SOCIETY AND CULTURE

Students of sociology are primarily interested in the study of social structure and change in it. Social structure refers to patterns of expected behaviour or sum total of social institutions. “For Radcliff Brown, Malinowski and Nadel, social structure is the ‘order' of social relationships, roles and statuses which constitute the apparent reality and are outside human mind.” (Singh, 1993). Structure is closely associated with the culture of society which refers to values and norms transmitted from one generation to another. Culture may be broadly divided into material culture and non-material culture. The former includes all the physical artefacts – tools, ornaments, material, utensils or any other object developed and used in a culture. The latter includes values and norms. Values are the standards of goodness, truth and beauty. Norms are the guidelines for behaviour. Members of society are expected to attain values by following the prescribed norms (folkways, mores, laws, etc.) of society.

This module deals with the society of India . It discusses the nature of Indian society, processes of change and development, their consequences for inequalities and the major demographic and health goals as envisioned by the Eleventh Five Year Plan.

CHARACTERISTICS OF INDIAN SOCIETY

Indian society is characterized by poverty, illiteracy, diversity, patriarchy, importance of caste, community and tribal identity, and weak governance even after 60 years of independence. The major complexity in theorisation of Indian society lies in the fact that India has had its own unique civilization, social structure and culture and contradictions and oppositional forces within and it has also been greatly influenced by the world wide processes of change such as postmodernization and globalization.