Sociology 6 Marks Question

The Chipko movement is a suitable example of an ecological or environmental movements. It is an appropriate example of intermingled interests and ideologies. Ramchandra Guha says in his book Unquiet Woods that villagers came together to save the oak and rhododendron forests near their villages. The government forest contractors came to fell the trees but the villagers, including large number of women, came forward to hug the trees to check their being felled. The villagers relied on the forest to get firewood, fodder and other daily requirements. It was a conflict between livelihood needs of poor villagers and government’s desire to make revenue from selling timber.
Chipko movement raised the issue of ecological sustainability. Felling down natural forests was a form of environmental destruction which resulted in demonstrating floods and landslides in the area. Therefore, concerns about economy, ecology and political representation underlay the Chipko movement.

• Theory of relative deprivation - Acc to this theory, social conflict arises when a social group feels that it is worse off than others. This theory emphasises the role of psychological factors such as resentment and rage.
• The logic of collective action - A person will join the social movement only when he will gain something from it. He will participate only if the risks are less than gains.
• Resource mobilisation theory - McCarthy and Zald argued that a social movement‘s success depends on its ability to mobilise resources such as leadership, organisational capacity and communication facilities, and can use within the available political opportunity structure, is more likely to be effective.

Theories of Social Movement:

1. Relative deprivation -

According to this theory social conflict arises when a social group feels that it is worse off than others around it. This theory emphasises the role of psychological factors such as resentment and rage in inciting social movements, All instances where people feel relatively deprived do not result in social movements.

2. Logic of collective action -

A person will join only if he gains something from it. He will participate if the risks are less than gains.

3. Resource Mobilisation -

This depends on mobilisation of resources or means of different sorts, If a movement can muster resources such as leadership, organisational capacity and communication facilities within the available political opportunity structure, it is more likely to be effective.

1. Pardhis have to undergo police torture and often get arrested in case of any theft. The writer objects to this as Pardhis are skilful hunters and not criminals.
2. Women of tribal communities are more vulnerable because-

• They belong to oppressed communities where the men folk themselves are unable to protect them.
• People in power, including the police, exploit them.

3. Any example from the book (of social movements born out of the experience of discrimination/prejudice) including-

• Women’s movements.
• Dalit movements.
• Tribal movements.
• Freedom struggle (discrimination by British), etc.

• The discipline of sociology has been interested in social movements.
• The French Revolution was the violent culmination of several movements aimed at overthrowing the monarchy and establishing ‘liberty, equality and fraternity'.
• In Britain, the industrial revolution was marked by great social upheaval.
• Poor labourers and artisans who had left the countryside to find work in the cities protested against the inhuman living conditions into which they were forced.
• Food riots in England were often suppressed by the government.
• These protests were perceived by elites as a major threat to the established order of society.
• Social movements were seen as forces that led to disorder.
• Historians like E.P. Thompson showed that the crowd and the 'mob' were not made up of anarchic hooligans out to destroy society. Instead, they too had a 'moral economy' i.e. they have their own shared understanding of right and wrong that informed their actions.
• Their research showed that poor people in urban areas had good reasons for protesting.
• They often resorted to public protest because they had no other way of expressing their anger and resentment against deprivation.

• Social movements seek to bring in social change whereas counter movements sometimes arise in defence of status quo.
• There are many instances of such counter movements.
• When Raja Rammohun Roy campaigned against sati and formed the Brahmo Samaj, defenders of sati formed Dharma Sabha and petitioned the British not to legislate against sati.
• When reformers demanded education for girls, many protested that this would be disastrous for society.
• When reformers campaigned for widow remarriage, they were socially boycotted.
• When the so called 'lower caste' children enrolled in schools, some so called upper caste' children were withdrawn from the schools by their families.
• Peasant movements have often been brutally suppressed.
• More recently the social movements of erstwhile excluded groups like the Dalits have often invoked retaliatory action.
• Likewise proposals for extending reservation in educational institutions have led to counter movements opposing them.

1. Collective mobalisation.
2. The organizational structure and leadership.
3. Ideological frame and identity.
4. Change Orientation.

1. Sustained collective mobilisation:

• A social movement requires sustained collective action over time.
• Such action is often directed against the state and takes the form of de demanding changes in state policy or practice. Spontaneous, disorganized protest cannot be called a social movement either.

2. Organisational structure and leadership:

• Collective action must be marked by some degree of organisation.
• This organisation may include a leadership and a structure that defines how members relate to each other, make decisions and carry them out.

3. Shared objective and ideologies:

• Those participating in a social movement also have shared objectives and ideologies.
• A social movement has a general orientation or way of approaching to bring about (or to prevent) change.
• These defining features are not constant.
• They may change over the course of a social movement's life.

4. Aim of bringing about changes on a public issue:

• Social movements often arise with the aim of bringing about changes on a public issue, such as ensuring the right of the tribal population to use the forests or the right of displaced people to settlement and compensation.

1. Peasant movements are class based movements.

• The term 'peasant movement' refers to all kinds of collective attempts of different strata of the peasantry either to change the system which they felt was exploitative, or to seek redress for particular grievances without necessarily aiming at overthrowing the system.
• Well-known are the Bengal revolt of 1859-62 against the indigo plantation system and the 'Deccan riots' of 1857 against moneylenders.
• Some of these issues continued into the following period, and under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi became partially linked to the Independence movement.
• For instance, the Bardoli Satyagraha (1928, Surat District) a‘non-tax' campaign as part of the nationwide non-cooperative movement, a campaign of refusal to pay land revenue and the Champaran Satyagraha (1917-18) directed against indigo plantations.
• In the 1920s, protest movements against that forest policies of the British government and local rulers arose in certain regions.

2. Between 1920 and 1940 peasant organizations arose.

• The first organisation to be founded was the Bihar Provincial Kisan Sabha (1929) and in 1936 the All India Kisan Sabha.
• The peasants organized by the Sabhas demanded freedom from economic exploitation for peasants, workers and all other exploited classes.

3. At the time of Independence we had the two most classical cases of peasant movements.

1. The Tebhaga movement (1946-47).

• Just before Independence, it was the Tebhaga struggle of 1946-47 in Bengal and north Bihar which was the most effective and widespread of all peasant movements.
• It was a struggle of share croppers (bargadars) to retain two third share of the produce for themselves instead of the customary half.
• The movement was the outcome of the politicization of the peasantry which was made possible because of the efforts and support of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Kisan Sabha.

2. The Telangana movement (1946-51).

• It was directed against the feudal conditions in the princely state of Hyderabad and was led by the CPI.
• Certain issues which had dominated colonial times changed after independence.
• For land reforms, zamindari abolition, declining importance of land revenue and public credit system began to alter rural areas.
• The period after 1947 was characterised by two major social movements.

1. The Naxalite struggle.

• The Naxalite movement started from the region of Naxalbari (1967) in Bengal.
• The central problem for peasants was land.
• Many of the agrarian problems persist in contemporary India.
• The Naxal movement is a growing force even today.

2. The 'new farmer's movements.

• The so called 'new farmer's movements began in the 1970s in Punjab and Tamil Nadu.
• These movements were regionally organized, were non-party, and involved farmers rather than peasants, (farmers are said to be market-involved as both commodity producers and purchasers).
• The basic ideology of the movement was strongly anti-state and anti-urban. The focuses of demand were 'price and related issues' (for example price procurement, remunerative prices, prices for agricultural inputs, taxation, and non-repayment of loans).
• Novel methods of agitation were used blocking of roads and railways, refusing politicians and bureaucrats entry to villages, and so on.
• It has been argued that the farmers' movements have broadened their agenda and ideology and include environment and women's issues.
• Therefore, they can be seen as a part of the world wide' new social movements'.

Environmental movement generally contain economic and identity issues: For example, in modern period the greatest stress is being given on socio-economic and cultural development.
For economic development for many years there has a great deal of concern about the unchecked use of natural resources (water, forest, minerals etc.) and model of development that create new leaders and further demand of greater exploitation of already, depleted natural resources.
It is not necessary that every development project or scheme equally beneficial for every section of society. For example, construction of big dams or multipurpose project displace people of several villages from there homes and snatch sources of livelihood from them.
Sometimes big industries are setup in a region. Such industry displace agriculturist from their homes and livelihood. Now-a-days we are reading newspaper and see TV and listening news on TV regarding SEZ special economic zones. The impact of industrial pollution is yet another story. Here we take just one example of an ecological movement to examine the many issues that are interlinked in an ecological movement.
Example: The Chipko movement is a good example of environmental or ecological movement. According to Ramachandra Guha in his book Unquiet Woods, villagers rallied together to save the oak and rhododendron forests near their villages. When government forest contractors came to cut down the trees, villagers including large number of women, stepped forward to hug the trees to prevent their being felled. At stake was the question of villagers’ susbsistence. All of them relied on the forest to get firewood, fodder and other daily necessities. This conflict placed the livelihood needs of poor villagers against the government's desire to generate revenues from selling timber.
Economic issues: The economy of subsistence was pitted against the economy of profit. Along with this issue of social inequality (villagers versus a government that represented commercial, capitalist interests), the Chipko Movement also raised the issue of ecological sustainability. Cutting down natural forests was a form of environmental destruction that had resulted in devastating floods and landslides in the region. For the villagers, these ‘red’ and ‘green’ issues were inter-linked. While their survival depended on the survival of the forest, they also valued the forest for its own sake as a form of ecological wealth that benefits all. In addition, the Chipko Movement also expressed the resentment of hill villagers against a distant government headquartered in the plains that seemed indifferent and hostile to their concerns. So concerns about economy, ecology and political representation underlay the Chipko Movement.
Identical issues: In our current information age, soical movements around the globe are able to join together in huge regional and international networks comprising non-governmental organisations, religious and humanitarian groups, human rights association, consumer protection advocates, environomental activists and others who campaign in the public interest...the enormous protests against the World Trade Organisation that took place in Seattle, for example, were organised in part through internet-based network.

Old Social Movements

• Class based – united to fight for rights.
• Anti-colonial movements.
• Nationalist movement united people into national e.g., liberation struggle.
• Movement against colonialism.
• Nationalist movement mobilized against rule of foreign power and dominance of foreign capital.
• Mainly concerned with struggles between haves and have-nots. Key issue is reorganisation of power relations, i.e. capturing power & transferring it from powerful to powerless, e.g. Workers were mobilized towards capitalists; Women’s struggle against male domination.
• Worked under guidance & organisational framework of political parties, eg. Indian National Congress led the Indian National movement; Communist Party of China led the Chinese Revolution.
• Role of political parties was central and poor people had no other effective means to get their voices heard.
• Concerned about social inequality and unequal distribution of resources -important elements.

New Social Movements

• Decades after Second World War- 1960s and early 1970s
• Take up not just narrow class issues but broad, universal themes, which involved a broad social group irrespective of their class.
• Vietnam were forces led by US bloody conflict.
• Paris – Vibrant student’s movement joined worker’s parties in a series of strikes protesting against the war.
• USA was experiencing a sure of social protests. Civil rights movement was led by Martin Luther King.
• Black powers movement led by Malcolm X.
• Women’s movement, environmental movement.
• No longer focus on redistribution of power rather are more concerned with improving the quality of life.eg. Right to education, clean environment.
• No longer confine themselves within political parties. Instead started joining civil society movements and forming NGOs because they are supposed to be more efficient, less corrupt and less autocratic
• Globalization – reshaping people’s lines, culture, media Firms – transnational. Legal arrangements – international. Therefore, many new social movements are international in scope.
• Essential elements – Identity politics, cultural anxieties and aspirations.

There are different kinds of social movements.Social movements can be classified in different ways:

1. One way of classifying is:

1. Redemptive.
2. Reformist.
3. Revolutionary.

2. Another way of classifying is:

1. Old.
2. New.

1.  

1. A redemptive social movement aims to bring about a change in the personal consciousness and actions of its individual members. For instance, people in the Ezhava community in Kerala were led by Narayana Guru to change their social practice.
2. Reformist social movements strive to change the existing social and political arrangements through gradual, incremental steps. A reforms movement attempts to improve conditions within an existing social system without changing the fundamental structure of the society itself. Reforms are often linked with belief systems, rituals and life styles of the concerned people. There are several examples of reform movements in India. The 1960s movement for the reorganization of Indian states on the basis of language and the recent Right to Information campaign are examples of reformist movements. These movements brought about remarkable changes in the life of the people.
3. Revolutionary social movements attempt to radically transform social relations, often by capturing state power. The Bolshevik revolution in Russia that deposed the Tsar to create a communist state and the Naxalite movement in India that seeks to remove oppressive landlords and state officials can be described as revolutionary movements.
4. Most movements have a mix of redemptive, reformist and revolutionary elements.
5. The orientation of a social movement may shift over time such that it starts off with, say, revolutionary objective and becomes reformist. A movement may start from a phase of mass mobilization and collective protest to become more institutionalized.

2. Old and New:

• For much of the twentieth century social movements were class based such as working class movements and peasant movements or anti-colonial movements.
• While anti-colonial movements united entire people into national liberation struggles, class based movements united classes to fight for their rights.
• The most far-reaching social movements of the last century thus have been class-based or based on national liberation struggles.
• There were workers' movements in Europe that gave rise to the international communist movement.
• Besides bringing about the formation of communist and socialist states across the world, most notably in the Soviet Union, China and Cuba, these movements also led to the reform of capitalism.
• The creation of welfare states that protected workers' rights and offered universal education, health care and social security in the capitalist nations of Western Europe was partly due to political pressure created by the communist and socialist movements.
• The movement against colonialism has been as influential as the movement against capitalism. Since capitalism and colonialism have usually been inter-linked through forms of imperialism, social movements have simultaneously targeted both these forms of exploitation.
• That is, nationalist movements have mobilized against rule by a foreign power as well as against the dominance of foreign capital.
• The decades after the Second World War witnessed the end of empire and the formation of new nation-states as a result of nationalist movements in India, Egypt, Indonesia, and many other countries.
• Since then, another wave of social movements occurred in the 1960s and early 1970s, this was the time of the war in Vietnam where forces led by the United States of America were involved in a bloody conflict in the former French colony against Communist guerrillas.
• In Europe, Paris was the nucleus of a vibrant students' movement that joined workers' parties in a series of strikes protesting against the war.
• Across the Atlantic, the United States of America was experiencing a surge of social protest.
• The civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King had been followed by the Black Power movement led by Malcolm X.
• The anti-war movement was joined by tens of thousands of students who were being compulsorily drafted by the government to go and fight in Vietnam.
• The women's movement and the environmental movement also gained strength during this time of social ferment.
• It was difficult to classify the members of these so called 'new social movements' as belonging to the same class or even nation.

Rather than a shared class identity, participants felt that they shared identities as students, women, blacks, or environmentalists.

• India has experienced a whole array of social movements involving women, peasants, dalits, adivasis, and others.
• Gail Omvedt in her book Reinventing Revolution points out that concerns about social inequality and the unequal distribution of resources continue to be important elements in these movements.
• Peasant movements have mobilized for better prices for their produce and protested against the removal of agricultural subsidies.
• Dalit labourers have acted collectively to ensure that they are not exploited by upper-caste landowners and money-lenders.
• The women's movement has worked on issues of gender discrimination in diverse spheres like the workplace and within the family.
• At the same time, these new social movements are not just about 'old' issues of economic inequality. Nor are they organized along class lines alone. Identity politics, cultural anxieties and aspirations are essential elements in creating social movements and occur in ways that are difficult to trace to class-based inequality. Often, these social movements unite participants across class boundaries. For instance, the women's movement includes urban, middle-class feminists as well as poor peasant women.
• The regional movements for separate statehood bring together different groups of people who do not share homogeneous class identities.
• In a social movement, questions of social inequality can occur alongside other, equally important, issues.

• 19th century was a period when nationalist movements were overthrowing colonial powers. And working class movements in the capitalist west were wresting better wages, better living conditions, social security, free schooling and health security from the state.
• That was also a period when socialist movements were establishing new kinds of states and societies.
• There old social movements clearly saw reorganization of power relations as a central goal.
• The old social movements functioned within the frame of political parties. The Indian National Congress led the Indian National Movement.
• The Communist Party of China led the Chinese Revolution. Today some believe that'old' class-based political action led by trade unions and workers' parties is on the decline.
• Others argued that in the affluent West with its welfare state, issues of classbased exploitation and inequality were no longer central concerns.
• So the 'new' social movements were not about changing the distribution of power in society but about quality-of-life issues such as having a clean environment. In the old social movements, the role of political parties was central.
• Political scientist Rajni Kothari attributes the surge of social movements in India in the 1970s to people's growing dissatisfaction with parliamentary democracy.
• Kothari argues that the institutions of the state have been captured by elites. Due to this, electoral representation by political parties is no longer an effective way for the poor to get their voices heard.
• People left out by the formal political system join social movements or non-party political formations in order to put pressure on the state from outside.
• Today, the broader term of civil society is used to refer to both old social movements represented by political parties and trade unions. And to new non-governmental organizations, that the institutions of the state have been captured by elites.
• Due to this, electoral representation by political parties is no longer an effective way for the poor to get their voices heard.
• Globalisation has been re-shaping peoples' lives in industry and agriculture, and media. Often firms are trans-national.
• Often legal arrangements that are binding are international such as the regulations of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
• Environmental and health risks, fears of nuclear warfare are global in nature. Not surprisingly therefore many of the new social movements are international in scope.
• What is significant, however, is that the old and new movements are working together in new alliances such as the World Social Forum that have been raising awareness about the hazards of globalization.

• In the mid 1970s there was a renewal of the women's movement in India.
• While many of the concerns remained the same there were changes both in terms of organizational strategy as well as ideologies.
• There was the growth of what is termed as the autonomous women's movements. The term 'autonomy' referred to the fact that they were 'autonomous' or independent from political parties as distinct from those women's organizations that had links with political parties.
• It was felt that political parties tended to marginalize issues of women.
• Apart from organizational changes, there were new issues that were focused upon. For instance violence against women,
• Over the years there have been numerous campaigns that have been taken up. eg. The application for school forms have both father's and mother's names. This was not always true.
• Likewise important legal changes have taken place thanks to the campaign by the women's movement.
• Issues of land rights, employment have been fought alongside rights against sexual harassment and dowry.
• There has been recognition too that while all women are in some way disadvantaged vis-a-vis men, all women do not suffer the same level or kind of discrimination.
• The concerns of the educated middle class woman are different from the peasant woman just as the concern of the Dalit woman is different from the 'upper caste' woman.
• There has also been greater recognition that both men and women are constrained by the dominant gender identities.
• For instance men in patriarchal societies feel they must be strong and successful. It is not, manly, to express oneself emotionally.
• A gender-just society would allow both men and women to be free. This of course rests on the idea that for true freedom to grow and develop injustices of all kind have to end.

Imagination is a situation far away from reality. I have been asked to imagine a society where there has been no social movement. I imagine such society of the following kind of set-up.

1. I imagine a very progressive society. People all living in a very peaceful, cooperative and harmonious social atmosphere. People are having a family of six-seven persons in all. Grandfather, Grandmother, a couple and their two or three children in a house. This family is not having any domestic help or servant. All members accept dignity of labour and like to do their own work themselves. There is a self-discipline. Elders like that their youngers and youngsters should regard their elders and serve them whenever they feel to provide help or co-operation to elder members of the family.
2. The family has three sleeping room and one common room. In common room they are having a TV, Radio, Dining Table, Sofa and Central Table along with book Almirah.
3. There is an MTNL telephone. All members of the family take there meal together at least one time in a day. Grandmother and grandfather live at home both are government servants, daughter lines at home, children go to school for study and the father of the children goes to market. He is a clock merchants.
4. This house is situated at a housing society. Generally lower and upper middle class people living in this society. There are nearly 150 houses in this group housing society. There is a temple and a gurudwara on east and west corner of the area of the housing society. Most of the people are religious minded. There is a common library also. Every month there is a common meeting in the society. People of different caste, classes and communities live together. If there is any dispute or difference of opinion among members of the society. Some of the people sit together in community hall of the society and they decide. This society is very old. Most of the families have been living since last 55 years here. They did not require any social movement of religious/social-economic or cultural type. These people believe in democracy, liberal son, liberty, equality, communal harmony, gender equality, patriotism, education for all and to help each other at the time of suffering or adverse situation.
5. I have described such type of society to give a reasonably model type of society which is needed by our country. We should do our work, we should love our country, our neighbour, our religion but did not whole religion of other people or fast and ritual of other people. We should participate in most of the festival and national festivals together with good feelings and gesture.

Introduction:

• Jharkhand is one of the newly-formed states of India, carved out of south Bihar in so be the year 2000.
• Behind the formation of this state lies more than a century of resistance.
• The social movement for Jharkhand had a charismatic leader in Birsa Munda, an adivasi who led a major uprising against the British. After his death, Birsa became an important icon of the movement. Stories and songs about him can be found all over Jharkhand. The memory of Birsa's struggle was also kept alive by writing.
• Christian missionaries working in south Bihar were responsible for spreading literacy in the area.

The work of literate adivasis:

• Literate adivasis began to research and write about their history and myths.
• They documented and disseminated information about tribal customs and cultural practices.
• This helped to create a unified ethnic consciousness and a shared identity as Jharkhandis.
• Literate adivasis were also in a position to get government jobs so that, over time, a middle-class adivasi intellectual leadership emerged that formulated the demand for a separate state and lobbied for it in India and abroad.

Reasons for the movement:

• Within south Bihar, adivasis shared a common hatred of dikus-migrant traders and money-lenders who had settled in the area and grabbed its wealth, impoverishing the original residents.
• Most of the benefits from the mining and industrial projects in this mineral-rich region had gone to dikus even as adivasi lands had been aliented.
• Adivasi experiences of marginalization and their sense of injustice were mobilized to create a shared Jharkhandi identity and inspire collective action that eventually led to the formation of a separate state.
• The issues against which the leaders of the movement in Jharkhand agitated were:

1. Acquisition of land for large irrigation projects and firing ranges
2. Survey and settlement operations, which were held up, camps closed down, etc.
3. Collection of loans, rent and cooperative dues, which were resisted.
4. Nationalization of forest produces which they boycotted.

• The process of state formation initiated by the Indian government following the attainment of independence generated disquieting trends in all the major hill districts in the region.
• Conscious of their distinct identity and traditional autonomy the tribes were unsure of being incorporated within the administrative machinery of Assam.
• The rise of ethnicity in the region is thus a response to cope with the new situation which developed as a consequence of the tribe's contact with a powerful alien system.
• Long isolated from the Indian mainstream the tribes were able to maintain their own worldview and social and cultural institutions with little external influence.
• While the earlier phase showed a tendency towards secessionism, this trend has been replaced by a search for autonomy within the framework of the Indian Constitution.

1. The theory of relative deprivation:

• According to the theory of relative deprivation, social conflict arises when a social group feels that it is worse off than others around it.
• Such conflict is likely to result in successful collective protest.
• This theory emphasizes the role of psychological factors such as resentment and rage in inciting social movements.

Limitations:

1. While perceptions of deprivation may be a necessary condition for collective action, they are not a sufficient reason in themselves.
2. All instances where people feel relatively deprived do not result in social movements.

Requirements:

1. To mobilize collectively in a sustained and organized manner, grievances have to be discussed and analysed in order to arrive at a shared ideology and strategy. That's why there is not automatic causal relationship between relative deprivation and collective action.
2. There are other factors such as leadership and organisation that are equally important.

2. Social movement is an aggregation of rational individual actors pursuing their self-interest:

• Mancur Olson's book 'The Logic of Collective Action' argues that a social movement is an aggregation of rational individual actors pursuing their self interest.
• A person will join a social movement only if she/ he will gain something from it.
• She/ he will participate only if the risks are less than the gains.
• Olson's theory is based on the notion of the rational, utility-maximising individual.
• Social movements are made up of individuals pursuing their self-interest.

3. Resource Mobilisation Theory:

• McCarthy and Zald's proposed resource mobilization theory argued that a social movement's success depends on its ability to mobilize resources or means of different sorts.
• If a movement can muster resources such as leadership, organizational capactity, and communication facilities, and can use them within the available political opportunity structure, it is more likely to be effective.
• Argument against importance of existing resources.
• Critics argue that a social movement is not limited by existing resources.
• It can create resources such as new symbols and identities.
• As numerous poor people's movements show, scarcity of resources need not be a constraint.
• Even with an initial limited material resources and organizational base, a movement can generate resources through the process of struggle.

Social conflict does not automatically lead to collective action:

• For such action to take place, a group must consciously think or identify themselves as oppressed beings.
• There has to be an organisation, leadership, and a clear ideology. Often however, social protest does not follow on these lines.
• People may have a clear idea of how they are exploited, but they are often unable to challenge this through overt political mobilization and protest.
• Protest against injustice took the form of small acts such as being deliberately slow.
• These kinds of acts have been defined as everyday acts of resistance.

Need for ecological movements:

• For much of the modern period the greatest emphasis has been laid on development.
• Over the decades there has been a great deal of concern about the unchecked use of natural resources and a model of development that creates new needs that further demands greater exploitation of the already depleted natural resources.
• This model of development has also been critiqued for assuming that all sections of people will be beneficiaries of development.
• Thus big dams displace people from their homes and sources of livelihood. Industries displace agriculturalists from their homes and livelihood.
• One example of an ecological movement to examine the many issues that are interlinked in an ecological movement is the Chipko Movement.

The Chipko Movement:

• The Chipko Movement, in the Himalayan foothills, is a good example of such intermingled interests and ideologies.
• According to Ramachandra Guha in his book Unquiet Woods, villagers rallied together to save the oak and rhododendron forests near their villages.
• When government forest contractors came to cut down the trees, villagers, including large numbers of women, stepped forward to hug the trees to prevent their being felled. At stake was the question of villagers' subsistence.
• All of them relied on the forest to get firewood, fodder and other daily necessities.
• This conflict placed the livelihood needs of poor villagers against the government's desire to generate revenues from selling timber.
• The economy of subsistence was pitted against the economy of profit.
• Along with this issue of social inequality (villagers versus a government that represented commercial, capitalist interests), the Chipko movement also raised the issue of ecological sustainability.
• Cutting down natural forests was a form of environmental destruction that had resulted in devastating floods and landslides in the region.
• For the villagers, these 'red' and 'green' issues were inter-linked. While their survival ecological wealth that benefits all.
• In addition, the Chipko movement also expressed the resentment of hill villagers against a distant government headquartered in the plains that seemed indifferent and hostile to their concerns.
• So concerns about economy, ecology and political representation underlay the Chipko movement.

• There are caste based movements.
• The word Dalit is commonly used in Marathi, Hindi, Gujarati and many other Indian languages, meaning and oppressed persons.
• It was first used in the new context in Marathi by neo-Buddhist activists, the followers of Babasaheb Ambedkar in the early 1970s.
• It refers to those who have been broken, ground down by those above them in a deliberate way.

Basic difference between dalit movements and other movements:

• Social movements of Dalits show a particular character.
• The movements cannot be explained satisfactorily by reference to economic
• exploitations alone or political oppression, although these dimensions are important.
• This is a struggle for recognition as fellow human beings.
• It is a struggle for recognition as fellow human beings.
• It is a struggle for self-confidence and a space for seff-'determination.
• It is a struggle for abolishment of stigmatization, that untouchability implied.
• It has been called a struggle to be touched.
• There is, in the word 'Dalit itself, inherent denial of pollution, karma and justified caste hierarchy.

Different dalit movements:

• There has not been a single, unified Dalit movement in the country now or in the past.
• Different movements have highlighted different issues related to Dalits, around different ideologies.
• However, all of them assert a Dalit identity though the meaning may not be identical or precise for everyone.
• Notwithstanding differences in the nature of Dalit movements and the meaning of identity, there has been a common quest for equality, self-dignity and eradication of untouchability.
• This can be seen in the Satnami Movement of the Chamars (Cibblers) in the Chattisgarh plains in eastern MP, Adi Dharma Movement in Punjab, the Mahar Movement in Maharashtra, the socio-political mobilization among the Jatavas of Agra and the Anti Brahman Movement in south India.
• In the contemporary period the Dalit movement has unquestionably acquired a place in the public sphere that cannot be ignored.
• Another important trend in the dalit movement is manifested in the emergence of the Dalit Panther Movement which was launched by dalits of Maharashtra in the early 1970s.
• It was initially confined to the urban areas of Maharashtra but has subsequently spread to several other states.
• The Dalit Panthers denounce the dominant culture and attempt to articulate an alternative cultural identity of the oppressed classes.
• To propagate their ideas they have been publishing poems, stories and plays, which are now popularly known as dalit literature and are used to challenge the intellectual tradition of the upper caste Hindus.
• The most vital consequence of these movements has been the consolidation of dalit identity. The pressure created by the mobilization of the dalits has led to amelioration of their social conditions.

Dalit literature:

• This has been accompanied by a growing body of Dalit literature.
• Dalit literature is squarely opposed to the Chaturvarna system and caste hierarchy which it considers as responsible for crushing the creativity and very existence of lower castes.
• Dalit writers are insistent on using their own imageries and expressions rooted in their own experiences and perceptions.
• Many felt that the high-flown social imageries of mainstream society would hide the truth rather than reveal it.
• Dalit literature gives a call for social and cultural revolt.
• While some emphasise the cultural struggle for dignity and identity, others also bring in the structural features of society including the economic dimensions.

• There are class based movements started after 1860 when factory production began in India in the early part of the 1860s. funds. The general pattern of trade set up by the colonial regime was one under which raw materials were procured from India and good manufactured in the United Kingdom were marketed in the colony.
• In the early stages of colonialism, labour was very cheap as the colonial government did not regulate either wages or working conditions.
• The labour in the tea plantations was procured from far off place.

Early protests:

• Though trade unions emerged later, workers did protest. Their actions then were, however, more spontaneous than sustained.
• Some of the nationalist leaders also drew in the workers into the anti colonial movement.
• Some of the nationalist leaders also drew in the workers into the anti colonial PE movement.

First world war:

• The war led to the expansion of industries in the country but it also brought a great deal of misery to the poor.
• There were food shortage and sharp increase in prices.
• There were waves of strikes in the textile mills in Bombay. Jute workers in Calcutta O bo striked. In Madras, the workers of Buchingham and Carnatic Mills (Binny's) striked for increased wages. Textile workers in Ahmedabad striked for increase in wages by 50 percent.

The establishment of Trade Unions:

• The first trade union was established in April 1918 in Madras by B.P. Wadia, a social worker and member of the Theosophical Society.
• During the same year, Mahatma Gandhi founded the Textile Labour Association (TLA).
• In 1920 the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) was formed in Bombay.
• The Naxal movement is a growing force even today, The 'new farmer's movements’
• The so called 'new farmer's movements began in the 1970s in Punjab and Tamil Nadu.
• The AITUC was a broad-based organisation involving diverse ideologies.
• The main ideological groups were the communists led by S.A. Dange and M.N. Roy, the moderates led by M. Joshi and V.V. Giri and the nationalists which involved people like Lala Lajpat Rai and Jawaharlal Nehru.

Approach of the British Government and the formation of different trade unions:

• The formation of the AITUC made the colonial government more cautious in dealing with labour.
• It attempted to grant workers some concessions in order to contain unrest.
• In 1922 the government passed the fourth Factories Act which reduced the working day to 10 hours.
• And in 1926, the Trade Unions Act was passed, which provided for registration of trade unions and proposed some regulations.
• By the mid 1920s, the AITUC had nearly 200 unions affiliated to it and its membership stood at around 250,000.
• During the last few years of British rule the communists gained considerable control over the AITUC.
• The Indian National Congress chose to form another union called the Indian PHOTO National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) in May 1947.
• The split in the AITUC in 1947 paved the way for further splits on the line of political parties. National level, regional parties too started to form their own unions from the late 1960s. 1960s and 70s in 1966-67 the economy suffered a major recession which led to a decrease in production and consequently employment.
• There was a general unrest.
• In 1974 there was a major railway workers' strike.
• The confrontation between the state and trade unions became acute.
• During the Emergency in 1975-77 the government curbed all trade union activities. BETE. This again was short lived.
• The workers' movement was very much part of the wider struggle for civil liberties in the era of globalization.
• In the contemporary context of globalization there were changes affecting labour.
• The challenges before the trade unions are also of a new nature.
• Many workers are part of trade unions.
• Trade unions in India have to overcome a number of problems such as regionalism and casteism.
• In response to harsh working conditions, sometimes workers went on strike.
• In a strike, workers do not go to work, in a lock-out the management shuts the gate and prevents workers from coming.
• To call a strike is a difficult decision as managers may try to use substitute labour.
• Workers also find it hard to sustain themselves without wages.