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Book No. – 22 (Sociology)
Book Name – Indian Society & Culture (Nadeem Hasnain)
What’s Inside the Chapter? (After Subscription)
1. Approaches
2. State and Movements
3. Typologies of Social Movements
4. Social and Religious Reform Movement
5. Backward Classes Movement
6. Dalit Movement
7. Tribal Movements
7.1. Santhal Rebellion
7.2. Munda Rebellion
7.3. Naga Rebellion
7.4. Mizo Rebellion
7.5. Tribal Discontent and Uprising in Other Areas
8. Peasant Movements
8.1. Kisan Sabha
8.2. Telengana Movement
8.3. Naxalbari Movement
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Social Movements in India
Chapter – 23
Table of Contents
- Study of Social Movements is a relatively recent development in social sciences, growing significantly in the last three decades in both India and globally.
- Sociology, social history, and social anthropology were the primary disciplines studying social movements. Political science took longer to recognize social movements as a legitimate subject, and social anthropology initially focused only on tribal movements.
- There is no universal or precise definition of “social movement” accepted by scholars across disciplines.
- According to the Blackwell Dictionary of Sociology (1995), a social movement is a “sustained, organized, and collective effort that focuses on some aspect of social change.”
- Social movements are a key source of social change and social conflict.
- Martin Fuchs & Antje Linkenbach (2003) argue that social movements are unstable and transitory, often lacking a clear beginning or end, and cannot be easily separated from broader social interactions.
- The term “social movement” refers to a diverse range of collective phenomena, including revolutions, religious sects, political organizations, single-issue campaigns, anti-colonial resistance, and opposition to perceived outsiders.
- Fuchs & Linkenbach propose a provisional definition: a social movement involves collective self-organization for the attainment of social recognition and assertion of rights previously denied to a group, engaging in resistance to threats against those rights.
- The objectives and injustices addressed by a social movement can only be judged through situational analysis of the actors involved.
- Touraine (1995) emphasizes two key aspects of social movements: first, the anti-establishment content, often tied to autonomy, equity, human dignity, or fundamental rights; and second, their link to social change, often driven by modernization.
- Ghanshyam Shah (2002) asserts that objectives, ideology, programmes, leadership, and organization are crucial components of social movements, which are interdependent and influence one another.
- Objectives of movements can evolve, starting from local issues and growing to broader social transformation goals, or sometimes narrowing down to specific issues.
- Ideology of movements can also change over time.
- Social movements develop strategies and programmes to mobilize people and sustain the movement for long periods.
- Leadership plays a key role in articulating ideology, objectives, evolving strategies, and maintaining the spirit of the movement’s participants.
Approaches
- Social movement studies typically follow either a Marxist or non-Marxist framework for analysis.
- Scholars adopting the Marxist approach are primarily interested in bringing about revolutionary change in society.
- According to Marxists, the causes of social movements are located in the economic structure of society.
- Antagonistic interests between the propertied and labour classes are inherent in a class-based society, leading to contradictions.
- Although Marxists focus on economic interests, many have started to pay attention to ethnic, religious, and culturalfactors.
- A group of Marxist historians called ‘subaltern scholars’ have emerged, studying ‘history from below’.
- Subaltern scholars criticize traditional Marxist historians for ignoring the history of the masses and assuming that subaltern classes do not make history on their own.
- Subaltern studies are criticized by some Marxist scholars for ignoring structural factors and viewing ‘consciousness’as independent of structural contradictions.
- Non-Marxist scholars also have variations in their approach to analyzing social movements.
- They argue that mass movements are a product of mass societies that are extremist and anti-democratic.
- These scholars believe in excluding the masses from day-to-day participation in politics, as it hampers the efficient functioning of the government.
State and Movements
- The role of the state is crucial in analyzing social movements.
- Shah (ibid) correctly states that the immediate response of the state to movements challenging its authority is negative.
- The state tends to resist any collective action that either exerts pressure on its authority for policy change or protestsits decisions and actions.
- The state sees social movements as a challenge to its legitimacy of governance.
- Both the capitalist state, representing propertied classes, and the ‘Communist’ state, claiming to represent the working class, prefer not to face movements from the classes they supposedly represent.
- The state is more lenient with reformist demands within the institutional framework compared to movements aiming to overthrow and replace state power.
- The strategy of the state varies depending on the situation.
- When brutal repression fails, the state may co-opt leaders and opinion makers of the movement, who then serve as the ‘legitimizers’ of state policies and actions.
- The state may also resort to deceit, indoctrination, and sabotage.
- These actions and counter-actions occur because most social movements are anti-establishment in nature.
Typologies of Social Movements
- Serious researchers have tried to understand the nature of social movements through different typologies.
- Shah (1977) classifies movements into four categories: (i) Revolt, (ii) Rebellion, (iii) Reform, and (iv) Revolution.
- A revolt is an open challenge to political authority, while a rebellion is an attack on existing authority without intending to seize state power.
- A revolution is an organized struggle to overthrow the government and the socio-economic structure that sustains it, replacing it with an alternative social order.
- Reform does not challenge the political system itself but seeks desired changes within the existing socio-political structure, which is why the state is more lenient towards such movements.
- M.S.A. Rao (1978) classifies movements into Reformist, Transformatory, and Revolutionary.
- T.K. Oomen (1977) classifies them as Ideological, Charismatic, and Organizational.
- The specific issues can be key determinants in the classification of social movements, such as linguistic, civil rights, or natural resource rights (e.g., tribal struggles for forest rights).
- A common practice is to classify movements based on actors/participants, such as peasant movements, tribal movements, dalit movements, women’s movements, and student movements.
- In the Third Survey of Research, ICSSR (2000), Rajendra Singh reviews ‘Old’ and ‘New’ social movements, considering changing paradigms and conceptual frameworks.
- Traditional ‘old’ themes include movements related to peasants, tribals, working class, students, and religious/sectarian movements.
- Alongside, newer themes include movements focused on environment, ecology, farmer’s agitation, feminist assertions, identity-oriented ethnic movements, grassroots organizations, human rights, and civil liberties.
- ‘Old’ and ‘new’ themes often overlap, with some elements from the old entering the new and vice versa.
- ‘Old’ movements generally revolve around less complex, simpler core conflicts, while new movements reflect increasingly complex and expanding social conflicts in India.
- Analytical separation between ‘old’ and ‘new’ movements can be helpful.
- Andre Gunder Frank and Marta Fuentes (2002) argue that the ‘new’ social movements are not entirely new, though they have some new features, and the ‘classical’ movements are relatively new and perhaps temporary.