialization has weakened the caste system. Traditionally, the occupation of a person was associated with his caste. There were many artisans and ....

Answer : Middle class refers to a heterogeneous group of castes bound together by common lifestyle. They derive their income from modern professions such as lawyers, journalists, managers and other white collar workers in government and the private sector.

The Indian middle class owe their origin to the British rule in India. As B.B.Mishra has pointed out, the middle class developed as an intermediary and a junior ally of British. They were the middle man and the Zamindars ....

Answer : Working women are those who work both in household as well as outside the household. This led to a dual burden on them and which affects them badly leading to psycho, social and even economic deprivations.

The phenomenon of working women is a recent phenomenon in India. Traditionally, there existed a sexual division of labor where women are expected to fulfill their household duties of washing,
cooking, cleaning and child rearing and men are expected to ....

Answer : The Marxian approach views society to be made of two parts. One is the base or infrastructure coming out of the economic structure of society. This part is of main focus to explain conflict and change in society. The other being super elective comprising all other structures. Changes here are consequences of changes in economic infrastructure. These changes emerge due to the emerging tendencies manifested in the emergence of social groups. Max views social conducts ....

Answer : Globalization is a process that promotes free movement of capital goods and services, technology and labour across national borders. Since it directly involves the production process, it has a direct bearing on the structure and hence on the mobilization of working class in India. In the Indian context, globalization implies correlation of the Indian economy with the world economy.

The entire socio-economic institutional arrangement and valuational system should be so constituted that is will maintain the ....

Answer : According to Anthony Gidding, the middle class in the industrial capitalist society in general and India in particular constitute the higher professionals, managerial and administrative, lower professionals, white collar and minor supervisors. The petty shopkeepers and traders are also included in the middle class.

The new economic and estate systems brought about by the British rule required cadres of educated Indians trained in modern law, technology, medicine, economics, administration science and other subjects. In fact, it ....

Answer : According to Bottomore social classes are the characteristic feature of the industrial societies. He gives the example of capitalist society in which the capitalist and working class besides the others are mainly found. With the emergence of industrialisation, the various types of classes have come into existence mainly in the urban areas which can be categorised as: (i) capitalist (Commercial and industrialist) (ii) Professional classes (iii) Petty traders and shopkeepers and (iv) Working classes. Karl ....

Answer : The agrarian social structure chiefly refers to the pattern of relationship, social stratification, means of livelihood, customs and tradition of the people living in Indian villages. The caste system is the basic system of stratification in the agrarian society. The economy of this society is mainly based on agriculture and allied activities. Daniel Thorner has studied the emergence of class in the agrarian society and has pointed out three types of class structure namely Malik ....