1. Explain any two dimensions of untouchability.
Chapter 5: Patterns of Social Inequality and Exclusion

Ans:
Exclusion: untouchables are most go through extreme form of exclusions like being prohibited from sharing drinking water sources or participating in collective religious worship, social ceremonies and festivals.
Humiliation-subordination

• Publicly visible humiliation and subordination is a common practice towards untouchables.
• Untouchables are forced inclusion in a subordinated role,such as being compelled to play the drums at a religious event.
• Common instances of humiliation and subordination are:
  
  • imposition of gestures of deference such as taking off headgear, carrying footwear in the hand, standing with bowed head, not wearing clean or ‘bright’ clothes, and so on.
  • routinised abuse and humiliation.

2.What do you understand by Regionalism?
Chapter 6: The Challenges of Cultural Diversity

Ans:

• Regionalism in India is rooted in India’s diversity of languages, cultures, tribes, and religions.
• It is also encouraged by the geographical concentration of these identity markers in particular regions, and fuelled by a sense of regional deprivation.
• Indian federalism has been a means of accommodating these regional sentiments.

3.Clarify the meaning of "Industrialization".
Chapter 5: Change and Development in Industrial Society

Ans:
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.
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.
While the early sociologists saw industrialisation as both positive and negative, by the mid 20th century, under the influence of modernisation theory, industrialisation came to be seen as inevitable and positive.

4. Give the examples of some works which are performed in homes.What is their economic importance?
Chapter 5: Change and Development in Industrial Society

Ans:

• Home-based work is an important part of the economy.
• Works like manufacture of lace, zari or brocade, carpets, bidis, agarbattis and many such product.They are mostly done by women and children.
• An agent provides raw materials and also picks up the finished product. Home workers are paid on a piece-rate basis, depending on the number of pieces they make.

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5.State the basic objectives laid down in Indian Constitution which are generally agreed as good.
Chapter 6: The Challenges of Cultural Diversity

Ans:
(1) Any section of the citizens residing in the territory of India or any part thereof having a distinct language, script or culture of its own shall have the right to conserve the same.
(2) No citizen shall be denied admission into any educational institution maintained by the State or received out of State funds on grounds only of religion, race, caste, language or any of them.

6. What is meant by weightless economy?
Chapter 6: Globalisation and Social Change

Ans:
The weightless economy is one in which products have their base in information, as in the case with computer software, media and entertainment products and internet based services.

7. Who was Birsa Munda? What was the aim of the movement conducted by him?
Chapter 8: Social Movements

Ans:
The Ulgulan led by Birsa Munda, an adivasi who led a major uprising against the British.
The issues against which the leaders of the movement in Jharkand agitated were:

• acquisition of land for large irrigation projects and firing ranges;
• survey and settlement operations, which were held up, camps closed down, etc.
• collection of loans, rent and cooperative dues, which were resisted;
• nationalisation of forest produce which they boycotted

8.What are the consequences of "outsourcing"?
Chapter 5: Change and Development in Industrial Society

Ans:

• Low wages
• Poor working conditions
• Permanent employees are reduced
• Difficult for trade unions to organise in smaller firms

9.Explain the impact of National Development on the tribes.
Chapter 3 - Social Insitutions: Continuity and Change

Ans:

• The loss of the forests because of the building of large dams, factories and mines on which most tribal communities depended has been a major blow.
• The coming of private property in land has also adversely affected tribals, whose community-based forms of collective ownership were placed at a disadvantage in the new system.
• Many tribal concentration regions and states have also been experiencing the problem of heavy in-migration of non-tribals in response to the pressures of development. This threatens to disrupt and overwhelm tribal communities and cultures, besides accelerating the process of exploitation of tribals.

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10. State two factors responsible for famines.
Chapter 2 - The Demographic Structure of the Indian Society

Ans:

• Famines were caused by high levels of continuing poverty and malnutrition in an agro climatic environment that was very vulnerable to variations in rainfall.
• Lack of adequate means of transportation and communication as well as inadequate efforts on the part of the state were some of the factors responsible for famines.

11.Explain the term social exclusion.
Chapter 5: Patterns of Social Inequality and Exclusion

Ans:
Social exclusion refers to ways in which individuals may become cut off from full involvement in the wider society.It focuses attention on a broad range of factors that prevent individuals or groups from having opportunities open to the majority of the population.
Social exclusion is not accidental but systematic – it is the result of structural features of society.

12.In what way consumption pattern is related to status symbol?
Chapter 4: The Market as a Social Institution

Ans:
Max Weber, pointed out that the goods that people buy and use are closely related to their status in society. He coined the term status symbol to describe this relationship.
For example, among the middle class in India today, the brand of cell phone or the model of car that one owns are important markers of socio-economic status.
Lifestyle is also differentiated based on status groups and classes.Consumption is one aspect of lifestyle, but it also includes the way you decorate your home and the way you dress, your leisure activities, and many other aspects of daily life.

13.Why both Marx and Mahatma Gandhi saw mechanisation as a danger to employment?
Chapter 5: Change and Development in Industrial Society

Ans:
The basic task of a manager is to control workers and get more work out of them. There are two main ways of making workers produce more. One is to extend the working hours. The other is to increase the amount that is produced within a given time period. Machinery helps to increase production, but it also creates the danger that eventually machines will replace workers. That is why both Marx and Mahatma Gandhi saw mechanisation as a danger to employment.

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14.Explain the importance of community identity.
Chapter 6: The Challenges of Cultural Diversity

Ans:

• Community provides us the language (our mother tongue) and the cultural values through which we comprehend the world. It also anchors our self-identity.
• Community identity is based on birth and "belonging" rather than on some form of acquired qualifications or "accomplishment". It is what we "are" rather than what we have "become".
• Expanding and overlapping circles of community ties (family, kinship, caste, ethnicity, language, region or religion) give meaning to our world and give us a sense of identity, of who we are. That is why people often react emotionally or even violently whenever there is a perceived threat to their community identity.

15.Explain the transformations in rural society after independence.
Chapter 4: Change and Development in Rural Society

Ans:

• an increase in the use of agricultural labour as cultivation became more intensive.
• a shift from payment in kind (grain) to payment in cash.
• a loosening of traditional bonds or hereditary relationships between farmers or landowners and agricultural workers (known as bonded labour).
• and the rise of a class of "free wage labourers".

16.Explain the features of social movement.
Chapter 8: Social Movements

Ans:

• Social movements often arise with the aim of bringing about changes on a public issue, such as ensuring the right of the tribal population to use the forests or the right of displaced people to settlement and compensation.
• Social movement activists hold meetings to mobilise people around the issues that concern them. Such activities help shared understanding.
• Social movements also chart out campaigns that include lobbying with the government, media and other important makers of public opinion.
• Social movements also develop distinct modes of protest. This could be candle and torch light processions, use of black cloth, street theatres, songs, poetry.

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17.Write a note on westernisation.
Chapter 2 - Cultural Change

Ans:
Westernisation is defined as "the changes brought about in Indian society and culture as a result of over 150 years of British rule, the term subsuming changes occurring at different levels i.e. technology, institutions, ideology and values".

• Small sections of people who adopted western life-styles or were affected by western ways of thinking and also started to make use of new technology, dress, food, and changes in the habits and styles of people in general.
• Across the country a very wide section of middle class homes have a television set, a fridge, some kind of sofa set, a dining table and chair in the living room.
• Westernisation does involve the imitation of external forms of culture. It does not necessarily mean that people adopt modern values of democracy and equality.
• The west also influenced Indian art and literature.

18.Explain any three features of caste.
Chapter 3 - Social Insitutions: Continuity and Change

Ans:
The most commonly cited defining features of caste are the following:
1. Caste is determined by birth – a child is “born into” the caste of its parents. Caste is never a matter of choice. One can never change one’s caste, leave it, or choose not to join it, although there are instances where a person may be expelled from their caste.
2. Membership in a caste involves strict rules about marriage. Caste groups are "endogamous", i.e. marriage is restricted to members of the group.
3. Caste membership also involves rules about food and food-sharing. What kinds of food may or may not be eaten is prescribed and who one may share food with is also specified.

19.What is meant by commodification ? Give an example.
Chapter 4: The Market as a Social Institution

Ans:
Commodification occurs when things that were earlier not traded in the market become commodities. For example, labour or skills become things that can be bought and sold.

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20.State any two kinds of Westernisation.
Chapter 2 - Cultural Change

Ans:

• One kind refers to the emergence of a westernised sub-cultural pattern through a minority section of Indians who first came in contact with Western culture. This group adopted many cognitive patterns, or ways of thinking, and styles of life, but supported its expansion.
• Small sections of people who adopted western lifestyles or were affected by western ways of thinking.The general spread of Western cultural traits, such as the use of new technology, dress, food, and changes in the habits and styles of people in general.
• Across the country a very wide section of middle class homes have a television set, a fridge, some kind of sofa set, a dining table and chair in the living room.

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20.What is Westernisation ? Clarify.
Chapter 2 - Cultural Change

Ans:
Westernisation is defined as "the changes brought about in Indian society and culture as a result of over 150 years of British rule, the term subsuming changes occurring at different levels i.e. technology, institutions, ideology and values".

• Small sections of people who adopted western life-styles or were affected by western ways of thinking and also started to make use of new technology, dress, food, and changes in the habits and styles of people in general.
• Across the country a very wide section of middle class homes have a television set, a fridge, some kind of sofa set, a dining table and chair in the living room.
• Westernisation does involve the imitation of external forms of culture. It does not necessarily mean that people adopt modern values of democracy and equality.
• The west also influenced Indian art and literature.

21.What do you understand by Tribal community?
Chapter 3 - Social Insitutions: Continuity and Change

Ans:
"Tribe" is a modern term for communities that are very old, being among the oldest inhabitants of the sub-continent.
Tribes were communities that did not practice a religion with a written text; did not have a state or political form of the normal kind; did not have sharp class divisions; and, most important, they did not have caste and were neither Hindus nor peasants.

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22.Clarify the concept of Dominant caste.
Chapter 3 - Social Insitutions: Continuity and Change

Ans:

• "Dominant caste" is a term used to refer to those castes which had a large population and were granted landrights by the partial land reforms effected after Independence.
• The land reforms took away rights from the upper castes who were ‘absentee landlords’ in the sense that they played no part in the agricultural economy but just claimed rent. They mostly lived in towns and cities.
• The land rights were given to the next layer of claimants, those who were involved in the management of agriculture but were not themselves the cultivators.These intermediate castes depended on lower caste for tilling and tending the land.However, once they got land rights, they acquired considerable economic power.
• The large numbers of intermediate caste gave them political power.Thus, these intermediate castes became the ‘dominant’ castes in the country side and played a decisive role in regional politics and the agrarian economy.
• Examples of such dominant castes include the Yadavs of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the Vokkaligas of Karnataka, the Reddys and Khammas of Andhra Pradesh, the Marathas of Maharashtra, the Jats of Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh and the Patidars of Gujarat.

23.State the problems faced by labourers on Tea Plantations.
Chapter 1 - Structural Change

Ans:

• The colonial government often used unfair means to hire and forcibly keep labourers.
• The colonial administrators were clear that harsh measures were taken against the labourers to make sure they benefited the planters.

24.What do you understand by Disinvestment?
Chapter 5: Change and Development in Industrial Society

Ans:

• 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.
• An example of disinvestment is Modern Foods company, 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.

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25.What are counter movements? Give example.
Chapter 8: Social Movements

Ans:
Social movements often arise with the aim of bringing about changes on a public issue, such as ensuring the right of the tribal population to use the forests or the right of displaced people to settlement and compensation.While social movements seek to bring in social change, counter movements sometimes arise in defence of status quo.
Example : When Raja Rammohun Roy campaigned against sati and formed the Brahmo Samaj, defenders of sati formed Dharma Sabha and petitioned the British not to legislate against sati.

26.What is meant by the infant mortality rate?
Chapter 2 - The Demographic Structure of the Indian Society

Ans: Infant mortality rate is the number of deaths of babies before the age of one year per 1000 live births.

27.What is social about social inequality?
Chapter 5: Pattern of Social Inequality and Exclusion

Ans:

• Social inequality is not about individuals but about groups.
• They are social in the sense that they are not economic, although there is usually a strong link between social and economic inequality.
• They are systematic and structured – there is a definite pattern to social inequalities.

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28.Mention two factors that encourage regionalism.
Chapter 6: The Challenges of Cultural Diversity

Ans:

• Regionalism in India is rooted in India's diversity of languages, cultures, tribes, and religions.
• It is also encouraged by the geographical concentration of these identity markers in particular regions, and fuelled by a sense of regional deprivation.

29.What kind of factors is community identity based on?
Chapter 6: The Challenges of Cultural Diversity

Ans:

• Community identity is based on birth and "belonging" rather than on some form of acquired qualifications or "accomplishment".
• It is what we "are" rather than what we have "become".
• We don't have to do anything to be born into a community – in fact, no one has any choice about which family or community or country they are born into.
• These kinds of identities are called ‘ascriptive’ – that is, they are determined by the accidents of birth and do not involve any choice on the part of the individuals concerned.

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30.What is Sanskritisation?
Chapter 2 - Cultural Change

Ans:Sanskritisation is a process by which a low caste or tribe or other group takes over the customs, ritual, beliefs, ideology and style of life of a high caste.

31.What is a political party?
Chapter 3 - The Story of Indian Democracy

Ans: Political Party is an organisation established with the aim of achieving governmental power and using that power to pursue a specific programme.

32.Mention any two policies or laws for land reform introduced after independence.
Chapter 4: Change and Development in Rural Society

Ans: Some policies and laws for land reform in independent India were:

• Abolition of the zamindari system, which removed the layer of intermediaries that stood between the cultivators and the state.
• Tenancy regulation and reform, which gave security of tenure and other rights to tenants.
• Land ceiling acts which limited the maximum amount of land that could be owned by individual landlords and took away the excess land for redistribution among the landless.

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33.List any two characteristic features of the organized sector.
Chapter 4: Change and Development in Rural Society

Ans:The features of organized sector are as follows:

• The organised sector consists of all units employing ten or more people throughout the year.
• They have to be registered with the government to ensure that their employees get proper salaries or wages, pension and other benefits.

34.What is meant by an "electronic economy"?
Chapter 6: Globalisation and Social Change

Ans:Electronic economy is an economy where banks, corporations, fund managers and individual investors are able to shift funds internationally with the click of a mouse that helps to transfer money very fast.

35.What are transnational corporations?
Chapter 6: Globalisation and Social Change

Ans: TNCs are companies that produce goods or market services in more than one country. These may be relatively small firms with one or two factories outside the country in which they are based. They could also be gigantic international ones whose operations crisscross the globe.
Some of the biggest TNCs are companies known all around the world: Coca Cola, General Motors, Colgate-Palmolive, Kodak, Mitsubishi and many others.