Social Movements

Written and reviewed by Subhra Gupta, Humanities faculty at UniDrill (M.A. Sociology, University of Delhi · 7 years teaching Humanities). Based on NCERT Sociology Class XII (Social Change and Development in India), Chapter 8.

Who won you the weekend?

Students and office workers rest on weekends without thinking about why. The eight hour working day, equal pay for equal work, social security and pensions were all won through social movements, and so was the right to vote. In Britain not everyone could vote even after the Chartist movement collected over 1.25 million signatures in 1839 on the People's Charter, which asked for universal male suffrage, voting by ballot and the right to stand for election without owning property. In 1842 it collected 3.25 million. Only in 1918 did all men over 21, married women, women owning houses and women university graduates over 30 get the vote. The suffragettes who demanded the vote for all adult women were bitterly opposed and their movement was violently crushed.

India's own story is similar. The nationalist movement, the socialist movements across the world, the civil rights movement in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s and the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa all changed their societies, and they inspired each other. The Indian national movement shaped the Constitution, and the Constitution in turn became a major force for social change.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: Chartism is the example of a movement for parliamentary representation in England. In reality: most of the Chartists' demands, including the secret ballot, were eventually adopted. Why it matters: a movement can look like a failure in its own time and still reshape rights later, which is the idea behind this whole chapter.

Features of a social movement

A social movement needs sustained collective action over time, often directed against the state and demanding changes in policy or practice. Spontaneous, disorganised protest is not a social movement.

Movements usually take up a public issue, such as the right of tribal people to use forests, or the right of displaced people to settlement and compensation. Protest is the most visible form of action, but movements also hold meetings to build shared understanding and agreement, run campaigns that lobby the government and the media, and develop distinct modes of protest such as candle and torch processions, black cloth, street theatre, songs and poetry. Gandhi's novel modes included ahimsa, satyagraha and the charkha, and picketing and defying the ban on making salt. Everyday goods like cloth and salt were turned into symbols of resistance. Khadi supported Indian cotton growers, spinners and weavers, and the Dandi March protested taxation that burdened consumers of basic goods.

Social change versus social movement. Social change is continuous and ongoing, the sum of countless individual and collective actions over time and space. A social movement is directed at specific goals and involves long, continuous effort by people. Sanskritisation and westernisation are examples of social change. The efforts of 19th century social reformers are examples of social movements.

Counter movements. While movements seek change, counter movements sometimes arise to defend the status quo, because movements go against entrenched interests and values and meet resistance.

Change does come, but over a long period.

Pause and predict: is a sudden, unplanned crowd protest after a local accident a social movement?

Check your answer: Not by this definition. It lacks sustained action over time and some degree of organisation, leadership and shared objectives. A movement can grow out of such protests, but it needs more.

Why sociology studies social movements

Sociology has been interested in movements from the start. The French Revolution was the violent end point of several movements to overthrow the monarchy and establish liberty, equality and fraternity. In Britain the industrial revolution brought upheaval: labourers and artisans who had moved from countryside to city protested against inhuman living conditions, and food riots were often suppressed. Elites saw these protests as a threat to the order of society.

Two views. For the exam: Emile Durkheim's concern with how social structures enable social integration reflected anxiety about social order, and social movements were seen as forces leading to disorder. Another reading: scholars influenced by Karl Marx, such as the historian E.P. Thompson, showed that the "crowd" or "mob" was not made up of hooligans. It had its own moral economy, a shared understanding of right and wrong that informed its actions. The urban poor had good reasons to protest and often had no other way to express anger at deprivation.

Types of social movements

Most movements mix elements of all three, and a movement's orientation may shift over time, for example from revolutionary aims to reformist ones. A movement may move from mass mobilisation and protest to becoming more institutionalised. Social scientists who study the life cycles of movements call this a move towards "social movement organisations".

Two views. For the exam: how a movement is classified is always a matter of interpretation. What British rulers called a "mutiny" or "rebellion" in 1857 was, for Indian nationalists, "the first war of Independence". Another reading: a mutiny is an act of defiance against supposedly legitimate authority, while a struggle for independence challenges the legitimacy of that rule itself. So the same event carries different meanings for different groups.

Old and new social movements

Old movements in the capitalist West won better wages, living conditions, social security, free schooling and health security from the state. Some argue that class based action led by unions and workers' parties is declining. Others argue that in the affluent West with its welfare state, class exploitation was no longer the central concern, so new movements are about quality of life.

Two views. For the exam: political scientist Rajni Kothari attributes the surge of social movements in India in the 1970s to growing dissatisfaction with parliamentary democracy. He argues that state institutions had been captured by elites, so electoral representation was no longer an effective way for the poor to be heard, and those left out joined social movements or non-party political formations to pressure the state from outside. Another reading: the chapter notes that old and new movements increasingly work together, for example in alliances such as the World Social Forum, and that in India it is hard to separate old from new, since economic inequality, identity and ecology often appear together.

The broader term civil society now covers both old movements represented by parties and trade unions and new organisations, women's groups, environmental groups and tribal activists. Many new movements are international in scope, because firms are transnational, rules like those of the WTO are international, and risks to the environment, health and from nuclear war are global. Large networks of non-governmental organisations, human rights and consumer groups and environmental activists now link up over the Internet. The protests against the WTO in Seattle were organised partly through internet based networks.

Ecological movements: Chipko

Much of the modern period placed the greatest emphasis on development. Critics point to unchecked use of natural resources, a model of development that creates new needs, and the assumption that everyone benefits. Big dams displace people from homes and livelihoods, industries displace farmers, and pollution harms many.

The Chipko movement in the Himalayan foothills is the textbook example. Villagers, including large numbers of women, stepped forward to hug trees when government forest contractors came to fell the oak and rhododendron forests near their villages. Their subsistence depended on the forest for firewood, fodder and daily needs.

The 1970 monsoon caused a devastating flood in the Alaknanda valley, which made villagers see links between deforestation, landslides and floods. The cause was taken up by the Dashauli Gram Swaraja Sangh, a cooperative organisation in Chamoli district. At Reni forest, a small girl alerted Gaura Devi, head of the village Mahila Mandal, who mobilised the women, and when they refused to budge the contractors' men had to retire. The government since 2014 has launched efforts such as the Integrated Ganga Conservation Mission (Namami Gange) and the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan to improve India's ecology.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: Chipko is an ecological movement with economic, ecological and political concerns together. In reality: the name comes from the Hindi word for clinging or sticking, which is exactly what the villagers did with the trees. Why it matters: it shows why the chapter says old and new movements blur: a movement about trees was also about livelihood and political voice.

Class based movements: peasants

Peasant movements go back to pre-colonial days. Those between 1858 and 1914 tended to be localised, disjointed and limited to particular grievances. Well known are the Bengal revolt of 1859 to 62 against the indigo plantation system and the Deccan riots against moneylenders. Under Gandhi some became linked to the Independence movement.

New farmers' movements began in the 1970s in Punjab and Tamil Nadu. They were regionally organised and non-party, and involved farmers (market involved, as both commodity producers and purchasers) and not peasants. Their basic ideology was strongly anti-state and anti-urban, and their focus was "price and related issues": procurement prices, remunerative prices, prices of inputs, taxation and non-repayment of loans. They used novel methods such as blocking roads and railways and refusing politicians' and bureaucrats' entry into villages. It has been argued that their agenda has broadened to include environment and women's issues, so they can be seen as part of the worldwide new social movements.

Class based movements: workers

Factory production began in India in the early 1860s, in port towns such as Calcutta and Bombay, and later Madras, under a trade pattern in which raw materials were taken from India and goods made in the United Kingdom sold there. Tea plantations in Assam began as early as 1839. In the early colonial period labour was cheap because the government did not regulate wages or working conditions. Workers protested, but their actions were more spontaneous than sustained.

The First World War expanded industry but also brought misery: food shortages and sharply rising prices. In September and October 1917 there were around 30 recorded strikes in Bombay's textile mills. Jute workers in Calcutta struck work, workers in the Madras mills struck for higher wages, and textile workers in Ahmedabad struck for a 50 per cent wage increase.

The AITUC was broad based, with communists (led by S.A. Dange and M.N. Roy), moderates (led by M. Joshi and V.V. Giri) and nationalists including Lala Lajpat Rai and Jawaharlal Nehru.

Caste based movements

The Dalit movement. Dalit movements cannot be explained satisfactorily by economic exploitation or political oppression alone. They are a struggle for recognition as fellow human beings, for self confidence and self determination, and for the abolition of the stigma of untouchability, a struggle sometimes called "a struggle to be touched". The word Dalit means the poor and oppressed, and is commonly used in Marathi, Hindi, Gujarati and other Indian languages. It was first used in this new context in Marathi in the early 1970s by neo-Buddhist activists, followers of Babasaheb Ambedkar. It refers to those who have been broken, ground down by those above. The word itself carries an inherent denial of pollution, karma and a justified caste hierarchy.

There has not been one unified Dalit movement. Different movements highlight different issues and ideologies, but all assert a Dalit identity and share a quest for equality, self dignity and the ending of untouchability.

The movement has acquired a place in the public sphere that cannot be ignored, along with a growing body of Dalit literature. Dalit writers insist on their own imagery and expressions rooted in their experience, because high flown imagery of mainstream society would hide the truth. Some emphasise the cultural struggle for dignity and identity while others bring in structural and economic features.

Two views. For the exam: sociologists believe Dalit movements belong to all three types, reformative, redemptive and revolutionary. The anti-caste movement inspired by Jotiba Phule, carried forward in the 1920s by non-Brahmin movements in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu and then under Dr. Ambedkar, had characteristics of all types. Another reading: one scholar's assessment is that on the whole the post-Ambedkar movement has been reformist. It mobilised along caste lines, achieved real but limited change, with gains especially for the educated sections, and has not transformed society enough to lift the mass from severe poverty. The first view stresses the range of aims, and the second assesses the results.

Backward Class movements. Backward castes and classes emerged as political entities in both colonial and post-colonial periods. The colonial state often distributed patronage on the basis of caste, so it made sense for people to stay with their caste for social and political identity, and similar caste groups united in what has been called a "horizontal stretch". Caste lost its ritual content and became secularised for political mobilisation.

From the 1920s many caste based organisations arose, such as the United Provinces Hindu Backward Classes League, the All-India Backward Classes Federation and the All India Backward Classes League. In 1954 there were 88 organisations working for the Backward Classes.

Tribal movements

Tribal groups may share common issues, but the differences between them are equally significant. Many tribal movements have been located in the "tribal belt" of middle India, such as the Santhals, Hos, Oraons and Mundas in Chota Nagpur and the Santhal Parganas, which forms the main part of what is now Jharkhand.

Jharkhand. The state of Jharkhand was carved out of south Bihar in the year 2000, after more than a century of resistance. The movement had a charismatic leader in Birsa Munda, an adivasi who led a major uprising against the British, and who became an icon after his death, in stories and songs all over Jharkhand.

The leaders agitated against land acquisition for large irrigation projects and firing ranges, against survey and settlement operations, against the collection of loans, rent and cooperative dues, and against the nationalisation of forest produce, which was boycotted.

The North East. State formation after Independence generated disquieting trends in major hill districts. The tribes were conscious of their distinct identity and traditional autonomy and were unsure about being incorporated into the administration of Assam. The rise of ethnicity there is a response to contact with a powerful, alien system. An earlier tendency towards secession has been replaced by a search for autonomy within the framework of the Indian Constitution.

One issue that binds tribal movements from different parts of the country is the alienation of tribals from forest lands. Ecological issues are therefore central, alongside cultural identity and economic inequality, which again blurs the line between old and new movements.

Pause and predict: why does the chapter use Jharkhand as an example of both an "old" and a "new" movement?

Check your answer: Because it combined economic grievances (land, mining benefits, loans) with identity and culture (a shared Jharkhandi identity) and with ecological concerns such as forest alienation. The chapter says such issues occur together.

The women's movement

It can be argued that the early period was not a social movement, and it can be argued otherwise. It had organisations, ideology, leadership, a shared understanding and the aim of change on a public issue, and together they created an atmosphere in which the women's question could not be ignored.

The new phase took up violence against women, land rights, employment, sexual harassment and dowry. Important legal changes came through campaigns, and small changes such as application forms carrying both father's and mother's names. There is a recognition that all women are disadvantaged compared to men, but not all suffer in the same way: the concerns of an educated middle class woman differ from those of a peasant woman, and a Dalit woman's from those of an upper caste woman. Both men and women are also constrained by dominant gender identities, since men in patriarchal societies feel they must be strong and never emotional. A gender-just society would let both be free. It rests on educated women with multiple roles and an improved sex ratio, and the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao Yojana is cited as an effort towards it.

Timeline

Scholars and organisations

Exam traps

60-second revision

Where this chapter connects

• Previous: Mass Media and Communications shows how media carries a movement's message to the public.
• Related: Patterns of Social Inequality and Exclusion explains the caste, tribe and gender inequalities that these movements respond to.
• Related: The Constitution and Social Change shows how the national movement shaped the Constitution, which in turn changed society.