Page 307 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Social Structure and Social Change

Notes in a plural democracy and mixed economy. The United Front government and the BJP-led government
also continued this economic policy.
The Tirupati session of the Congress in April 1992 adopted a new ideological paradigm which was a
shift from left-of-centre to right-of-centre. It was a technique of discarding Nehru in Nehru’s name. It
focused on cutting down subsidies to various sectors (including’ agriculture and public distribution
system), discarding licence-permit raj, introducing the exit policy, opening the country for
multinational corporations, removing import controls, and not treating public sector merely as a job
distribution agency characterised by a non-work ethic. Thus, the rhetoric stayed socialist while the
content of policies became capitalist with a vengeance.
There are scholars who do not believe that the new economic policy will really rejuvenate the Indian
economy. They maintain that our economy can be revived best by imposing curbs on import, promoting
exports, widening the tax-net, debureaucratising the public sector, unearthing black money,
introducing cuts in defence spending, taking more interest in tapping natural resources, creating a
very large market for goods, bringing radical land reforms, and so on. These scholars also believe
that country should depend on the internal rather than the external measures.
Sociologically, it may be held that the economic development—both through Nehru and liberal
models—has affected our social structures in a direction as we desired it. Whatever sociological
model we may use for evaluating our society, viz., evolutionary (assessing evolving of society in
series of stages), conflict (emphasising competition and continuous struggle for power), functional
(analysing the consequences of each institutional practice for all other elements in the social structure),
etc., it will be obvious that change has taken place in the network of social relations, social institutions,
social systems and social structures, social norms, etc. People in India are no longer as conservative
as half a century ago. They do not cling tenaciously to the moral norms and social values that came
down to them from the past. Men individually strive towards individual liberty and collective security.
There is also change in their outlook and ideas. They wish for new experiences. They have a curiosity
to borrow not only technologies but also cultural elements from other societies. They have a creative
urge for innovations. They are not much afraid of the consequences of the acceptance of innovations
and social changes. They may protest and agitate against the power elite for failing to mitigate the
problems of poverty, unemployment, corruption, inflation, nepotism, terrorism, casteism, regionalism,
etc., yet they know that social order in India will never be in a state of disequilibrium. Indian culture,
with divergence of interests, will not only survive but develop too. Social change, through economic
development, will provide clues arid directions to social structures and social behaviour—traditional
as well as transitional.
14.4 Industrialisation

Industrialisation got under way in India in the last quarter of the nineteenth and first half of the
twentieth century. Cities grew around the new industries. Before industrialisation, we had (i) agrarian
non-monetised economy, (ii) a level of technology where the domestic unit was also the unit of
economic exchange, (iii) a non-differentiation of occupations between father and son and between
brothers and brothers, and (iv) a value system where authority of the elders and the sanctity of
tradition were both supported as against the criterion of ‘rationality’. But industrialisation has brought
about economic and socio-cultural changes in our society. In the economic field, it has resulted in
specialisation in work, occupational mobility, monetisation of economy, and a breakdown of link
between kinship and occupational structures; in the social field, it has resulted in the migration of
people from rural to urban areas, spread of education, and a strong centralised political structure; in
the cultural field, it has brought secularisation of beliefs.
There have been three important effects of industrialisation on family organisation: First, family
which was a principal unit of production has been transformed into a consumption unit. Instead of
all family members working together in an integrated economic enterprise, a few male members go
out of the home to earn the family’s living. This has affected not only the traditional structure of the
joint family but also the relations among its members. Secondly, factory employment has freed young
adults from direct dependence upon their families. As their wages have made them financially

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