Socio-cultural issues in contemporary India

The Indian society has evolved through the ages and advancements have taken place in diverse fields. You have also read in earlier lessons about social reforms in the Indian society.

However, in every society there are socio-cultural issues that need to be addressed and tackled. Security of people, particularly of the vulnerable sections, such as women, children and the elderly people is a major concern in the contemporary Indian society.

Some of the important socio-cultural issues that need to be addressed today are casteism, dowry, communalism, drinking, drug addiction, etc. The issues discussed here are not comprehensive

Caste System

The caste system in India has its roots in ancient India. Just as the ashrama dharma laid down rules and duties with reference to the individual’s life in the world,

varna or caste system prescribed duties with reference to the particular caste to which an individual belonged. Earlier they were all regarded equal in social status and could take up any profession they liked.

There was no restriction in the matter of eating food or marriage with members of other profession. But with the beginning of specializing in hereditary professions and coming in contact with the indigenous people situations changed and the birth of the person decided their caste.

Hence the varna system that developed during that time was the outcome of the social and economic development.

But as time passed, it led to the division of society into high-caste and low-caste people who could not mix with each other. Inter-caste dining or marriage was forbidden.

People belonging to the so called lower castes were exploited and slowly down the ages, their condition became miserable. They were poor and did not enjoy equality in society.

They were not even allowed to draw water from the common wells of the villages, or even could go to the temples or to come close to the people of the so called higher castes.

Thus caste system hampered the healthy growth of different professions as entry into a particular profession was based on birth and not on ability.Caste-based discrimination has at times even led to violence. The caste-system also makes the working of democracy in our country difficult.

Society gets divided into artificial groups that tend to support the candidate who belongs to their caste. They do not pay much attention to the fact whether he/she is a deserving candidate or not. This is not good for the health of democracy in India. Our country cannot make real progress unless this system is uprooted completely.

During the post-independence period, i.e. after 1947, the Government has taken cognizance of these issues and tried to tackle them through legislation (enacting laws to counter these issues) as well as by social action (by involving the civil society, NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) and social groups. These steps have helped in improving the situation but still a lot more needs to be done.

Issues related to women

Our Constitution gives equal rights to both men and women in every field. Today, women enjoy voting rights, right to inheritance and property. In fact, the Constitution lay down that the government should promote with special care the interests of the weaker sections of the people.

Several laws have been passed since independence to promote the interests of women. These laws relate to marriage, inheritance of property, divorce, dowry, etc.

In 1976, the Equal Remuneration Act was passed to provide for equal remuneration to men and women for similar work.

Recently, the government has started a scheme for the protection of girl child. The scheme is called ‘Ladli’, in which an amount is set aside at the time of the birth of a girl child which she gets when she completes eighteen years of age.

This amount is then used for the education or the marriage of the child. Similarly, there is another scheme called ‘Jaccha Baccha scheme’.

Under this scheme, the state governments take care of the birth of the child and all expenditure related to medical assistance for the upbringing of the child. However, in spite of these provisions, we find a lot of discrimination against women.

Gender discrimination:

In India females are discriminated in various fields like health, education and jobs. The girls carry the liability of dowry on their head, and they have to leave their parents home after marriage.

Besides, in order to safeguard their old age parents prefer to have male offspring. Many female babies are aborted, abandoned, deliberately neglected and underfed simply as they are girls.

This is worst in the state of Rajasthan. But now there is a great change in this direction. In some states like Haryana where girl child ratio is very low, the government has taken out many schemes to promote education of girls. Reservation of jobs for women and even six months maternity leave is provided to them besides many others.

The World Bank Document, “A New Agenda for Women’s Health and Nutrition” (Washington 1995) estimates that in developing countries, 450 million adult women have their development problems due to lack of protein input during their childhood. In many communities, women and girls get less food or poor quality food compared to men and boys.

When they are ill, they get less attention or receive some attention only when the disease becomes extremely serious. There is ample evidence at the global level of disparity in health status between men and women and their access to medical services.In a majority of the countries, literacy rate for women is significantly lower than that for men.

In 66 countries, the gap between the male and female literacy rates is estimated to be larger than 10 percentage points and in 40 countries, it is larger than 20 percentage points in the age group of 6-11, which corresponds to primary level education.

According to 2011 census, there is a gap of 16.7 percent between the literacy rate of men and women i.e. men’s literacy rate is 82.14 percent compared to women’s literacy rate that stands at 65.46 percent.

About 24.5 percent (85 million) of the girls in the world are estimated to be out of school compared to 16.4 percent (60 million) boys.In most Indian families, a girl child is least welcome although in India women were respected from the early ages. Even though there are growing instances of girls excelling in education,

tradition, custom, and social practices place greater value on sons than on daughters, who are often viewed as an economic burden.

This attitude of the society also stands in the way of the girl child being able to achieve her full potential. A recent report on the girl child makes the following observations: “Girls are the world’s most squandered gift.

They are precious human beings with enormous potential, but across the world, they are generally the last to have their basic needs met and first to have their basic rights denied.” The need of girls for food clothing, shelter, healthcare, education, nurture, and time to play often goes unmet.

Their rights to safety, freedom from harassment and exploitation, as also their rights to grow, develop and blossom, are denied. Prejudice against the girl child becomes clearer and sharper from the data in sex ratio in the age group 0-6 years.

In the Census, 2011 this ratio has been recorded as 914, down from 927 in the Census, 2001. The child sex ratio has steadily declined from 976 in 1961 to 914 in 2011.

Dowry system in India:

The practice of dowry is one of the worst social practices that has affected our culture. In independent India, one of the landmark legislations is the passing of the Dowry Prohibition Act in 1961 by the Government of India. Despite the fact that the practice of both giving as well as accepting dowry is banned by law and such acts are punishable offences,

the system is so thoroughly imbedded in our culture that it continues unabated. Whether it is rural or urban India, the blatant violation of this law is rampant. Not only dowry deaths, even most of the acts of domestic violence against women including psychological as well as physical torture are related to matters of dowry.

Some of the very basic human rights of women are violated almost every day. Sometimes it is heartening to see some girls stand firm to assert their rights against dowry.

But there is an urgent need to strengthen such hands by taking some concrete as well as comprehensive social, economic, political and administrative measures in order to free Indian society of this disease.