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Social Structure and Social Change
Notes
4 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY
The Nature of Diversities
The diversity runs through various races, religions, castes, tribes, languages, social customs, cultural
and sub-cultural beliefs, political philosophies, and ideologies. Broadly speaking, the diversities
are found in the following areas:
Languages
Though the Constitution of India has recognized eighteen major languages (including three
languages recognized in August, 1992) but as many as 1,652 languages and dialects are spoken in
our country. Broadly, these languages belong to three families of languages: Indo-Aryan, Dravidian,
and European. The Indo-Aryan languages include Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Oriya, Punjabi,
Bihari, Rajasthani, Assamese, Sanskrit, Sindhi, and Kashmiri languages covering about three-
fourths of India’s population. The Dravidian languages include Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and
Kannada. The European languages include English, Portuguese, and French. The last two languages
are mostly spoken by people in Goa and Pondicherry.
Hindi is the official language of India and English is an associate language. According to 1991
figures, Hindi is spoken by the highest number of people (247.85 million), followed by Telugu
(72.08 million), Bengali (71.78 million), Marathi (67.26 million), Tamil (60.60 million), Urdu (46.11
million), Gujarati (41.37 million), Malayalam (35.32 million), Kannada (34.78 million), Oriya (31.79
million), Bhojpuri (23.11 million) and Punjabi (22.41 million). The rest of the languages are spoken
by one million to twenty million each. Some states were even created after independence on the
language basis, e.g., Punjab was divided in Punjab and Haryana, and Maharashtra was divided in
Maharashtra and Gujarat. Some states like Mizoram and Nagaland were created on cultural basis.
Religions
Though India has no state religion, yet the state guarantees the freedom of following and practicing
all religious faiths. Among the major religions are: Hinduism (practised, according to 1991 census
figures, by 697.4 million people including Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, or 82.6 per cent
of the country’s total population), Islam (practised by 95.8 million people or 11.35 per cent of the
country’s population), Christianity (practised by 20.5 million people or 2.43 per cent of the total
population), Sikhism (practised by 16.5 million people or 1.96 per cent of the total population),
Buddism (practised by 5.9 million people on 0.71 per cent of the total population), Jainism (practised
by 4.1 million people or 0.48 per cent of the total population) and others (practised by 3.5 million
people or 0.3 per cent of the total population).
Christianity came to India through Portuguese occupation of Goa, Daman and
Diu in the sixteenth century and later on through the Britishers in the seventeenth
century.
Hinduism advocates the doctrines of karma (doing one’s duties), dharma, rebirth (man takes 84,000
births, depending upon good and bad deeds of his life), immortality of soul (soul never dies),
renunciation, and moksha (freedom from the cycle of births and deaths).
Islam came to India along with the Muslim invasions. It is strictly a monotheistic religion which
professes the fatalistic acceptance” of Allah’s (God’s) will. It docs not believe in idol worship. It considers
Prophet Mohammed as the greatest prophet and the Quran as the most sacred book. It prescribes five
duties as the primary duties of a devout Muslim: belief in Allah, prayers five times a day, the giving of
alms, a month’s fast every year, and a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in a lifetime.
Sikhism emerged in the fifteenth century. Its founder Guru Nanak and the later nine Gurus who
followed him preached against the hypocrisy in religion. The religious symbols of Sikhism are five
‘Ks’: kesh (hair), kangha (comb), kara (bracelet), kirpan (sword), and kachha (shorts).