Subject: Sociology
Class XII
Time: 3 hours
Max. Marks: 80
General Instructions
1. The question paper is divided into four sections.
2. There are 38 questions in all. All questions are compulsory.
3. Section A includes question No. 1-20. These are MCQ type questions. As per the question, there can be one answer.
4. Section B includes question No.21-29. These are very short answer type questions carrying 2 marks each. Answer to each question should not exceed 30 words.
5. Section C includes question No. 30-35. They are short answer type questions carrying 4 marks each. Answer to each question should not exceed 80 words.
6. Section D includes question No. 36-38. They are long answer type questions carrying 6 marks each. Answer to each question should not exceed 200 words each. Question no 38 is to be answered with the help of the passage given.
SECTION A
1. “Famines were also a major and recurring source of increased mortality.” Which of the following is not a cause of famines?
a) Continuing poverty and malnutrition in an agro-climatic environment.
b) Inadequate means of transport and communication.
c) Failure of entitlements
d) Increasing birth rates
2. Assertion(A): The Population Pyramid shows a bulge in the middle age groups, due to opportunity provided by the demographic structure.
Reason(R): This is due to high birth rate in the middle age groups.
a) Both A and R are true and R is the correct explanation of A.
b) Both A and R are true but R is not the correct explanation of A.
c) A is true but R is false.
d) A is false and R is true.
3. The interaction of the tribal communities with the mainstream has generally been on terms unfavourable for the tribals. Many tribal identities today are centred on ideas of ________________ to the overwhelming force of the non-tribal word.
a) Resistance and cooperation
b) Cooperation and opposition
c) Resistance and opposition
d) Movement and opposition
4. Assertion(A): Tribes are pristine societies uncontaminated by civilisation:
Reason(R): Tribes should really be seen as ―secondary‖ phenomena arising out of the exploitative and colonialist contact between pre-existing states and non-state groups like the tribals.
a) Both A and R are true and R is the correct explanation of A.
b) Both A and R are true but R is not the correct explanation of A.
c) A is true but R is false.
d) A is false and R is true.
5. Which of the following make the Dominant Castes dominant?
a) I. and II.
b) I. and III.
c) II., III., IV.
d) I. and IV
6. The __________ family is often seen as symptomatic of India.
a) Nuclear
b) Patriarchal
c) Patrilineal
d) Extended
7. The person who is refused a job because of his/her caste may be told that he/she was less qualified than others and the selection was done purely on merit. This is an example of
a) Discrimination
b) Social stratification
c) Egalitarianism
d) Stereotype
8. Person from a well-off family can afford expensive higher education. Someone with influential relatives and friends may – through access to good advice, recommendations or information – manage to get a well-paid job. Which of the following is true in the given context?
a) I. is false
b) I. and II. are true
c) I. and III. are true
d) I., II. and III. are true
9. Historically, states have tried to establish and enhance their political legitimacy through nation-building strategies. They sought to secure … the loyalty and obedience of their citizens through policies of assimilation or integration. Attaining these objectives was not easy, especially in a context of cultural diversity where citizens, in addition to their identifications with their country, might also feel a strong sense of identity with their community – ethnic, religious, linguistic and so on.
Two nation building strategies used were
a) Assimilation and integration
b) Assimilation and sanskritisation
c) Integration and sanskritisation
d) Westernisation and sanskritisation
10. The challenge is in reinvigorating India‘s commitment to practices
a) Pluralism
b) Institutional accommodation
c) Conflict resolution through democratic means
d) All of the above
11. While a few villages are totally absorbed in the process of expansion, only the land of many others, excluding the inhabited area, is used for urban development… The growth of ____________ cities accounts for the third type of urban impact on the surrounding villages.
a) Metropolitan
b) Small
c) Ghetto
d) Heritage
12. With the growth of _____________ movement in the 20th century, there was an attempt in several Indian languages to drop Sanskriti words and phrases.
a) Brahminical
b) Anti-Brahminical
c) Women‘s
d) Tribal
13. Which of the following is not a result of contract farming?
a) It disengages many people from the production process.
b) Makes their own indigenous knowledge of agriculture irrelevant.
c) It is ecologically sustainable
d) Caters primarily to the production of elite items
14. Assertion(A): Members of low ranked caste groups had to provide labour for a fixed number of days per year to the village zamindar.
Reason(R): Lack of resources and dependence on the landed caste for economic and social support meant that many working poor were tied to landowners in hereditary labour relationships.
a) Both A and R are true and R is the correct explanation of A.
b) Both A and R are true but R is not the correct explanation of A.
c) A is true but R is false.
d) A is false and R is true.
15. Women are also emerging as the main source of agricultural labour leading to ______________ labour force.
a) Feminization of agriculture
b) Womanisation of agriculture
c) Reformation of agriculture
d) Restoration of agriculture
16. “The spate of farmers’ suicides that has been occurring in different parts of the country since 1997–98 can be linked to the ‘agrarian distress‘ caused by structural changes in agriculture and changes in economic and agricultural policies”.
Which of the following is not a reason for agrarian distress?
a) Changed cropping pattern
b) Changing patterns of landholdings
c) Heavy migration to cities
d) Shift to cash crops
17. In outsourcing, work is allocated by _________________countries to __________ countries.
a) Developed, developing
b) Underdeveloped, developed
c) Developing, underdeveloped
d) Developing, developed
18. Assertion(A): Earlier architects and engineers had to be skilled draughtsmen, now the computer does a lot of the work for them. Reason(R): The use of machinery deskills workers.
a) Both A and R are true and R is the correct explanation of A.
b) Both A and R are true but R is not the correct explanation of A.
c) A is true but R is false.
d) A is false and R is true.
19. ‘Stand Up India Scheme‘ and ‘Make in India‘ are programmes that will help realise the-
a) Benefits of high dependency ratio
b) Demographic dividend
c) Benefit of high death rate
d) Benefit of high fertility rate
20. Assertion(A): In Modern Foods, 60% of the workers were forced to retire in the first five years.
Reason(R): This was due to complacency in work.
a) Both A and R are true and R is the correct explanation of A.
b) Both A and R are true but R is not the correct explanation of A.
c) A is true but R is false.
d) A is false and R is true.
SECTION – B
21. The growth rate of India in the decade 1911-21, exhibited a diverse pattern. State two reasons.
Ans. – between 1911 and 1921 there was a negative rate of growth of – 0.03%.
-This was because of the influenza epidemic during 1918–19
22. Not all of the changes in Social Institutions brought about by the British were intended or deliberate. Give an example to justify the statement.
Ans. – the British administrators began by trying to understand the complexities of caste in an effort to learn how to govern the country efficiently. Some of these efforts took the shape of very methodical and intensive surveys and reports on the ‘customs and manners’ of various tribes and castes all over the country.
-This effort had a huge impact on social perceptions of caste and hundreds of petitions were addressed to the Census Commissioner by representatives of different castes claiming a higher position in the social scale and offering historical and scriptural evidence for their claims
23. “In both English and Indian fictional writings, we often encounter an entire group of people classified as ‘lazy‘ or ‘cunning‘.” What are the problems with such a classification?
Ans. -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.
OR
“In all regions of the world persons with disabilities face attitudinal barriers, including prejudice, low expectations and even fear. Negative attitudes about disability impact on all aspects of the lives of persons with disabilities, including the ability to access education, to participate in non-exploitative work, to live where and with whom one chooses, to marry and start a family, and to move about freely within the community.”
Suggest any two ways by which an attitudinal change can be brought about to remedy the conditions of people with disabilities.
Ans. -greater awareness and hence inclusion.
-appropriate infrastructure to support and include people with disabilities.
24. “Every human being needs a sense of stable identity to operate in this world. Questions like — Who am I? How am I different from others? How do others understand and comprehend me? What goals and aspirations should I have? – constantly crop up in our life right from childhood.” How are these questions answered?
Ans. -We are able to answer many of these questions because of the way in which we are socialised.
-The socialisation process involves a continuous dialogue, negotiation and even struggle against significant others like our parents, family, kin group and our community. Our community provides us the language (our mother tongue) and the cultural values through which we comprehend the world. It also anchors our self-identity.
OR
State is indeed a very crucial institution when it comes to the management of cultural diversity in a nation. How?
Ans. · Efforts are required to end the cultural exclusion of diverse groups.
· State must be able to build multiple and complementary identities.
· Such responsive policies provide incentives to build a feeling of unity in diversity- a “we-feeling”.
25. What is the difference between assimilationist and integrationist policies?
Ans. Policies that promote assimilation are aimed at persuading, encouraging or forcing all citizens to adopt a uniform set of cultural values and norms. Policies promoting integration insist that the public culture be restricted to a common national pattern, while all ‘non-national’ cultures are to be relegated to the private sphere.
26. Using the example of Kumud Pawade, show how the process of sanskritisation is gendered.
Ans. Kumud Pawade in her autobiography recounts how a Dalit woman became a Sanskrit teacher. As a student she is drawn towards the study of Sanskrit, perhaps because it is the means through which she can break into a field that was not possible for her to enter on grounds of gender and caste. Perhaps she was drawn towards it because it would enable her to read in the original what the texts have to say about women and the Dalits.
27. What was unique about the social reform movements of the 19th century?
Ans. What marked these 19th century social reform attempts was the modern context and mix of ideas. It was a creative combination of modern ideas of western liberalism and a new look on traditional literature.
28. Differentiate between Zamindari system and Raiyatwari system with regard to the consequence on agricultural prosperity.
Ans. Under the British, the zamindars were given more control over land than they had before. Since the colonisers also imposed heavy land revenue (taxes) on agriculture, the zamindars extracted as much produce or money as they could out of the cultivators. One result of this zamindari system was that agricultural production stagnated or declined during much of the period of British rule.
In Raiyatwari system, the ‘actual cultivators’ rather than the zamindars were responsible for paying the tax. Because the colonial government dealt directly with the farmers or landlords, burden of taxation was less and cultivators had more incentive to invest in agriculture. As a result, these areas became relatively more productive and prosperous.
29. “In places like Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Gurugram, where many IT firms or call centres are located, shops and restaurants have also changed their opening hours, and are open late.” Give reasons.
As. -overwork is built into the structure of outsourced projects in the IT sector: project costs and timelines are usually underestimated in terms of mandays, and because mandays are based on an eight-hour day, engineers have to put in extra hours and days in order to meet the deadlines.
-Extended working hours are legitimised by the common management practice of ‘flexitime’, which in theory gives an employee freedom to choose his or her working hours (within limits) but, which in practice, means that they have to work as long as necessary to finish the task at hand.
-But even when there is no real work pressure, they tend to stay late in office either due to peer pressure or because they want to show the boss that they are working hard.
(Any two)
OR
The Industrial Society is characterised by alienation. How?
Ans. · Industrial society involves detailed division of labour so people often do not see the end result of their work since they are producing only one small part of a product.
· Work is repetitive and exhausting.
· This leads to alienation for people don’t enjoy their work and see it as something they have to do in order to survive, and even that survival depends on whether the technology has room for any human labour.
SECTION – C
30. In the context of identities, why did tribal societies get more and more differentiated?
Ans. 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.
OR
One of the most significant yet paradoxical changes in the caste system in the contemporary period is that it has tended to become ‘invisible’ for the upper caste, urban middle and upper classes. Elaborate.
Ans. · Upper caste, urban middle and upper classes have benefitted the most from the developmental policies.
· Their caste status had been crucial in ensuring that these groups had the necessary economic and educational resources to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by rapid development.
· In particular, the upper caste elite benefitted from subsidised public education especially professional education in science, technology, medicine and management.
· At the same time, they were also able to take advantage of the expansion of public sector jobs in the early decades after Independence.
31. Why is it hard to define a nation?
Ans. A nation is a peculiar sort of community that is easy to describe but hard to define. We know and can describe many specific nations founded on the basis of common cultural, historical and political institutions like a shared religion, language, ethnicity, history or regional culture. But it is hard to come up with any defining features, any characteristics that a nation must possess. For every possible criterion there are exceptions an counter-examples. For example, there are many nations that do not share a single common language, religion, ethnicity and so on. On the other hand, there are many languages, religions or ethnicities that are shared across nations. But this does not lead to the formation of a single unified nation of, say, all English speakers or of all Buddhists.
32. How are capitalism and colonialism linked?
Ans. Capitalism in the west emerged out of a complex process of European exploration of the rest of the world, its plunder of wealth and resources, an unprecedented growth of science and technology, its harnessing to industries and agriculture. What marked capitalism from the very beginning was its dynamism, its potential to grow, expand, innovate, use technology and labour in a way best assured to ensure greatest profit. What marked it too was its global nature. Western colonialism was inextricably connected to the growth of western capitalism. This had a lasting impact on the way capitalism developed in a colonised country like India
33. How did the Land Ceiling Act prove to be toothless in most of the states?
Ans. These laws imposed an upper limit on the amount of land that can be owned by a particular family. The ceiling varies from region to region, depending on the kind of land, its productivity, and other such factors. There were many loopholes and other strategies through which most landowners were able to escape from having their surplus land taken over by the state. While some very large estates were broken up, in most cases landowners managed to divide the land among relatives and others, including servants, in so-called ‘benami transfers’ – which allowed them to keep control over the land (in fact if not in name). In some places, some rich farmers actually divorced their wives (but continued to live with them) in order to avoid the provisions of the Land Ceiling Act, which allowed a separate share for unmarried women but not for wives
34. “The more mechanised an industry gets, the fewer people are employed.” Explain with a suitable example.
Ans. In Maruti Udyog Ltd. two cars roll off the assembly line every minute. Workers get only 45 minutes rest in the entire day – two tea breaks of 7.5 minutes each and one lunch break of half an hour. Most of them are exhausted by the age of 40 and take voluntary retirement. While production has gone up, the number of permanent jobs in the factory has gone down. The firm has outsourced all services like cleaning, and security, as well as the manufacture of parts. The parts suppliers are located around the factory and send the parts every two hours or just-in-time. Outsourcing and just-in-time keeps costs low for the company, but the workers are very tense, because if the supplies fail to arrive, their production targets get delayed, and when they do arrive they have to run to keep up. No wonder they get exhausted.
OR
Mahatma Gandhi saw mechanisation as a danger to employment. Explain.
Ans. Gandhi objected to 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. He wanted to save time and labour, not for a fraction of mankind, but for all. He wanted the concentration of wealth, not in the hands of the few, but in the hands of all. He believed that when a nation adopts 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.
35. Differentiate between old and new social movements.
Ans. Old Movements-
· The old social movements clearly saw reorganisation of power relations as a central goal.
· The old social movements functioned within the frame of political parties.
· Regional in nature
New Movements-
· 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.
· New movements do not function within the frame of political parties but can work through non-party political formations.
· Global in nature.
SECTION – D
36. “…The contractors‘ men who were travelling to Reni from Joshimath stopped the bus shortly before Reni. Skirting the village, they made for the forest. A small girl who spied the workers with their implements rushed to Gaura Devi, the head of the village Mahila Mandal (Women‘s Club). Gaura Devi quickly mobilised the other housewives and went to the forest. Pleading with the labourers not to start felling operations, the women initially met with abuse and threats. When the women refused to budge, the men were eventually forced to retire.”
How are environmental movements also about economics and identity issues? Elaborate.
Ans. All of the villagers 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 interlinked. 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.
37.
a) Give reasons for declining sex-ratio.
b) In your opinion, what steps should be taken to deal with this bias against the girl-child?
Ans. a) -son-preference
-raising a daughter implied wasteful investment
-dowry
b) -education
-prevention of infanticides
-prevention of foeticides
38. Elaborate on state and non-state initiatives addressing caste and tribal discrimination.
Ans. -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.
OR
What are the major concerns for the Adivasis today?
Ans. 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 Andhra Pradesh 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.