SETTLEMENT SOIOLOGY

ASSIGNMENT-2
School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi

Social structure of Indian Villages

-Ishita Bansal

The village has been the significant social unit on the Indian subcontinent for
thousands of years. To maintain its integrity, it has developed a set of interlocking
structures, some of which are unique to the subcontinent, which are very resistant
to change.

SOCIAL STRUCTURE
Social structure’ is one of the central and basic concepts of sociology. After World
War II, the concept of social structure became popular in social anthropological
studies and since then, it is applied to almost any ordered arrangement of social
phenomena. Social structure is a pattern or arrangement of elements of a society in
an organized and collective way. The interactions and behaviour of the members of a
society are stable and patterned. These stable patterns of interaction are called
‘social structures’.

Social structure is the framework of society that sets limits and establishes
standards for our behaviour. It is, thus, defined simply as any recurring pattern of
social behaviour. A social structure includes or is made-up of elements of society,
such as institutions, statuses, roles, groups and social classes. Sociologists study
social structure by examining the elements or parts that comprise it.

The study of social structure with the principal form of social organization, that is,
types of groups, associations and institutions and the complex of these which
constitutes societies.
The term ‘social structure’ applies to the particular arrangement of inter-related
institutions, agencies and social patterns as well as the statuses and roles, which
each person assumes in the group.

As now we have discussed about the concept of social structure, let us now proceed
with the rural social structure of Indian villages that is unique and maintains a
separate culture of their own, away from urban societies. Though the influence of
urban areas is felt on rural areas, there are some specific aspects, which occupy a
significant place in the rural society.
Some of them are caste, kinship, family, marriage, religion, economy and polity.
Found in urban societies as well, these institutions are very rigid in their functioning
in the rural society.

The rural social structure includes all these aspects in social, economic and political
institutions. Thus, a rural community is a separate entity on its own. A correct idea
about the rural social structure comes with an understanding of the characteristics
of rural community.

COMPONENTS OF RURAL SOCIAL STRUCTURE

Family

Family is one of the most important social institution which constitutes the rural
society. It caters to needs and performs functions, which are essential for the
continuity, integration and change in the social system, such as, reproduction,
production and socialisation. Broadly speaking there are two types of family:
(a) nuclear family consisting of husband, wife and unmarried children, and
(b) joint or extended family comprising a few more kins than the nuclear type.

Important dimensions of ‘jointness’ of family are coresidentiality, commensality,

coparcenary, generation depth (three), and fulfillment of obligation towards kin and
sentimental aspect. Coresidentiality means that members of a family live under the
same roof. Commensality implies that they eat together i.e., have a common kitchen.
Coparcenary means that they have joint ownership of property. Further, generation
depth encompasses three generations or more, i.e., grandfather, father and the son
or more. Members of the family also have obligations toward their kin. Moreover,
they have a sentimental attachment to the ideal of joint family. Rural family works as
the unit of economic, cultural, religious, and political activities. Collectivity of the
family is emphasized in social life, and feelings of individualism. Joint families are
found more in the rural than in the urban areas, where most of the families happen
to be nuclear, but one should not conclude that all castes in a village have the
tradition of joint families.

Lineage and Kinship

Within the village, a group of families tracing descent from a common ancestor with
knowledge of all the links constitute a lineage; and the children of the same
generation behave as brothers and sisters. They form a unit for celebrating major
ritual events. Sometimes the word Kul is used to describe these units. Usually these
families live in closeness and a guest could be treated as such in all these families.
These bonds of families may go back to 3 to 7 generations. People do not marry within
this group. Beyond the known links, there are further connections, people know the
common ancestor but are unable to trace every link. Such families use a more
generic term like being “bhai-bandh” of one another. They are also exogamous. The
word Gotra or clan may be used for. There is a centrifugal tendency in North India,
i.e., the direction of marriage is outward or away from the group. In contrast in South
India we find a centripetal tendency in making marriage alliances and building kinship
ties. In other words, marriages take place inwardly or within the group.

Caste

The caste system is unique to the Indian society and is a system of social
stratification which has pre-modern origins and is today the basis of reservation in
India. The Caste system comes from Varna. Caste is related with economic
differences which is reflected by the effective caste groups or varnas. Varna refers
to the four social classes which existed in the Vedic society, namely Brahmins,
Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras. The caste occupying the highest position is ritually
the purest, and as one goes down the hierarchy, purity decreases while impurity
increases. Those placed at the bottom of the hierarchy, the people who at one time
were called ‘untouchables’ (now they are called Harijans or Dalits) are considered to
be the ‘permanent carriers of impurity’ within the idiom of the caste system. No other
social system in the world incorporates the notion of ‘permanent impurity’ with such
rigidity as the caste system. There may be notions of ‘temporary impurity’ (such as,
impurity incurred by menstruation, death, or birth), which is overcome with the
performance of rituals, but no ritual can neutralize ‘permanent impurity’.

Class

The class system is a system of stratification of society on the basis of education,

property, business/work etc. It can be defined as a group of people who’s relationship
is based on means of production that is, ownership and non-ownership or rich and
poor. It is the most basic division pf the society. The basic difference between owners
and non-owners is of profit. A class system is based on both social factors and
individual achievement. A class consists of a set of people who share similar status
with regard to factors like wealth, income, education, and occupation. Class societies
are characterised by the horizontal division of society into strata. In Marxist terms,
classes are defined by their differential access to the means of production. The
dominant classes appropriate the ‘surplus’ produced by other classes through their
control of means of production, and thus exploit their labour

Jajmani System

An important institution that developed during the early medieval period and
continued till modern times in the rural society was the ‘Jajmani System’. Jajmani
system is considered as the backbone of rural economy and social order. It is a
system of traditional occupational obligations It was a complementary relationship
between the groups of dominant peasant castes on the one hand and service and
artisan castes on the other. It is a system of distribution whereby high caste land
owning families are provided services and products of various lower castes. The
servicing castes are called Kamins while the castes served are called Jajmans. For
services rendered the servicing castes are paid in cash or in kind (grains, fodder,
clothes, animal products like milk, butter etc.). However, such service castes always
retained some freedom to sell their goods and services. This system of service-
relationship is now breaking up under the influence of monetisation, urbanisation and
industrialisation. During medieval period this system of relationships acted as a
safeguard in times of distress and calamities. Thus, it was noted that during famines
the artisans who were not tied into the Jajmani system were harder hit than even the
rural poor.

Economic system:

Economic system has now come to occupy an important place in every social
structure. In fact economic system determines not only the social structure but
various other things. It includes the means and the system of production system of
distribution, sharing of profit etc. Social and economic activities are inter-related
have a mutual relationship. They are interring dependent. In fact economic system
very much determines the social structure. According to economic conditions the
activities of a man are determined. The economic system of the villages is based of
the following two factors i.e. functional specialisation and Inter-dependence. In
village society as we have seen earlier different castes have different occupations
and functions. In other words their economic activities are determined by their social
conditions. A particular social group has performed particular type of economic
activities. For example the social group or the caste that is known as washer man is
responsible for washing the clothes; no one can be to that profession. They have
monopoly over the washing of clothes and they are prohibited taking to any other
thing. In this manner they have a functional specialisation.
But in villages functional specialisation is not free from interdependence of people of
a particular caste do a particular thing, members of other castes or social groups
have to depend on them for fulfillment of their economic needs of earning their
livelihood but also help the member of other social group to do their livelihood but
also help members of other social group to do their job. Because of the
backwardness of the economic position the social structure of the villages is also
backward. It has to be studied in proper prospective so that real progress can be
made.

Power

The popular image of an Indian village is that it is free from conflicts and thefts.
Although it is an idealized version, which of course is far being exact, there
undoubtedly is a grain of truth in much of what has been and is being said about the
village. In comparison with the situation in towns and cities, inter-personal conflicts
are fewer in villages. The rich may not part with their wealth in favour of the poor,
but they certainly display a guardian—like supportive attitude towards them. General
consensus prevails with respect to the norms and values, which in any case are
largely uniform and hardly contradictory, and this is one of the reasons why there
are fewer cases of dissent and conflict in villages. Certainly, the hold of religion on
traditional societies is greater than it is on complex societies.

The caste leaders had social status in a village. The leaders enjoyed great power over
members. The village panchayats consisted of village elders from amongst all the
major castes in the village. These were informal organisations. The members
gathered whenever issues involving the interests of the village were to be decided.
Since caste councils were very powerful through severest sanctions, they could even
ostracize defaulters from the caste.

Social Mobility

A person born into a caste will always belong to it as a life-long member. In his/her
future births, because of good deeds, he/she may be born into a superior caste. In
other words, theoretically, upward mobility is not possible within the caste system,
except for women who may move up by means of hypergamous marriages. Similarly,
downward mobility results from hypogamous marriages. Economic opportunities are
considerably limited in villages. Agricultural surplus is not significant either. Virtually
nothing is left with the peasants after they have made the jajmani payments. Barring
the big landlords, others in villages live rather precariously, often hand to mouth.
Those, who have been able to move out to towns and cities for work, have been able
to make some money, which they have invested in buying agricultural land, but the
number of such families is not large. The point to be emphasized here is that class
mobility is also non-existent in the village.

Changing village structure

India being a diverse country has people living with different cultures, speaking
different languages and has different backgrounds. The reason behind this
interesting dissimilarity is the geographical, economical and social origin of people
in the country. Each village in India is unique with a different story of its evolution.
The self sufficient mosaics of the country have been influenced by the modern era
and have changed over a period of time.

Infrastructure and lifestyle: The face of Indian village has changed over the
period of time. Houses built from mud and thatch roof has been replaced by
cemented ones. Wide well lit roads have replaced the narrow lanes. Hand pumps
and wells have been replaced by taps and continuous water supply. Two wheelers
and four wheelers can be seen instead of bullock carts. Attire of men and women
has got a western influence now. Government has been serious now in tackling
local sanitisation issues. Government has worked further to encourage the village
communities for using toilets. The awareness programmes has been launched to
make people aware about the importance of hygiene on health.

Power: Earlier the community was governed by zamindars, upper castes and
panchayats. All of them are gone now and the centralised rules have been made.
After the abolition of upper caste rule, higher sections of the society had very little
power left. They did not feel any advantage in living in the villages anymore and
wanted to explore the urban lifestyle. The introduction of modern means of
transport and communication further connected the remote societies to the bigger
world and changed their thinking and mindset. People started becoming more
aware of the available options in the world and wanted to explore more. The level of
contentment was decreasing with the increasing exposure to the outer world. The
change had started after the start of British rule in the country. They interfered with
the existing social and cultural set of the villages and tried to transform it. That had
started the era of change which has many benefits as well. The emergence of new
face of rural India is the result of that transformation. The equilibrium was
disturbed and that had started a chain of reactions in the structure of Indian
villages

Livelihood: Apart from agriculture, artisans form like carpenters, weavers,

potters, goldsmiths, ironsmiths etc. has formed a major part of the livelihood
earners. Later, because of the increasing impact of urban sector, people are trying
varied sources of income. Moreover, many artisans from rural sector are now
migrating to cities for a better income. And the foreign made product has reduced
the demand of hand crafted ones. So the face of rural livelihood is changing in the
modern era.With the developments happening all over the country, the influx of
cheap foreign goods undermined the capabilities of local village artisans. They
faced a huge competition from the foreign market and their survival became tough.
The use of indigenous products started reducing and once the selfsufficient
societies started facing turmoil. The equilibrium that was built over the period of
time was disturbed and people started looking for opportunities outside the village.

Economy: With the introduction of modern era, people in villages started moving
to cities to earn their livelihood and as a result village economy showed a major
shift. Focus on agriculture and local hand made products was undermined and
industrialisation started dominating the financial structure of the village
communities. This led to a major transformation in villages as men started moving
out for work which also skewed the gender diversity in the communities.
In a nutshell, in an Indian village structure,

Faith in religion and universal power is found in the life of the villages. The major
occupation is agriculture which involves dependence on nature. Farmers worship
forces of nature. The lives of the villagers revolve around joint family system. Family
has a strict control and administrative powers over the individual. All the members
of the family have to share the burden of the family occupation. In this way of working
jointly the villagers uphold a sense of cooperation among themselves. In the life of
the villagers group feeling occupies an important place. They respect the judgment
and obey the orders of their elders and the panchayats Society, Caste and gram
panchayat exercise control over the day to day functioning of an individual
 What is social stratification and how does it affect
planning?

SOCIAL STRATIFICATION

In all societies people differ from each other on the basis of their age, sex and
personal characteristics. Human society is not homogeneous but heterogeneous.
Apart from the natural differences, human beings are also differentiated according
to socially approved criteria.

Social stratification refers to a society’s classification gradation or categorization of

its people into social hierarchy based on different factors like wealth, income, race,
education, and power. It is based on superiority, status, position and is a process of
allocation of different statuses or positions which are determined by class, caste,
gender, age, occupation, income and many other social attributes. Stratification is a
process of interaction or differentiation whereby some people come to rank higher
than others. Social stratification refers to a system by which a society ranks
categories of people in a hierarchy. It is universally observed that some groups in
society have greater status, power, and wealth than other groups, and these
differences lead to social stratification. Social stratification is a particular form of
social inequality. All societies arrange their members in terms of superiority,
inferiority and equality.

Stratification comes from the word ‘strata’ which means ranked one above the other.
It can also be related with the different strata’s of rock studied in geography, which
were the different layers found in rock that illustrates social stratification and can be
used as a good way to visualize social structure. Here, society’s layers are made of
people, and society’s resources are distributed unevenly throughout the layers.
People are sorted, or layered, into social categories. The people who have more
resources represent the top layer of the social structure of stratification. Other
groups of people, with progressively fewer and fewer resources, represent the lower
layers of our society. Many factors determine a person’s social standing, such as
income, education, occupation, as well as age, race, gender, and even physical
abilities.
People are ranked according to some commonly accepted basis of valuation in a
hierarchy of status levels which are based upon the inequality of social positions. It
involves a vertical hierarchy of social groups in which members of a particular layer
have a common identity, a similar life style.
Sociologists use the term social stratification to describe the system of social
standing and refers to a ranking of people or groups of people within a society.
The existence of a system of social stratification implies some form of legitimation of
the ranking of people and the unequal distribution of valued goods, services, and
prestige.
Social stratification is a society-wide or universal system that makes inequalities
apparent. Stratification is not about individual inequalities, but about systematic
inequalities based on group membership, classes, and the like. No individual, rich or
poor, can be blamed for social inequalities. The structure of society affects a person’s
social standing. Although individuals may support or fight inequalities, social
stratification is created and supported by society as a whole.

Social stratification is an inherent character of all societies. It is historical as we find

it in all societies, ancient and modern; and it is universal as it exists in simple or
complex societies. The social differentiation on the basis of high and low is the
historical heritage of all societies.

Features of Social Stratification:

• Social stratification is universal: There is no society on this world which is free

from stratification

• Stratification is social: Stratification is social in the sense that it represents

socially constructed differentiations rather than biological differences.

• It is ancient: Stratification is ancient because it has been since the advent of

humans on the earth. It was found even in the hunting and wandering bands
as age and sex were main determinants of differentiations in the then society.

• It is in diverse forms: Stratification system is found everywhere in different

forms.

Different forms of Social Stratification

1. Class
2. Caste
3. Race
4. Gender
5. Ethnicity

How does Social Stratification Affect Planning?

Urban areas tend to be segregated by socioeconomic status. Studies of social
stratification have often shown that place of residence is seen as a symptom of social
class distinction. As income levels tens to increase, one moves towards the urban
fringe. (Schnore, 1965).
Social stratification influences the zoning of cities as people from one class try to
stick together in one area. They share the same kind of life and same kind of work
center and expect similar amenities.
For example, it is often observed that the lower castes - who come under a different
social strata are excluded from many parts of a village. This phenomenon is more
common in rural areas today than in cities, although it is present in cities too in
different forms. In cities, caste is also tied to economic status as those belonging to
the lower castes are also those who are economically behind in society. Therefore
they often live together and are secluded from the upper-class areas in terms of
location and amenities.
Hence planning has always been and continues to be based out of social stratification.
However, planning cannot continue to promote socioeconomic segregation as it can
aggravate existing social problems in any society. With increased polarisation,
opportunities for contact between different income groups are limited.
Planning, as an external agency, has a role to maintain a level of equality between
the same social strata and equity between different strata so that harmony remains
in society.
Five different rationales have been advanced in support of action to reduce
socioeconomic stratification in urban areas. First, such action, some argue, would
serve to increase the possibility of racial integration. Racial segregation, however,
occurs for blacks at all economic levels; it is not the plight of low income blacks
alone. Reducing socioeconomic stratification need not facilitate racial integration. In
fact, it might tend to increase. Second, socioeconomic integration would improve job
opportunities for the poor. Movement of low and moderate-income families closer to
job opportunities in the suburbs is persuasive, but it may not necessarily result in
economically mixed neighborhoods. Proximity to jobs does not inevitably require
neighborhood diversity, although it could mean greater heterogeneity among
suburbs. Third, dispersion of low-income families will facilitate educational and
social upgrading of lower socioeconomic groups. Research findings, though limited,
suggest, on the one hand, that some low-income groups adjust more easily to
middle-class ways and, on the other hand, that socioeconomically mixed
communities do not necessarily upgrade the poor. Fourth, reducing stratification may
be necessary to increase the supply of low- and moderate-income housing. While
the supply of low-cost housing is below the level of need, the issue is territorial
rather than social. Production is impeded by lack of availability of suitable sites.
Space for low-income housing may require municipal heterogeneity, not necessarily
socioeconomic mixing at the neighborhood level. Fifth, social class balance has been
proposed as a means of improving interpersonal relationships in society. However,
research indicates that neither home purchasers nor tenants seem to want
heterogeneity. Moreover, a few studies point to the strains likely to become evident
in mixed communities. Socioeconomic classes may differ in life styles and values, as
well as income. In sum, a close examination is needed of the assumption that
communication is improved and social relations are strengthened by heterogeneous
residential areas.

Conclusion

To sum it all up, changing times has changed the entire outlook of the world, dividing
it at all levels into different social classes. This harsh variation in class, divides
people and where they live. Such stark differences reflect in their architecture and
the overall urban fabric of the city or even a country. Thus, it is very difficult to escape
this system and try to upgrade yourself to a higher social class because the ones in
the lower class are not provided with similar facilities as that of a higher class.
However, each of these communities rely on one another for their survival which is
why no city can be made for only a particular class as it would collapse without the
input from all classes. Hence, in every city different social classes coexist and as the
city develops, its city centre keeps on changing with the rich and powerful living near
it and while a city may seem Class Disparity very divided but in reality all of these
social classes are working together or else the entire country can collapse.

Ishita Bansal
BP/801/2019