The Challenges of Cultural Diversity — Sociology STD 12 Humanities — Question

Environmental movements often also contain economic and identity issues. Discuss.

How globalization, liberalisation and rural society has influenced agriculture in India?

Read the passage given and answer following questions.
Gandhi on Machinery, in Hind Swaraj 1924
‘‘What I object to is the craze for machinery, not machinery as such. The craze is for what they call labour-saving machinery. Men go on ‘saving labour’ till thousands are without work and thrown on the open streets to die of starvation. I want to save time and labour, not for a fraction of mankind, but for all. I want the concentration of wealth, not in the hands of the few, but in the hands of all.’’
1934: ‘‘When as a nation we adopt the spinning-wheel, we not only solve the question of unemployment but we declare that we have no intention of exploiting any nation, and we also end the exploitation of the poor by the rich.’’

1. Give an example of how machinery creates a problem for workers.
2. What alterative did Gandhi have in mind? How does adopting the spinning-Machinery creates the danger that eventually would replace workers concentration of wealth in the hands of the fewheel prevent exploitation?

Distinguish the new social movement from the old social movements.

Read the following passage and answer the questions below:
Peddolla Napidi Bhumana hanged himself at home in Donchanda village of Morthad Mandal late on Friday night. It’s learnt that the 55-year old farmer, faced with crop failure, was driven to desperation because he was unable to clear his mounting debts. Most suicides in Andhra Pradesh have been reported from the arid regions of Telangana and Rayalaseema where farmers are heavily dependent on rain.
As in Vidarbha last year, most of the suicides have been farmers who had borrowed heavily from private moneylenders at exorbitant interest rates. The loans were taken to dig borewells to tap ground water for cotton and other vegetable crops in the absence of rain. The situation has been exacerbated by the falling water table in these districts.
(Taken from a report in The Times of India of 16/08/09)

1. Which are the regions where most farmers’ suicides have taken place? Why have these regions been affected?
2. What are some of the changes in rural society and the agrarian economy that are responsible for farmers’ suicides?

What are the changes globalization has brought about in the International political environment?

Explain the theory of relative deprivation, logic of collective action and theory of resource mobilisation.

What is ‘industrialisation’? How did British industrialisation lead to ‘deindustrialisation’ and ‘urbanisation’ in India?

Read the following passage and give the answer to the following questions:To facilitate the smooth functioning of its rule, colonialism introduced a wide array of changes in every sphere, be it legal or cultural or architectural. Colonialism was a story apart in the very scale and intensity of the changes that it brought about. Some of these changes were deliberate while some took place in an unintended fashion. For example, we saw how Western education was introduced to create Indians who would manage British colonialism. Instead, it led to the growth of a nationalist and anti-colonial consciousness.

1. What do you understand by the term 'Colonialism'?
2. What structural changes were seen in India during the Colonial period?

In what ways does globalization affect culture?