UPMSP Intermediate Sociology cheat sheet

Census 2011 counted 1.21 billion people; decadal growth 2001–11 was 17.7%, down from 21.5% in 1991–2001, signalling falling fertility.

Census 2011 essentials: 68.8% rural and 31.2% urban; literacy 74.0% (male 82.1%, female 65.5%); sex ratio 943; child sex ratio (0–6 years) 919.

Religious composition 2011: Hindus 79.8%, Muslims 14.2%, Christians 2.3%, Sikhs 1.7%, Buddhists 0.7%, Jains 0.4%.

Scheduled Castes are 16.6% and Scheduled Tribes 8.6% of the population (Census 2011).

India supports about 17.5% of the world's population on roughly 2.4% of the world's land area.

The age structure is young but ageing: about 26% are aged 0–14 and the 65+ share is rising; the large working-age bulge is termed the demographic dividend.

Internal migration is overwhelmingly intra-state; marriage is the single largest reason women migrate, while men move mainly for work.

India is in late stage III of the demographic transition - both birth and death rates are falling, so natural growth has slowed but on a very large base.

Kerala and Tamil Nadu are near replacement fertility while Bihar and Uttar Pradesh remain well above it, so national averages conceal wide state variation.

Caste is hereditary, endogamous, hierarchically ranked and traditionally linked to occupation and to ideas of purity and pollution.

Varna is the four-fold textual model (Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra plus the excluded untouchables); jati is the local endogamous birth group that structures everyday life.

Article 366(25) defines Scheduled Tribes as communities notified by the President; more than 700 groups are currently listed.

Tribal societies typically show community ownership of land and forests, distinct language and religion, and less internal hierarchy than caste society.

Hindu marriage is traditionally a sacrament (samskara) governed by caste endogamy and gotra exogamy; the Special Marriage Act 1954 permits civil and inter-faith marriage.

Legal checks on marriage practice: Dowry Prohibition Act 1961, Section 498A IPC (1983), Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005, Prohibition of Child Marriage Act 2006.

Kinship divides into consanguineal (blood) and affinal (marriage) ties; north Indian kinship stresses village exogamy and patrilocal residence.

Household change: Census 2011 shows nuclear households now form the majority; female age at marriage has risen to about 21 years and fertility is near replacement level.

Markets are social institutions: prices and contracts rest on trust, reputation and community networks, not only on individual calculation.

Periodic haats and weekly markets persist because they cut transport and storage costs for small producers and give rural households credit and choice.

Caste-based trading communities - Bania, Marwari, Chettiar, Parsi - historically controlled credit and long-distance commerce, showing how caste shaped markets.

Polanyi calls labour, land and money 'fictitious commodities': treated as goods though none is produced for sale, their commodification provokes counter-movements for social protection.

Colonial integration turned India into an exporter of raw cotton, indigo, jute and tea and an importer of British manufactures, reorganising internal markets.

The 1991 reforms - de-licensing, tariff cuts, FDI opening and rupee devaluation - shifted India towards market-led growth and a services-heavy economy.

Around 90% of Indian workers are informally employed, so written contracts and social security cover only a minority of the labour force.

Consumption marks status: Veblen's conspicuous consumption and advertising-driven aspiration reshape caste and class identities in urban India.

Regulatory bodies such as SEBI (statutory powers 1992) and the Competition Commission of India (2003, operational 2009) frame how markets operate.

Principal axes of inequality are caste, class, gender, tribe, religion and disability; these overlap and reinforce one another.

Ambedkar described caste as 'graded inequality' - each group accepts its rank relative to those above and below, which blocks united opposition to the system.

Class analysis: Marx uses ownership of the means of production; Weber adds status and market situation; Indian agrarian classes run from landlords through tenants to agricultural labourers.

Constitutional reservation provides 15% for SCs and 7.5% for STs in education and public employment (Articles 15(4), 16(4), 46, 330, 332, 335).

The Mandal Commission (1980) estimated OBCs at 52% and recommended 27% reservation, implemented in 1990; Indra Sawhney (1992) capped total reservation at 50% and introduced the creamy layer.

The 103rd Amendment (2019) added 10% reservation for Economically Weaker Sections among unreserved categories.

Gender gaps persist in wages, property rights and workforce participation; female labour force participation has ranged roughly between 25% and 37% in recent PLFS rounds against male participation above 70%.

Article 17 abolishes untouchability and the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 criminalises caste atrocities, yet discrimination in housing, marriage and public services endures.

Poverty is measured both by consumption expenditure (Tendulkar methodology) and by multidimensional indices such as the NITI MPI with its 12 indicators.

The Eighth Schedule lists 22 scheduled languages, but the 1961 Census recorded 1,652 mother tongues, so actual diversity far exceeds the schedule.

Indian secularism means sarva dharma samabhava - equal respect for all religions - rather than a strict separation of state and religion; Articles 25–28 guarantee religious freedom.

Bipan Chandra distinguishes three levels of communalism: communal consciousness (stereotypes), communal mobilisation (organisations and rallies) and communal violence (riots).

Linguistic reorganisation: Andhra was created in 1953 after Potti Sriramulu's fast, and the States Reorganisation Act 1956 redrew most state boundaries along language lines.

Regionalism can be positive (cultural pride, statehood demands such as Telangana 2014 and Uttarakhand 2000) or secessionist (for example Khalistan in the 1980s).

Minority safeguards: Articles 29–30 protect minority culture and educational institutions, and the National Commission for Minorities was established in 1992.

The Sachar Committee (2006) reported that Muslims lagged on education, employment and credit, prompting minority-focused development schemes.

Major communal flashpoints include Partition (1947), the anti-Sikh riots (1984), Bhagalpur (1989), Gujarat (2002) and Muzaffarnagar (2013).

National integration rests on constitutional guarantees, federal accommodation of language and the principle of unity in diversity.

Colonial economy: Dadabhai Naoroji's 'drain of wealth' thesis holds that India became a supplier of raw materials and a captive market for British manufactures.

Land revenue systems - Permanent Settlement 1793 (Bengal), Ryotwari (Madras and Bombay), Mahalwari (North-Western Provinces) - produced different agrarian class structures.

India's first railway ran Bombay–Thane in 1853; the first cotton mill opened in Bombay in 1854 and TISCO's steel plant at Jamshedpur in 1907.

Deindustrialisation: cheap machine-made imports, railway freight rates and colonial tariff policy ruined weavers and artisans through the nineteenth century.

Post-1947 industrialisation followed the Mahalanobis model - heavy industry, public-sector expansion, import substitution and Five-Year Plans.

The 1991 reforms dismantled the licence-permit raj, cut tariffs and opened sectors to foreign investment, accelerating the growth of services.

Urbanisation reached 31.2% in 2011; million-plus cities concentrate population, producing a 'top-heavy' pattern with primacy of large metros.

Louis Wirth treats urbanism as a way of life: size, density and heterogeneity generate secondary, impersonal and segmental social relations.

Urban infrastructure lags behind growth: slums house roughly 17% of urban households, and informal work dominates urban employment.

Land reform had three prongs - abolition of intermediaries (zamindars, jagirdars), tenancy regulation and ceilings on holdings - with very uneven implementation across states.

Zamindari abolition removed the top layer of landlords but often left tenants unprotected and allowed owners to resume land as 'self-cultivated'.

The Green Revolution from the mid-1960s combined HYV seeds, assured irrigation, fertilisers and price support, raising wheat and rice output mainly in Punjab, Haryana and western UP.

Green Revolution gains were uneven, favouring better-off cultivators and irrigated regions and widening class and regional disparities.

Panchayati Raj: the 73rd Amendment (1992) made three-tier panchayats constitutional, reserving one-third of seats for women (several states now reserve half).

Rural credit institutions include cooperatives, Regional Rural Banks (1975), NABARD (1982) and self-help group–bank linkage reaching millions of women.

MGNREGA (2005) guarantees 100 days of wage employment per rural household and contains provisions on equal wages and works within 5 km.

Agrarian distress - indebtedness, volatile prices, shrinking plot size and monsoon risk - underlies farmer suicides and recurring protest movements.

Rural society is diversifying: non-farm employment, remittances and migration reduce dependence on agriculture, although land remains a marker of status.

Organised-sector workers hold written contracts, regulated hours and social security; the unorganised or informal sector, about 90% of the workforce, largely does not.

Industrial society is analysed through Durkheim's division of labour, Marx's alienation and Weber's bureaucracy and rational-legal authority.

The factory system imposed clock time, supervision and separation of home from workplace, creating a new industrial discipline.

Trade unionism dates from the early twentieth century: AITUC was founded in 1920; the Industrial Disputes Act 1947 and Factories Act 1948 set basic standards.

Fordism combined assembly-line mass production with relatively high wages; post-Fordism shifts to flexible production, outsourcing and casualisation.

India's four labour codes (Code on Wages 2019; Industrial Relations, Social Security and Occupational Safety codes 2020) consolidate 29 central laws, with staggered implementation.

Women's paid work clusters in low-paid, home-based and informal jobs, while unpaid care work remains largely invisible in official statistics.

The gig and platform economy creates employer–worker relationships outside standard labour law, raising questions of social security and algorithmic control.

Major labour conflicts include the Great Bombay Textile Strike of 1982 and recurring disputes over wage boards and contract labour.

The Constitution was adopted on 26 November 1949 and enforced on 26 January 1950; the Preamble declares India sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic and a republic.

Citizenship is governed by Part II (Articles 5–11) and the Citizenship Act 1955; India provides single citizenship only, not dual citizenship.

Fundamental Rights (Part III, Articles 12–35) cover equality, freedom, protection from exploitation, religion, culture and education, with Article 32 guaranteeing constitutional remedies.

Universal adult franchise was adopted with the 1950 Constitution; the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 by the 61st Amendment (1989).

Law as an instrument of change: Article 17 (untouchability), Hindu Marriage Act 1955, Dowry Prohibition Act 1961, Sati Prevention Act 1987, RTI Act 2005, MGNREGA 2005.

Public interest litigation from the late 1970s relaxed the rule of locus standi, allowing courts to hear cases brought on behalf of the poor, the environment and prisoners.

The 73rd and 74th Amendments (1992) gave constitutional status to rural panchayats and urban local bodies, with seats reserved for SCs, STs and women.

Election studies find that poorer and rural voters turn out at high rates, while caste and community networks continue to shape party mobilisation and ticket distribution.

Persistent challenges include criminalisation of politics, campaign finance, dynastic succession and disinformation during elections.

Globalisation since 1991 means liberalisation, privatisation and integration with world markets, framed by IMF, World Bank and WTO (1995) rules.

Cultural globalisation produces both homogenisation (global brands, English) and hybridisation or glocalisation, as local cultures adapt imported forms.

Mass media timeline: Bengal Gazette (1780), All India Radio (1936), Doordarshan (1959), satellite television (from 1991) and internet and social media (2000s).

Media drives social change through agenda-setting, advertising-led consumerism and the representation of caste, gender and region.

Social movements are sustained collective challenges to authorities, built on organised networks, protest repertoires and claims to public support.

Old movements (nationalist, peasant, labour) centred on class and state power; new movements (environment, women, human rights, identity) centre on recognition and everyday life.

Landmark movements include Chipko (1973), the Narmada Bachao Andolan, the farmers' protests (2018–21), the Nirbhaya protests (2012) and Shaheen Bagh (2019–20).

Digital activism lowers organising costs but faces a digital divide, misinformation and surveillance, and online mobilisation rarely sustains organisation by itself.

Media regulation includes the Press Council of India (1966), the Cable Television Networks Act 1995 and the Information Technology Act 2000.