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UPPCS Mains
2026 Edition
General Studies Paper I
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Indian Society

English Medium
10
Chapters
51
Topics
142
Figures & Maps
52
Tables
What's Inside
  1. 01Salient Features of Indian Society
  2. 02Women in India: Issues, Role and Organisations
  3. 03Population and Associated Issues
  4. 04Poverty and Developmental Issues
  5. 05Urbanisation: Problems and Remedies
  6. 06Globalisation and Indian Society
  7. 07Communalism and Secularism
  8. 08Regionalism
  9. 09Health and Education: A Social Perspective
  10. 10Technology and Indian Society
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Indian Society
UPPCS Mains · Smart Notes

Contents

Indian Society · General Studies Paper I
  1. 01Salient Features of Indian Society6 topics
    1. 1.1Salient Features of Indian Society and Culture
    2. 1.2Unity in Diversity and Composite Culture
    3. 1.3Social Stratification and the Caste System
    4. 1.4Social Exclusion and Social Empowerment of Vulnerable Groups
    5. 1.5Family, Marriage and Kinship
    6. 1.6Continuity and Change: Modernisation, Westernisation and the Middle Class
  2. 02Women in India: Issues, Role and Organisations6 topics
    1. 2.1Changing Status of Women in India
    2. 2.2Gender, Patriarchy and the Social Empowerment of Women
    3. 2.3Discrimination and Violence against Women: Health, Social Evils, Crime and Online Abuse
    4. 2.4Women and the Economy: Work, Unpaid Care, Informal, Gig and Digital Work
    5. 2.5Political Empowerment, Legal Safeguards and Rights Debates
    6. 2.6Women’s Movements and Organisations
  3. 03Population and Associated Issues4 topics
    1. 3.1India's Population: Census, Growth Trends and Theories
    2. 3.2Population Structure, Ageing and the Demographic Dividend
    3. 3.3Population Explosion: Causes, Sex Ratio and Consequences
    4. 3.4Population Policies and Current Debates
  4. 04Poverty and Developmental Issues4 topics
    1. 4.1Poverty: Concepts, Measurement and Trends
    2. 4.2Causes and Consequences of Poverty
    3. 4.3Poverty, Population and Illiteracy: Linkages in Rural India
    4. 4.4Poverty Alleviation and Inclusive Development
  5. 05Urbanisation: Problems and Remedies5 topics
    1. 5.1Urbanisation in India: Concepts, Nature and Trends
    2. 5.2Urbanism and the Social Effects of Urbanisation
    3. 5.3Slums and Urban Poverty
    4. 5.4Core Urban Problems: Housing, Infrastructure and Environment
    5. 5.5Urban Governance and Remedies for Sustainable Urbanisation
  6. 06Globalisation and Indian Society6 topics
    1. 6.1Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation: Meaning, Objectives, Phases and Impact on Social Structure
    2. 6.2Cultural Effects of Globalisation: Homogenisation, Hybridisation and Resistance
    3. 6.3Globalisation and Family, Marriage and Kinship
    4. 6.4Globalisation and Social Groups: Women, Youth, Elderly, Tribals and Others
    5. 6.5Economic, Political and Environmental Effects of Globalisation
    6. 6.6Globalisation, Work and the Rural Economy
  7. 07Communalism and Secularism6 topics
    1. 7.1Communalism: Meaning, Features, Forms and the Idea of Nation and Citizenship
    2. 7.2Growth of Communalism in India: From Colonial Roots to the Present
    3. 7.3Factors Aiding Communalism, Its Consequences and the State’s Response
    4. 7.4Secularism: Meaning, Perspectives and Its Place in Indian Democracy
    5. 7.5Indian Secularism: Features, Constitution, Courts and the Western Model
    6. 7.6Secularisation, Critiques, Challenges and the Uniform Civil Code
  8. 08Regionalism4 topics
    1. 8.1Regionalism: Concept, Types and Causes
    2. 8.2Federalism, Constitutional Safeguards and the Formation of States
    3. 8.3Regional Parties, Inter-State Disputes and National Integration
    4. 8.4Consequences of Regionalism for Economy, Polity and Development
  9. 09Health and Education: A Social Perspective6 topics
    1. 9.1Health in Society: Social Model, Determinants and Gender Inequality
    2. 9.2Changing Disease Burden: NCDs, Mental Health and Marginalised Groups
    3. 9.3India’s Health System: Infrastructure, Challenges and Initiatives
    4. 9.4Education as a Social Institution
    5. 9.5Education, Stratification and Structural Challenges
    6. 9.6NEP 2020, Technology and Higher Education
  10. 10Technology and Indian Society4 topics
    1. 10.1Artificial Intelligence: Concept and India’s AI Policy
    2. 10.2Social Impact of AI: Inequality, Vulnerable Groups, Challenges and Generative AI
    3. 10.3Social Media and Society: Impact and Disruption
    4. 10.4Technology, Social Change and Empowerment
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Indian SocietyChapter 01 · Topic 1
Chapter 01

Salient Features of Indian Society

Indian Society · 6 topics
Topic 1

Salient Features of Indian Society and Culture

Chapter Overview

Indian society joins one of the world’s oldest civilisations to a modern constitutional democracy. This chapter covers its salient features, the unity in diversity of its 146.39 crore people (UNFPA, 2025), the largest population of any country since April 2023 (UN), the caste order, social exclusion and empowerment, the family, and the processes of continuity and change.

Topic 1 sets out the features of Indian society and culture and its traditional values. Topic 2 studies the forms of diversity and the bonds and composite culture that hold them together. Topics 3 and 4 turn to inequality: first the caste system, then social exclusion and the state’s measures for empowerment. Topic 5 examines family, marriage and kinship, through which caste and values pass from one generation to the next, and Topic 6 ends with the processes of change and the rise of the middle class.

Topic Flow
  1. 1Salient Features of Indian Society and Culture
  2. whose plurality is studied in
  3. 2Unity in Diversity and Composite Culture
  4. while inequality is ordered by
  5. 3Social Stratification and the Caste System
  6. which leads to
  7. 4Social Exclusion and Social Empowerment of Vulnerable Groups
  8. carried forward through
  9. 5Family, Marriage and Kinship
  10. all reshaped by
  11. 6Continuity and Change: Modernisation, Westernisation and the Middle Class

Indian society carries a civilisation traced to the Harappan cities of about 2500 BCE into a modern democracy. M.N. Srinivas studied it through the village (The Remembered Village, 1976), and in December 2025 UNESCO added Deepavali to its list of intangible cultural heritage.

What Society Means

  1. Society: a web of social relationships among individuals and groups, held together by norms, institutions and shared values; e.g. MacIver and Page, Society (1949).
  2. Types of society: traditional societies rest on custom and ascribed status, modern ones on achieved status and rational-legal authority, and post-modern ones on digital networks; e.g. pre-colonial village; metropolitan India; social media culture.
Table 1.1 Common ground: all three are forms of human grouping built on social relationships, and a person belongs to all three at once.
BasisSocietyCommunityAssociation
ScopeWidest social systemLocal groupOrganised group
BondNetwork of relationshipsCommon life and localityCommon purpose
NatureAbstractConcreteFormal
ExampleIndian societyVillage communityFICCI, a trade union

Salient Features of Indian Society

  1. Unity in diversity: many religions, languages, castes and regions share one civilisational ethos and one constitutional order (see Topic 2); e.g. Eid, Diwali and Christmas are gazetted holidays across India; the armed forces recruit from every region.
  2. Continuity and change: ancient institutions survive in modified forms, so tradition and modernity exist side by side (see Topic 6); e.g. caste persists though hereditary occupations have weakened.
  3. Tolerance and accommodation: the society has accommodated new faiths and let shared saints, shrines and festivals grow into a syncretic culture; e.g. Sufi–Bhakti traditions; Ganga–Jamuni tehzeeb; shrines visited by people of several faiths.
  4. Spiritualism and materialism: a strong religious and spiritual ethos now coexists with rising consumption and market values; e.g. yoga and wellness culture alongside a boom in luxury consumption.
  5. Collectivism and individualism: family and community orientation is slowly giving way to personal choice and autonomy; e.g. rise of self-choice marriages; career-first aspirations of the young.
  6. Hierarchy and caste: groups are ranked by birth and ritual purity, and caste still shapes marriage, occupation and politics (see Topic 3); e.g. caste endogamy in most marriages.
  7. Patriarchy and the joint family: descent, property and authority pass mainly through men, and the joint family remains an ideal (see Topic 5); e.g. patrilocal residence after marriage in most of north India.
  8. Rural and agrarian base: most people still live in villages and depend on land, kinship and local caste networks; e.g. about 69% of Indians lived in villages (Census 2011).
Salient features of Indian society
Fig. 1.1 Salient features of Indian society

Values and Characteristics of Indian Culture

Culture is the learned way of life of a people: the knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, law and customs they acquire as members of society (E.B. Tylor, 1871).

  1. Antiquity and continuity: Indian culture has run without a full break from the Harappan age, so very old beliefs and practices still live on; e.g. Vedic chanting, on the UNESCO intangible heritage list since 2008.
  2. Assimilation and synthesis: it absorbed Greeks, Sakas, Kushans, Hunas, Turks, Mughals and Europeans and took something from each; e.g. Gandhara art; Indo-Islamic architecture of the Qutub Minar.
  3. Spiritual values: dharma (duty), karma (action and its fruit) and the four purusharthas of dharma, artha, kama and moksha guide conduct; e.g. ashrama scheme of four stages: brahmacharya, grihastha, vanaprastha and sannyasa.
  4. Tolerance and secular ethos: respect for many paths to truth let diverse faiths coexist, an idea the Constitution later wrote into law; e.g. Ashoka’s Rock Edict XII on honouring all sects; Akbar’s sulh-i-kul.
  5. Adaptability and universalism: it adapts, taking in modern science and democracy, yet keeps core values such as respect for elders and seeing the world as one family; e.g. Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (Maha Upanishad), theme of India’s G20 presidency, 2023.
Main characteristics of Indian culture
Fig. 1.2 Main characteristics of Indian culture

Indian Culture as Soft Power in the COVID-19 Pandemic

  1. Yoga and Ayurveda: yoga and AYUSH remedies were used worldwide for immunity and mental health, though their claims needed scientific testing; e.g. International Day of Yoga (since 21 June 2015) went online in 2020: Yoga for Health, Yoga at Home.
  2. Namaste and hygiene habits: the no-contact namaste and the habit of washing hands and feet on returning home drew global attention; e.g. world leaders used the namaste greeting in 2020.
  3. Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam in practice: India shared medicines and vaccines abroad, though exports paused during its own second wave in 2021; e.g. Vaccine Maitri (January 2021) sent vaccines to nearly 100 countries.
  4. Seva and community care: family and neighbourhood care networks, community kitchens and gurdwara langars fed migrants and the needy and cared for the sick and old at home; e.g. gurdwara langars in India and abroad served free meals during the 2020 lockdowns.
How Indian culture reached the world during the COVID-19 pandemic
Fig. 1.3 How Indian culture reached the world during the COVID-19 pandemic

Understanding Indian Society: Book View and Field View

Scholars disagree on whether Indian society is best read from sacred texts, which stress harmony and shared values, or from field studies, which show hierarchy, conflict and change.

  1. Book view: Indologists read society through the Vedas, Dharmashastras and epics, stressing continuity, harmony and shared values; e.g. G.S. Ghurye and the Indological school at Bombay University.
  2. Field view: village studies and conflict theorists found gaps between norms and practice, with hierarchy, class conflict and mobility; e.g. M.N. Srinivas coined both terms; A.R. Desai, Social Background of Indian Nationalism (1948).

Challenges and Way Forward

  1. Cultural diplomacy: use yoga, Ayurveda and festivals as soft power while guarding them against false claims and commercial distortion; e.g. UN resolution on the International Day of Yoga (11 December 2014, 177 co-sponsors); WHO Global Centre for Traditional Medicine, Jamnagar (2022).
  2. Values with scientific temper: teach Indian knowledge systems and ethics together with reason, so that tradition does not turn into obscurantism; e.g. NEP 2020 on Indian Knowledge Systems; Article 51A(h).
  3. Constitutional morality with roots: promote the constitutional values of equality and liberty while keeping cultural roots and plural heritage; e.g. Article 51A(e) on harmony and the dignity of women; SDG 16.

Indian society survives by adapting, and its old values can support constitutional democracy once regressive customs are shed.

Based on NCERT, Standard Books references, Keywords from Syllabus and Previous Year question Papers

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Indian SocietyChapter 01 · Topic 2
Topic 2

Unity in Diversity and Composite Culture

These features rest on a deeply plural make-up held together by shared bonds. Jawaharlal Nehru’s The Discovery of India (1946) popularised the idea of unity in diversity, and in 2017 UNESCO listed the Kumbh Mela, which draws pilgrims from every region, as intangible heritage.

Forms of Diversity in India

Diversity means collective differences of race, religion, language, caste and region; pluralism is the respectful, institutional coexistence of these differences.

  1. Racial diversity: successive migrations left Austric, Dravidian, Mongoloid and Indo-Aryan strains, which colonial and Indian anthropologists classified in different ways; e.g. H.H. Risley (1908): seven types; B.S. Guha (1931 Census): six elements such as Negrito and Proto-Australoid.
  2. Linguistic diversity: Census 2011 grouped 19,569 raw mother tongues into 121 languages, nearly all from four major language families; e.g. Hindi the first language of 43.63%; 22 languages in the Eighth Schedule; 11 classical languages (2024).
  3. Religious diversity: India is the birthplace of four world religions, and Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis and Jains are notified minorities; e.g. Census 2011: Hindus 79.8%, Muslims 14.2%, Christians 2.3%, Sikhs 1.7%, Buddhists 0.7%, Jains 0.4%.
  4. Caste and tribal diversity: thousands of endogamous jatis and over 700 notified tribal groups add further layers of identity; e.g. People of India project (1985–92) listed about 4,635 communities.
  5. Regional and cultural diversity: varied terrain produces distinct livelihoods, food, dress, customs and arts from one region to another; e.g. Himalayan pastoralists, plains farmers and coastal fishing communities.
Table 1.2 Common ground: each form of diversity is collective and inherited, and each can be a source of richness or, when politicised, of conflict.
FormBasis or classificationExample
RacialRisley’s 7 types (1908); Guha’s 6 elementsMongoloid strain in the North-East
LinguisticIndo-Aryan 78.05%, Dravidian 19.64%, Austro-Asiatic 1.11%, Tibeto-Burman 1.01% of speakers (Census 2011)Hindi, Tamil, Santali, Bodo
ReligiousSix major religions, four born in India; six notified minorities (NCM Act 1992)Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism
CasteFour varnas; thousands of jatisJatis differ from region to region
Tribal705 ST groups, 8.6% of the population (Census 2011)Gonds, Bhils, Santhals, Nagas
RegionalTerrain, climate and historyHimalayan, desert, coastal and plateau ways of life
Share of speakers by language family in India, Census 2011
Fig. 1.4 Share of speakers by language family in India, Census 2011

Bonds of Unity

  1. Geo-political unity: the idea of Bharatvarsha, one land from the Himalayas to the seas, is older than the modern nation-state; e.g. Vishnu Purana: Bharata lies north of the ocean and south of the Himalayas.
  2. Pilgrimage network: sacred sites at the four corners and along the rivers drew pilgrims from every part of the subcontinent; e.g. Char Dham: Badrinath, Dwarka, Puri, Rameswaram; four maths of Shankaracharya.
  3. Bhakti–Sufi syncretism: saints preached devotion beyond caste and creed and left behind shared shrines, poetry and music; e.g. Dargah of Moinuddin Chishti, Ajmer; Varkari pilgrimage to Pandharpur; Kabir and Guru Nanak.
  4. Constitutional unity: single citizenship, Fundamental Rights, an integrated judiciary and the All India Services bind all regions together; e.g. Article 1: India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.
  5. National symbols: the national flag, anthem, song and emblem give people of every region shared symbols of one civic identity; e.g. Tiranga adopted on 22 July 1947; Jana Gana Mana and Vande Mataram adopted on 24 January 1950.
  6. Shared festivals and epics: the same epics and festivals are retold and celebrated in local forms in every region; e.g. Kamba Ramayanam (Tamil) and Ramcharitmanas (Awadhi); Kumbh Mela at four sites.
  7. Economic interdependence: one national market, shared infrastructure and migration tie producers, workers and consumers across states; e.g. GST (1 July 2017); One Nation One Ration Card.
Pilgrimage and syncretic centres that bind India together
Fig. 1.5 Pilgrimage and syncretic centres that bind India together

Composite Culture and Its Advantages

  1. Composite culture: a culture formed by the mixing of many traditions, in which each group keeps its identity while sharing common forms; e.g. Ganga–Jamuni tehzeeb of the Doab and Awadh.
  2. Indo-Islamic synthesis: architecture, Hindustani music, language and painting fused Indian and Persian elements into new forms; e.g. Taj Mahal; Amir Khusrau’s qawwali; Urdu; Mughal miniatures; Dara Shikoh’s Persian Upanishads (1657).
  3. Advantage: tolerance and resilience: shared saints, shrines and customs build habits of coexistence that help society recover after conflict; e.g. joint celebration of festivals in mixed neighbourhoods.
  4. Advantage: economy and tourism: heritage sites, crafts and festivals of mixed origin draw visitors and support artisans; e.g. Indo-Islamic monuments on the UNESCO list; zardozi and bidri crafts.
Advantages of India’s composite culture
Fig. 1.6 Advantages of India’s composite culture

Diversity: Strength or Challenge?

Diversity is debated because the same differences that enrich culture and democracy can divide society when they are politicised or overlap with inequality.

  1. Strength: democratic pluralism: a society used to many identities accepts federalism, minority rights and coalition politics more easily; e.g. linguistic reorganisation of states (1956); Articles 29–30.
  2. Strength: creativity and soft power: exchange among traditions produces new art, cuisine and ideas that attract global interest; e.g. Indian cinema, yoga and cuisine abroad.
  3. Challenge: communalism and regionalism: religious, regional, caste or linguistic identity turned into political hostility threatens coexistence (see Ch 7, Topic 1 and Ch 8, Topic 1); e.g. Telangana, Gorkhaland and Bodoland movements; anti-Hindi agitation in Madras State (1965); National Integration Council (1961).
  4. Challenge: diversity and inequality: some identities overlap with deprivation, so difference turns into disadvantage and claims for justice (see Topic 4); e.g. remote ST habitations; exclusion of Dalits; debates on reservation and the Uniform Civil Code.

Challenges and Way Forward

  1. Constitutional duty: citizens and the state must value the heritage of composite culture and protect minority cultures; e.g. Article 51A(f); Article 351 asks that Hindi express all elements of the composite culture.
  2. Language rights: mother-tongue teaching and support for all languages reduce linguistic tension and keep small languages alive; e.g. Article 350A; NEP 2020: mother tongue up to at least Class 5.
  3. Cultural exchange and balanced growth: state pairing, youth exchanges and balanced regional development turn diversity into shared belonging; e.g. Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat (2015); Kashi Tamil Sangamam (2022).

India’s unity rests on respect for difference, so equal rights and balanced development must keep diversity from turning into division (SDG 16).

Based on NCERT, Standard Books references, Keywords from Syllabus and Previous Year question Papers

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