Structural Society
CHAPTR-1
Social structure
Social structure isSocial structure, in sociology,
the distinctive, stable arrangement of institutions
whereby human beings in a society interact and live
together.
often treated together with the concept of social
change, which deals with the forces that change the
social structure and the organization of society.
Structural change can be initiated by policy
decisions or permanent changes in resources,
population or the society.
The downfall of collectivism, for example, is a
political change that has had far-reaching
economic implications.
Ancient
Structural
change
modern medieval
This is not just because many modern ideas and
institutions reached India through colonialism.
For example Indians in the colonial period read
about western liberalism and freedom.
Yet they lived under a western, colonial rule that
denied Indians liberty and freedom.
Parliament
Police British legal
Educational
.
We drive on the left side of the road like the
British.
We have ‘bread-omlette’ and ‘cutlets’ as menu
offered in many roadside eateries and canteens
A very popular manufacturer of biscuits, is
actually named after Britain.
Many school uniforms include neck-ties.
We often admire the west and as often resent it.
English is not only widely used in India but we now
have an impressive body of literary writings by
Indians in English.
But English continues to be a mark of privilege.
Not knowing English is a disadvantage that tells in
the job market.
At the same time for those who were traditionally
deprived of access to formal education such as the
Dalits, knowledge of English may open doors of
opportunities that were formerly closed
Transformation
College
Housewives
students
English
fluency
BPO
Virtually English
Writes K. Jeshi It is a familiar classroom scene. The
only unfamiliar thing is the setting.
Computer screens turn blackboards
housewives take over as teachers to evaluate English
essays written by non English speaking students in
Asia.
All, at the click of the mouse.
The encouraging comments given by the evaluators
here motivate students in Japan, Korea and China to
learn English.
Structural changes due to colonialism
Industrialization
urbanization
Industrialisation is the period of social and
economic change that transforms a human group
from an agrarian society into an industrial society,
involving the extensive re-organisation of an
economy for the purpose of manufacturing.
Urbanisation is an increase in the number of
people living in towns and cities.
Urbanisation occurs mainly because people
move from rural areas to urban areas and it results
in growth in the size of the urban population and
the extent of urban areas.
Understanding Colonialism
At one level, colonialism simply means the
establishment of rule by one country over another.
In the modern period western colonialism has had
the greatest impact.
The impact of colonial rule is distinguishable from
all other earlier rules because the changes it brought
in were far-reaching and deep.
History is full of examples of the annexation of
foreign territory and the domination of weaker by
stronger powers.
Pre-capitalist and capitalist
In contrast British colonialism which was based on a
capitalist system directly interfered to ensure
greatest profit and benefit to British capitalism.
Every policy was geared towards the strengthening
and expansion of British capitalism.
For instance it changed the very laws of the land.
It changed not just land ownership laws but decided
even what crops ought to be grown and what ought
not to be. It meddled with the manufacturing sector.
Capitalism is an economic system in which the
means of production are privately owned and
organised to accumulate profits within a market
system.
Colonial acts entered into the forests. It cleared
trees and started tea plantations.
It brought in Forest Acts that changed the lives of
pastoralists.
They were prevented from entering many forests
that had earlier provided valuable forage for their
cattle.
Forest Policy in the Colonial Period in North-East India
Assam was a part of Bengal Presidency.
Forest Act was enacted here to clear the trees.
The demand for railway sleepers transformed the
forests in Assam.
(this included all the present-day seven sister states)
from an unproductive wilderness into a profitable
source of revenue for the colonial administration.
Between 1861 and 1878, an area of approximately
269 square miles had been constituted as reserved
forests.
By 1894, the area had gone up to 3,683 square
miles.
And, by the end of the nineteenth century, the
area of forests under the department was 20,061
square miles (constituting 42.2 per cent of the total
area of the province), of which 3,609 square miles
comprised reserved forests…
Migration of
people
Bombay Madras
presidency presidency
Doctors Lawyers
To work in
different parts
of the country
Colonialism led to movement of people:
People from Jharkhand moved to Assam to work
on the tea plantations.
People were carted in ships from India to work on
other colonised lands in distant Asia, Africa and
Americas.
Many died on their way.
Most could never return.
Nation states are closely associated with the rise of
nationalism.
The principle of nationalism assumes that any set
of people have a right to be free and exercise
sovereign power.
It is an important part of the rise of democratic
ideas.
Nationalism implied that the people of India to
have an equal right to be sovereign.
Indian nationalist leaders declared that freedom or
swaraj was their birth- right and fought for both
political and economic freedom.
Urbanisation and Industrialisation
Today large number of employed population work in
factories, offices or shops rather than agriculture.
Over 90 per cent of people in the west live in towns
and cities, where most jobs are to be found and new
job opportunities are created.
Not surprisingly, therefore, we usually associate
urbanisation with industrialisation.
They often do occur together but not always so.
Migration
• 20% of
In 1800 population
• Cities & towns
• 74% of
By 1900 population
• Cities & towns
The capital city, London, was home to about 1.1
million people in 1800; it increased in size to a
population of over 7 million by the start of the
twentieth century.
London was then by far the largest city ever seen in
the world, a vast manufacturing,
That we all live in nation states and that we all
have a nationality or a national citizenship may
appear natural to us today.
Before the First World War passports were not
widely used for international travel, and in most
areas few people had one.
After 1834 till 1920, ships left from the ports of
India on a regular basis carrying people of various
religions, gender, classes and castes destined to
work for a minimum of five years on one of the
plantations in Mauritius.
Industrialisation
Industrialisation refers to the emergence of machine
production, based on the use of inanimate power
resources like steam or electricity.
Over 90 per cent of people in the west live in towns
and cities, where most jobs are to be found and new
job opportunities are created.
Not surprisingly, therefore, we usually associate
urbanisation with industrialisation.
They often do occur together but not always so
De-industrialisation is a process of social and
economic change caused by the removal or
reduction of industrial capacity or activity in a
country or region,
especially of heavy industry or manufacturing
industry.
It is the opposite of industrialisation.
.Impact of colonialism in India
Decline of old urban centres.
Manufacturing boomed in Britain.
Traditional exports of cotton and silk
manufactures from India declined in the face of
Manchester competition.
Surat and Masulipatnam were declined while
Bombay and Madras grew.
When the British took over Indian states, towns
like Thanjavur, Dhaka, and Murshidabad lost their
power.
Drastic changes
Urban luxury manufactures like the high quality
silks and cottons of Dacca or Murshidabad must
have been hit first .
The interior, in regions other than eastern India
where British access was earliest and deepest,
probably survived much longer, coming to be
seriously affected only with the spread of railways.
Social changes due to Industrialisation
In Britain the impact of industrialisation led to more
people moving into urban areas.
In India the initial impact of the same British
industrialisation led to more people moving into
agriculture.
The Census of India Report shows this clearly.
Industrialisation is not just about machinery and
production but also a story of the growth of new social
groups in society and new social relationships.
In other words it is about changes in the Indian social
structure.
Economical changes
Cities had a key role in the economic system of
empires.
Coastal cities such as Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai
were favoured.
From here primary commodities could be easily
exported and manufactured goods could be cheaply
imported.
Colonial cities were the prime link between the
economic centre or core in Britain and periphery or
margins in colonised India.
Cities in this sense were the concrete expression of
global capitalism.
Export
Calcutta Madras
Coffee
Sugar
Jute Indigo
cotton
Dhandi Britain
.
Urbanisation in the colonial period saw the decline
of some earlier urban centres and the emergence of
new colonial cities.
Kolkata was one of the first of such cities. In 1690,
an English merchant named Job Charnock
arranged to lease three villages
(named Kolikata, Gobindapur, and Sutanuti)
by the river Hugli in order to set up a trading post.
In 1698, Fort William was established by the river
for defensive purposes.
The Tea Plantation
Colonial government often used unfair means to hire
and forcibly keep labourers.
And clearly acted on behalf of the British planters.
The colonial administrators were clear that harsh
measures were taken against the labourers to make
sure they benefited the planters.
• Max. tea • 4,79,000
permanent &
• Beginning of gardens • 93,000
Tea temporary
Industry workers
1851 Assam 1903
How were labourers recruited?
Since Assam was sparsely populated and the tea
plantations were often located on uninhabited
hillsides, bulk of the sorely needed labour had to be
imported from other provinces.
The recruitment of labourers for tea gardens of
Assam was carried on for years mostly by contractors
under the provisions of the Transport of Native
Labourers Act (No. III) of 1863 of Bengal as
amended in 1865, 1870 and 1873.
How did the Planter’s live?
In spite of the inaccessibility of the gardens,
British Managers had lived lives of luxury.
Huge, sprawling bungalows, set on sturdy wooden
stilts to protect the inmates from wild animals,
were surrounded by velvety lawns and jewel bright
flower beds…
They had trained a large number of malis,
bawarchis and bearers to serve them to perfection.
Their wide verandahed houses gleamed and
glistened under the ministrations of this army of
liveried servants.
INDUSTRIALISATION IN INDEPENDENT INDIA
For Indian nationalists the issue of economic
exploitation under colonial rule was a central issue.
Images of pre-colonial magical riches of India
contrasted with the poverty of British India.
The Swadeshi movement strengthened the loyalty to
the national economy.
Modern ideas made people realise that poverty was
preventable.
Indian nationalists saw rapid industrialisation of the
economy as the path towards both growth and social
justice.
Nehru’s remarks on the Bhakra Nangal Dam:
nowhere else in the world is there a dam as high as
this.
The work rises with difficulties and complications.
As I walked around the site I thought that these days
the biggest temple and mosques and gurudwara is
the place where man works for the good of mankind.
Which place can be greater than this, this Bhakra
Nangal, where thousands and lakhs of men have
worked, have shed their blood and sweat and laid
down their lives as well?
Indian National Congress
1938
National Planning Committee
Jawaharlal Nehru
Chairman
K.T. Shah
General Editor
.
The Committee started functioning in 1939, but it
could not make much headway as the chairman
was arrested by the British and the war broke out.
Notwithstanding these obstacles, 29 sub-
committees divided into eight groups were set up
to deal with all aspects of national life and to work
in accordance with a predetermined plan.
The major areas on which the Committee
focussed its attention were:
(a) Agriculture and primary production
(b) Industries and secondary production
(c) Human factor: labour and population
(d) Exchange and finance
(e) Public utilities: transport and communication
(f) Social services: health and housing
(g) Education: general and technical
(h) Woman’s role in a planned economy
URBANISATION IN INDEPENDENT INDIA
Writing on the different kinds of urbanisation
witnesses in the first two decades after independence
sociologist M.S.A. Rao argued that in India many
villages all over India are becoming increasingly
subject to the impact of urban influences.
But the nature of urban impact varies according to
the kind of relations a village has with a city or town.
