Page 317 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Social Structure and Social Change

Notes (iv) The maximum number of towns declassified were from the states of ............... .
(v) Five states namely Mahareshtra, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Andhra
Pradesh altogether accounted for ............... of the total urban populations of India in 1971
14.6 Summary

• Families are the fundamental unit of society. While their broad functions childrearing, care,
protection, sustenance, socialisation, nurturance, affection and intimacy—are perennial, family
size and form have shown considerable historical change. To what extent are these sorts of
changes affecting family functioning? Families are embedded in the wider contexts of
neighbourhood, community and society, and these are also subject to change. Do these changes,
which themselves partly arise from family trends, alter the social and emotional character of
family relationships?
• The place of children is not uniformly advantageous across our communities. In a recent volume,
Keating and Hertz-man (1999) highlighted “modernity’s paradox”:
• The trends in population and disadvantage are interrelated. Birth rates differ considerably by
social class. For the least advantaged Australians the birth rates may be double those of the
more affluent (ABS, 2008). However, the average interval between generations for the more
affluent is almost double that for the least affluent (approximately 29 years versus 16 years).
• Theodore Dalrymple (1999), the nom de plume of Anthony Daniels, a British medical practitioner,
related an interesting anecdote:
• A 26-year-old woman has just become a grandmother. She gave birth at 14, her daughter was
12. On the present trend, she will be a great-great-grandmother by the age of 60.
• The feature of unity in diversity in Indian culture presented is but one aspect of the contemporary
social scene. The second aspect would be the description of the nature, directions and factors of
social change in India. In this chapter, a brief description of this aspect would be given.
• In the study of sociology of economic development, some important questions of sociological
relevance are: What is economic development? How does economic growth begin? What social
infrastructure is needed for economic development? What are the preconditions for economic
change and how can these be induced? Can factors which accelerate economic development be
identified? Can social and cultural barriers to economic development be overcome and its pace
increased? What are the social consequences of economic development? How can dysfunctional
aspects of economic development be checked? In this section, we will try to find out the answers
to these questions.
• In the broadest sense, economic development might be viewed as “any growth in real income
per capita from whatever source” (Robert Faris, 1964:889). Bach (1960:167) has described it as
“growth in the total output of goods and services in the economy”. Novack (1964:151) has
referred to a very old definition of economic growth, according to which it is “continuous
substantial increase in per capita consumption of goods and services”. The substantial
consumption of economic goods is possible only when there is substantial production of
economic goods, and sub-stantial production these days depends upon greater use of
technologies.
• The economic development in India after independence can truly be described as a revolutionary
change. If we compare the economic development in the British period with the one in the
Nehru period of about two decades, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi periods of about two
decades, the period of more than six years of V.P.Singh, Chandra Shekhar and Narasimha
Rao’s governments, about two years period of United Front governments, and about one year
period of BJP-led government, the truth behind the above statement becomes self-evident.
• 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

312 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY