class11 sociology 1 introducing so cia logy unit01 ncert textbook english edition

market that decides which subjectchoice may increase or decrease yourchances in the job market. The thirdand fourth advice complicate the mattereven more. It is not just our personaleffort or just the job market that makesa difference — our gender and family orsocial background also matter.

Individual efforts matter a great dealbut do not necessarily define outcomes.As we saw there are other social factorsthat play an important role in the finaloutcome. Here we have only mentionedthe ‘job market’, the ‘socioeconomicbackground’ and ‘gender’. Can youthink of other factors? We could wellask, “Who decides what is a ‘good job’?”Do all societies have similar notions ofwhat is a “good job?” Is money thecriteria? Or is it respect or socialrecognition or individual satisfactionthat decides the worth of a job? Doculture and social norms have any roleto play?

The individual student must studyhard to do well. But how well h/shedoes is structured by a whole set ofsocietal factors. The job market isdefined by the needs of the economy.

CHAPTER 1

SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIETY

I

INTRODUCTION

Let us begin with some suggestionsthat are often made to young studentslike you. One advice often made is,“Study hard and you will do well inlife.” The second advice as often madeis, “ If you do this subject or set ofsubjects you will have a better chanceof getting a good job in the future”. Thethird could be, “ As a boy this does notseem a correct choice of subject” or “Asa girl, do you think your choice ofsubjects is a practical one?” The fourth,“Your family needs you to get a job soonso why choose a profession that willtake a very long time” or “You will joinyour family business so why do youwish to do this subject?”

Let us examine the suggestions. Doyou think the first advice contradictsthe other three? For the first advicesuggests that if you work very hard, youwill do very well and get a good job.The onus rests upon the individual. Thesecond advice suggests that apart fromyour individual effort, there is a job

2 INTRODUCING SOCIOLOGY

The needs of the economy are againdetermined by the economic andpolitical policies pursued by thegovernment. The chances of theindividual student are affected both bythese broader political and economicmeasures as well as by the socialbackground of her/his family. Thisgives us a preliminary sense of howsociology studies human society as aninterconnected whole. And how societyand the individual interact with eachother. The problem of choosing subjectsin the senior secondary school is asource of personal worry for theindividual student. That this is abroader public issue, affecting studentsas a collective entity is self evident. Oneof the tasks of sociology is to unravelthe connection between a personalproblem and a public issue. This is thefirst theme of this chapter.

We have already seen that a ‘goodjob’ means different things to differentsocieties. The social esteem that aparticular kind of job has or does nothave for an individual depends on theculture of his/her ‘relevant society’.What do we mean by ‘relevant society’?Does it mean the ‘society’ the individualbelongs to? Which society does theindividual belong to? Is it theneighbourhood? Is it the community?Is it the caste or tribe? Is it theprofessional circle of the parents? Is itthe nation? Second, this chaptertherefore looks at how the individual inmodern times belongs to more than onesociety. And how societies are unequal.

Third, this chapter introducessociology as a systematic study ofsociety, distinct from philosophical andreligious reflections, as well as oureveryday common sense observationabout society. Fourth, this distinct wayof studying society can be betterunderstood if we look back historicallyat the intellectual ideas and materialcontexts within which sociology wasborn and later grew. These ideas andmaterial developments were mainlywestern but with global consequences.Fifth, we look at this global aspect andthe manner in which sociology emergedin India. It is important to rememberthat just as each of us have abiography, so does a discipline.Understanding the history of adiscipline helps understand thediscipline. Finally the scope of sociologyand its relationship to other disciplinesis discussed.

II

THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION:THE PERSONAL PROBLEM AND THE

PUBLIC ISSUE

We began with a set of suggestions thatdrew our attention to how the individualand society are dialectically linked. Thisis a point that sociologists over severalgenerations have been concerned with.C. Wright Mills rests his vision of thesociological imagination precisely inthe unravelling of how the personal andpublic are related.

3SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIETY

The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography andthe relations between the two within society. That is its task and promise…Perhaps the most fruitful distinction with which the sociological imaginationworks is between ‘the personal troubles of the milieu’ and ‘the public issuesof social structure’... Troubles occur within the character of the individualand within the range of his immediate relations with others; they have to dowith his self and with those limited areas of social life of which he is directlyand personally aware... Issues have to do with matters that transcend theselocal environments of the individual and the range of his inner life.The facts of contemporary history are also facts about the success and thefailure of individual men and women. When a society is industrialised, apeasant becomes a worker; a feudal lord is liquidated or becomes abusinessman. When classes rise or fall, a man is employed or unemployed;when the rate of investment goes up or down, a man takes new heart or goesbroke. When wars happen, an insurance salesman becomes a rocketlauncher; a store clerk, a radar man; a wife lives alone; a child grows upwithout a father. Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a societycan be understood without understanding both... (Mills 1959).

A homeless couple

Activity 1

Read the text from Mills carefully. Then examine the visual and report below.Do you notice how the visual is of a poor and homeless couple? The sociologicalimagination helps to understand and explain homelessness as a public issue.Can you identify what could be the causes for homelessness? Different groupsin your class can collect information on possible causes for example, employmentpossibilities, rural to urban migration, etc. Discuss these. Do you notice howthe state considers homelessness as a public issue that requires concretemeasures to be taken, for instance, the Indira Awas Yojana?

The Indira Awas Yojana,operationalised from 1999-2000 is a major scheme bythe government’s Ministry ofRural Development (MORD)and Housing and UrbanDevelopment Corporation(HUDCO) to construct housesfree of cost for the poor andthe homeless. Can you thinkof other issues that show theconnection between personalproblems and public issues?


This question of what to focus insociety is indeed central to sociology.We can take Satyajit Ray’s commentsfurther and wonder whether hisdepiction of the village is romantic.It would be interesting to contrast thiswith a sociologist’s account of the Dalitin the village below.

The first time I saw him, he wass i t t ing on the dusty road infront of one of the small thatch-roofed tea shops in the villagewi th h is g lass and saucerplaced conspicuously beside him—a silent signal to the shopkeeperthat an Untouchable wanted to buysome tea. Muli was a gaunt forty-year-old with betel-blackened teethwho wore his long hair swept back(Freeman 1978).

A quote from Amartya Sen perhapsillustrates well how inequality is centralto differences among societies.

Some Indians are rich; most arenot. Some are very well educated;others are illiterate. Some leadeasy lives of luxury; others toil hardfor little reward. Some are politicallypowerful: others cannot influenceanything. Some have greatopportunities for advancement inlife: others lack them altogether.Some are treated with respect bythe police; others are treated likedirt. These are different kinds ofinequality, and each of themrequires serious attention (Sen

2005: 210-11).

III

PLURALITIES AND INEQUALITIES

AMONG SOCIETIES

In the contemporary world we belong,in a sense, to more than one ‘society’.When amidst foreigners reference to‘our society’ may mean ‘Indian society’,but when amongst fellow Indians wemay use the term ‘our society’ to denotea linguistic or ethnic community, areligious or caste or tribal society.

This diversity makes decidingwhich ‘society’ we are talking aboutdifficult. But perhaps this difficultyof mapping society is one not confinedto sociologists alone as the commentbelow will show.

While reflecting on what to focuson in his films, the great Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray wondered:

What should you put in your films?What can you leave out? Would youleave the city behind and go to thevillage where cows graze in theendless fields and the shepherdplays the flute? You can make afilm here that would be pure andfresh and have the delicate rhythmof a boatman’s song.Or would you rather go back int ime-way back to the Epics ,where the gods and demons tooksides in the great battle wherebrothers kil led brothers…Or would you rather stay whereyou are, right in the present, inthe heart of this monstrous,teeming, bewildering city, and tryto orchestrate its dizzying contrastsof sight and sound and milieu?


Discuss the visualsWhat kind of pluralities and inequalities do they show?


everyday life and also about others’lives, about our own ‘society’ and alsoabout others’ ‘society’. These are oureveryday notions, our common sensein terms of which we live our lives.However the observations and ideasthat sociology as a discipline makesabout ‘society’ is different from both thatof philosophical reflections andcommon sense.

Observations of philosophical andreligious thinkers are often aboutwhat is moral or immoral in humanbehaviour, about the desirable way ofliving and about a good society.Sociology too concerns itself with normsand values. But its focus is not onnorms and values as they ought to be,as goals that people should pursue. Itsconcern is with the way they functionin actual societies. (In Chapter 3, youwill see how sociology of religion isdifferent from a theological study).Empirical study of societies is animportant part of what sociologists do.This however does not mean thatsociology is not concerned with values.It only means that when a sociologiststudies a society, the sociologist iswilling to observe and collect findings,even if they are not to her/his personalliking.

Peter Berger makes an unusual buteffective comparison to make the point.

Activity 2

The Economic Survey of the Government of India suggests that access tosanitation facilities is just 28 per cent. Find out about other indicators of socialinequality, for instance education, health, employment etc.

IV

INTRODUCING SOCIOLOGY

You have already been acquainted withthe sociological imagination and thecentral concern of sociology to studysociety as an interconnected whole.Our discussion on the individual’schoices and the job market showedhow the economic, political, familial,cultural, educational institutions areinterconnected. And how the individualis both constrained by it and yet canchange it to an extent. The next fewchapters will elaborate on differentinstitutions as well as on culture. It willalso focus on some key terms andconcepts in sociology that will enableyou to understand society. Forsociology is the study of human sociallife, groups and societies. Its subjectmatter is our own behaviour as socialbeings.

Sociology is not the first subject todo so. People have always observed andreflected upon societies and groups inwhich they live. This is evident in thewritings of philosophers, religiousteachers, and legislators of allcivilisations and epochs. This humantrait to think about our lives and aboutsociety is by no means confined tophilosophers and social thinkers. All ofus do have ideas about our own


In any political or military conflictit is of advantage to capture theinformation used by the intelligenceorgans of the opposing side. But thisis so only because good intelligenceconsists of information free of bias.If a spy does his/her reporting interms of the ideology and ambitionsof his/her superiors, his/herreports are useless not only to theenemy, if the latter should capturethem, but also to the spy’s ownside... The sociologist is a spy in verymuch the same way. His/her job isto report as accurately as h/shecan about a certain terrain (Berger1963:16-17).

Does this mean that the sociologisthas no social responsibility to askabout the goals of his/her study or thework to which the sociological findingswill be applied. H/she has such aresponsibility, just like any othercitizen of society. But this asking is notsociological asking. This is like thebiologist whose biological knowledgecan be employed to heal or kill. Thisdoes not mean the biologist is free ofresponsibility as to which use s/heserves. But this is not a biologicalquestion.

Sociology has from its beginningsunderstood itself as a science. Unlikecommonsensical observations orphilosophical reflections or theologicalcommentaries, sociology is bound byscientific canons of procedure. It meansthat the statements that the sociologistarrives at must be arrived at throughthe observations of certain rules of

evidence that allow others to check onor to repeat to develop his/her findingsfurther. There has been considerabledebate within sociology about thedifferences between natural science andhuman science, between quantitativeand qualitative research. We need notenter this here. But what is relevanthere is that sociology in its observationand analysis has to follow certain rulesthat can be checked upon by others.In the next section, we comparesociological knowledge to commonsense knowledge which will once againemphasise the role of methods,procedures and rules in the manner inwhich sociology conducts itsobservation of society. Chapter 5 of thisbook will provide you with a sense ofwhat sociologists do and how they goabout studying society. An elaborationof the differences between sociologyand common sense knowledge willhelp towards a clearer idea of thesociological approach and method.

V

SOCIOLOGY AND COMMON

SENSE KNOWLEDGE

We have seen how sociologicalknowledge is different from theologicaland philosophical observations.Likewise sociology is different fromcommon sense observations. Thecommon sense explanations aregenerally based on what may be called‘naturalistic’ and/or individualisticexplanation. A naturalistic explanationfor behaviour rests on the assumptionthat one can really identify ‘natural’reasons for behaviour.


ledge have been made, generallyincrementally and only rarely by adramatic breakthrough.

Sociology has a body of concepts,methods and data, no matter howloosely coordinated. This cannot besubstituted by common sense.Common sense is unreflective since itdoes not question its own origins. Orin other words it does not ask itself:“Why do I hold this view?” Thesociologist must be ready to ask of anyof our beliefs, about ourselves — nomatter how cherished — “is this reallyso?” Both the systematic and question-ing approach of sociology is derivedfrom a broader tradition of scientificinvestigation. This emphasis on

Sociology thus breaks away fromboth common sense observations andideas as well as from philosophicalthought. It does not always or evengenerally lead to spectacular results.But meaningful and unsuspectedconnections can be reached only bysifting through masses of connections.Great advances in sociological know-

Contemporary poverty is causedby the structure of inequality inclass society and is experiencedby those who suffer from chronicirregularity of work and lowwages (Jayaram 1987:3).

People are poor because they areafraid of work, come from‘problem families’, are unable tobudget properly, suffer from lowintelligence and shiftlessness.

Explanation of Naturalistic Sociological

Poverty

Activity 3

An example of poverty has beengiven below and we also touchedupon it in our discussion on thehomeless. Think of other issues andhow they could be explained in anaturalistic and sociological way.

Unsuspected Connections?

In many societies, including in many parts of India, the line of descent andinheritance passes from father to son. This is understood as a patrilineal system.Keeping in mind that women tend not to get property rights, the Government ofIndia in the aftermath of the Kargil War decided that financial compensation forthe death of Indian soldiers should go to their widows so that they were providedfor.

The government had certainly not anticipated the unintended consequenceof this decision. It led to many forced marriages of the widows with their brother-in-law (husband’s brother or dewar). In some cases the brother-in-law (thenhusband) was a young child and the sister-in-law (then wife) a young woman.This was to ensure that the compensation remained with the deceased man’spatrilineal family. Can you think of other such unintended consequences of asocial action or a state measure?


scientific procedures can be understoodonly if we go back in time. Andunderstand the context or socialsituation within which the sociologicalperspective emerged as sociology wasgreatly influenced by the greatdevelopments in modern science. Let ushave a very brief look at whatintellectual ideas went into the makingof sociology.

VI

THE INTELLECTUAL IDEAS THAT WENT

INTO THE MAKING OF SOCIOLOGY

Influenced by scientific theories ofnatural evolution and findings aboutpre-modern societies made by earlytravellers, colonial administrators,sociologists and social anthropologistssought to categorise societies intotypes and to distinguish stages insocial development. These featuresreappear in the 19th century in worksof early sociologists, Auguste Comte,Karl Marx and Herbert Spencer .Efforts were therefore made to classifydifferent types of societies on thatbasis, for instance:

• Types of pre-modern societies suchas hunters and gatherers, pastoraland agrarian, agrarian and non-industrial civilisations.

• Types of modern societies such asthe industrialised societies.

Such an evolutionary visionassumed that the west wasnecessarily the most advanced andcivilised. Non- western societies wereoften seen as barbaric and less

developed. The Indian colonialexperience has to be seen in this light.Indian sociology reflects this tensionwhich “go far back to the history ofBritish colonialism and theintellectual and ideological responseto it…” (Singh 2004:19). Perhapsbecause of this backdrop, Indiansociology has been particularlythoughtful and reflexive of its practice(Chaudhuri 2003). You will beengaging with Indian sociologicalthought, its concerns and practice ingreater detail in the book,Understanding Society (NCERT,2006).

Darwin’s ideas about organicevolution were a dominant influence onearly sociological thought. Society wasoften compared with living organismsand efforts were made to trace itsgrowth through stages comparable tothose of organic life. This way of lookingat society as a system of parts, eachpart playing a given function influencedthe study of social institutions like thefamily or the school and structuressuch as stratification. We mention thishere because the intellectual ideas thatwent into the making of sociology havea direct bearing on how sociologystudies empirical reality.

The Enlightenment, an Europeanintellectual movement of the late 17thand 18th centuries, emphasised reasonand individualism. There was also greatadvancement of scientific knowledgeand a growing conviction that themethods of the natural sciences shouldand could be extended to the study ofhuman affairs. For example poverty, so


far seen as a ‘natural phenomena’,began to be seen as a ‘social problem’caused by human ignorance orexploitation. Poverty therefore could bestudied and redressed. One way ofstudying this was through the socialsurvey that was based on the belief thathuman phenomena can be classifiedand measured. You will be discussingsocial survey in chapter 5.

Thinkers of the early modern erawere convinced that progress inknowledge promised the solution to allsocial ills. For example, Auguste Comte,the French scholar (1789–1857 )considered to be the founder ofsociology, believed that sociology wouldcontribute to the welfare of humanity.

VII

THE MATERIAL ISSUES THAT WENT

INTO THE MAKING OF SOCIOLOGY

The Industrial Revolution was basedupon a new, dynamic form of economicactivity — capitalism. This system ofcapitalism became the driving forcebehind the growth of industrialmanufacturing. Capitalism involvednew attitudes and institutions.Entrepreneurs engaged in thesustained, systematic pursuit of profit.The markets acted as the keyinstrument of productive life. Andgoods, services and labour becamecommodities whose use wasdetermined by rational calculation.

The new economy was completelydifferent from what it replaced. Englandwas the centre of the IndustrialRevolution. In order to understand

how far reaching the changeindustrialisation brought about was,we take a quick look at what life in pre-industrial England was like. Beforeindustrialisation, agriculture andtextiles were the chief occupations of theBritish people. Most people lived invillages. Like in our own Indian villagesthere were the peasants and landlords,the blacksmith and leather worker, theweaver and the potter, the shepherdand the brewer. Society was small. Itwas hierarchical, i.e. the status andclass positions of different people wereclearly defined. Like all traditionalsocieties it was also characterised byclose interaction. With industrialisationeach of these features changed.

One of the most fundamentalaspects of the new order was thedegradation of labour, the wrenchingof work from the protective contexts ofguild, village, and family. Both theradical and conservative thinker wasappalled at the decline of the status ofthe common labourer, not to mentionthe skilled craftsman.

Urban centres expanded and grew.It was not that there were no citiesearlier. But their character prior toindustrialisation was different. Theindustrial cities gave birth to acompletely new kind of urban world. Itwas marked by the soot and grime offactories, by overcrowded slums of thenew industrial working class, badsanitation and general squalor. It wasalso marked by new kinds of socialinteractions.

The Hindi film song on the nextpage captures both the material as well


From working class neighbourhoods to slum localitites


as the experiential aspects of city life.From the film C.I.D. 1956

Aye dil hai mushkil jeena yahanZara hat ke, zara bach ke, yehhai Bombay meri jaanKahin building kahin traame,kahin motor kahin millMilta hai yahan sab kuchh ik miltanahin dilInsaan ka nahin kahin naam-o-nishaanKahin satta, kahin patta kahin chorikahin resKahin daaka, kahin phaaka kahinthokar kahin thesBekaaro ke hain kai kaam yahanBeghar ko aawara yahan kehte hashasKhud kaate gale sabke kahe iskobusinessIk cheez ke hain kai naam yahanGeeta:(Bura duniya woh hai kehtaaisa bhola tu na banJo hai karta woh hai bharta haiyahan ka yeh chalan

PARAPHRASE: Dear heart, life is hardhere, you must watch where you’regoing if you want to save yourself, thisis Bombay my dear! You’ll findbuildings, you’ll find trams, you’ll findmotors, you’ll find mills, you’ll findeverything here except a human heart,there’s no trace of humanity here. Somuch of what is done here ismeaningless, it’s either power, or it’smoney, or it’s theft, or it’s cheating. Therich mock the homeless as vagabonds,but when they cut each other’s throatsthemselves, it’s called business! Thesame action is given various names inthis place.

The mass of Indian handicraftsmenruined as a result of the influxof manufactured machine-madegoods of British industries werenot absorbed in any extensivelydeveloped indigenous industries.The ruined mass of thesehandicraftsmen, in the main, tookto agriculture for subsistence(Desai 1975:70).

The factory and its mechanicaldivision of labour were often seen as a deliberate attempt to destroy thepeasant, the artisan, as well as familyand local community. The factory wasperceived as an archetype of aneconomic regimentation hithertoknown only in barracks and prisons.For some like Marx the factory wasoppressive. Yet potentially liberating.Here workers learnt both collective

Activity 4

Note how quicly Britain, the seat ofthe Industrial Revolution becamean urban from a predominantlyrural society. Was this processidentical in India?1810: 20 per cent of the populationlived in towns and cities.1910: 80 per cent of the populationlived in towns and cities.

Significantly the impact of thesame process was different in India,Urban centres did grow. But withthe entry of British manufacturedgoods, more people moved intoagriculture.


functioning as well as concertedefforts for better conditions.

Another indicator of the emergenceof modern societies was the newsignificance of clock-time as a basis ofsocial organisation. A crucial aspect ofthis was the way in which, in the 18thand 19th centuries, the tempo ofagricultural and manufacturinglabour increasingly came to be set bythe clock and calendar in a way verydifferent from pre-modern forms ofwork. Prior to the development ofindustrial capitalism, work-rhythmswere set by factors such as the periodof daylight, the break between tasksand the constraints of deadlines orother social duties. Factory productionimplied the synchronisation oflabour — it began punctually, had asteady pace and took place for sethours and on particular days of theweek. In addition, the clock injected anew urgency to work. For bothemployer and employee ‘time is nowmoney: it is not passed but spent.’

VIII

WHY SHOULD WE STUDY THE

BEGINNING AND GROWTH OF SOCIOLOGY

IN EUROPE?Most of the issues and concerns ofsociology also date back to a time whenEuropean society was undergoingtumultuous changes in the 18th and19th centuries with the advent ofcapitalism and industrialisation. Manyof the issues that were raised then, forexample, urbanisation or factoryproduction, are pertinent to all modernsocieties, even though their specificfeatures may vary. Indeed, Indiansociety with its colonial past andincredible diversity is distinct. Thesociology of India reflects this.

If this be so, why focus on Europeof that time? Why is it relevant to startthere? The answer is relatively simple.For our past, as Indians is closelylinked to the history of Britishcapitalism and colonialism. Capitalismin the west entailed a world-wideexpansion. The passages in the box onnext page represent but two strands inthe manner that western capitalismimpacted the world.

R.K. Laxman’s travelogue of Mauritiusbrings home the presence of thiscolonial and global past.

Here Africans and Chinese, Biharisand Dutch, Persians and Tamils,Arabs, French and English all rubmerrily with one another... A Tamil,for instance, bears a deceptivelysouth Indian face and a name to gowith it to boot; Radha Krishna

Activity 5

Find out how work is organised in atraditional village, a factory and acall centre.

Activity 6

Find out how industrial capitalismchanged Indian lives in villages andcities.


Govindan is indeed from Madras. Ispeak to him in Tamil. He surprisesme by responding in a frightfullymangled English with a heavy Frenchaccent. Mr Govindan has noknowledge of Tamil and his tonguehas ceased curling to produce Tamilsounds centuries ago (Laxman 2003) !

IX

THE GROWTH OF SOCIOLOGY IN INDIA

Colonialism was an essential part ofmodern capitalism and industrialisation.The writings of Western sociologists oncapitalism and other aspects of modernsociety are therefore relevant forunderstanding social change in India.Yet as we saw with reference tourbanisation, colonialism implied thatthe impact of industrialisation in Indiawas not necessarily the same as in thewest. Karl Marx’s comments on theimpact of the East India Company bringout the contrast.

India, the great workshop of cottonmanufacture for the world, sinceimmemorial times, now becameinnundated with English twists andcotton stuffs. After its own producehad been excluded from England,or only admitted on the most cruelterms, British manufactures werepoured into it at a small and merelynominal duty, to the ruin of thenative cotton fabrics once socelebrated (Marx 1853 cited inDesai 1975).

Sociology in India also had to deal withwestern writings and ideas aboutIndian society that were not alwayscorrect. These ideas were expressedboth in the accounts of colonial officialsas well western scholars. For many ofthem Indian society was a contrast towestern society. We take just oneexample here, the way the Indianvillage was understood and portrayedas unchanging.

Capitalism and its global but uneven transformation of societies

Between the 17th and 19th centuries an estimated 24 million Africans wereenslaved. 11 million of them survived the journey to the Americas in one of anumber of great movements of population that feature in modern history. Theywere plucked from their existing homes and cultures, transported around theworld in appalling conditions, and put to work in the service of capitalism.Enslavement is a graphic example of how people were caught up in thedevelopment of modernity against their will. The institution of slavery declinedin the 1800s. But for us in India it was in the 1800s that indentured labour wastaken in ships by the British for running their cotton and sugar plantations indistant lands such as Surinam in South America or in the West Indies or theFiji Islands. V.S. Naipaul the great English writer who won the Nobel prize is adescendant of one of these thousands who were taken to lands they had neverseen and who died without being able to return.


In keeping with contemporary-Victorian-evolutionary ideas, westernwriters saw in the Indian village aremnant or survival from what wascalled “the infancy of society”. They sawin nineteenth-century India the past ofthe European society.

Yet another evidence of the colonialheritage of countries like India is thedistinction often made betweensociology and social anthropology. Astandard western textbook definition ofsociology is “the study of humangroups and societies, giving particularemphasis to the analysis of theindustrialised world” (Giddens 2001:699). A standard western definition ofsocial anthropology would be the studyof simple societies of non-western andtherefore “other” cultures. In India thestory is quite different. M.N. Srinivasmaps the trajectory:

In a country such as India, with itssize and diversity, regional, linguistic,religious, sectarian, ethnic (includingcaste), and between rural and urbanareas, there are a myriad ‘others’...In a culture and society such asIndia’s, ‘the other’ can beencountered literally next door...(Srinivas 1966: 205).

Furthermore social anthropology inIndia moved gradually from a pre-occupation with the study of ‘primitivepeople’ to the study of peasants, ethnicgroups, social classes, aspects andfeatures of ancient civilisations, andmodern industrial societies. No rigiddivide exists between sociology andsocial anthropology in India, a

characteristic feature of the twosubjects in many western countries.Perhaps the very diversity of themodern and traditional, of the villageand the metropolitan in India accountsfor this.

X

THE SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY AND ITS

RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER SOCIAL

SCIENCE DISCIPLINES

The scope of sociological study isextremely wide. It can focus its analysisof interactions between individualssuch as that of a shopkeeper with acustomer, between teachers andstudents, between two friends or familymembers. It can likewise focus onnational issues such as unemploymentor caste conflict or the effect of statepolicies on forest rights of the tribalpopulation or rural indebtedness. Orexamine global social processes suchas: the impact of new flexible labourregulations on the working class; or thatof the electronic media on the young;or the entry of foreign universities onthe education system of the country.What defines the discipline of sociologyis therefore not just what it studies (i.e.family or trade unions or villages) buthow it studies a chosen field.

Sociology is one of a group ofsocial sciences, which also includesanthropology, economics, politicalscience and history. The divisionsamong the various social sciences arenot clearcut, and all share a certainrange of common interests, concepts


Discuss how you think history, sociology, political science, economicswill study fashion/clothes, market places and city streets


and methods. It is therefore veryimportant to understand that thedistinctions of the disciplines are tosome extent arbitrary and should notbe seen in a straitjacket fashion. Todifferentiate the social sciences wouldbe to exaggerate the differences andgloss over the similarities. Furthermorefeminist theories have also shown thegreater need of interdisciplinaryapproach. For instance how would apolitical scientist or economist studygender roles and their implications forpolitics or the economy without asociology of the family or genderdivision of labour.

Sociology and Economics

Economics is the study of productionand distribution of goods and services.The classical economic approach dealtalmost exclusively with the inter-relations of pure economic variables:the relations of price, demand andsupply; money flows; output and inputratios, and the like. The focus oftraditional economics has been on anarrow understanding of ‘economicactivity’, namely the allocation of scarcegoods and services within a society.Economists who are influenced by apolitical economy approach seek tounderstand economic activity in abroader framework of ownership of andrelationship to means of production.The objective of the dominant trend ineconomic analysis was however toformulate precise laws of economicbehaviour.

The sociological approach looksat economic behaviour in a broader

context of social norms, values, practicesand interests. The corporate sectormanagers are aware of this. The largeinvestment in the advertisement industryis directly linked to the need to reshapelifestyles and consumption patterns.Trends within economics such as feministeconomics seek to broaden the focus,drawing in gender as a centralorganising principle of society. Forinstance they would look at how work inthe home is linked to productivity outside.

The defined scope of economics hashelped in facilitating its development asa highly focused, coherent discipline.Sociologists often envy the economistsfor the precision of their terminologyand the exactness of their measures.And the ability to translate the resultsof their theoretical work into practicalsuggestions having major implicationsfor public policy. Yet economists’predictive abilities often sufferprecisely because of their neglect ofindividual behaviour, cultural normsand institutional resistance whichsociologists study.

Activity 7

´ Do you think advertisementsactually influence people’sconsumption patterns?

´ Do you think the idea of whatdefines ‘good life’ is onlyeconomically defined?

´ Do you think ‘spending’ and‘saving’ habits are culturallyformed?


Pierre Bourdieu wrote in 1998.

A true economic science would lookat all the costs of the economy-notonly at the costs that corporationsare concerned with, but also atcrimes, suicides, and so on.

We need to put forward aneconomics of happiness, whichwould take note of all the profits,individual and collective, materialand symbolic, associated withactivity (such as security), and alsothe material and symbolic costsassociated with inactivity orprecarious employment (for exampleconsumption of medicines: Franceholds the world record for the useof tranquilisers), (cited in Swedberg2003).

Sociology unlike economics usuallydoes not provide technical solutions.But it encourages a questioning andcritical perspective. This helpsquestioning of basic assumptions. Andthereby facilitates a discussion of notjust the technical means towards agiven goal, but also about the socialdesirability of a goal itself. Recenttrends have seen a resurgence ofeconomic sociology perhaps because ofboth this wider and critical perspectiveof sociology.

Sociology provides clearer or moreadequate understanding of a socialsituation than existed before. This canbe either on the level of factualknowledge, or through gaining animproved grasp of why something ishappening (in other words, by meansof theoretical understanding).

Sociology and Political Science

As in the case of economics, there is anincreased interaction of methods andapproaches between sociology andpolitical science. Conventional politicalscience was focused primarily on twoelements: political theory andgovernment administration. Neitherbranch involves extensive contact withpolitical behaviour. The theory partusually focuses on the ideas aboutgovernment from Plato to Marx whilecourses on administration generallydeal with the formal structure ofgovernment rather than its actualoperation.

Sociology is devoted to the study ofall aspects of society, whereasconventional political science restricteditself mainly to the study of power asembodied in formal organisation.Sociology stresses the inter-relation-ships between sets of institutionsincluding government, whereaspolitical science tends to turn attentiontowards the processes within thegovernment.

However, sociology long sharedsimilar interests of research with

Activity 8

Find out the kind of studies thatwere conducted during the lastgeneral elections. You will probablyfind both features of political scienceand sociology in them. Discuss howdisciplines interact and mutuallyinfluence each other.


political science. Sociologists like MaxWeber worked in what can be termedas political sociology. The focus ofpolitical sociology has been increasinglyon the actual study of politicalbehaviour. Even in the recent Indianelections one has seen the extensivestudy of political patterns of voting.Studies have also been conducted inmembership of political organisations,process of decision-making inorganisations, sociological reasons forsupport of political parties, the role ofgender in politics, etc.

Sociology and History

Historians almost as a rule study thepast, sociologists are more interested inthe contemporary or recent past.Historians earlier were content todelineate the actual events, to establishhow things actually happened, while insociology the focus was to seek toestablish causal relationships.

History studies concrete detailswhile the sociologist is more likely toabstract from concrete reality,categorise and generalise. Historianstoday are equally involved in doingsociological methods and concepts intheir analysis.

Conventional history has beenabout the history of kings and war. The

history of less glamorous or excitingevents as changes in land relations orgender relations within the family havetraditionally been less studied byhistorians but formed the core area ofthe sociologist’s interest. Todayhowever history is far more sociologicaland social history is the stuff of history.It looks at social patterns, genderrelations, mores, customs andimportant institutions other than theacts of rulers, wars and monarchy.

Sociology and Psychology

Psychology is often defined as thescience of behaviour. It involves itselfprimarily with the individual. It isinterested in her/his intelligence andlearning, motivations and memory,nervous system and reaction time,hopes and fears. Social psychology,which serves as a bridge betweenpsychology and sociology, maintains aprimary interest in the individual butconcerns itself with the way in whichthe individual behaves in social groups,collectively with other individuals.

Sociology attempts to understandbehaviour as it is organised in society,that is the way in which personality isshaped by different aspects of society.For instance, economic and politicalsystem, their family and kinshipstructure, their culture, norms andvalues. It is interesting to recall thatDurkheim who sought to establish aclear scope and method for sociologyin his well-known study of suicide leftout individual intentions of those whocommit or try to commit suicide infavour of statistics concerning various

Activity 9

Find out how historians havewritten about the history of art, ofcricket, of clothes and fashion, ofarchitecture and housing styles.


social characteristics of theseindividuals.

Sociology and Social Anthropology

Anthropology in most countriesincorporates archaeology, physicalanthropology, cultural history, manybranches of linguistics and the studyof all aspects of life in “simplesocieties”. Our concern here is withsocial anthropology and culturalanthropology for it is that which isclose to the study of sociology.Sociology is deemed to be the study ofmodern, complex societies while socialanthropology was deemed to be thestudy of simple societies.

As we saw earlier, each disciplinehas its own history or biography.Social anthropology developed in thewest at a time when it meant thatwestern- trained social anthropologistsstudied non-European societies oftenthought of as exotic, barbaric anduncivilised. This unequal relationship

between those who studied and thosewho were studied as not remarkedupon too often earlier. But times havechanged and we have the erstwhile‘natives’ be they Indians or Sudanese,Nagas or Santhals, who now speakand write about their own societies.The anthropologists of the pastdocumented the details of simplesocieties apparently in a neutralscientific fashion. In practice they wereconstantly comparing those societieswith the model of the western modernsocieties as a benchmark.

Other changes have also redefinedthe nature of sociology and socialanthropology. Modernity as we saw ledto a process whereby the smallestvillage was impacted by globalprocesses. The most obvious exampleis colonialism. The most remote villageof India under British colonialism sawits land laws and administrationchange, its revenue extraction alter, itsmanufacturing industries collapse.

Tea pickers in Assam


Contemporary global processes havefurther accentuated this ‘shrinking ofthe globe’. The assumption of studyinga simple society was that it wasbounded. We know this is not so today.

The traditional study of simple,non-literate societies by socialanthropology had a pervasive influenceon the content and the subject matterof the discipline. Social anthropologytended to study society (simplesocieties) in all their aspects, as wholes.In so far as they specialised, it was onthe basis of area as for example theAndaman Islands, the Nuers orMelanesia. Sociologists study complexsocieties and would therefore oftenfocus on parts of society like thebureaucracy or religion or caste or aprocess such as social mobility.

Social anthropology was charac-terised by long field work tradition,living in the community studied andusing ethnographic research methods.Sociologists have often relied on surveymethod and quantitative data usingstatistics and the questionnaire mode.Chapter 5 will give you a morecomprehensive account of these twotraditions.

Today the distinction between asimple society and a complex one itselfneeds major rethinking. India itself is acomplex mix of tradition andmodernity, of the village and the city,of caste and tribe, of class andcommunity. Villages nestle right in theheart of the capital city of Delhi. Callcentres serve European and Americanclients from different towns of thecountry.

Indian sociology has been far moreeclectic in borrowing from bothtraditions. Indian sociologists oftenstudied Indian societies that were bothpart of and not of one’s own culture. Itcould also be dealing with bothcomplex differentiated societies ofurban modern India as well as thestudy of tribes in a holistic fashion.

It had been feared that with thedecline of simple societies, socialanthropology would lose its specificityand merge with sociology. Howeverthere have been fruitful interchangesbetween the two disciplines and todayoften methods and techniques aredrawn from both. There have beenanthropological studies of the state andglobalisation, which are very differentfrom the traditional subject matterof social anthropology. On theother hand, sociology too has beenusing quantitative and qualitativetechniques, macro and microapproaches for studying thecomplexities of modern societies. Asmentioned before we will in a sense carryon this discussion in Chapter 5 . For inIndia, sociology and social anthropologyhave had a very close relationship.

Activity 10

´ Find out where in India didancestors of the community ofSanthal workers who have beenworking in the tea plantations inAssam come from.

´ When was tea cultivationstarted in Assam?

´ Did the British drink tea beforecolonialism?


GLOSSARY

Capitalism : A system of economic enterprise based on market exchange.“Capital” refers to any asset, including money, property and machines, whichcan be used to produce commodities for sale or invested in a market withthe hope of achieving a profit. This system rests on the private ownership ofassets and the means of production.

Dialectic : The existence or action of opposing social forces, for instance,social constraint and individual will.

Empirical Investigation : A factual enquiry carried out in any given area ofsociological study.

Feminist Theories : A sociological perspective which emphasises thecentrality of gender in analysing the social world. There are many strandsof feminist theory, but they all share in common the desire to explain genderinequalities in society and to work to overcome them.

Macrosociology : The study of large-scale groups, organisations or socialsystems.

Microsociology : The study of human behaviour in contexts of face-to-faceinteraction.

Social Constraint : A term referring to the fact that the groups and societiesof which we are a part exert a conditioning influence on our behaviour.

Values : Ideas held by human individual or groups about what is desirable,proper, good or bad. Differing values represent key aspects of variations inhuman culture.

EXERCISES

1. Why is the study of the origin and growth of sociology important?

2. Discuss the different aspects of the term ‘society’. How is it differentfrom your common sense understanding?

3. Discuss how there is greater give and take among disciplines today.

4. Identify any personal problem that you or your friends or relatives arefacing. Attempt a sociological understanding.


READINGS

BERGER , PETER L. 1963. Invitation to Sociology : A Humanistic Perspective.Penguin, Harmondsworth.

BIERSTEDT, ROBERT. 1970. Social Order. Tata Mc. Graw-Hill Publishing Co. Ltd,Bombay.

BOTTOMORE, TOM. 1962. Sociology : A Guide to Problems and Literature. George,Allen and Unwin, London.

CHAUDHURI, MAITRAYEE. 2003. The Practice of Sociology. Orient Longman,New Delhi.

DESAI, A.R. 1975. Social Background of Indian Nationalism, Popular Prakashan,Bombay.

DUBE, S.C. 1977. Understanding Society : Sociology : The Discipline and itsSignificance : Part I. NCERT, New Delhi.

FREEMAN, JAMES M. 1978. ‘Collecting the Life History of an Indian Untouchable’,from VATUK, SYLVIA. ed., American Studies in the Anthropology of India.Manohar Publishers, Delhi.

GIDDENS, ANTHONY. 2001. Sociology. Fourth Edition, Polity Press, Cambridge.

INKELES, ALEX. 1964. What is Sociology? An Introduction to the Discipline andProfession. Prentice Hall, New Jersey.

JAYARAM, N. 1987. Introductory Sociology. Macmillan India Ltd, Delhi.

LAXMAN, R.K. 2003. The Distorted Mirror. Penguin, Delhi.

MILLS, C. WRIGHT. 1959. The Sociological Imagination. Penguin, Harmondsworth.

SINGH, YOGENDRA. 2004. Ideology and Theory in Indian Sociology. RawatPublications, New Delhi.

SRINIVAS, M.N. 2002. Village, Caste. Gender and Method : Essays in IndianSocial Anthropology. Oxford University Press, New Delhi.

SWEDBERG, RICHARD. 2003. Principles of Economic Sociology. Princeton UniversityPress, Princeton and Oxford.

class11 sociology 1 introducing so cia logy unit01 ncert textbook english edition

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