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A quick-revision cut of Class 12 Sociology Chapter 3, Social Institutions: Continuity and Change. The definitions, named facts and tables from this chapter, in one place. Read the full notes first; read this the morning of the exam.
1 Where the Chapter Counts
| Board | This chapter |
|---|---|
| CBSE | 10 marks: Unit 3 of the 2026-27 syllabus (the theory paper is 80 marks, project 20) |
| Other boards | Marks differ by board; check your board’s current syllabus |
2 All the Definitions
Every definition in one place
VarnaFour-fold, all-India division: brahmana, kshatriya, vaishya, shudra, excluding the panchamas
JatiGeneric word for “species” or “kind”, the most common word for caste in Indian languages; most commonly taken as a regional or local sub-classification, hundreds or even thousands of castes and sub-castes
EndogamyMarriage restricted to members of one’s own caste group
Segmental organisationSub-castes within castes, sometimes with further sub-castes of their own
Purity and pollutionThe belief that decides caste rank: ritually pure castes get high status, polluting castes get low status
SanskritisationA caste raising its status by adopting a higher caste’s ritual, domestic and social practices (M.N. Srinivas)
Dominant casteA term for large-population castes granted landrights by the partial post-Independence land reforms, which gave them real economic/political power (M.N. Srinivas)
Scheduled Castes / TribesOfficial lists (“schedules”) given legal recognition by the Government of India Act, 1935; all the so-called “untouchable” castes were included among the Scheduled Castes
TribeDefined negatively: no written-text religion, no state-like political form, no sharp class divisions
Pristine / secondary phenomena / tribalismPristine = untouched original society (rejected idea); secondary phenomena = tribes as a product of exploitative contact; tribalism = the resulting identity ideology
Nuclear familyOne set of parents and their children
Extended / joint familyMore than one couple, often more than two generations, living together
Matrilocal / patrilocalCouple lives with the wife’s parents / the husband’s parents
Matrilineal / patrilinealProperty passes mother to daughter / father to son
Patriarchy / matriarchyMen dominant (real); women would be dominant, but matriarchy has NO historical or anthropological evidence anywhere
3 Caste: The Six Features and the Two Principles
The six features are the prescribed rules found in ancient scriptural texts. They were not always practised, so we cannot say how far they decided the real life of caste.
| Feature | What it means |
|---|---|
| 1. Birth | Never a matter of choice; there are instances of a person being expelled |
| 2. Endogamy | Marriage restricted to the group |
| 3. Food rules | What may be eaten, and with whom |
| 4. Hierarchy | Every caste has a rank; middle ranks vary by region |
| 5. Segmental organisation | Sub-castes, sometimes sub-sub-castes |
| 6. Hereditary occupation | Traditionally, a person could only practise their caste’s occupation, and only that caste could practise it |
Theoretically: difference and separation (many scriptural rules are designed to keep castes apart) + wholism and hierarchy (castes only exist as part of one ranked whole system). Caste was a very unequal institution: once fixed by birth, a person could in principle never change their life circumstances.
4 Colonial Timeline
1860sCensus begins
1881Census becomes regular, ten-yearly
1901Herbert Risley’s Census tries to rank castes
1920sGandhi and Ambedkar’s anti-untouchability protests
1935Government of India Act creates Scheduled Castes / Scheduled Tribes
1947Independence: partial break from the colonial past
5 Reformers
| Name | Dates | Known for |
|---|---|---|
| Jotirao Govindrao Phule | 1827-1890 | Satyashodhak Samaj, 1873 |
| Savitribai Phule | 1831-1897 | First headmistress, India’s first girls’ school |
| Ayyankali | 1863-1914 | Dalit right to public roads and schools (Kerala) |
| Sri Narayana Guru | 1856-1928 | “One Caste, One Religion, One God” (Kerala) |
| Periyar (E.V. Ramasami Naickar) | 1879-1973 | Rationalist, South Indian lower-caste movement |
6 Sanskritisation vs Dominant Caste
Sanskritisation
- Cultural process
- Adopt a higher caste’s ritual, domestic and social practices
- Attempt to raise social status
Dominant caste
- Material/political power (a term for castes)
- Land rights from land reform + large population
- Yadavs (Bihar, UP) · Vokkaligas (Karnataka) · Reddys/Khammas (Andhra Pradesh) · Marathas (Maharashtra) · Jats (Punjab, Haryana, W. UP) · Patidars (Gujarat)
7 Tribes: The Numbers
85%of tribals live in “middle India” (Gujarat/Rajasthan to WB/Odisha)
8.2% → 8.6%tribal share of India’s population, 2001 to 2011 Census
7biggest tribes, each at least a million strong: Gonds, Bhils, Santhals, Oraons, Minas, Bodos, Mundas
| Language group | Tribal share of that group’s speakers |
|---|---|
| Indo-Aryan | ~1% (shared with rest of population) |
| Dravidian | ~3% (shared with rest of population) |
| Austric | All speakers are tribal |
| Tibeto-Burman | Over 80% are tribal |
Physical categories: Negrito, Australoid, Mongoloid, Dravidian, Aryan (last two shared with the rest of India’s population). By state share: all NE states except Assam over 30% tribal, some (Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland) 60-95%; rest of India (outside the North-East) under 12% in all states except Odisha and Madhya Pradesh.
Other permanent trait: ecological habitat (hills, forests, rural plains, urban industrial areas). Acquired traits: (1) mode of livelihood: fishermen, food gatherers and hunters, shifting cultivators, peasants, plantation and industrial workers; (2) extent of assimilation into Hindu society, the dominant classification, seen from the tribes’ point of view or the Hindu mainstream’s.
8 The “Primitive Tribe” Myth: Counter-Evidence
What the book actually shows
- Santhal, Gonds, Bhils: very large, widely spread
- Munda, Hos: settled agriculture long ago
- Birhors of Bihar: hunter-gatherers who also run specialised craft households
- Gond kingdoms existed: Garha Mandla, Chanda
The myth to avoid repeating
- “All tribes are small, isolated, untouched by civilisation”
- “Tribes have always been powerless and oppressed”
- “Tribes are all hunter-gatherers with no economic organisation”
9 National vs Tribal Development
Everything else worth a mark
- Cause: Nehruvian-era dams, mines, factories; tribal areas lay in the mineral-rich, forest-covered parts of the country, so tribals paid a disproportionate price
- Effects: land dispossession, loss of forests (from British times onward), private property hurting community ownership, heavy non-tribal in-migration
- Jharkhand: industrial areas saw tribal population share shrink
- Tripura (the most dramatic cases are probably in the North-East): tribal share of the population HALVED in a single decade, tribals became a minority there
- Arunachal Pradesh: similar pressure today
- Positives: Jharkhand and Chattisgarh statehood; rising educated tribal middle class (esp. North-East)
- Negatives: many NE states under special laws limiting civil liberties for decades
- Two drivers of tribal movements: control over land/forests, and ethnic-cultural identity
- Box 3.1: Virginius Xaxa, tribal identity assertion linked to the rise of a tribal middle class (John et al 2006)
10 Family and Kinship: All the Pairs
| Rule | Type A | Type B |
|---|---|---|
| Composition | Nuclear (one couple + children) | Extended/joint (2+ couples/generations) |
| Headship | Male-headed | Female-headed |
| Residence | Matrilocal (wife’s parents) | Patrilocal (husband’s parents) |
| Inheritance | Matrilineal (mother to daughter) | Patrilineal (father to son) |
| Authority | Patriarchy (men dominant, real) | Matriarchy (women dominant, NO evidence anywhere) |
I.P. Desai (1964:40): “joint family” is not a native Indian term, it is a translation of the English phrase. Examples of family linked to society: Himalayan male migration → can raise the share of women-headed households; software industry work schedules → grandparents as caregivers.
Quick Revision: read this the night before the exam
- Caste = varna (all-India, 4-fold) + jati (local, hundreds of sub-castes). Rigid only from the post-Vedic period
- Six features of caste, and the two organising principles: difference/separation + wholism/hierarchy
- 1901 Census (Risley) and the 1935 Act (Scheduled Castes/Tribes) show colonial reshaping of caste; some scholars argue caste today is more a product of colonialism than of ancient tradition
- Sanskritisation = adopting a higher caste’s practices; dominant caste = land rights + numbers = real power
- Caste invisible for privileged upper castes, inescapable for SC/ST/backward castes
- Tribes defined by what they are NOT; the “primitive, untouched” idea has not been true for a long time
- Tribal population: 8.2% (2001) to 8.6% (2011); ~85% in “middle India”
- National development cost tribal communities disproportionately (Tripura’s share halved in a decade)
- Matriliny (real): women inherit property from their mothers but do not control it or make public decisions. Matriarchy (women dominant) is theoretical, with no evidence anywhere
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