Class XII – Sociology – Paper – 3

Ans. (b) Both (A) and (R) are true, but R is not the correct explanation of (A).

Ans. (d) (A) is false, but (R) is true

Ans. (a) I. and III.

Ans. (b) Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A)

Ans. (d) None of the above

Ans. (a) Dalit literature solely focuses on the experiences of upper castes.

Ans. (c) I., II., and IV. only

Ans. (a) Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A)

Ans. (d) Technology plays no role in addressing the challenges of population growth.

Ans. (b) I., II., and III. only

Ans. (c) Its ultimate source of legitimacy are the people who constitute it.  

Ans. (d) All of these issues collectively threaten the unity and diversity of India

Ans. (a) Both (A) and (R) are true, and (R) is the correct explanation of (A).

Ans. (a) Both (A) and (R) are true, and (R) is the correct explanation of (A).

Ans. (d) All of these, as industries of all scales are categorized based on the level of capital investment involved.

Ans. (b) I., II., III., IV.

Ans. The key principles of social stratification are as follows

(i) Social stratification is not just a function for the individual difference but is a characteristic of a society.

(ii) Social stratification is continuing from generation to generation.

(iii) Social stratification is supported by a prototype of belief or ideology.

Ans. Many changes came in the caste system due to Western education, industrialisation, urbanisation, means of communication, etc. Almost all the restrictions of the caste system are coming improved to an end. Inter-caste marriages are increasing, the position of lower caste has been improved, steps have been taken against all types of discrimination, and problems regarding occupation is no more in the society.

Ans. The main difference between ‘Nation’ and ‘Nation state’ is that a ‘Nation’ is a large body of people united by a common origin, history, culture, ethnicity or language while Nation state’ is a state where people with a common identity live inside a country with firm borders and a single government.

Ans. Negative impacts of industrialisation on labourers are as follows

(i) Very few people are given work in more mechanised industries. Whatever the number of

people works in it, have to work like machines which alienate them form their work.

(ii) Very less time for rest is given to workers during their working hour. That is why, they become frustrated when they reach the age of 40 and take voluntary retirement.

Ans. Some popular events of worker’s strike during the British rule in India as follows

(i) Tea plantations in Assam were established as early as 1839. In the early stages of colonialism, labour was very cheap, as the colonial government did not regulate either wages or working conditions. However, later trade unions emerged and then workers started to protest. Their actions were more spontaneous than sustained.

(ii) In September and October 1917, there were around 30 recorded strikes. Jute workers in Calcutta struck work. In Madras, the workers of Buchingham and Carnatic Mills (Binny’s) struck work for increased wages. Textile workers in Ahmedabad struck work for increase in wages by 50 per cent.

Ans. There are fundamental differences between the Redemptive and Reformist Social movements which are as follows

Ans. Sex ratio refers to the number of females per 1000 males in a given area at a specified time period.

An implication of a declining sex ratio is severe neglect of girls in infancy, sex-specific abortions that prevent girl babies from being born and female infanticide.

Ans. Land ceiling is a concept where an individual should possess cultivable land according to a prescribed limit. The different reforms that brought in India are as follows

(i) Redistribution of cultivable land.

(ii) Ceiling of the upper limit of land holdings.

Ans. The Dalit literature played an essential role in supporting the Dalit movements by providing them the necessary support.

Through the Dalit literature, the perspective of the Dalits or the lower castes was exposed deep rooted in their own experience and perceptions.

This way, the viewpoint of Dalits about the discrimination they experience became public knowledge.

The Dalit literature also helped to grow the community feeling among the Dalits and they could come together to fight for the same cause.

Ans. The Indian Government has followed a policy of liberalisation since 1990. The liberalisation has affected employment in the following ways

(i) Due to liberalisation foreign products are now easily available in Indian market and shops. It increased the employment opportunities in industries and MNC’s.

(ii) Many Indian companies have been taken over by multinationals. At the same time some Indian companies are becoming multinational companies.

Ans. The two features of organised sector are as follows

(i) An organised sector is a type of sector which is subject to regulations that every employee must follow.

(ii) The organisations in organised sector are registered with the government. This ensures that the employees get proper salaries and other benefits.

Ans. The main features of the Zamindari system during British rule were as follows

(i) Under the Zamindari system, an agreement was signed between the British officers and the Zamindars. Under this agreement, the Zamindars were provided with Zamindari rights of the land.

(ii) Rajas and Taluqdars were recognised as zamindars and became responsible for collecting revenue from peasants and paying to the company. In addition to it, revenue demand was permanently fixed.

(iii) This system was majorly considered to be exploitative in nature and the farmers, who were landless suffered at the hands of the zamindars that used to extort lot of money from these farmers.

(iv) Zamindari system was introduced by Comwallis in 1793 through the Permanent Settlement Act during the British rule in India. It was introduced in the provinces.of Bengal, Bihar, Odisha and Varanasi. It is also known as ‘Permanent Settlement System’.

Ans. The major provisions of the Land Ceiling Act were as follows

(i) Land Ceiling Act imposed upper limit on the amount of land that can be owned by a particular family.

(ii) Possession of surplus land (above the ceiling limit) held by each household, and redistribute it to landless families.

There were many loopholes and other strategies through which most landowners were able to escape from having their surplus land taken over by the state. The loopholes found in the implementation of the Land Ceiling Act were as follows

(i) In most cases landowners managed to divide the land among relatives and others, including servants, in so-called benamic transfers.

(ii) In some places, some rich farmers actually divorced their wives (but continued to live with them) in order to avoid the provisions of Land Ceiling Act, which allowed a separate share for unmarried women but not for wives.

Ans. Commitment to the protection of minorities can be a challenge to the state because the Constitution of India declared the state as a secular state. However, in practice, minorities are often hurt by the actions of the state. There are many religious minorities which may be better economically but a disadvantaged group in the cultural sense because of their small numbers.

It is important to provide them with protection due to the following reasons

(i) Religious and cultural minority groups need protection because of the demographic dominance of the majority.

(ii) They should be given special consideration so that they are not considered a minority in the political sphere.

(iii) These groups are vulnerable and can face major risk by the majority community. They can use their power to suppress their religion and cultural Institution and eventually forcing them to completely abandon their identity.

Ans. Process of Sanskritisation encourages inequalities and discrimination in society. It has been criticised for enaggerating social mobility or the scope of ‘lower castes’ to move up the social ladder. This has lead to no structural change but only positional change of some individuals. The following are some examples

(i) The ideology of sanskritisation accepts the ways of the upper caste as superior and that of the lower caste as inferior. Therefore, the desire to initate the ‘upper caste’ is seen as natural and desirable.

(ii) Process that is gendered though progressive for men, upper caste practices like Purdah system, low age of marriage, dowry in place of bride price are regressive as far as women are concerned.

(iii) Sanskritisation results in the adoption of upper caste rites and rituals it leads to practices of secluding girls and women adopting dowry practices instead of bride-price.

Ans. Social reformers played a significant role in upliftment of the women issues in Indian history. For example, issues related to practice of sati system, child marriage and widow remarriage were taken up by the reformers. Female education was promoted by the social reformers and new ideas of liberalism and freedom also brought new ideas of homemaking and marriage.

Jyotiba Phule the reformer opened the first school for women in Pune. Another reformer, Jahanara Shah at the All India Muslim Ladies Conference proposed a resolution against the evils of polygamy in Islam.

Thus, social reformers tried to bring changes in the social practices that discriminated against women.

Ans. If Industries become more mechanised, automated, and digitised, fewer people are required to perform the same amount of work. This can have a significant impact on employment levels and the labour market.

One example of this can be seen in the manufacturing industry. With the advent of industrial automation and robotics, many factories and assembly lines have become highly automated. This means that machines and robots perform many of the tasks that were previously done by human workers. For example, in car manufacturing plants, robots can be programmed to perform tasks such as welding, painting, and assembly, which were previously done by human workers.

As a result, the number of workers required to operate a factory or assembly line has decreased significantly. In some cases, entire production lines can be run with just a handful of workers overseeing the operation of the machines. While this has increased productivity and efficiency, it has also led to job losses in the manufacturing sector.

Ans. The opinion of Rabindranath Tagore on the evils of exclusive nationalism in context of Indian society was deeply critical to western notion of nationalism. He holds that a nation is a political and economic union of people who are organised for mechanical purpose. He specifies nation as an end in itself and not a means to an end. He wrote his important literary work ‘On Nationalism’ which was first published in 1917. He believed that India does not need to be insecure, and that it does not have to protect itself against any force from outside. He was not blind to accept and believe only in the nation’s heritage and past. He reciprocated the western culture as he believed that it would also be helpful in India’s growth. In this writing, he aims to convince his audience that India’s many problems are social, rather than political.

In fact, he goes one stage further and states that the fundamental problems in all nations are social. Tagore’s perception of nationalism has mainly relied on ancient Indian philosophy, where the world was accepted as a single nest. In this way, Tagore was striving to dissociate himself from the general belief of nationalism and trying to associate it with ideas such as peace, harmony and welfare.

Ans. National development severely affected the tribal communities in India through several development policies and projects. National development is referred to as the building of large dams, factories and mines across the country. As the tribal areas were located in mineral rich and forest covered parts of the country, tribal communities have paid a disproportionate price for the development of the rest of Indian society.

There are some examples which highlight how national development affected the tribal communities in India, which are as follows

(i) National development in the post-independent era, focused on the building of large dams, factories and mines etc. As the tribal areas were rich in minerals, they paid a heavy price for the development activities, which benefitted the mainstream at the expense of the tribes.

(ii) The idea of private property in land, also, adversely affected the tribes. Tribes which mostly had collective community based ownership-were at a disadvantage in the new system. Example series of dams being built over the Narmada river.

(iii) Many tribal regions have experienced heavy in- migration of non-tribals. This threatens to disrupt their cultures and communities. For example, Jharkhand and Tripura.

Ans. The ecological or environmental movement is a diverse scientific, social and a political movement for addressing environmental issues.

The Chipko Movement is an example of the ecological movement, started in the Himalayan foothills. When government forest contractors came to cut down the trees, villagers, including large number of women, stepped forward to hug the trees to prevent their being felled.

All of them relied on the forest to get firewood, fodder and other daily necessities. This conflict placed the livelihood needs of poor villagers against the government’s desire to generate revenues from selling timber. The economy of subsistence was pitted against the economy of profit. Along with this issue of social inequality (villagers versus a government that represented commercial, capitalist interests), the Chipko Movement also raised the issue of ecological sustainability.

In addition, the Chipko Movement also expressed the resentment of hill villagers against a distant government headquartered in the plains that seemed indifferent and hostile to their concerns. So, concerns about economy, ecology and political representation underlay the Chipko Movement.

Ans. (a) In absolute terms the difference in urban Indian population between 1951 and 2011 is between 250-350 million inhabitants. It can be seen from graph lived in urban areas.

Ans. (b) Urban areas have seen a greater growth in population than rural areas, although the rate of growth in urban areas remains nearly constant. The absolute increase in population is more in urban areas than in rural areas. This is due to a sharp decline in the growth rate in rural areas, while the growth rate in urban areas remains almost the same.

Ans. (c) India’s urban population has been increasing since 1951 to 2011. In 1951, 62.44 million people were living in 2,843 towns. In 2011, 377.10 million people were living in 7,935 towns. This shows a steady increase in terms of absolute numbers and the per cent share of the urban population.

Ans. The situation of agricultural workers in directly linked with their lack of upward socio-economic mobility because

(i) Indian rural society is totally dependent on agriculture. It is the only source of their livelihood. Unfortunately, it is unevenly distributed, not organised and many people of rural Society are landless.

(ii) Most of the people in villages are landless and for their livelihood they become agriculture workers. They are paid below the statutory minimum wages. Their job is not regular and employment is insecure. Mostly these agriculture workers work on daily wages.

(iii) The tenants also have lower income because they have to pay a large amount of production to the landowner.

(iv) The ownership of land or its total area determines the position of the farmers upward or downward mobility in his socio-economic system. Therefore, the agrarian society can be understood in terms of its class structure which is structured through Caste system.

(v) Indian rural society has patrilineal kinship system. According to legal system women are supposed to have an equal right of family property but actually it is simply on papers. Because of male dominance, they are deprived of their rights.

Ans. (a) The Karachi Congress session which was held on 26th to 31st March, 1931 was chaired by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

Some important key features of the Karachi Declaration held in 1931 with regards to fundamental rights in India were

(i) All citizens are equal before the law, irrespective of religion, caste, creed or sex.

(ii) No disability attaches to any citizen, by reason of his or her religion, caste, creed or sex, in regard to public employment, office of power or honour, and in the exercise of any trade or calling.

(iii) Woman shall have the right to vote, to represent and the right to hold public offices. (iv) The resolution on Fundamental Rights guaranteed several civil rights including free speech and free press, right to form associations, universal adult franchise.

Ans. (b) The Resolution on National Economic Programme included

(i) substantial reduction in rent and revenue in the case of landholders and peasants.

(ii) exemption from rent for uneconomic holdings.

(iii) relief from agricultural indebtedness.

(iv) control of usury.

(v) better conditions of work including a living wage, limited hours of work and protection of women workers in the industrial sector.

(vi) right to workers and peasants to form unions.

(vii) state ownership and control of key industries, mines and means of transport.