Publisher's Synopsis
The book offers a profile of Indian sociology in terms of its concepts and theories. It carries the reader through the creative historical period of Indian sociology following independence up to the end of the nineties. It reviews critically the studies conducted during this period on the themes of social change. Its focus is on the adequacy of concepts and theoretical schemes in these studies, but in course of this examination the dilemmas and structural contradictions in the process of social stratification and change in India have also been exposed. Prepared originally as trend reports on concepts and theories of social stratification and change in India the book carries a new and updated introduction on the two substantive themes in a conceptual theoretical perspective. How could one formulate a sociology of social stratification in India? Theoretically, how is such an endeavour made possible by developments in stratification and social change, theory and its structure and process analysis? How have Indian sociologists blended the uses of 'category' and history in their analysis of social stratification and change? These and scores of other issues in sociology of stratification and change have been examined in this volume. Concepts particularly examined in the analysis of social stratification as those of 'caste', 'class and peasantry' and 'elites' and the processes include 'social mobility', 'structural differentiation' and its consequent social contradictions. The sociology of change in India has similarly been reviewed in terms of theoretic-adequacy and relative power of the evolutionary, nominalist (Sanskritization-Westernisation), structuralist, dialectical, cognitive, historical, and institutional approaches employed in various studies. In addition the book offers analysis of the policies of reservation and its impact on the SCs/STs and the OBCs, and seeks to assess its relationship with the integrative processes within the Indian society. The book is in many ways a sociology on Indian sociology. It exposes the foundations of concepts and theories on which most Indian studies on social stratification and change are based.
