Class 12 Sociology Book 2 Chapter 5 Change and Development in Industrial Society NCERT Solutions

Q. Choose any occupation you see around you, and describe it along the following lines: a) social composition of the work force, caste, gender, age, region; b) labour process, how the work takes place; c) wages and other benefits; d) working conditions, safety, rest times, working hours, etc.

Answer: This is an open, project-style question: you should choose a real occupation you can actually observe (a shop worker, an auto-rickshaw driver, a construction labourer, a domestic worker, a delivery rider). Below is a model answer built from an occupation the chapter itself describes in detail, the home-based bidi worker, to show how each of the four points should be handled.

(a) Social composition of the work force: Home-based work such as bidi rolling is mainly done by women and children, as the chapter says, working at home for an agent or contractor; the bidi workers who roll the bidis are mostly women. The process starts in forested villages, where villagers pluck tendu leaves. The book does not give the caste or age of these workers; in your own occupation, find these out by observation.

(b) Labour process: Villagers first pluck tendu leaves and sell them to the forest department or a private contractor, who resells them to the forest department. The government auctions the leaves to bidi factory owners, who pass them to contractors, who supply tobacco and leaves to home-based workers. These workers dampen the leaves, cut them, fill in tobacco evenly, and tie the bidis with thread. The contractor picks up the finished bidis and sells them to the manufacturer, who roasts them and puts on his own brand label. The manufacturer sells them to a distributor, who distributes the packed bidis to wholesalers, who in turn sell to neighbourhood pan shops.

(c) Wages and other benefits: Home-based workers are paid on a piece-rate basis, by the number of bidis they roll, not a fixed wage or salary. This work is in the unorganised (informal) sector, which the chapter says accounts for over 90% of all work in India; very few Indians have access to secure jobs with benefits.

(d) Working conditions: The book does not describe rest times or working hours for bidi workers; for your own occupation, record these from observation. What the book does say about the unorganised sector is that the government has laws to monitor conditions there, but in practice they are left to the whims and fancies of the employer or contractor.

Q. How has liberalisation affected employment patterns in India?

Answer: Since the 1990s, the government has followed a policy of liberalisation. Private companies, especially foreign firms, have been encouraged to invest in sectors earlier reserved for the government, such as telecom, civil aviation and power, and licenses are no longer required to open industries; foreign products are now easily available in Indian shops. As a result, many Indian companies, small and large, have been bought over by multinationals, while some Indian companies have themselves become multinational. The book’s own example is Parle Drinks, bought by Coca-Cola: Parle’s annual turnover was ₹250 crore, while Coca-Cola’s advertising budget alone was ₹400 crore, a scale of advertising that has naturally increased cola consumption across India, replacing many traditional drinks. The book names retail as the next major area of liberalisation.

The government has also been selling its share in several public-sector companies, a process called disinvestment; many government workers fear losing their jobs as a result. In “Modern Foods,” the first company to be privatised, 60% of the workers were forced to retire in the first five years. More companies are reducing the number of permanent employees and outsourcing work to smaller companies or even to homes, and multinational companies outsource across the globe, with developing countries like India providing cheap labour. Because small companies compete for orders from big companies, they keep wages low, and working conditions are often poor; it is also more difficult for trade unions to organise in smaller firms. Almost all companies, even government ones, now practise some form of outsourcing and contracting, but the trend is especially visible in the private sector.

Overall, India is still largely an agricultural country, but the service sector, shops, banks, the IT industry, hotels and other services, is employing more people, and the urban middle class is growing along with its values. Yet very few people in India have access to secure jobs, and even the small number in regular salaried employment face rising insecurity from the growth of contract labour. Government employment, once a major avenue for the population’s well-being, is declining, and liberalisation and privatisation worldwide appear to be associated with rising income inequality.

Q. Why do we find more women in certain jobs like nursing or teaching than in other sectors like engineering? Is this just a coincidence or is it because society thinks that women are suited for caring and nurturing work as against jobs which are seen as ‘tough’ and masculine? If more women move into engineering, how will that affect the profession? Ask yourself why some coffee advertisements in India display two cups on the package whereas in America they show one cup?

Answer: The book poses this as a question: is it just a coincidence, or does society think that women are suited to caring and nurturing work, as against jobs seen as ‘tough’ and masculine? Its own hint is that nursing is physically much harder work than designing a bridge, so the division points to social ideas about gender rather than physical ability. How more women in engineering would affect the profession is left for you to think about; you may argue, in your own words, how ideas of which work is ‘masculine’ could change. The coffee example answers itself in the book: for many Indians drinking coffee is not an individual wake-up activity but an occasion to socialise with others, so advertisements show two cups. Both examples show the book’s point that who produces what, who works where and who sells to whom are not individual choices but outcomes of social patterns.

Q. According to the convergence thesis put forward by modernisation theorist Clark Kerr, an industrialised India of the 21st century shares more features with China or the United States in the 21st century than it shares with 19th century India. Do you think this is true? Do culture, language and tradition disappear with new technology or does culture influence the way people adapt to new products? Write a page of your own reflections on these issues, giving examples.

Answer: This asks for your own reflection, so a model answer can argue that the thesis is partly true. Industrial India does share features with China and the USA: factories, offices, IT firms and call centres, and caste distinctions matter less on trains, buses and in cyber cafes. But culture does not simply disappear; it influences how people adapt to new products. The book’s own examples show this: Indian coffee advertisements show two cups because coffee is an occasion to socialise; in IT cities the joint family seems to have re-emerged, with grandparents roped in to help with children; older forms of discrimination may persist even in new workplaces; and the Kanpur mistris came from the same regions and communities as the workers. You may add examples you observe yourself (outside the book), such as how mobile phones or food products are adapted to local habits. So India may be converging in technology, but culture still influences the way people adapt to new products.

Q. What are the social implications of this small size of the organised sector?

Answer: The book gives three. First, very few people work in large firms where they meet people from other regions and backgrounds; most work in small workplaces where personal relationships with the employer decide raises or dismissal, unlike large organisations with well-defined rules, more transparent recruitment and mechanisms for complaints and redressal. Second, very few Indians have access to secure jobs with benefits, and two-thirds of those who do work for the government, which is why people strive hard to get government jobs, while the rest must depend on their children in old age; government employment has also played a major role in overcoming boundaries of caste, religion and region (one sociologist’s argument about the Bhilai Steel Plant, which the book says others may question). Third, since very few are union members, workers in the unorganised sector do not have the experience of collectively fighting for proper wages and safe working conditions; the government has laws to monitor the unorganised sector, but in practice they are left to the whims and fancies of the employer or contractor.

Q. The next major area of liberalisation is in retail. Do you think that Indians will prefer to shop in grocery stores, small textile shops in your neighbourhood or in small towns, departmental stores, or will they go out of business?

Answer: The book asks this as an open question and gives no conclusion, so write your own view with examples from your area. Students may argue either way: departmental stores attract some shoppers, while neighbourhood shops keep others. You can link your answer to the book’s own example of competition after liberalisation: Parle’s annual turnover was ₹250 crore, while Coca-Cola’s advertising budget alone was ₹400 crore, and this level of advertising increased the consumption of Coke across India, replacing many traditional drinks.

Q. How are all the products we see around us manufactured? What is the relationship between managers and workers in a factory or in an office?

Answer: In India there is a whole range of work settings, from large companies where work is automated to small home-based production. Industrialisation involves a detailed division of labour, so workers often produce only one small part of a product and do not see the end result. The basic task of a manager is to control workers and get more work out of them, in two main ways: by extending the working hours, or by increasing the amount produced within a given time period. Machinery helps to increase production, but it also creates the danger that machines will eventually replace workers; at Maruti Udyog Ltd, for example, workers have to work at the pace of the machine, with only 45 minutes of rest in the day.

Q. (After Gandhi’s words of 1924 against “the craze for machinery”, quoted in Activity 5.2, and of 1934 on adopting the spinning wheel.) Give an example of how machinery creates a problem for workers. What alternative did Gandhi have in mind? How does adopting the spinning wheel prevent exploitation?

Answer: Example: at Maruti Udyog Ltd, as production became more mechanised, the number of permanent jobs in the factory went down, and the remaining workers must keep pace with the assembly line (two cars a minute, 45 minutes of rest a day); most are exhausted by the age of 40 and take voluntary retirement. Gandhi’s alternative was not to reject machinery as such but to reject the craze for labour-saving machinery that leaves thousands without work: he wanted to save time and labour “not for a fraction of mankind, but for all”, with the concentration of wealth “not in the hands of the few, but in the hands of all”. Adopting the spinning wheel prevents exploitation because, as Gandhi said in 1934, it not only solves the question of unemployment but declares “that we have no intention of exploiting any nation, and we also end the exploitation of the poor by the rich.”

Q. But how do you compare the skills of a farmer who knows how to grow many hundreds of crops relying on his or her understanding of the weather, the soil and the seeds, with the knowledge of a software professional?

Answer: Both are skilled, but in different ways. The farmer’s skill rests on knowledge of the weather, the soil and the seeds; the software professional’s rests on the knowledge-based work of the IT sector, which we often hear described as the ‘knowledge economy’. This is part of an important debate in sociology: whether industrialisation and the shift to services and knowledge-based work lead to greater skills in society. Harry Braverman argues that the use of machinery actually deskills workers: whereas earlier architects and engineers had to be skilled draughtsmen, now the computer does a lot of the work for them.

Q. During 2020-21, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, hundreds and thousands of IT sector workers worked from home. Find out the differences and commonalities between home-based work and those who work from home.

Answer: This is a find-out activity, so your findings may go further; the book’s own material gives this outline.

• Commonality: both are work done at home rather than in a factory or office.
• Differences: home-based work (lace, zari or brocade, carpets, bidis, agarbattis) is mainly done by women and children; an agent provides the raw materials and picks up the finished product, and workers are paid on a piece-rate basis, by the number of pieces they make (section 5.6). IT professionals are, in the book’s words, middle class and well educated, and their work is subject to long working hours (Box 5.1); they worked from home in 2020-21 because of the COVID-19 pandemic (Activity 5.3). The book does not describe their pay or benefits, so you may find these out yourself.