Social Movements and Protests: Theories, Factions and Pressure Groups, Identity Movements, Civil Society and Citizenship, NGOs, and Reservations and Politics
2. Factions and pressure groups; movements based on caste, ethnicity, ideology, gender, disability, religion and region
Factions are loose, leader-centred groups that compete for power within a larger unit — a village, a caste or a party — recruited through personal ties of patronage rather than shared ideology. Paul Brass (Factional Politics in an Indian State, 1965) showed how the Congress party in Uttar Pradesh worked through such factions, and F.G. Bailey (Stratagems and Spoils, 1969) analysed political competition as a game of rules and manoeuvres. Pressure groups differ in being organised around shared interests and in seeking to influence rather than capture power — business associations, trade unions, farmers' organisations and professional bodies.
| Basis | Illustrative movements |
|---|---|
| Caste | Jyotirao Phule's Satyashodhak Samaj (1873); Sree Narayana Guru's SNDP Yogam (1903); E.V. Ramasamy's Self-Respect Movement (1925); the Dalit Panthers (1972); Kanshi Ram's Bahujan politics |
| Ethnicity and region | Naga and Mizo movements; the Bodo movement; the Jharkhand movement (state formed in 2000); the Telangana movement (state formed in 2014); the Dravidian movement |
| Ideology | The Naxalite movement after 1967; Gandhian Sarvodaya and Bhoodan |
| Gender | Campaigns against dowry and rape law after the Mathura case (1979) leading to the 1983 amendments; later mobilisation after 2012 leading to the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 |
| Disability | Disability rights groups whose advocacy shaped the Persons with Disabilities Act (1995) and the rights-based Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act (2016) |
| Religion | Reform movements such as the Arya Samaj and the Singh Sabhas; Hindu nationalist mobilisation; the Khalistan movement |
3. Civil society and citizenship; NGOs, activism and leadership
Civil society is the sphere of voluntary association between the family, the market and the state. For Tocqueville, America's dense associational life sustained democracy; for Gramsci, civil society is where the dominant class secures hegemony through consent; for Habermas it contains the public sphere of rational debate. In India, Partha Chatterjee argued that civil society in the strict sense — rights-bearing citizens in voluntary associations — is confined largely to the middle class, while most people engage the state through 'political society'. Citizenship, in T.H. Marshall's Citizenship and Social Class (1950), expanded in England through three sets of rights: civil (eighteenth century — liberty of person, property, justice), political (nineteenth century — the franchise) and social (twentieth century — welfare, education, health). Critics note that this sequence is English, that women and colonised peoples gained rights on different paths, and that in India social citizenship remains unevenly realised across caste, gender and region.
NGOs expanded in India from the 1980s as channels for development funding and advocacy. Supporters see them as flexible, participatory and close to the poor; critics describe the 'NGO-isation' of movements — the conversion of political struggles into funded projects that depend on donors and the state and blunt radical demands. Foreign funding is regulated by the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act. Leadership in movements follows Weber's typology: charismatic founders (Phule, Periyar, Ambedkar) whose authority is later routinised into organisations and parties, with the risk Michels identified of oligarchy within the movement itself.
4. Reservations and politics
Reservation in India — in legislatures, public employment and education — rests on Articles 15(4), 16(4), 46, 330 and 332 for Scheduled Castes and Tribes. For the Other Backward Classes, the first Backward Classes Commission (Kaka Kalelkar, report 1955) was not acted upon; the Mandal Commission, appointed in 1979, reported in 1980 and recommended 27 per cent reservation for OBCs in central services. Its implementation in 1990 provoked intense upper-caste protest and reshaped national politics. In Indra Sawhney (1992) the Supreme Court upheld OBC reservation, capped total reservation at 50 per cent in ordinary circumstances and required the exclusion of the 'creamy layer'. The 103rd Amendment (2019) added a 10 per cent quota for economically weaker sections outside the existing reserved categories.
Sociologists read reservation as a political process as much as a policy. Rajni Kothari's Caste in Indian Politics (1970) argued that democracy did not simply exploit caste but politicised it: castes organised as associations, formed alliances and learned to bargain, which changed caste itself. Srinivas's 'vested interest in backwardness' captured the competition to be listed as backward. Marc Galanter's Competing Equalities (1984) weighed the costs and gains of compensatory discrimination. Christophe Jaffrelot's India's Silent Revolution (2003) traced the rise of lower castes and OBC parties in north India after Mandal, and scholars such as Yogendra Yadav describe a 'second democratic upsurge' of lower-caste participation from the 1990s. Debates continue over sub-categorisation within reserved groups, reservation in private employment, and whether caste or economic criteria should define backwardness.
Key takeaways
- Relative deprivation, Smelser's value-added strain, resource mobilisation, political opportunity and new social movement theory offer competing explanations of why movements arise.
- M.S.A. Rao classified movements as reformist, transformative and revolutionary; Ghanshyam Shah by participants and issues; Oommen studied charisma and institutionalisation.
- Factions are leader-centred and patronage-based (Brass, Bailey); pressure groups are interest-based; Indian movements mobilise on caste, ethnicity, ideology, gender, disability, religion and region.
- Civil society is read through Tocqueville, Gramsci and Chatterjee's political society; Marshall's citizenship expands from civil to political to social rights; NGOs raise the problem of NGO-isation.
- Mandal (1979–80, implemented 1990), Indra Sawhney (1992) and the EWS amendment (2019) frame reservation; Kothari's politicisation of caste, Srinivas's vested interest in backwardness and Jaffrelot's silent revolution analyse it sociologically.
Practice questions (10)
Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.
M.S.A. Rao classified social movements into which three types?
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Answer: A — Reformist, transformative and revolutionary
Rao distinguished movements by the scope of change sought — partial (reformist), middle-level structural (transformative) and total (revolutionary). The other triads belong to Almond and Verba and to Castells.The theory that explains movement emergence mainly by access to money, members, organisation and leadership, treating grievances as relatively constant, is:
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Answer: B — Resource mobilisation theory
McCarthy and Zald (1977) argued that discontent is always present; what explains mobilisation is the availability and organisation of resources, including 'social movement organisations'.Which of the following are among the determinants in Smelser's value-added theory of collective behaviour? Select all that apply.
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Answer: B — Structural conduciveness; C — Generalised belief; D — Precipitating factors
Smelser's six determinants are structural conduciveness, structural strain, generalised belief, precipitating factors, mobilisation for action and the operation of social control. Commodity fetishism is Marx's concept.According to T.H. Marshall, which set of citizenship rights developed in the twentieth century?
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Answer: C — Social rights
Marshall's sequence for England runs civil rights (eighteenth century), political rights (nineteenth century) and social rights — welfare, education, health — in the twentieth century.Assertion (A): Rajni Kothari argued that democratic politics transformed caste in India. Reason (R): Castes organised into associations and alliances to compete for power, becoming politicised in the process. Choose the correct option.
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Answer: A — Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
Kothari's Caste in Indian Politics (1970) made exactly this argument: politics did not merely use caste but politicised it, and the politicisation of caste through associations and alliances is the mechanism by which caste changed.Which statement about the Mandal Commission is correct?
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Answer: B — It was appointed in 1979, reported in 1980 and its OBC recommendation was implemented in 1990
The second Backward Classes Commission under B.P. Mandal was appointed in 1979, reported in 1980 recommending 27 per cent OBC reservation, and was implemented in 1990; the first commission was Kaka Kalelkar's.New social movement theorists such as Touraine, Melucci and Offe argued that post-industrial movements are distinctive because they:
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Answer: C — Focus on identity, culture and quality of life rather than class-based redistribution
Environmental, feminist, peace and gay rights movements were read as expressing post-material values and struggles over meaning and autonomy, unlike the labour movement's class politics.In Indra Sawhney (1992), the Supreme Court required the exclusion of better-off members of backward classes from reservation. What two-word term is used for this group?
Numerical answer — type the value.
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Answer: creamy layer
The 'creamy layer' exclusion aims to direct OBC reservation to those who remain socially and educationally backward, and is defined by income and status criteria fixed by the government.Which of the following pairs of movement and founder is NOT correct?
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Answer: C — Dalit Panthers — Swami Dayananda Saraswati
The Dalit Panthers were founded in 1972 in Maharashtra by Dalit writers and activists such as Namdeo Dhasal and J.V. Pawar; Dayananda Saraswati founded the Arya Samaj.The critique that funded NGOs convert political struggles into donor-dependent projects and blunt radical demands is known as:
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Answer: D — NGO-isation
NGO-isation names the professionalisation and depoliticisation of social movements through project funding. Goal displacement is Merton's concept about bureaucracies, which the NGO-isation critique partly echoes.