Features of Indian Society

Features of Indian Society

Society is group of people interacting with each other due to similarities among them as well as differences among them. Our Indian society is said to have “Unity in diversity”. Our preamble recognizes India as a Union of States only because of the vast diversity. some of the features of Indian society are as follows:

Hindu way of life:

Hindu religion is the indigenous religion of India. And it is said that tolerance and non-violence of Hindu way of life shape the nation to its present form. Our society has been projected as a traditional society based on spiritual believes giving less importance to material growth. But it is not true at all. Today we are going towards secular, modern and stronger nation. It is true that the traditional Hindu society believed in scribed status eg. Caste, gender, religion etc. it was a hierarchical order where upward mobility was difficult and slow. During that period goals of life were DHAMMA, ARTHA, KAAM, MOKSHA.

Religion:

From the Vedic period Indian society believes in Four Ashrams ; 1. Brahmacharya

2. grahasta

3. vanprastha

4. sanyas

Religion is the foremost feature of Indian society. There are 8 main religions found in India namely 1.HINDU 2.MUSLIM 3.CHRISTIAN 4.SIKHS 5.BUDDHISM 6.JAINISM 7.ZORASTRIANNS 8.JEWS

Theyall have their own Gods and rituals. Out of these major religions only Hindu, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism are native in character. These religions are further divided into sub branches. Religion in India is very deeply rooted. There are many negative impacts ofreligion over Indian society. To reduce these impacts our Constitution describes India as a Secular state.

Language:

Like religious diversity Indian society also has linguistic diversity. There are 22 scheduled languages in part 8^th of our constitution. Apart from these official languages there are many other languages that are used locally by people. There are five families of languages; 1.Andamanese 2.Austro- Asiatic 3.Dravadian 4.Indo-Aryan 5.Tibeto-Burman. Languages play a very crucial role in defining the regional identities. There are many states in India that were created on the language basis eg. Andhra Pradesh ,Maharashtra, Gujarat etc. main languages of India are 1.HINDI 2.BENGALI 3.TELEGU 4.MARATHI 5.TAMIL 6.URDU etc. the love for language is termed as linguism. It is a threat to Indian social integration.

Caste

It is an indigenous concept of Indian society and was originally found amongst the Hindus. Caste system started with the Varna system during Vedic period. There are four Varna during this period namely: 1.brahmin 2.kshatriya 3.vaishya 4.shudra. These were broadly divided on the basis of occupation. Purity and pollution have been the main basis of the four Varna in all spheres of life including occupation, food, clothing, language and standard of living etc. during the vedic period untouchability was not there in the society. It came into existence during the later vedic period and the untouchables or the dalits were recognized as a part of the fifth Varna. Later on occupational diversities gave rise to Jati system. There are about 3500 jatis found in India out of which 751 belong to scheduled caste communities. Jati system gave rise to a popular economic cooperation system known as Jajmani system. In this system some castes are the Patrons and other castes belong to the service class. These are called jajman and kamin respectively. This system came to end with the advent of Open Market system.

Family and Kinship

Family is the smallest unit of society. In the ancient times the Indian families were called as joint families. It means that the different generations of the family live under one roof. But at present there are different types of families exist in India eg. Nuclear family, single parent family etc. the organization of family have different structures as patriarchal (men have all the authorities), matriarchal(women have all the authorities), patrilocal (men’s house), matrilocal (women’s house), patrilineal (surname of the male head of the family), matrilineal (surname of the female head of family) etc.

kinship is a method by which individuals as members of society relate themselves with other members of that society. Kins are identified by marriage or by birth. Relations based on marriage are called Affinal relations and based on birth are called Consanguineous relations. Kins in India give rise to an analysis of the internal structure of caste and its sub-caste. Kinship system gives the rules of prohibition and rules of preference with respect to marriage. Village exogamy (marriage outside the village), endogamy (marriage within the village), caste endogamy (marriage within the caste), hypergamy (upper caste male weds lower caste female), hypogamy (lower caste male weds upper caste female), cross cousin marriage and parallel cousin marriage are different ways of performing marriages in India.

Tribes

These have been defined as a group of native people with shallow history, a common language inhibiting a particular geographical area. They are tied with strong kinship bonds, endogamy is the rule, common ownership of resources and technology.

Geographically tribes are concentrated in five regions namely:

1. Himalayan tribes eg. Nagas, sherpasetc

2. Central region tribes eg. Santhal, mundaetc

3. Western region tribes eg. Bhilsetc

4. Southern region tribes eg.Todas of Nilgriesetc

5. Eastern region tribes eg. Garo, khasietc

6. Island tribes eg. Jarawas, Ongisetc

These can also be divided on the basis of Race.

1. Protoaustroids

2. Mongloids

3. Negrito

byManishaChakravarty