The Indian High School, Dubai

Practice Paper
Book 1
Sociology
Marking Scheme

SECTION A- 2 MARKS

Ans 1. Large disparities between the upper OBC’s- wealthy, landed and dominant castes and
lower OBC’s- very poor, disadvantaged. Obc areof different religions and not just Hinduism, but of low
socio-economic status. (Pg 97-1)

Ans2. A rising dependency ratio is a cause for worry in countries that are facing an aging
population, since it becomes difficult for a relatively smaller proportion of working-age people to carry
the burden of providing for a relatively larger proportion of dependents.

Ans 3. Increased levels of prosperity exert a strong downward pull on the birth-rate;
Increased literacy rate; Growing awareness; Increase in the level of education; Acceptance
of small family size.

Ans 4. Difference between Communalism and Communal Communalism – aggressive

chauvinism based on religious identity. Communal - means related to a community or
collectivity as different from an individual.

Ans5. Reasons for increase in India‟s population –

 Birthrate is a socio – cultural phenomenon & relatively slow to change.
 Wide variations in the fertility rates across the states of India.
 Awareness level, education and small family size acceptance.
 States like Bihar, M. P., Rajasthan & U. P.still have very high TFRs.

Ans6. • e.g. women from privileged background may face sexual harassment in work place,
• a middle-class professional form a minority group (Religious or ethnicity) may find it
difficult to get accommodation in a metropolitan city.

Ans7. -such a general statement is true of individuals in every group.

-Even for such individuals, it is not true all the time – the same individual may be both
lazy and hardworking at different times.

Ans8. -greater awareness and hence inclusion.

-appropriate infrastructure to support and include people with disabilities.

Ans9. Another significant development is the gradual emergence of an educated middle class among
tribal communities. Most visible in the North-eastern states, this is now a segment beginning to be seen in
the rest of the country as well, particularly among members of the larger tribal communities. In
conjunction with policies of reservation, education is creating an urbanized professional class. As tribal
societies get more differentiated – i.e., develop class and other divisions within themselves – different
bases are growing for the assertion of tribal identity. ( If 2 marks) ( Include the below 2 paragraphs, if it
comes as 4 marks)
Two broad sets of issues have been most important in giving rise to tribal movements. These are issues
relating to control over vital economic resources like land and specially forests, and issues relating to
matters of ethnic-cultural identity. The two can often go together, but with differentiation of tribal society
they may also diverge. The reasons why the middle classes within tribal societies may assert their tribal
identity may be different from the reasons why poor and uneducated tribals join tribal movements. As
with any other community, it is the relationship between these kinds of internal dynamics and external
forces that will shape the future.

Section B- 4 MARKS

Ans10. Population growth is linked to overall levels of economic development and that every society
follows a typical pattern of development related population growth. Three basic phases of population
growth. First stage is that of low population growth in a society that is underdeveloped and
technologically backward. Growth rates are low because both the death rate and the birth rate are very
high, so that the difference between the two (or the net growth rate) is low. third (and last) stage is also
one of low growth in a developed society where both death rate and birth rate have been reduced
transitional stage of movement from a backward to an advanced stage, and this stage is characterized by
very high rates of growth of population. This ‘population explosion’ happens because death rates are
brought down relatively quickly through advanced methods of disease control, public health, and better
nutrition (Pg13, 16-1).

Ans11. The city is acting as a magnet for rural population because:

• Mass media and communication channels are now bringing images of urban life styles and patterns of
consumption into the rural areas. Consequently, urban norms and standards are becoming well known
even in the remote villages, creating new desires and aspirations for consumption.
• Mass transit and mass communication are bridging the gap between the rural and urban areas. Even in
the past, the rural areas were never really beyond the reach of market forces and today they are being
more closely integrated into the consumer market.
• This flow of rural-to-urban migration has also been accelerated by the continuous decline of common
property resources like ponds, forests and grazing lands. These common resources enabled poor people to
survive in the villages although they owned little or no land. Now, these resources have been turned into
private property, or they are exhausted.
• Sometimes the city may also be preferred for social reasons, specially the relative anonymity it offers.
The fact that urban life involves interaction with strangers can be an advantage for different reasons. For
the socially oppressed groups like the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, this may offer some partial
protection from the daily humiliation they may suffer in the village where everyone knows their caste
identity. The anonymity of the city also allows the poorer sections of the socially dominant rural groups
to engage in low status work that they would not be able to do in the village. All these reasons make the
city an attractive destination for the villagers. (Pg 35-1)

Ans 12. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru feared that states based on language might hasten a further
subdivision of India. Far from undermining Indian unity, linguistic states have helped strengthen it.
• Role of State reorganisation Commission-reframed in 1920 on linguistic lines.
• 1947-Independence and movement by Marathi and Kannada speakers and Telugu
speakers.
• 1956-redrawing map of India on Linguistic lines , comparison with Ceylon and Pakistan.
• It has proved to be perfectly consistent to be Kannadiga and Indian, Bengali and Indian,
Tamil and Indian, Gujarati and Indian.

Ans 13. Civil society is the non-state and non-market part of the public domain in which individuals get
together voluntarily to create institutions and organisations.
• It is the sphere of active citizenship where, individuals take up social issues, try to
influence the state or make demands on it, pursue their collective interests or seek
support for a variety of causes.
• The Right to Information Act 2005, gives Indians an access to Government records.
• It was enacted by the Parliament of India giving any person who may request information
from a ―public authority‖, is expected to reply expeditiously or within thirty days.
• The Act also requires every public authority to computerize their records for wide
dissemination and to proactively publish certain categories of information so that the
citizens need minimum recourse to request for information formally.
• This law was passed by Parliament on 15 June 2005. The Act specifies that citizens have a
right to
Request any information,
Take copies of documents,
Inspect documents, works and records,
Take certified samples of materials of work,
Obtain information in form of printouts, diskettes,
floppies, tapes, video cassettes or in any other electronic mode or through printouts.
Civil liberties organisations have been keeping a watch on the state and forcing it to obey the
law. (Any six)

Ans14. The Karachi Session of the Indian National Congress declared-Fundamental Rights of Citizenship
in India whereby it committed itself to women‘s equality.
• All citizens are equal before the law, irrespective of religion caste, creed or sex.
• No disability attaches to any citizen, by reason of his or her religion, caste, creed or sex, in regard to
public employment, office of power or honour, and in the exercise of any trade or calling.
• The franchise shall be on the basis of universal adult suffrage.
• Woman shall have the right to vote, to represent and the right to hold public offices. (Pg105)

Ans15. National health Policy 2017. Box 2.5, Pg 37

Ans 16. • Tribes have paid disproportionate price for the development of the rest of the Indian society.
• national developments started in Nehruvian era involving the building of large dams,
factories and mines were undertaken at the cost of dispossessing tribes of their land.
• the loss of forests, community based collective ownership on which tribal communities depended has
been a major blow
• heavy immigration of non-tribals threaten to disrupt their culture

Ans 17. • there were several Gond kingdoms in Central India such as that of Garha Mandla, or Chanda.
• Many of the so-called Rajput kingdoms of central and western India actually emerged
through a process of stratification among adivasi communities themselves.
• adivasis often exercised dominance over the plains people through their capacity to raid
them, and through their services as local militias.
• They also occupied a special trade niche, trading forest produce, salt and elephants.

SECTION C- 6 MARKS

Ans18. The British administrators began by trying to understand the complexities of caste in an effort to
learn how to govern the country efficiently.
• The British undertook methodical and intensive surveys of various tribes and castes to
learn how to govern the country.
• The first such survey was carried out by H. Rishley in 1901 and thus castes began to be
counted and rewarded.
• Direct attempt to count caste and to officially record caste status changed the institution
itself.
• Land revenue settlement gave a legal recognition to the customary rights of the upper
caste.
• The Govt. of India Act 1935 gave legal recognition to the list of schedules‘ of castes and
tribes marked out for special treatment by the state.

Ans19. • Tribes are seen as secondary phenomena arising out of exploitative and colonialist
contacts.
• On the political and economic front, tribal societies were faced with the incursion of
money lenders. They were also losing their land to non-tribal immigrant settlers.
• Many of the Rajput kingdoms of central and western India emerged through a process of
stratification among Adivasi community themselves.
• Occupied a special trade niche – trading forest produce, salt, and elephants.
• Capitalist economies drive exploit forest resources and minerals to recruit cheap labour
brought tribal societies into mainstream.
• There is a gradual emergence of an educated urbanized professional class among tribal
Communities

Ans 20. • The bulge in the middle age group indicates that majority of Indians belong to the working
population providing the opportunity called demographic dividend.
• The average age is also is less than that of most other countries thus the changing age
structure could offer a demographic dividend for India.
• Thus, the dependency ratio is low and provides the opportunity for economic growth.
• This dividend arises from the fact that the current generation of working age people is
relatively large and it has only a relatively small preceding generation of old people to
support.
• This potential can be converted into actual growth with the increased level of education and
employment.
• Thus, these benefits have to be utilised through planned development.
(Elaborate on the points)

Ans 21. -The Indian state has had special programmes for the Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes
since even before Independence.
-Reservations involves the setting aside of some places or ‘seats’ for members of the Scheduled Castes
and Tribes in different spheres of public life.
-Caste Disabilities Removal Act of 1850, which disallowed the curtailment of rights of citizens due solely
to change of religion or caste.
-93rd Amendment is for introducing reservation for the Other Backward Classes in institutions of higher
education.
-The Constitution abolished untouchability (Article 17) and introduced the Scheduled Castes and
Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act of 1989.
-From the pre-Independence struggles and movements launched by people like Jyotiba Phule, Iyotheedas,
Periyar, Ambedkar and others to contemporary political organisations like the Bahujan Samaj Party in
Uttar Pradesh or the Dalit Sangharsh Samiti of Karnataka, Dalit political assertion has come a long way.
-Dalits have also made significant contributions to literature in several Indian languages, specially
Marathi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Hindi.
Ans 22. The Independence of India in 1947 should have made life easier for adivasis but this was not the
case. Firstly, the government monopoly over forests continued. If anything, the exploitation of forests
accelerated. Secondly, the policy of capital-intensive industrialisation adopted by the Indian government
required mineral resources and power-generation capacities which were concentrated in Adivasi areas.
Adivasi lands were rapidly acquired for new mining and dam projects. In the process, millions of adivasis
were displaced without any appropriate compensation or rehabilitation. Justified in the name of ‘national
development’ and ‘economic growth’, these policies were also a form of internal colonialism, subjugating
adivasis and alienating the resources upon which they depended. Projects such as the Sardar Sarovar dam
on the river Narmada in western India and the Polavaram dam on the river Godavari in AndhraPradesh
displace hundreds of thousands of adivasis, driving them to greater destitution. These processes continue
to prevail and have become even more powerful since the 1990s when economic liberalisation policies
were officially adopted by the Indian government. It is now easier for corporate firms to acquire large
areas of land by displacing adivasis. In spite of the heavy odds against them and in the face of their
marginalisation many tribal groups have been waging struggles against outsiders (called ‘dikus’) and the
state. In post-Independence India, the most significant achievements of Adivasi movements include the
attainment of statehood for Jharkhand and Chattisgarh, which were originally part of Bihar and Madhya
Pradesh respectively.