Society and Culture in India: A Reader
Subas Mohapatra (Ed.)
Price
650
ISBN
9789383166145
Language
English
Pages
468
Format
Paperback
Dimensions
180 x 240 mm
Year of Publishing
2017
Territorial Rights
Restricted
Imprint
Social Science Press

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 Sociologists
1. Sociology Concepts and Institutions
André Béteille
2. The Hindu Nationalist Sociology of G.S. Ghurye
Carol Upadhya
3. On Srinivas’s ‘Sociology’
Sujata Patel
4. Louis Dumont and the Study of Society in India
T.N. Madan
5. The Anti-Utopian Liberal: An Introduction to the Works of André Béteille
Dipankar Gupta
Section II
Sociology of Caste: Past and Present
6. Closed and Open Social Stratification
André Béteille
7. Transformation of Caste System into ‘Caste’ in Contemporary India
K.L. Sharma
8. The Reproduction of Inequality: Occupation, Caste and Family
André Béteille
Section III
Rural and Agrarian Sociology
9. Introduction
Vandana Madan
10. Whither the Indian Village: Culture and Agriculture in ‘Rural’ India
Dipankar Gupta
11. Cooperatives and Industrialisation in Rural Areas: The Indian Experiences
B.S. Baviskar and Donald W. Attwood
Section IV
Poverty and Development in India
12. The Construction of Poverty and the Poor inColonial Post-Colonial India: An Overview
NandiniGooptu
13. From Poverty to Poverty Policies for Translating Growth into Development
Dipankar Gupta
14. How to Govern the Poor: The Role of Social Policies in Economic Transformation
Dwaipayan Bhattacharyya
Section V
Contemporary Social Issues
15. Secularism in a Pluri-Religious Society: The Constitutional Vision
Rudolf C. Heredia
16. Institutional Communalism in India
Pritam Singh
17. Gendered Citizenship and Women’s Movement
Anurekha Chari
18. Civil Society and Indian Democracy: Possibilities of Social Transformation
Mihir Shah