Disparity
- Inequality refers to the unequal distribution of resources, opportunities, and authority, often based on factors such as race, gender, economic status, and ethnicity.
Social inequality
- Social inequality is the unequal distribution of resources, opportunities, and privileges among individuals and groups within a society, often based on factors such as race, gender, socioeconomic status, and ethnicity, leading to inequalities in outcomes and opportunities.
- In every society some people have a greater share of valuable resources such as wealth, property, education, health and power than others.
- The pattern of unequal access to social resources is generally called social inequality.
- Some social inequalities reflect natural differences among individuals
- The difference in their abilities and efforts.
Forms of social resource capital
1. Economic capital
- Physical Property
- Income
2. Cultural capital
- Prestige
- Educational qualification
3. Social capital
- Social Companionship
- contact network
These three forms of capital are often mixed together and can be converted into one another.
due to social inequality
- Social inequality is not due to innate or 'natural' differences between individuals but is created by the society in which they live.
- a system that classifies people in a society by placing them into a hierarchical structure
- This system is called social stratification
- People's identities and experiences shape their relations with others, as well as their access to resources and opportunities.
social stratification
1. Society has a uniqueness.
- It is a widespread arrangement in society that distributes social resources unequally among different categories of people.
- In more primitive societies there was very little production so only primitive social stratification existed.
- In advanced societies where people produce more than their basic needs, social resources are unequally distributed among different social categories
2. It remains from generation to generation.
- It is closely linked to the inheritance of social resources from one generation to the next.
- The social status of a person is automatically inherited. That is, children inherit the social status of their parents.
- Within the caste system, birth determines occupational opportunities.
3. Support is received through ideology.
- No system of social stratification can continue from generation to generation unless it is widely believed to be either just or inevitable.
Example-
- The caste system is justified from a religious or ritualistic point of view on the basis of purity and impurity
Why is social inequality social?
There can be three main answers
1. They are related to the group rather than to the individual.
2. They are not economical
3. They are systematic and structural
Does discrimination only occur on economic grounds?
- This is only partially true.
- People often face discrimination because of their gender, religion, ethnicity, language, caste and disability.
Prejudice
- We all grow up as members of a community from which we form notions about our ‘community’, ‘caste’, ‘class’ or ‘gender’, and also about others.
- These assumptions are prone to bias.
- Prejudice is the thoughts or behavior of members of one group about another group.
- A person's opinions are based on hearsay rather than evidence.
- They refuse to change despite receiving new information.
Stereotype
- Stereotypes put an entire group into a uniform category
- Some communities were termed as 'heroic race' while some were called cowards or impotent and some were called traitors.
- An entire community is called 'lazy' or 'smart'.
- According to this the entire community is viewed as a single individual, as if it has only one characteristic or trait.
- Discrimination can also be seen in practical terms as the ways in which members of one group are disqualified from opportunities that are open to others.
Example-
- A person is refused a job on the grounds of his or her gender or religion.
social exclusion
- Behavior that prevents a person or group from fully integrating into society.
- It draws attention to all the factors that deprive an individual or group of opportunities that are open to the majority of the population.
1. To live an active life
- Basic needs: food, clothing and shelter
2. Essential goods and services
Education, health, means of transport, insurance, social security, banks, police and judiciary
Caste
1. Ancient institutions
- It has been a part of Indian history and culture for thousands of years
- Caste is an integral part not only of our past but also of our present times
2. An institutional feature of Hindu society
- It has been prevalent in other religious communities as well and is still prevalent today.
1. Muslim
2. Christian
3. Sikhs
4. Buddhist
5. Jain
Caste System in India
- This system came into practice in the later Vedic period
- Caste is determined by birth; one is born in his father's caste
- It is not a matter of choice. A person born in a caste can only adopt the profession related to that caste.
- Caste also includes rules about eating and sharing food
- In this system, a superseded situation is seen
- It functions as a segmental organisation
- A person born in a caste could only practice the profession associated with that caste.
- Caste was a very unequal institution
- While some castes were benefiting from this system, others had to live a life of subordination because of it.
- Caste was rigidly determined by birth and it was impossible for a person's life situation to be changed thereafter, regardless of whether the higher caste people deserved a higher status or not
Untouchability
- The most disgusting and corrupt aspect of the caste system were those groups who were not included in the caste hierarchy and were subjected to great injustice.
Character system
1. Brahmin
2. Kshatriya
3. Vaishya
4. Shudra
- Some people were kept out of this system and were called outcasts or untouchables.
basis of caste system
- Based on ritualistic view
1. Holy - Upper caste
2. Impure - untouchable
- Members of all other castes become extremely impure by the slightest touch of those castes which are considered impure.
- Due to which the person called untouchable has to suffer extremely harsh punishment,
- The higher caste person who has been touched also has to undergo a number of purification rituals to become pure again.
Dimensions of Untouchability
- Untouchability involves exclusion, subordination and exploitation
- There was a lot of discrimination against these people
- They are not allowed to take water from common sources of drinking water, their wells, hand pumps, ghats etc. are separate
- Cannot participate in mass religious worship, ceremonies and festivals
- It seems that economic exploitation has always been associated with this evil practice of untouchability.
- They usually have to do 'forced labour' for which they are either paid no money or very low wages.
- Sometimes, their property is taken away.
Dalit
- 'trampled underfoot
- symbol of oppressed people
- This term was neither coined by Dr. Ambedkar
- Nor was it used by them often
- But in this his thoughts and philosophy and the basic idea of his movement are definitely visible.
- Which was run under his leadership to empower the Dalits.
The role of the state in eliminating discrimination
Role of the State
1. End of discrimination in Article 15
2. Reservation under Article 16
3. Abolition of untouchability under Article 17
4. Racial Disabilities Removal Act of 1850
5. The Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989
- Article 15 - Means of Equality: This article details the principle of equality in the Constitution, which gives all citizens the right to equal rights in various fields, against any kind of discrimination on grounds of birth, caste, religion, sex, or occupation.
- Article 17 - Protection of Rights: This article guarantees the protection of the rights enshrined in the Constitution, including caste and tribal rights, by the Supreme Court.
- Article 46 - Elementary Education: Under this article, the state governments are responsible for providing free and compulsory elementary education to all people irrespective of caste and tribes.
Other Backward Classes ( indicating oppressed people)
- Apart from the Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes, there may be many other groups who suffer from social disadvantages.
- There was also a large group of castes which were considered inferior.
- They were subjected to various kinds of discrimination but they were not considered untouchable.
- These were people from the service-dominated Shilpi (craftsman) castes who had a low status in the caste hierarchy.
- They are neither part of the upper castes so called 'forward' in the caste hierarchy nor do they belong to the lowest rung of the Dalits.
- These groups have been termed 'socially and educationally backward classes'.
- During the time of Jawaharlal Nehru, a commission was set up to suggest measures for the welfare of other backward classes.
- The southern states have a long history of political movements of backward classes.
- Due to these powerful social movements, policies to address the problems of other backward classes began to be adopted in the northern states.
- The OBC issue became a major issue in national politics in 1990 when the central government decided to implement the ten-year-old report of the Mandal Commission.
Tribal conflicts
- The Scheduled Tribes have also been recognised by the Indian Constitution as a social group particularly suffering from poverty, powerlessness and social stigma.
- Tribal groups have had a long and close association with Hindu society and culture, due to which the boundaries between 'tribe' and 'caste' have become quite blurred.
tribal
- They lived in forests so they were called forest dwellers
- In areas where tribal people are densely populated, their economic and social condition is generally worse than that of non-tribal people.
- The conditions of poverty and exploitation in which the tribals are forced to make their living
Why is it like this ????
There are many historical reasons...
- The areas where these people lived were rich in natural resources, so the British government started evicting these people from the forests and started occupying the forests.
- Even after independence, the Indian government continued to exploit forests and tribal people
- The government reserved most of the forest areas for its own use and deprived the tribals of the rights to collect their produce and use it for Jhum cultivation.
- When tribals were deprived of forest produce and land for cultivation, they were forced either to use the forests illegally (for which they were harassed and punished as 'infiltrators' and thieves) or to leave the forests in search of daily labour elsewhere.
What does the government do with the forest??
1. Mineral resources
2. Electricity generation
3. Mining
4. Dam Project
Adivasi ( native)
- The word 'Adivasi' has also become an indicator of political awareness and the fight for rights
- It was coined in the 1930s as part of the struggle against intrusion by the colonial government.
- Being a tribal means losing forests in the name of 'development projects'
- Tribal groups continue to fight against outsiders (called 'Dikku'/Sangh Ba) and the government.
- One of the notable achievements of the tribal movements is obtaining separate state status for Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.
Struggle for women's equality and rights
- Gender inequality is considered a gift of nature because of the biological differences between men and women.
- The inequalities between men and women are not natural but social.
- Why are women found in so few numbers in public positions?
- Why do women get a smaller share of the family property in most societies?
Struggle for women's equality
Conflict
- Ram Mohan Roy's reign in Bengal
- Mahadev Govind Ranade, a reformer in the Bombay Presidency
- Jothiba Phule fought against caste and gender atrocities
- Syed Ahmed Khan led the movement for social reforms in Islam.
The fight for women's rights was also fought by women reformers
1. Comparison of men and women' 1882 Tarabai Shinde
2. 'Sultana's Dream' 1905 Begum Ruqaiya
Basic rights of women in Karachi convention
Announcement
- all citizens are equal before the law
- exercise of franchise
- Right to represent and hold public office
- No citizen shall be disqualified from consideration for public employment on the ground of his background.
Struggles of otherwise able-bodied individuals
- Otherwise able-bodied people are not 'disabled' simply because they are physically or mentally 'impaired',
- But they are also disabled because society is structured in such a way that it does not cater to their needs.
- The rights of otherwise capable persons have only recently been recognised.
- In India, adjectives like disabled, handicapped, incompetent, crippled, blind and deaf are used to mean almost the same thing.
- Often these words are hurled at a person to insult him.
- The root cause of such thinking lies in the cultural concept that considers a defective body as the result of misfortune.
What does disability/incapacity mean?
- Disability is considered a biological impairment.
- When a disabled person faces problems, it is believed that these problems have arisen due to his weakness.
- A disabled person is always seen as a victim.
- The motif shows that disabled people need help.
Changes in the use of words
1. Mentally challenged
2. Langda-Lula - physically handicapped
3. Blind - visually impaired
Disability and poverty
Problems
1. Disability and education
2. Disability and employment
3. Health Services
4. Social inequality
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