Indian Society & Culture

2. Demographic profile of India

• Biogenetic Variability among Indian Population
• Racial classification in India
  • Sir Herbert Hope Risley
  • Giufrida-Ruggeri
  • A.C. Haddon
  • Eickstedt
  • B.S. Guha
  • S.S. Sarkar
  • Debate over Negrito element in India
• Linguistic elements in the Indian population and their distribution
• Indian population – factors influencing its structure and growth.
  • Growth of population in India
  • Factors Affecting the Fertility in Women
  • Imbalance in Sex ratio in India or son’s preference
  • Effects of over population in India
  • Measures for controlling the rapid growth of population in India
  • Population Policy of India
• Previous Years Questions

3. Indian Traditional Society , Caste Studies , Religious Impact

• 3.1 The structure and nature of traditional Indian social system —
  • Varnashram
  • Purushartha
  • Karma Theory
  • Rina
  • Guna Theory
  • Previous Years Questions
• 3.2 Caste system in India-
  • structure and characteristics
  • Varna and caste
  • Theories of origin of caste system
  • The Ideology of Purity-Impurity
  • Compare Louis Dumont’s and Andre Beteille’s Perspective on Caste System
  • Working of the caste system
  • Demerits and Merits of the Caste System
  • Ranking of castes
  • Dominant caste
  • Caste mobility
  • Caste and Marriage
  • Caste and Economy
  • Caste and Politics
  • Caste and Class
  • Present Structure of the Caste System
  • New Trends Found in the Caste System of Modern India
  • Future of caste system
  • Jajmani system
  • Caste and Tribe
  • Tribe- caste continuum by Bailey
  • Tribe- caste continuum by Surjit Sinha’s Studies
  • Previous Years Questions
• 3.3 L.P Vidyarthi
  • Sacred Complex
  • Nature- Man- Spirit Complex.
  • Sacred Complex by Mekhan Jha
  • B.N Saraswati contribution for Civilization and Sacred Complex
  • Previous Years Questions
• 3.4 Impact of religions on Caste Hindu Society
  • Buddhism
  • Jainism
  • Islam
  • Christianity
  • Previous Years Questions

4. Emergence and growth of anthropology in India

• Growth of anthropology in India defined by L.P Vidharthi
• Growth of anthropology as defined by D.P. Sinha
• Growth of peasant studies in India
• Growth of tribal studies in India
• Indian anthropology: Future Issues and Challenges
• Contributions of Indian anthropologists to tribal and caste studies
  • James H Hutton
  • Christoph von-Fuhrer Haimendorf
  • Verrier Holman Elwin
  • Rai Bahadur Sarat Chandra Roy
  • Biraja Shankar Guha
  • Dewan Bahadur L. K. Ananthakrishna Iyer
  • Govind Sadashiv Ghurye
  • Dhirendra Nath Majumdar
  • Nirmal Kumar Bose
  • Irawati Karve
  • Mysore Narasimhachar Srinivas
  • Shyama Charan Dube
  • Surajit Chandra Sinha
  • Lalita Prasad Vidyarthi
  • Milton Singer
  • McKim Marriott
  • Louis Dumont
  • Andre Beteille
• Previous Years Questions

5. Indian Village , Social Change and Minorities

5.1 Indian Village:

• Village studies conducted in India
• The significance of village study in India
• Unity and diversities among Indian Villages
• Difference between rural and urban society
• Social Structure of the Village : Caste , Class and Gender
• Traditional and changing patterns of settlement
• Do you think villages can be treated as ‘little republics’? Critically discuss.
• Methodological Approaches to Study Indian Villages
• Rural Cosmopolitanism
• Traditional Culture
• Agrarian relations in Indian villages- Meaning , Definiton and Phases of development
  • Agrarian social structure in pre-British India
  • Agrarian social structure during British period
  • Agrarian structure in post-independence period
  • Agrarian structure in contemporary India
• Impact of market economy on Indian Villages
• Impact of globalization on Indian villages
• Agrarian Unrest
• Social consequences of green revolution
• Previous Years Questions

5.2 Linguistic and religious minorities and their social, political and economic status.

• Introduction – Who ?
• Muslim
• Christian
• Buddhists
• Jains
• Parsis
• Sikhs,
• Overall Minorities Problems
• Conversions in India
• Schemes for Minority Development
• Previous Years Questions

5.3 Indigenous and exogenous processes of socio-cultural change in Indian society:

• Sanskritization
• Westernization
• Impact of Westernization on Sanskritization
• Modernization
• Globalization
• Inter-play of little and great traditions
• Universalisation and Parochialisation
• Panchayati raj and social change;
• Media and social change.
• Socail Mobility
• Previous Years Questions

Additional Knowledge , Not mentioned in Syllabus

• An Anthropological Vision on the Impact of Globalization on Indian Rural Women: A Critical Reality
• Social Change
• Theories of Social Change
• Processes of Social Change (Covered in 5.3)
• Secularization
• Factors of Social Change
• Social Change in Contemporary India
  • Contemporary Social Change
  • Economic Development: Its Determinants and Social Consequences
  • Industrialisation
  • Urbanisation

• Continuity and Change of Indian Society
• Village Communities in India
• Sanskritization and Westernization – A Dynamic View – Harold A Gould