Society and Culture in India is a collection of eighteen carefully chosen essays written by internationally famous sociologists whose work is on India. It has been designed to take the reader through the discipline of Sociology to get an understanding of the complex nature of Indian society.
The editor of the volume, Subas Mohapatra has very perceptively grouped the various readings in the book under five main heads, they are: ‘An Introduction to Sociology and Pioneering Sociologists’, ‘Sociology of Caste Past and Present’, ‘Rural and Agrarian Society’, ‘Poverty and Development’ and ‘Contemporary Social Issues’.
The essays in this book dwell on several separate subject areas of sociology. This enables the Reader to provide a comprehensive view of the discipline of sociology itself as well as the society it tries to understand.
Some of the main concerns of this book are: growth and development of sociology in India; changing nature of caste, village and rural society; sociological analysis of poverty and contemporary issues associated with civil society; gender inequality and secularism and communalism.
The Reader does not try to be thematically exhaustive but it nevertheless enables one to see order beneath the everyday confusions of life in India.
Subas Mohapatra is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi. He has been engaged in teaching and research since 1984.
His areas of specialization include Social Stratification, Sociology of Kinship, Indian Society and Sociology of Education.
He has delivered lectures and participated in discussions and seminars in different institutions of repute. He regularly participates in television talks and delivers lectures in Doordarshan Vyas-television programmes of UGC.
Section I An Introduction to Sociology and Pioneering Sociologists1. Sociology Concepts and Institutions André Béteille2. The Hindu Nationalist Sociology of G.S. GhuryeCarol Upadhya3. On Srinivas’s ‘Sociology’ Sujata Patel4. Louis Dumont and the Study of Society in India T.N. Madan5. The Anti-Utopian Liberal: An Introduction to the Works of André BéteilleDipankar Gupta Section IISociology of Caste: Past and Present6. Closed and Open Social Stratification André Béteille7. Transformation of Caste System into ‘Caste’ in Contemporary IndiaK.L. Sharma8. The Reproduction of Inequality: Occupation, Caste and FamilyAndré Béteille Section IIIRural and Agrarian Sociology9. Introduction Vandana Madan10. Whither the Indian Village: Culture and Agriculture in ‘Rural’ IndiaDipankar Gupta11. Cooperatives and Industrialisation in Rural Areas: The Indian ExperiencesB.S. Baviskar and Donald W. Attwood Section IV Poverty and Development in India12. The Construction of Poverty and the Poor inColonial Post-Colonial India: An OverviewNandiniGooptu13. From Poverty to Poverty Policies for Translating Growth into DevelopmentDipankar Gupta14. How to Govern the Poor: The Role of Social Policies in Economic TransformationDwaipayan Bhattacharyya Section V Contemporary Social Issues15. Secularism in a Pluri-Religious Society: The Constitutional VisionRudolf C. Heredia16. Institutional Communalism in India Pritam Singh17. Gendered Citizenship and Women’s Movement Anurekha Chari18. Civil Society and Indian Democracy: Possibilities of Social TransformationMihir Shah