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Social Structure and Social Change

Notes protogonists of Hindutva clearly demonstrate fascist tendencies and it has been the standard formula
of fascists from the times of Hitler to use racism, communalism and anti-minority bashing to divert
the attention of the majority community/population from their day to day problems and hardships.
During the last decade or so attacks on minorities especially Muslims and Christians have grown
many times culminating in the state sponsored violence against a minority, community in Gujarat. In
the wake of these developments the minorities too are left with no other option but to join hands with
other deprived and marginalized sections of the society to wage struggle against neo-imperialism
coming in the garb of globalization.
Human Rights Front
The great gift of classical and contemporary human thought to civilization is the notion of human
rights. The struggle to preserve, protect and promote basic human rights continues in every generation
in each society. New rights arise from the womb of the old. In specific sense, the natural rights of
human beings as distinct from rights bestowed by law and convention come under human rights.
The concept of man’s inalienable basic rights is as old as Mesopotamian civilization. When the United
Nations was founded in 1948, it adopted a Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was out of
concern for the humanity to live a life of freedom and dignity. The Universal Declaration of Human
Rights declare the following rights as Human Rights:
• Right to free speech
• Right to judicial remedy
• Right to freedom of movement
• Right to participate in one’s governance (of nation)
• Right to work
• Right to good standard of living
• Right to rest and leisure
• Right to education
• Right to equal pay for equal work
• Right to participate in cultural life of community
• Right to enjoy arts and share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
• Right to life, liberty and person’s security
• Freedom from arbitrary arrest, detention or exile
• Right to fair and public hearing by independent and impartial tribunal
• Freedom of thought, conscience and religion
• Freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
Many of these human rights are enshrined in the Indian Constitution as fundamental rights. But, as
rightly pointed out by Achut Yagnik (1991), “in the absence of a well developed civil society and a
process of individuation, the western concepts of dignity of the individual, liberty and equalities and
human rights are not easy concepts to apply to the Indian situation”. Moreover, human rights are
also the ultimate norm of politics, only (true) democracy, within the states and within the community
of states, can truly guarantee human rights.
When we look at the origin and evolution of human rights movement in India, the obvious frame
work is post-colonial democracy. The relatively modern post-colonial Indian State was confronted
by its’ “predominantly traditional social fabric, segmented and stratified around multiple ascriptive
identities of religion, race, language, tribe, caste, spatial location, along with gender” (Aswini Ray,
2003). Thus, the violation of human rights is not committed by the State alone. The traditional social
structures are also responsible for it. The structural basis of inequality and the consequent violation
of human rights in India has been caste based social structure where the dalits have been and still are
subjected to all sorts of atrocities. Not only this, though the practice of untouchability has been
prohibited by the State, it still continues, though on a lesser scale, because of ritual purity/pollution
basis of caste-hierarchy.

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