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Showing papers in "Contributions to Indian Sociology in 1977"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The place and signification du pouvoir dans la societe hindoue, a partir d'une critique du travail de L. Dumont, constitue la premiere analyse structurale du systeme des castes en Inde as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: La place et la signification du pouvoir dans la societe hindoue, a partir d'une critique du travail de L. Dumont qui constitue la premiere analyse structurale du systeme des castes en Inde. Les concepts de sacre et de seculier existent-ils dans la societe indienne? Le concept hindou de dharma. Pouvoir et theorie des Varnas (castes), et fondement de leur hierarchie. Regles de comportement concernant la purete et la pollution et leur rapport aux notions de statut et de pouvoir.

22 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Most of the data on this variant terminology come from a village I shall call Wellagoda, which is situated on the north-west coast of Sri Lanka about fifty miles north of Colombo.
Abstract: Most of my data on this variant terminology come from a village I shall call ’Wellagoda’ which is situated on the north-west coast of Sri Lanka about fifty miles north of Colombo. The village has a population of around 700 people who occupy 140 households, 100 of which rely on fishing as their major source of income. Most of the villagers claim to be of the Karaava caste, the remainder claiming Goyigama status. Everyone is Roman Catholic, and like many of the Catholic fishermen along this coast, most villagers are bilingual in Sinhala and Tamil, although all claim vigorously that by race they are Sinhalese. In this paper, I shall concentrate on the Sinhala terms. The variant terminology crops up in a narrow coastal belt running for 60 or 70 miles north from Colombo. Inland, it dies out fairly quickly and even on the coast by no means everyone uses the variant terminology. Other reports which I shall mention later appear to indicate that a similar terminology is to be found in the urban centres of Negombo and Colombo. Besides Wellagoda, I shallc all on rather slimmer data from two other

11 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors make an attempt to explore the factors that contribute to differential levels of entrepreneurial performance by studying the specific activities of the entrepreneurs and relate them to their environment and their social background in a comparative frame.
Abstract: neurs are adaptive, however, their specific modes of adaptation may differ. Some modes may ensure a higher level of entrepreneurial performance than others. Further, the modes of adaptation in turn are dependent on the environmental pressures operating on the entrepreneurs and their specific social background. Hence in order to explore the factors that contribute to differential levels of entrepreneurial performance it is necessary to study the specific activities of the entrepreneurs and relate them to their environment and their social background in a comparative frame. This paper makes such an attempt. The general orientation to the study of entrepreneurs in this paper would closely follow Kilby’s approach which steers clear of a priori discussions of what constitutes entrepreneurship and concentrates on ’the specific kinds of activities that the entrepreneur himself may have to perform for the successful operation of his enterprise....’ (1971: 27). Such an approach would lead us to study both the work world and the non-work world of the entrepreneurs and would enable us to examine the extent of overlap and the interconnections between -them. It would also lead us to examine

8 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The roots of urbanism go deep into Indian history, and any attempt to see the various forces in clear array must place them in the perspective of time: more so since the social process in India over the past century or as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Over sixty years ago Petrick Geddes wrote his Report on re-planning of six towns in Bombay Presidency (1915), prior to his appointment as the first Professor of Sociology in the University of Bombay. Geddes occupied the Chair only briefly; and G. S. Ghurye, his successor, wrote on the ’Cities of India’ in the March 1953 issue of Sociological bulletin. During the years in between and since, sociologists and others have off and on referred to urban phenomena in India; but this terrain has until recently remained singularly devoid of decisive intellectual landmarks: the key ideas which, cutting through thickets of data, clearly show the road ahead. The problem has its difficulties; but the time has come to confront them, howsoever tentatively.’ The roots of urbanism go deep into Indian history, and any attempt to see the various forces in clear array must place them in the perspective of time: more so since the social process in India over the past century or

8 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The study of mobility in India has, on the whole, been subsumed in the general consideration of caste as mentioned in this paper, which has led to a widespread view of the system as rigid and inflexible sociologists.
Abstract: pansion on industrial, commercial, educational, medical and other fronts. This, together with the Indianization of the higher levels of large-scale bureaucratic organizations established during the colonial period, have created widespread opportunities for social mobility in metropolitan areas. To date, the study of mobility in India has, on the whole, been subsumed in the general consideration of caste. To challenge a widespread view of the system as rigid and inflexible sociologists have shown how attempts -successful or otherwise-to raise a group’s ritual position in a local hier-

7 citations





Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In view of the delicacy of the issues discussed in Robert Anderson's paper, we sent its copies to the Directors of the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, inviting them to contribute comments for publication.
Abstract: In view of the delicacy of the issues discussed in Robert Anderson’s paper, we sent its copies to the Directors of the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, inviting them to contribute comments for publication. Professor B. V. Sreekantan, Director TIFR, very kindly sent us a comment, which follows immediately after Anderson’s paper. One of our referees has noted that Anderson appears to judge the quality of a research laboratory in terms of the access its scientific personnel have to decision-making within it. While this is important,

4 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
N. Jayaram1
TL;DR: In this article, the role of higher education in stabilizing the social status structure in urban India was examined by analyzing the social background of students entering higher and professional education in a metropolis.
Abstract: Urban stratification represents one of the complex areas of sociological analysis in India. What is most impressive about it is that we know so little about it. The available empirical evidence, however, is consistent in demonstrating the overall stability of status structure in urban India (see e.g., Sovani 1966; Jorapur 1971; and Dubey 19/5). In this paper an attempt has been made at examining the role of higher education which is essentially an urban phenomenon in stabilizing the social status structure in urban India, by analyzing the social background of students entering higher and professional education in a metropolis.

3 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the period 1858-95, there occurred two different types of social movement among some adivasi (indigenous) peoples of Bihar: the Sardar movement and the Kherwar movement as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In the period 1858-95, there occurred two different types of social movement among some adivasi (indigenous) peoples of Bihar.’ First, in the Sardar movement, members of the Munda and Oraon tribes, who lived in Ranchi District, sought to restore land that they considered they had always been entitled to hold on low or nominal rents. The principal means for attaining these ends were refusals to pay rents, land seizures, and petitions to senior British officials. The other movement was called the Kherwar movement, and involved members of the Santal tribe living in Santal Parganas District. The Santals, like the Mundas and Oraons, pressed for lower land rents, but their attempts to achieve this were more sporadic than those by the Mundas and Oraons. The Santals were more



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the process of transfer of technology from laboratory to industry through the actual workings of one industrial research laboratory in India and propose to show how this particular laboratory unit through a learning process came to grip with the transfer problem and ultimately resolved it by bridging the various discontinuities between laboratory and the entrepreneur.
Abstract: This paper attempts to examine the process cf the transfer of technology from laboratory to industry through the actual workings of one industrial research laboratory in India. Since the transfer of technology takes place within a social framework, this process cannot be visualized as a purely technical one. We believe that the best way to understand it is through case studies of actual transfers. We are more interested in the interrelationship between the laboratory and the entrepreneur as two partners in the transfer process and not so much in their internal dynamics as organizations. We propose to show how this particular laboratory unit through a learning process came to grip with the transfer problem and ultimately resolved it by bridging the various discontinuities between laboratory and the entrepreneur. National Physical Laboratory was one of the first of a chain of industrial research institutes conceived during the Second World War and established in 1950. Dr Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar, who was then director of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), conceived of these laboratories as a network of research institutes responsible for taking science to industry. It was an infrastructure needed to improve existing technologies and to create new ones more appropriate for Indian industry. NPL, Delhi, which was modelled on NPL, Teddington, was established with the specific objectives of undertaking basic and applied research to help industry and to maintain basic standards. But the formal objectives of a laboratory do not always accord with the informally existing trends of research tempered by intellectual paradigms