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 social inequality.
Answer: Social inequality is the pattern of unequal access that different groups of people have to valued social resources such as money, property, education, health and power.
Q. What is social stratification?
Answer: Social stratification is a system by which categories of people in a society are ranked in a hierarchy, which shapes their identity, relations with others, and access to resources and opportunities.
Q. Define prejudice.
Answer: Prejudice means pre-conceived opinions or attitudes held by members of one group towards another, formed before looking at any evidence, and resistant to change even when new information appears.
Q. What is meant by ‘distance pollution’?
Answer: Distance pollution is the belief, found in many regions of India (particularly the south), that even the mere presence or shadow of an ‘untouchable’ person is polluting, going beyond mere physical touch.
Q. Who popularised the term ‘Harijan’, and what does it literally mean?
Answer: Mahatma Gandhi popularised the term ‘Harijan’ in the 1930s; it literally means ‘children of God’.
Q. What is the constitutional basis of the term ‘Other Backward Classes’?
Answer: The Constitution recognises groups other than SC/ST who suffer social disadvantage, describing them as the ‘socially and educationally backward classes’; this is the constitutional basis of the popular term OBC.
Q. What does the term ‘Adivasi’ literally mean, and when was it coined?
Answer: ‘Adivasi’ literally means ‘original inhabitants’. It was coined in the 1930s as part of the struggle against intrusion by the colonial government, outside settlers and moneylenders.
Q. According to Brisenden (1986), where does ‘disablement’ really lie?
Answer: According to Brisenden, the disablement lies in the construction of society (buildings, education, employment not designed for disabled people), not in the physical condition of the individual.
2 2-Mark Questions
Q. Name Bourdieu’s three forms of capital and give one example of how one converts into another.
Answer: Bourdieu names economic capital (material assets/income), cultural capital (educational qualifications/status), and social capital (networks of contacts). Example: a person from a well-off family (economic capital) can afford expensive education, converting it into cultural capital.
Q. Distinguish between prejudice and discrimination.
Answer: Prejudice is a pre-formed attitude or opinion about a group, held before evidence; it exists in the mind. Discrimination is actual behaviour that denies a group real opportunities, such as refusing someone a job on grounds of caste or gender. Discrimination is harder to prove because it may not be open or explicitly stated.
Q. What is a stereotype? Give one colonial-era example from the chapter.
Answer: A stereotype is a fixed, inflexible characterisation applied to a whole group, ignoring individual and contextual variation. Example: colonial India labelled some communities as ‘martial races’, others as ‘effeminate’ or ‘cowardly’, and yet others as ‘untrustworthy’.
Q. Name the three dimensions of untouchability and explain any one.
Answer: The three dimensions are exclusion, humiliation-subordination and exploitation. Exclusion, for instance, means Dalits being barred from sharing drinking water sources or joining collective worship and festivals, a form of exclusion not faced by other ‘touchable’ low castes.
Q. Explain how the reservation system decides the proportion of seats for SC/ST.
Answer: The proportion of seats reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in legislatures, government jobs and educational institutions is set equal to their percentage share of the total population. The OBC proportion is decided by a different method.
3 3-Mark Questions
Q. Briefly trace the story of the two Backward Classes Commissions.
Answer: The First Backward Classes Commission, headed by Kaka Kalelkar, was appointed by Nehru’s government and submitted its report in 1953, but it was sidelined by the political climate. The Second Backward Classes Commission, headed by B.P. Mandal, was appointed in the late 1970s under the Janata Party. Its report was implemented only in 1990, when it was about ten years old, which is when the OBC issue became major national politics.
Q. Why does the chapter call the acquisition of adivasi land for mining and dams a form of ‘internal colonialism’?
Answer: Just as the colonial government reserved forests for its own use and displaced adivasis from their traditional livelihoods, independent India’s capital-intensive industrialisation policy required minerals and power concentrated in Adivasi areas, so adivasi lands were acquired for mining and dam projects and millions displaced without proper compensation, all justified as ‘national development’. Because this repeats the colonial pattern of one group subjugating and extracting resources from another within the same country, the chapter calls it internal colonialism.
Q. How do matrilineal societies disprove the idea that gender inequality is ‘natural’?
Answer: If women were biologically unfit to be inheritors and heads of families, matrilineal societies like the Nairs of Kerala (in the past) and the Khasis of Meghalaya (still today) could not have worked for centuries with women in these roles. Their existence shows gender inequality is social, not a biological necessity.
4 4-Mark Questions
Q. Compare the caste system in India with apartheid in South Africa, as described in the chapter.
Answer: Both systems stratify society into a hierarchy: caste by birth and occupation in India, race in South Africa. In South Africa, a White minority (about 1 in 7) held the dominant share of power and wealth over the Black majority, just as ‘upper’ castes in India have historically held disproportionate power over ‘lower’ castes and Dalits. Apartheid became law in 1948, formally denying Blacks citizenship, land ownership and a political voice, comparable to how untouchability formally denied Dalits access to shared resources and religious life. Both systems were eventually challenged by organised movements: the African National Congress under Nelson Mandela in South Africa (government formed in 1994), and Dalit movements led by figures like Ambedkar and organisations like the Bahujan Samaj Party in India. In both cases, the legal end of the system (apartheid’s end, or the constitutional abolition of untouchability under Article 17) did not by itself end economic inequality; the chapter notes economic capital in South Africa still remains concentrated in White hands.
Q. Describe the major state initiatives that address caste discrimination.
Answer: The most important initiative is reservation: seats set aside for SC/ST in legislatures (State Assemblies, Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha), government jobs and public-sector companies, and educational institutions, in proportion to their population share; OBC reservation is decided by a different method. Alongside this, a series of laws punish caste discrimination: the Caste Disabilities Removal Act (1850), the Constitution of India (1950, Article 17 abolishing untouchability), the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act (1989), and the Constitution’s 93rd Amendment Act (2005/2006) extending OBC reservation to higher education. The chapter notes that this repeated legislative effort itself proves that law alone cannot end a social practice.
Q. Why does the chapter describe the OBCs as a ‘difficult political category to work with’?
Answer: OBCs are internally very unequal: ‘upper’ OBCs are largely landed castes dominant in rural society in many regions, while ‘lower’ OBCs are very poor and disadvantaged, often not very different from Dalits socio-economically. Despite this internal gap, OBCs are treated as a single political category. They are also severely under-represented in all spheres except landholding and political representation (a large number of MLAs and MPs), and urban OBCs are much worse off than rural upper OBCs, closer in status to SC/ST than to upper castes. This mix of internal inequality and a single shared label makes OBCs difficult to address through one uniform policy.
Q. Describe any two nineteenth-century social reform movements for women’s rights mentioned in the chapter.
Answer: Raja Rammohun Roy led the anti-sati campaign in Bengal, the first women’s issue to receive public attention, a decade before founding the Brahmo Samaj in 1828; he argued against sati using both humanitarian ideas and the Hindu shastras. In the Bombay Presidency, M.G. Ranade led the widow remarriage movement, writing ‘The Texts of the Hindu Law on the Lawfulness of the Remarriage of Widows and Vedic Authorities for Widow Marriage’ to show scriptural sanction for remarriage. Jyotiba Phule, from a socially excluded caste, attacked caste and gender discrimination together, founding the Satyashodak Samaj and directing his first reforms at women and untouchables, the two groups considered lowest by traditional Brahmin culture.
Q. Explain the two-way relationship between disability and poverty described in the chapter.
Answer: Poverty increases the chance of disability: malnutrition, mothers weakened by frequent childbirth, inadequate immunisation programmes, and accidents in overcrowded homes all raise the incidence of disability among poor people compared to those living in easier circumstances. In turn, disability deepens poverty: it increases isolation and economic strain, not just for the disabled individual but for the whole family. The chapter notes there is little doubt that disabled people are among the poorest in poor countries.
Q. List and briefly explain the common features of the public perception of disability described in the chapter.
Answer: The chapter lists five features found worldwide: disability is understood as a biological given; any problem a disabled person faces is assumed to come from the impairment itself; the disabled person is seen as a victim; disability is supposed to be linked with the disabled individual’s own self-perception; and the very idea of disability suggests that disabled people are in need of help. In India, labels such as ‘crippled’, ‘blind’ and ‘deaf’ are used as insults, and the common perception views disability as retribution for past karma from which there can be no reprieve; so the dominant cultural view looks at disability as essentially a characteristic of the individual, whereas the chapter argues that society renders people disabled.
5 6-Mark Questions
Q. Explain, with examples, how prejudice, stereotype, discrimination and social exclusion are related but distinct concepts.
Answer: Prejudice is a pre-formed opinion or attitude about a group, held before looking at evidence; it can be positive or negative and resists change even when contradicted by new information. Prejudices are often grounded in stereotypes: fixed and inflexible characterisations of a whole group, such as colonial labels of ‘martial races’ or ‘effeminate’ and ‘cowardly’ communities, which ignore how individuals vary. Discrimination is the behavioural outcome of prejudice: actual actions, like refusing someone a job because of caste or gender, that deny real opportunities; it is hard to prove because it may not be open and may be presented as a merit-based decision. Social exclusion is the broader, structural outcome when such prejudice and discrimination repeat systematically over time, cutting a group off not just from one opportunity but from full participation in education, health, banking, and even the police and judiciary. In short, prejudice is a pre-judgement, often grounded in stereotypes; discrimination is the behaviour that acts on such attitudes; and social exclusion is systematic, the result of structural features of society. Because prejudices remain and new ones emerge, legislation alone cannot end it, and a constant social campaign to change awareness and sensitivity is also needed.
Q. Describe the caste system as a discriminatory system, and explain how the Indian state has tried to address it.
Answer: The caste system historically tied occupation and status to birth: a person born into a caste was ‘born into’ its occupation with no choice, and each caste held a fixed rank in the hierarchy. In strict scriptural terms, social status (ritual rank) and economic status (secular power) were meant to be separate, as with Brahmins being ritually highest but not supposed to hold wealth or secular power. In practice, however, the two tended to coincide, and although, compared to a hundred or fifty years ago, the correlation between caste and economic status is weaker, the caste-class correlation remains remarkably stable at the macro level. Untouchability is the most extreme form of this discrimination, involving exclusion, humiliation-subordination and exploitation of castes placed at the bottom of the purity-pollution scale. The Indian state has responded through reservation, setting aside seats for SC/ST in legislatures, government jobs and education in proportion to their population, and through a series of laws: the Caste Disabilities Removal Act (1850), Article 17 of the Constitution (1950) abolishing untouchability, and the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act (1989). Yet the chapter is clear that the fact that legislation was passed repeatedly on this subject is itself proof that the law alone cannot end a social practice; a sustained social campaign of awareness is also needed, alongside the political and cultural assertion of Dalits themselves through leaders, parties and literature.
Q. Compare the struggles of the OBCs and the Adivasis as described in the chapter.
Answer: Both OBCs and Adivasis are constitutionally recognised categories defined partly in negative terms and both have had to organise to gain political attention, but their situations differ sharply. OBCs are a highly diverse group spanning multiple religions, internally split between well-off ‘upper’ OBCs (largely landed, dominant in rural politics) and very poor ‘lower’ OBCs (close to Dalits in status); their politicisation, converting their roughly 41% population share into influence, only became a major national force after the Mandal Commission report was implemented in 1990, decades after the earlier Kalelkar Commission (1953) was sidelined. Adivasis, in contrast, are geographically concentrated in contiguous areas, which let their movements demand entire new states, and among their most significant achievements is statehood for Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, an option not open to Dalits, who were not concentrated in contiguous areas. Adivasi struggles centre on the loss of forests and land, first under colonial forest reservation policy and then under post-Independence industrialisation and dam projects like the Sardar Sarovar and Polavaram, which the chapter calls a form of internal colonialism. Both groups, however, have had to organise and press for their rights, and the chapter shows their gains came through that struggle.
Q. Trace the struggle for women’s equality and rights in India from the nineteenth century to the present, as described in the chapter.
Answer: The women’s question first entered public life through nineteenth-century middle-class reform movements: Raja Rammohun Roy’s anti-sati campaign in Bengal (before founding the Brahmo Samaj in 1828), M.G. Ranade’s widow remarriage movement in the Bombay Presidency, Jyotiba Phule’s combined attack on caste and gender oppression through the Satyashodak Samaj, and Sir Syed Ahmed Khan’s more limited support for women’s education within the home, echoed by Dayanand Saraswati of the Arya Samaj. Two books by women, Tarabai Shinde’s Stree Purush Tulana (1882) and Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s Sultana’s Dream (1905), prove that women themselves, not only male reformers, drove these ideas. Women’s organisations grew at the national and local level in the early twentieth century, and women participated directly in the freedom movement; women’s rights were part of the nationalist vision, and in 1931 the Karachi Session of the Indian National Congress committed itself to women’s equality, universal adult suffrage and the right of women to vote and hold office. After Independence, the 1970s shifted the focus to ‘modern’ issues like media representation and the gendered effects of development; the 1980s made law a major site of reform, once it was found many laws about women had not changed since the nineteenth century; and in the twenty-first century, the sharp fall in the child sex ratio and bias against the girl child represent one of the new challenges of gender inequality, showing that the struggle for gender equality is ongoing rather than finished.
6 Case Studies
(A) 2 marks Using the chapter’s account of Adivasi displacement, explain why this family’s situation is a common pattern rather than an isolated case.
Answer: The chapter explains that since Independence, capital-intensive industrialisation has required minerals and power concentrated in Adivasi areas, so adivasi lands have been rapidly acquired for mining and dam projects, displacing millions without appropriate compensation or rehabilitation, all justified as ‘national development’. This family’s uncertain compensation and relocation is exactly the pattern the chapter describes, not a one-off failure.
(B) 2 marks What term does the chapter use for this pattern, and why does it use that term rather than simply calling it ‘development’?
Answer: The chapter calls this pattern a form of ‘internal colonialism’, because, as under colonial rule, one group (the state and corporate interests) subjugates another (adivasis) and takes over the resources they depend on, even though it happens within independent India and is presented as development rather than conquest.
(A) 2 marks Using Brisenden’s argument (1986) quoted in the chapter, explain what is actually disabling this candidate.
Answer: Following Brisenden’s argument that ‘we are disabled by buildings that are not designed to admit us’ and that disablement lies in the construction of society, not in the individual’s physical condition, it is the building’s lack of a lift or ground-floor access, and the exam system’s failure to plan for it, that disables this candidate, not her locomotor condition itself.
(B) 2 marks Which of the chapter’s ‘common features of the public perception of disability’ does the exam authority’s response reflect, and why?
Answer: It reflects the chapter’s second feature: whenever a disabled person faces problems, it is taken for granted that the problems originate from her/his impairment. So the candidate’s difficulty is treated as her problem to adjust to, not as a failure of the building or the exam system.