Note: This chapter is not part of the CBSE Class 12 Sociology syllabus for 2026-27 (CBSE has deleted it). Students of other boards should check their board’s latest syllabus.
Exam-useful questions from this chapter, grouped by marks, each with a full model answer. Try writing the answer yourself first, then check it against this one.
1 1-Mark Questions
Q. Define globalisation, in the book’s own sense.
Answer: Globalisation refers to the growing interdependence between different people, regions and countries in the world, as social and economic relationships come to stretch worldwide.
Q. What is glocalisation?
Answer: Glocalisation refers to the mixing of the global with the local.
Q. Who founded Nike, and where did he first import shoes from?
Answer: Phil Knight founded Nike, importing shoes from Japan and selling them at athletics meetings.
Q. By what two names does the book describe the policy measures India has taken since 1991?
Answer: Liberalisation (the liberalisation policies), which the book says are also described as economic reforms.
Q. Which city does the book name as India’s financial capital?
Answer: Mumbai.
Q. What does the abbreviation TNC stand for, per the book?
Answer: Transnational corporation, a company producing goods or marketing services in more than one country.
Q. By 2006, what rank did India reach in cell phone usage worldwide, per the book?
Answer: India became the country with the fourth-largest cell phone usage in the world.
Q. Name the ancient trade route that connected India to China, Persia, Egypt and Rome.
Answer: The Silk Route.
2 2-Mark Questions
Q. Distinguish between an IGO and an INGO, using the book’s own examples.
Answer: An IGO (International Governmental Organisation) is a body established by participating governments to regulate a transnational domain, e.g. the WTO. An INGO (International Non-Governmental Organisation) is independent of government and makes its own policy decisions, e.g. Greenpeace, the Red Cross, Amnesty International and Medecins Sans Frontieres.
Q. State the kupamanduka parable and what it warns against.
Answer: The kupamanduka is a frog that lives its whole life within a well, knows nothing else, talks to no one, and merely harbours deep suspicion of the outside world. The book cites it (via Amartya Sen) as a warning against isolationism.
Q. Describe the General Motors Pontiac Le Mans example the book uses to illustrate globalised production.
Answer: Of the car’s showroom price of 20,000 US dollars, only 7,600 US dollars go to Americans. The rest goes to South Korea (48%, labour/assembly), Japan (28%, engines/electronics), Germany (12%, styling/design), Taiwan and Singapore (7%, small components), the UK (4%, marketing) and Barbados or Ireland (about 1%, data processing).
Q. What is the digital divide, and how does the book illustrate it continuing to exist in India?
Answer: The digital divide is the unevenness in access to digital technology. The book illustrates it with a 2017-18 study: only 1 in 10 households has a computer, and about a quarter of homes have internet via mobile or other devices, with rural areas remaining largely unconnected due to erratic power, illiteracy and lack of infrastructure.
Q. Explain how the entry of large fishing vessels affected livelihoods in India, per the book.
Answer: Large fishing vessels entering Indian waters took away fish that used to be collected by Indian fishing vessels, affecting the livelihood of women fish sorters, dryers, vendors and net makers.
Q. What does the book mean by an ‘inclusive globalisation’?
Answer: Inclusive globalisation is the possibility of a form of globalisation different from the current, neo-liberal one: one that includes all sections of society, rather than benefiting only the privileged.
Q. Give the book’s account of how McDonald’s practises glocalisation in India.
Answer: McDonald’s sells only vegetarian and chicken products in India, not the beef products popular abroad, and goes fully vegetarian during the Navaratri festival, adapting its menu to local sensibilities to boost its marketability.
Q. What threat did cheap Chinese and Korean silk yarn pose to Bihar’s silk workers, per the book?
Answer: Women silk spinners and twisters of Bihar lost their jobs once cheaper, shinier Chinese and Korean silk yarn entered the market, as weavers and consumers preferred the new yarn.
3 4-Mark Questions
Q. Trace the shift in Nike’s shoe production across countries and decades, as the book describes it, and explain why this movement happens.
Answer: Nike was founded in the 1960s by Phil Knight, who imported shoes from Japan; Nike shoes were made in Japan in the 1960s. As Japanese costs rose, production shifted to South Korea in the mid-1970s. As Korean labour costs then rose, production widened to Thailand and Indonesia in the 1980s. Since the 1990s, India has produced Nike shoes. The book explains that production keeps moving to wherever labour is cheapest, which makes the labouring population vulnerable and insecure; this flexibility usually favours producers, and represents a shift from Fordism (mass production at one centralised location) to post-Fordism (flexible production at dispersed locations).
Q. Explain the different dimensions of India’s telecommunications expansion, with the book’s own figures.
Answer: In 1947, India had only 84,000 telephone lines for a population of 350 million. By 1980, there were still only 2.5 million telephones and 12,000 public phones for 700 million people, with only 3% of India’s 600,000 villages having telephones. In the late 1990s, a sea change occurred: by 1999, India had over 25 million telephone lines across 300 cities, 4,869 towns and 310,897 villages, making its network the ninth-largest in the world. Between 1988 and 1998, villages with some telephone facility rose from 27,316 to 300,000, half of all Indian villages. By 2000, about 650,000 Public Call Offices (PCOs) gave reliable telephone service even in remote, rural, hilly and tribal areas, meeting a strong socio-cultural need to stay in touch with family.
Q. Discuss the economic policy of liberalisation in India, as described in the chapter.
Answer: Liberalisation refers to policy decisions the Indian state took since 1991 to open the Indian economy to the world market, breaking from the earlier post-Independence policy of protecting Indian business from wider competition. Since July 1991, India saw reforms across agriculture, industry, trade, foreign investment and technology, the public sector, and financial institutions, on the assumption that greater integration into the global market would benefit the economy. The process also involved taking loans from institutions like the IMF, given on the condition of structural adjustment, usually meaning cuts in state spending on health, education and social security, and a greater say for institutions like the WTO.
Q. Explain how globalisation has threatened indigenous craft, literary traditions and knowledge systems in India, with the book’s own examples.
Answer: Modern development made inroads into traditional culture even before globalisation, but the scale and intensity of change today is far greater. About 30 theatre groups active around the textile-mill areas of Parel and Girgaum in Mumbai became defunct as most mill workers lost their jobs. There were reports of large numbers of suicides among traditional weavers in Sircilla village (Karimnagar district) and Dubakka village (Medak district), both in Andhra Pradesh, who had no means to invest in technology to compete with power looms and changing consumer tastes. Traditional knowledge systems in medicine and agriculture, passed down generations, are also threatened, as seen in attempts by some multinational companies to patent the use of Tulsi, Haldi (turmeric), Rudraksha and Basmati rice.
Q. Discuss homogenisation versus glocalisation of culture, with the book’s own examples.
Answer: One view holds that globalisation makes all cultures become similar, i.e. homogeneous. Others argue there is a growing tendency towards glocalisation, the mixing of the global with the local, which is not entirely spontaneous and is tied to commercial interests, being a strategy foreign firms use to boost their local marketability. The book’s own examples: foreign channels Star, MTV, Channel V and Cartoon Network broadcast in Indian languages; McDonald’s sells only vegetarian and chicken products in India and goes fully vegetarian during Navaratri; and in music, Bhangra pop, Indi pop, fusion music and remixes have grown popular.
Q. Explain the culture of consumption as the book describes it, and how it has reshaped Indian cities.
Answer: Culture is not just dress, music, dance and food, but a whole way of life; the book highlights the culture of consumption and corporate culture as two forms every chapter on globalisation should mention. Until the 1970s, manufacturing industry drove city growth; now, cultural consumption (art, food, fashion, tourism) shapes it, seen in the growth of shopping malls, multiplex cinema halls, amusement parks and ‘water world’ parks in every major Indian city. Advertisements and media now promote a culture where spending, not thrift, is valued, and shopping is actively encouraged as a pastime; the successive success of Miss Universe and Miss World pageants drove huge growth in fashion, cosmetics and health industries.
Q. Describe the uneven impact of globalisation on employment, per the book.
Answer: For urban middle-class youth, globalisation and the IT revolution opened new career opportunities: instead of a routine B.Sc./B.A./B.Com degree, many young people now learn computer languages, work at call centres or BPO companies, or take jobs in shopping malls and restaurants. But broader trends of employment remain disappointing: an ILO report, ‘Labour and Social Trends in Asia and the Pacific 2005’, states that the largest number of poor people lives in South Asia, particularly India, Nepal and Bangladesh, and that between 2003 and 2004, employment in Asia and the Pacific grew by only a ‘disappointing’ 1.6% (25 million jobs) to 1.588 billion jobs, against economic growth of over 7%.
Q. How does the book use the example of India’s own history to argue that global interconnections are not new?
Answer: The book points out India was not isolated from the world even two thousand years ago: the Silk Route connected India to the great civilisations of China, Persia, Egypt and Rome, and people came here across its long past as traders, conquerors and migrants who settled down. Panini, the greatest Sanskrit grammarian, was of Afghan origin; the seventh-century Chinese scholar Yi Jing learned Sanskrit in Java on his way from China to India. Modern capitalism itself had a global dimension from its inception under colonialism, which required new capital, raw materials, markets and a global network, and involved large-scale migration such as European settlement of the Americas and Australia, Indian indentured labour, and the slave trade.
4 6-Mark Questions
Q. ‘Globalisation affects everyone, but affects everyone differently.’ Discuss this statement with the book’s own examples of livelihood loss and new opportunity.
Answer: The book shows globalisation’s effect is far-reaching but highly uneven. For some it brought new opportunity: urban middle-class youth found new careers in IT, BPO and call centres; some Indian corporations became transnational; consumers gained access to a wider range of goods with the opening of the market. But for others it meant loss of livelihood: women silk spinners and twisters of Bihar lost work once cheaper Chinese and Korean silk yarn entered the market; women fish sorters, dryers, vendors and net makers were displaced as large fishing vessels took the catch earlier collected by Indian boats; Gujarat’s women gum collectors lost work to cheaper Sudanese gum imports; rag pickers across Indian cities lost work to imported waste paper; and traditional entertainers like the Dombari community saw television and radio ‘snatch away’ their livelihood. Views on this impact remain sharply divided: some see globalisation heralding a better world, others argue the already-excluded worsen while the privileged benefit, and some argue it is not even a new development at all.
Q. Discuss the political dimension of globalisation, covering neo-liberalism, inclusive globalisation, and the rise of international/regional organisations.
Answer: The collapse of the erstwhile socialist world was a major political change that hastened globalisation, giving it a specific neo-liberal economic and political approach: a vision of free enterprise that trusts market forces to be efficient and fair, and is critical of both state regulation and state subsidies. Against this, the book notes the possibility of an inclusive globalisation, one that includes all sections of society. Alongside this, globalisation has seen the growth of international and regional mechanisms for political collaboration, such as the European Union (EU), the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). It has also seen the rise of International Governmental Organisations (IGOs), bodies established by participating governments to regulate a transnational domain (the WTO is the book’s example, with growing say over trade rules), and International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs), independent bodies making their own policy decisions on international issues, such as Greenpeace, the Red Cross, Amnesty International and Medecins Sans Frontieres.
Q. Explain the different economic dimensions of globalisation the book describes: liberalisation, TNCs, the electronic economy, the weightless/knowledge economy, and the globalisation of finance.
Answer: Liberalisation refers to India’s own 1991 policy decisions opening its economy to the world market, involving reforms across major sectors and IMF loans under structural-adjustment conditions. Transnational corporations (TNCs/MNCs), such as Coca Cola, General Motors, Colgate-Palmolive, Kodak and Mitsubishi, produce goods or market services in more than one country and are oriented to global markets and profits. The electronic economy allows banks, corporations and investors to shift funds internationally instantly, ‘with the click of a mouse’, though this carries risk, as seen in sudden stock-market swings. The weightless economy is one where products are based in information (software, media, internet services), while the knowledge economy has much of its workforce in design, development, marketing and servicing rather than physical production, giving rise to new occupations like event managers. Finally, the globalisation of finance, driven mainly by the IT revolution, has created globally integrated financial markets trading billions of dollars within seconds, 24 hours a day, with New York, Tokyo and London as key centres and Mumbai as India’s own financial capital.
Q. ‘Culture is affected by globalisation in many ways.’ Discuss this with reference to homogenisation/glocalisation, gender, the culture of consumption, corporate culture, and the threat to indigenous traditions.
Answer: Globalisation affects culture through several distinct channels the book names. First, homogenisation versus glocalisation: while some argue all cultures are becoming similar, others point to a growing glocalisation, the mixing of global and local, seen in foreign channels using Indian languages and McDonald’s vegetarian-and-chicken-only Indian menu. Second, gender and culture: defenders of a fixed traditional identity can wrongly use globalisation as a bogey to defend unjust practices against women, from sati to excluding women from public life, though India has retained a democratic tradition allowing a more inclusive definition of culture. Third, the culture of consumption: cultural consumption of art, food, fashion and tourism now shapes city growth (shopping malls, multiplexes, amusement parks) more than manufacturing did before the 1970s, encouraged by media that value spending over thrift. Fourth, corporate culture, a management-theory branch using company events and rituals to build employee loyalty. Finally, indigenous craft, literary traditions and knowledge systems face a real threat: Mumbai’s Parel-Girgaum theatre groups became defunct, weavers in Sircilla and Dubakka villages (Andhra Pradesh) faced ruin, and MNCs have tried to patent Tulsi, Haldi, Rudraksha and Basmati rice.
5 Case Studies
(A) 1 mark What kind of new career opportunity does Meena’s brother’s call-centre job represent, per the chapter?
Answer: It represents the kind of new career opportunity globalisation and the IT/BPO revolution has opened up for urban and semi-urban middle-class youth.
(B) 2 marks Using the chapter’s account of traditional weavers, explain why Meena’s mother’s livelihood is under threat.
Answer: Like the traditional weavers of Sircilla and Dubakka villages the chapter describes, Meena’s mother lacks the means to invest in technology to compete with power looms and changing consumer tastes, so her orders and livelihood are shrinking as cheaper, machine-made cloth takes over the market.
(C) 3 marks Using the concept of sociological imagination, connect Meena’s family’s two experiences to the wider process of globalisation.
Answer: Sociological imagination connects the individual (micro) to society and the global (macro): Meena’s mother’s declining handloom orders and her brother’s new call-centre income are both personal, individual experiences, but both trace back to the same macro-level process of globalisation and liberalisation, which opened India to global markets, cheaper machine-made goods and information-technology-based service work at the same time. The same global force benefits one family member while threatening another’s livelihood, exactly the uneven impact the chapter describes.