NCERT Solutions for Class 11 Sociology Understanding Society Chapter 5: Indian Sociologists

Chapter at a glance

Exercise Questions

Answer

L.K. Ananthakrishna Iyer began his career as a clerk, then became a school teacher and later a college teacher in Cochin. In 1902 the Dewan of Cochin asked him to assist with an ethnographic survey of the state, as the British government wanted such surveys done in all princely states and presidencies. He did this work as a volunteer and was later recognised for it; he became a reader at Madras University and then the first head of the anthropology department at Calcutta University. He was self-taught in anthropology.

Sarat Chandra Roy was trained as a lawyer. He went to Ranchi to work as an English teacher in a missionary school and then practised law there. His work as a lawyer — he became an official interpreter in the courts, interpreting tribal customs and laws — brought him into close contact with the tribal societies of Chhotanagpur (Oraon, Munda, Kharia). He began studying them seriously, wrote ethnographies and founded the journal Man in India (1922).

Thus both came to anthropology by accident and became pioneers through amateur interest and dedication.

Iyer, a clerk and teacher, was asked by the Dewan of Cochin to help with an ethnographic survey and became a pioneer anthropologist; Roy, a lawyer in Ranchi, interpreted tribal customs in court and went on to study Chhotanagpur tribes and found Man in India.

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Herbert Risley (British colonial administrator):

• Believed humans could be divided into distinct races with physical characteristics (skull size, nose shape — anthropometry).
• Argued that India was the meeting place of an Aryan race (fair, came from outside) and the original Dravidian inhabitants.
• Caste originated in race: higher castes were mainly of Aryan origin and lower castes of non-Aryan origin; caste endogamy preserved racial purity.

G.S. Ghurye

• Did not fully reject racial differences but criticised Risley’s argument as only partially true.
• Showed through anthropometric data that the race–caste correspondence held roughly only in north India (Indo-Gangetic plain); in other regions (e.g. Maharashtra, Bengal, the south), castes of different levels had similar physical features.
• Concluded that caste could not be explained by race alone; endogamy and other cultural factors (and Brahminical practices) played a role. Caste and race were not identical.

Risley held that caste arose from race — upper castes Aryan, lower castes non-Aryan; Ghurye found this held only partly in north India and argued that caste cannot be explained by race alone.

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Ghurye offered a definition based on six structural features of caste:

1. Segmental division — society is divided into closed, mutually exclusive segments (castes) based on birth.
2. Hierarchy — castes are ranked from purest (top) to most impure (bottom).
3. Restrictions on social interaction and commensality — rules about with whom one may eat, accept food or water, and touch (pollution).
4. Differential rights and duties — castes have unequal civil and religious privileges and disabilities.
5. Restriction on choice of occupation — occupations are hereditary and tied to caste.
6. Endogamy — marriage within one’s own caste.

Caste is defined by segmental division by birth, hierarchy of purity, restrictions on interaction and eating, unequal rights and duties, hereditary occupations and caste endogamy.

Answer

Living tradition: for D.P. Mukerji, tradition is not dead or fixed. A living tradition is one that maintains links with the past by retaining something from it, while also absorbing new things. It changes and adapts, but remains connected to its roots. Indian traditions have developed through such interaction between continuity and change.

Why Indian sociologists should be rooted in it

1. Indian society is not individualistic like the West; it is shaped by groups, castes and traditions. Understanding India requires understanding its traditions, symbols and patterns.
2. Sociologists must know Indian languages and texts (Sanskrit, Persian, regional) and the ways of life of people to understand Indian society properly.
3. Western concepts and theories cannot be applied mechanically; sociology in India must arise from Indian social reality.
4. Change in India happens through tradition — through the conflict and synthesis of tradition with new forces.

A living tradition keeps links with the past while absorbing the new; Mukerji insisted sociologists be rooted in it because Indian society is shaped by traditions, groups and symbols that Western concepts cannot grasp without such understanding.

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According to D.P. Mukerji:

1. Group orientation: Indian society is not individualistic; the individual’s identity is embedded in groups — caste, family, community. Individualism is weak.
2. Tradition: Indian culture is a living tradition with authority (shruti, smriti) and experience (anubhava) as sources; principles of shruti, smriti and anubhava shape change.
3. Role of the middle class educated in the West, which is uprooted from tradition.
4. Pattern of change: change in India does not happen through class conflict as in the West, but through tension and synthesis between tradition and modernity. Of the three principles, anubhava (personal experience, often of saints and reformers) has been the main source of change — e.g. Bhakti saints challenged caste and rituals; their experience became collective and was later absorbed into tradition.
5. Thus change is slow and adaptive, absorbing new elements into traditional forms.

Indian society is group-oriented rather than individualistic and rooted in a living tradition (shruti, smriti, anubhava); change occurs through the synthesis of tradition and new forces, mainly via anubhava (experience of reformers like Bhakti saints), not class conflict.

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Welfare state: a state that takes responsibility for the well-being of its citizens. Its features: it is a positive state (actively promotes welfare, not just law and order), it is democratic, and it has a mixed economy (both public and private sectors). It provides social security, health, education, employment and reduces inequality.

A.R. Desai’s criticism (Marxist view)

1. Welfare states do not provide economic security to all — poverty and unemployment remain.
2. They fail to reduce inequality of income and wealth; the gap between rich and poor persists.
3. They are unable to free the economy from capitalist market forces and the profit motive; the mixed economy benefits the capitalists.
4. They do not ensure employment for all or stable economic growth.
5. They suppress popular movements and do not ensure genuine democratic participation.

Desai concluded that the claims of welfare states are exaggerated and that they essentially protect the capitalist system.

A welfare state is a positive, democratic state with a mixed economy that promotes citizens’ well-being; Desai argued that it fails to remove poverty, inequality and unemployment, remains dominated by capitalist interests, and so its claims are exaggerated.

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Louis Dumont (against)

• Argued that the village was not a meaningful unit of study in India; it was merely a place where people lived.
• Social institutions like caste cut across villages and were more important; caste links people across regions.
• Studying the village as a unit would give a misleading picture of Indian society.

M.N. Srinivas (for)

• Argued that the village was a relevant social entity with its own unity and identity.
• Historical evidence showed that villages had served as unifying identities; village unity was important in rural social life.
• Villages were the site of real social relationships and change; studying them gave first-hand, empirical knowledge of Indian society (against the book-based view of colonial administrators).
• Village studies were needed to understand social change after independence.

Dumont held that the village was merely a residential site and caste the real unit; Srinivas argued that villages had a genuine unity and identity, and their study gave first-hand knowledge of Indian society and its change.

Answer

Significance of village studies

1. They gave Indian sociology a new field and method — ethnographic fieldwork in Indian villages, at a time when most Indians lived in villages.
2. They replaced the colonial image of Indian villages as static, unchanging “little republics” with a picture of dynamic, internally differentiated communities.
3. They provided first-hand data on caste, kinship, land, power and social change after independence, useful for planning and development (Community Development Programme).
4. They helped Indian sociology become relevant to the nation’s needs.

Role of M.N. Srinivas

• He conducted a long-term study of Rampura village (Karnataka) and wrote The Remembered Village.
• He encouraged and organised village studies in the 1950s and 1960s — edited a collection of village studies (India’s Villages, 1955) and trained many students.
• He developed influential concepts from village research — dominant caste, Sanskritisation, westernisation.
• He defended village studies against critics like Dumont.

Village studies gave Indian sociology an empirical fieldwork base, overturned the colonial image of static villages and informed development planning; Srinivas studied Rampura, organised and edited village studies, developed concepts like dominant caste and Sanskritisation, and defended the approach.

Topic checklist

• Pioneers: L.K. Ananthakrishna Iyer and S.C. Roy
• G.S. Ghurye on caste and race; tribal debate
• D.P. Mukerji and living tradition
• A.R. Desai and the welfare state
• M.N. Srinivas and village studies

Total questions answered: 9 of 9