TyroCity: Sociology Notes

Victor of Aveyron

Sociology BA LLB — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

Victor ‘the Wild Boy of Aveyron’ is another name on the list that you may sound familiar. Some say that he could be the first documented cause of autism, but he is definitely a well known case of a child that was left alone in the wild. At the end of the 18th century, several people saw Victor wandering in the Saint Sernin sur Rance woods, which is located in southern France. Victor was captured a first time and somehow escaped. It wasn’t until January 8, 1800 that he was caught again after coming out of the woods on his own, though he was spotted several times in 1798 and 1799. At this time he was said to be about 12 years old. His body was covered in scars and he was unable to speak a word. He was taken back to town where he was generally accepted, though once the news spread, many came forward wanting to examine him.

A biology professor, Pierre Joseph Bonnaterre, decided to examine Victor, taking off his clothes and putting him outside in the snow. Victor began to run around in the snow, showing no ill-effects of the cold temperature on his bare skin. It is said that he lived in the wild for about 7 years, so it is no surprise that his body was able to take such extreme weather. Roch-Ambroise Cucurron Sicard then took over and decided to try to teach the boy, though he soon became frustrated at his lack of progress. Though he was probably born with the ability to talk and hear, he never did so properly after being left in the wild. He was eventually taken to the Paris Institution des Sourds-Muets where he lived with Mme Guérin and died at the age of 40.

John Ssebunya

Sociology BA LLB — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

It is said that John Ssebunya, also known as ‘The Ugandan Monkey Boy,’ ran away from home when he was three years old after witnessing his father murder his mother. He fled to the Ugandan jungles where he was said to be taken care of by green African monkeys. In 1991 he was found hiding in a tree by a woman named Millie who was a local tribeswoman. After spotting him she went back to her village to alert the men who then went into the jungle to capture John. While they were eventually successful, John and the monkeys, which had become his protectors, fought back, throwing sticks to defend him. In the end he was captured and taken back the village.

Once back in the village he was cleaned up but his entire body was covered in hair called hypertrichosis, a condition that brings about excessive amounts of hair in places that there usually isn’t hair. Also since he was living in the wild he had contracted a case of intestinal worms that were said to be over half a meter long once they exited his body. He was full of injuries- mainly his knees from imitating how a monkey walks. He was then given to Paul and Molly Wasswa who ran an orphanage, and the two taught him how to speak, though many believe he knew how to talk before running away. Today he sings with the Pearl of Africa children’s choir and exhibits little to no animalistic behavior.

Vanya Yudin

Sociology BA LLB — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

One of the more recent cases of a feral child is Vanya Yudin (referred to by news agencies as ‘the Russian Bird Boy’). It is said that when he was found by Russian caseworkers in 2008, he was 7 years old and unable to speak. He did nothing but chirp and flap his arms as if he had wings, and exhibited a lot of the behavior that you would expect from a bird. He was kept in a two-room apartment with bird cages filled with dozens of birds that were owned by his mother. Galina Volskaya, one of the social workers taking part in the case stated that even though the boy lived with his mother, she never spoke to him and she simply treated him like another one of her pets. When Volskaya attempted to talk to the boy, he didn’t speak, just chirped.

While he was never abused physically, the boy was still treated with similar methods to others on the list due to the lack of human interaction. He was put into an asylum where he received treatment to allow him to become more human-like. After, he was sent to a center for psychological care to further his journey to becoming more socially aware and accepted.

Caste & Ethnic based inequality

Sociology BA LLB — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

Caste

Anthonio Giddens: ‘A form of stratification in which an individual’s social position is fixed at birth and cannot be changed. There is virtually no intermarriage between the members of different caste groups’

H.H Risley defined caste as ‘…a collection of families or groups of families bearing a common name, claiming common descent from a mythical ancestor, human or divine, following the same hereditary calling, and regarded as forming a homogeneous community.’ (HH. Risley cited in Dwivedi 2012:111).

The varna consist of four categories, each ranked differently in terms of social honour. Below these four groupings are the ‘untouchables’, those in the lowest position of all. The jati are locally defined groups within which the caste ranks are organized… Those in the highest varna, the Brahmins, represent the most elevated condition of purity, the untouchables the lowest. (Giddens 1989: 213).

The term ‘caste’ is derived from the Portuguese word ‘casta’. Portuguese explorers in the 15th century used the term casta to describe the social organization they encountered among the Hindus of South Asia.

H.H Risley defined caste as ‘…a collection of families or groups of families bearing a common name, claiming common descent from a mythical ancestor, human or divine, following the same hereditary calling, and regarded as forming a homogeneous community.’
Anthony Giddens (1989: 735) ‘an individual’s social position is fixed at birth and cannot be changed’.

‘The varna consist of four categories, each ranked differently in terms of social honour. Below these four groupings are the ‘untouchables’, those in the lowest position of all. The jati are locally defined groups within which the caste ranks are organized… Those in the highest varna, the Brahmins, represent the most elevated condition of purity, the untouchables the lowest. (Giddens 1989: 213).’

Major divisions in caste

Brahmin: Only the children of Brahmin is a Brahmin. This is the caste of Hindu priests whose high status is based on their purity by birth which gives them exclusive religious right to perform Hindu rituals. They also enjoy special rights to arbitrate between what is religiously wrong and right. Their caste also compels them to live in a strict discipline allowing them only vegetarian food, making it compulsory for them to learn Sanskrit language, and to learn Hindu rituals. ‘The Brahmin priesthood was originally a class only, which grew into a close hereditary caste on the strength, mainly of their special possession of ancient hymns and their knowledge of how these were to be employed with due effect in various offices of religion’(Whitney cited in The Vedas 2003:22)

Kshatriya: is the second highest category in Hindu varna system. This is the caste belonging to warriors. Most of the Kshatriya believe that they are the descendants of Kshatriya warriors of the past. They believe that their duty is to protect not only the ethical values as defined by Hindu sacred scriptures but also the caste system based social order itself.

Vaisya: This category is the third highest caste. The duty they are ascribed to are trade, agriculture and money lending.

Shudra: Shudra are believed to impure caste whose sole duty is to serve the top three castes in Hindu society.

Panchammas: The fifth caste in Hindu caste system are called by different names. Some called them Panchamas (the fifth varna), others call them Asprushya (“untouchables”) but they prefer to define themselves as ‘Dalit’ which means “suppressed” in Sanskrit language. The word Dalit was first used by Indian social reformer Mahatma Jyotirao Govindrao Phule around mid-1800s. Many social rights activists from Shudra caste also define themselves as Dalits.

Further division

Four Varna was categorized into two mainly two categories: (i) Savarna and (ii)Avarna (Dwivedi 2012:112). In the beginning the Shudra castes were included in the Savarna category along with Brahmin, Kshatriya, and Vaisya and differentiated them from Avarnas which included ‘conquered people, servants, and Yavans (non-Aryan invaders from the west, including Greeks, Persians and others)’ (Dwivedi 2012:112). The Shudras were later dropped from the Sarvana category(Dwivedi 2012: 112).

Modernization

Sociology BA LLB — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

‘…modernization involves change in the basic values of society. In particular it means the gradual acceptance by groups within the society of universalistic and achievement-based norms, the emergence of loyalties and identifications of individuals and groups with the nation-state, and the spread of the assumption that citizens have equal rights against the state and equal obligations to the state.’

-Samuel P. Huntington

Features of modernization

Dominance of Rational culture
Use of science and reasoning in lifestyle work and education
From traditional to democratic nation state
Highest loyalty to the nation state than to religion, tribe, ethnic group or political organization.
Goal achievement based culture
State laws are more powerful and dominant than religious and tribal laws.
Use of meritocracy in recruitment (education or employment).
From family based management of organization to professional based management.
Use of science and technology in economic, political and cultural sectors of society:

Economic sector: Use of technology in agriculture.
Politics: Use of electronic voting system during elections or use of mass media for election campaign
Cultural sector: The use of internet to study Vedas, Quran or Torah or Bible etc.

Dominance of this life and this world attitude.

Modernization in Nepal

Modernization of the state
- From absolute monarchy to military dictatorship
- Military dictatorship to Panchayat dictatorship
- Panchayat dictatorship to democratic state
Modernization of education
- Religious and tribal education to formal education
- From propaganda based state led Panchyat education to facts based education
- From facts based to more reasoning and critical thinking based education.
Modernization of culture
- From belief in caste system to the belief in the equality of everyone
- From belief in male superiority to the belief that men and women are equal.
- Mono-cultural tendency to multicultural
Modernization of economy
- From agricultural to trade, service and industry based economy
- From use of traditional equipment to the use of modern technologies.
Modernization of infrastructure
- Traditional roads to roads that are planned by engineers and sociologists.
- Traditional transportation system (horse, elephants) to modern motors, planes etc.
- Traditional source of light to electricity and solar based electricity.
Modernization of Law
- Law based on religion to law based on human rights and democratic principals.
Modernization of health
- From use of shamans to the use of doctors
- Hospital services in village level

Sanskritization

Sociology BA LLB — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

‘Sanskritization is actually a sociological phenomenon whereby in brief the lower castes take over the practices of Brahmins such as vegetarianism and perform the rituals for the major Hindu divinities’-Krishna B Bhattachan

Sanskritization, Hinduization, and Nepalization took place in Nepal were interconnected and help the development of each other.

The concept ‘Sanskritization’ has been used by various sociologists and anthropologists to study the social change in caste societies in India and later in Nepal. In Nepal scholars like Prayag Raj Sharma and Collin Rosser have used the concept to study the process in which a low caste attempts to rise to a higher caste by adopting the life of the higher caste. The term, for the first time, is defined by M.N Srinivas in his book “Religion and Society among the Coorgs of South India” as follows:

“The caste system is far from a rigid system in which the position of each component caste is fixed for all time. Movement has always been possible, and especially so in the middle regions of the hierarchy. A low caste was able, in a generation or two, to rise to a higher position in the hierarchy by adopting vegetarianism and teetotalism, and by Sanskritizing its rituals and pantheon. In short, it took over, as far as possible, the customs, rites, and beliefs of the Brahmins, and the adoption of the Brahminic way of life by a low caste seems to have been frequent, though theoretically forbidden. This process has been called “Sanskritization” in this book, in preference to “Brahminization”, as certain Vedic rites are confined to the Brahmins and the two other “twice-born” castes ”.

According Srinivas he found in most Hindu societies the tribal and low caste people trying to imitate Brahmin life style. He called it Brahminization. He later concluded that low caste and tribal people were trying to imitate Brahmin, Kestriya and Vaishya (high castes) life style. He changed the from Brahminization to Sanskritization as the imitation was not limited to Brahmin but high caste Hindu life style itself.

Srinivas has pointed three essential characteristics of Sanskritization:

It is a group process which does not apply to an individual
Few generations are need to successfully complete the Sanskritization
Sanskritization is a process that has never worked for the untouchables because other Hindus cannot accept them as pure no matter how much they sanskritize.

Why Sanskritization is adopted by tribal and low castes:

Economic betterment
The acquisition of political power
Education
Leadership,
A desire to move up in the hierarchy

Sanskritization in the context of Nepal apply to Janajati and Dalits but mostly janajatis:

	From	To
Birth	Tribal, Janajati or Dalit birth rituals	Hindu birth rituals.
Infant	Animist, Buddhist or tribal socialization process of infant socialization	Hindu scripture focused socialization. Pasne is an example of this.
Name	Traditional name	Hindu name
Adolescent	Tribal ritual to	Hindu rituals like Bartamana and Gufa
Marriage	Traditional form of marriage	Hindu rituals in marriage
Death	Traditional cremation of dead	Hindu death ritual
Family	Tribal family Matriarchal	Joint Patriarchal
Language	Mother tongue	Nepali and Hindi
Cloths	Tribal, Janajati and Dalit dress	Hindu dress
Lifestyle		Imitation of Hindu life style
Food	Traditional food such as pork, beef, deer, chicken	No beef, non pork, Hindu foods
Occupation	Traditional occupation that contradicted with Hindu values	Leaving occupations that are considered by Hindus to be inauspicious and impure
Politics	Traditional village head	Village headed by Brahmin or Chetris
Religion	Traditional religions: Buddhism, Animism,	Hinduism Celebration of Hindu festivals.

History of Sanskritization in Nepal

1200-1769 Newar Malla kingdoms flourished in Kathmandu valley.

1743 Prithivi Narayan Shah is officially crowned as the king of Gorkha

1769 King Prithivi Naraya Shah of Gorkha subdues the last Newar Malla kingdom of the Kathmandu valley: origins of modern Nepal

Nathu and Pralad Gurung the two military officers in the Gorkha army had played a key role in the conquest of Kumaon and Garhwal region for the Gorkha Empire.

One the very first thing that Prithivi Narayan Shah’s Gorkha empire did was to ban cow slaughter in Gorkha kingdom which was a beginning of Hindu kingdom.
Each Gorkha army regiment had a Bahun pujari or priest who worshiped for the regiment thus Hinduizing the Janajatis .
In 1761 Prithivi Narayan Shah banned Jaisi Bahun from performing Vedic rituals.
The elite within Adivasi Janajati community were inclined to identify themselves as Hindus because they wanted to be closer to the Hindu ideology dominated Gorkha empire during Shah period, Rana period and Panchyat period.
This shift to Hinduism or what sociologists would call SANSKRITIZATION made Janajatis SPLIT into Hindu and non Hindu communities.
To identify themselves as Hindus the Janajati accepted Kashi Gotra or Aryan ancestry.
Janajati who accepted Kashi Gotra or Aryan ancestry were called as follows:
- Athar Jat among Tamang
- Bara Thar among Sunuwar
- Char Jat among Gurung
- Kutang among Bhotia
- Pradhan among Tharus
- Pukanthali among Chepangs
Janajati who rejected Kashi Gotra or Aryan ancestry and followed Lasha Gotra or Bodic ancestry system were called as follows:
- Bara Jat among Tamang
- Das Thar among Sunuwar
- Sorah Jat among Gurung
- Nighin among Bhotia
- Apradhan among Tharus
- Kachare among Chepangs

1806: Assassination of Rana Bahadhur Shah and rise of Bhimsen Thapa-Prime Minister

Bhimsen Thapa introduced modernization in Nepali army.

1814-1816 Anglo-Nepal war East India Company restricted the alarming growth of the Gorkha empire.

Nepal lost Kumaon, Garhwal and Tarai entire

1837 Bhimsen Thapa was overthrown.

1846 Jang Bahadur Kunwar stages a coup and installs hereditary line of prime ministers: beginning of Rana period

1850-51 Jang Bahadur visits England and France

1854 Promulgation of Muluki Ain, Nepal’s first legal code.

Muluki ain helped sanskritization and hinduization even further

Genie

Sociology BA LLB — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

If you ever take a Psychology class or get into a conversation about feral children, Genie’s name will probably come up. For 13 years she was locked inside a room and strapped to her potty chair, other times she was bound in a sleeping bag and put inside a crib. Her father, the one behind the abuse, would hit her with a stick if she ever spoke and he would bark and growl at her to keep her quiet. He also forbade his other children and even his wife from speaking. Because of this, Genie had a very small vocabulary, consisting of about 20 words. The phrases she did know included “stop it” and “no more.” She was discovered in 1970 and today she is considered to be one of the worst cases of social isolation known. She was often thought to be autistic until doctors found out she was really 13 and was a victim of abuse.

She was taken to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles where she was treated for years. After some treatment, she was able to answer questions in one-word answers and she learned how to dress herself. However, she still held onto her learned behavior, including a “bunny walk” where she held her hands up in front of her as if they were paws. She also scratched and even clawed at things. Though she was moved around a lot, she found home with her therapist David Rigler for 4 years, who worked with her daily. He and his family taught Genie sign language as well as ways to express herself without speaking; drawing was a method. Genie then went to live with her mother, and then abusive foster parents, which then caused her to become mute again and afraid to speak. Today she is living somewhere in Southern California.

Detail Theories of Thomas Hobes

Sociology BA LLB — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

Believed that life in the state of nature is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”.
His most famous work is Leviathan.
Believed that humans are inherently bad because everyone is self-interested.
Hobbs felt it was best to submit to the will of a Sovereign without question.
Man entered into government for Safety.
The main role of government is to protect its citizens.
Rights and liberty always come after safety and protection.
Never overthrow the government because doing so creates anarchy and then there is no safety.

Nepalization

Sociology BA LLB — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

‘Nepalization refers to the process by which members of other ethnic communities in Nepal adopt the language , religion and other cultural practices of the country’s dominant Brahman-Chetri ethnic groups. These practices are the cultural template for a Nepali national identity.’- Arjun Guneratne – 2002 wrote in her book Many Tongues, One People: The Making of Tharu Identity in Nepal:

Features of Nepaization

Change in mother tongue:
People leaving abandoning their mother tongue and accepting Nepali language.Change in religion
People who are not Hindus declaring themselves as Hindus.

Change within Hinduism
Hindu Madheshi and Hindu Newars following Hinduism that are practiced by Parbatiya Brahmins and Chettris.

Use of language in government offices.

Only Nepali mother used in government offices (pre 2006 People’s Movement)

Rest is similar to Sanskritization

History of Nepalization 1774 Nepali state had granted autonomy to Limbu elites in a 1774. Kipat system so that they would join the Nepali or erstwhile Gorkha state.

Nepalization during the into Gorkha was done in the four following manners during the pre Rana period:

Cultural assimilation and reward as in case of Gurung and Magars who were told they were Hindus and Gorkhas.

They received large share of land ownership.

Gurungs were given lordship over large areas of Rai and Limbu land for their help to Prithivi Narayan Shah.

Their caste system increased along with other Khas groups.
Accommodation through Concession : Kirat area came under Gorkhas when the Gorkhas promished the Kirats that Kirats will be allowed to hold land according to Kipat sustem.

Kirats (Rai and Limbus) who had Kipat land were not required to pay land tax to Gorkha empire.

Raikar land in rest of Nepal except in Kirat area had to pay tax to Gorkhas.

Labour exploitation: Tamang community were exploited as labourers for military and mercantile purposes. This also took place in Kumaon and Garhwal.

Vengeance and fear: Newars (mass mutilation in Kirtipur) and other Khas kingdoms and feudal warlords especially in Karnali basin had to face ruthless vengeance of Gorkhali. Torture in Karnali is still called Gorkhali Lathi.

Another historical process of Hinduization and Nepalization began with the recruitment of non Hindu Janajatis into Gorkha army:

GORKHA ARMY AND NEPALIZATION

Khas-Bahun commander and powerful Janajati sub commanders composed of Gorkha army.
In many cases Magars and Gurungs were powerful commanders of Gorkha army

Gorkha army did not have a one culture group character as if it was the only Khas army.It had multi ethnic military character
To make sure that Magars were part of Gorkha empire’s campaign to unify Nepal the Gorkha king Prithivi Narayan Shah had claimed ‘I am king of Magars’

Harka Gurung claimed that Gorkha army and British Gorkha army Hinduized and Parbatiyaized the Janajati soldiers.

According to Harka Gurung out of 10 Gorkha regiment in British army in India only 1 was reserved for Thakuri and Chetri combined.

These majority Janajati armies were Hinduized

They were Instructed in Nepali language

They were taught Nepali script

Since they earned more and had more respect in their village than than non army Janajatis hence when they returned to their village they were able to further Hinduize and Nepalize other Janajatis
Between 1914-18 some 100,000 Gorkhas support British in World War I. Most of these were from Janajati community who were Nepalized, Sanskritized and Hinduized by the British.

Panchayat period and Nepalization

The Panchayt system failed to unite the Parbatiya and non-Parbatiya, Hindus and non-Hindus, so-called-high-caste and Dalits. Panchayat ideologues were working towards the fusion of modernism and Hinduism for an alternative non-Indian Hinduisms and non-western modernism. The arrival of Panchayat as the dictatorial system in 1960 was a desperate attempt to forcefully impose a new version of the Nepali Nationalist Ideology based on Hinduism, Nepali language and Parbatiya culture. This has been called as Nepalization in sociology and anthropology in Nepal although many scholars have challenged this term.

Nepali nationalism during the Panchayat era was based on the following 4 core issues:

Extreme loyalty to the king.
Fluent Nepali language
Hill Hindu religion
Parbatiya culture (dress and arts)
Education materials to support the above four pillars

Alfred Schutz : Phenomenology

Sociology BA LLB — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

Typification is the process in which the people make sense of the world. Typification is well explained in First Order and Human Action.

Making sense of the world.

First Order
First Order deals with how consciousness is developed in individuals.

Experience of different events. Experience have been defined by Schutz as “Knowledge at hand”.
Classification of experience (good action, bad action, efficient action, ineffective action).
Choosing relevant experience to achieve one’s goal. This process is called “SYSTEM OF RELEVANCE”.
Perception: Perception involves the use of previous knowledge and use of imagination to understand a situation. For example: If I see a something that looks like a book then I use my past experience of seeing books and then also imagine that what I am now seeing could be book. The imagination part involves guess work. When the guess is tested ( falsified or proven ) then perception takes place. Perception is:

Use of past experience
Use of imagination
Test of guess
Falsified or proving of the guess work we did in our mind.

5. Interpretation: The experience may be same but interpretation of the experience is different among different people. For example: Mr. X and Mrs. Y were both bitten by a dog. Mr. X. when he saw a dog near his house he interpreted it as a a danger and was afraid. Mrs. Y on the other hand when she saw a dog outside her house she thought that the dog that bit her in the past and the dog outside her house is different hence she gave food to the dog without being afraid. Experience may be the same (bitten by a dog ) but interpretation people make will be different.

6. The plan of future action is defined by Schutz as “Purpose at hand”.

Second Order
Understanding the process of ‘First Order’ during research.

Social Science and Phenomenology

‘Research Objects’ or people being studied for the research are themselves ‘interpreting’ and making sense’ of the world in their own way. Researcher must understand this.
The research becomes more complex because the process of ‘making sense’ among the research object is ongoing/continuous.
Researcher needs to understand the individual and social experience of ‘research objects’. This is again an ongoing process.
Schutz argues that researcher needs to also study the ‘meaning’ that actions have for the ‘research objects’.
Unlike other research the phenomenology guided research sees the world as not something ‘concrete, fixed and real’ but as something that has ‘always changing meanings and meaning with diversity’.
There is a danger that the researcher may use his own experience to understand the views of the ‘research objects’. This will not help the researcher to understand the world in a proper manner. To address this problem A. Schutz argues that the researcher needs to use ‘Bracketing’. Bracketing’ is a process in which the researcher suspend his knowledge. Not to forget that knowledge comes from experience.

Ideal Citizen (Also called well-informed citizen)

Ideal Citizens are those imaginary citizens who are well-informed about
- Politics
- Economics
- And above all their constitutional rights.
The Ideal Citizens studies the sources of their information and the information itself to be better informed so that they can fully participate in democratic process of their country.
Ideal Citizen’s power lies in her access to information.
Schutz compares this Ideal Citizen with other people. In this comparison he finds that normal human beings are in many ways like his Ideal Citizen because:

Every person seeks as much information as she can have access with.
For example a car mechanic will try to get as much information about car maintenance as possible.
Mechanic will get information from different source but he will only collect those information that are from the relevant and reliable source.
Mechanic like the Ideal Citizen will study the information in such a way that he will classify it into useful and useless category.
Among the useful category of information he will further extract the essential information.

Human Action
Human Action according to Schutz takes places by following the pattern given below:

1. Motives: a person thinks of achieving something (for example students wants to pass exam).
2. Project: This is called the rehearsal of action. In project the person mentally imagines of performing the future action. For example a boy friends imagines that when he meets his girlfriend then he will tell her a joke to impress her.
3. Project testing: When the boyfriends meets his girlfriend he tells her the joke but she instead of being impressed with the boy gives a tight slap to him. This is called falsified project. If she had smiled then it would have been called successful.
4. Repetition: If the project testing is successful then the person will repeat the same action and this repetition becomes what Schutz calls Common sense.

Confusion: Schutz argued that common sense has its own limitations because no two events are exactly the same. The success in one event does not guarantee the success in the similar other events. For example the joke that caused the girlfriend of Mr. X to slap him in 1999 does not guarantee that it will also cause every girl to react in the same way. Because of this the people who think deeply will not always trust their ‘experience’. This is confusion.

Caste inequality

Sociology BA LLB — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

Class based inequality

‘India lives in her villages, we’re told, in every other sanctimonious public speech. That’s bullshit, just a figleaf. India dies in her villages.’
– Arundhati Roy

“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: ie, the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.”
– Karl Marx

‘[Classes are] large groups of people differing from each other by the place they occupy in a historically determined system of social production, by their relation (in most cases fixed and formulated in law) to the means of production, by their role in the social organization of labor, and, consequently, by the dimensions of the share of social wealth of which they dispose and the mode of acquiring it.’- Vladimir Lenin, A Great Beginning – June, 1919

Routledge Encyclopedia of International Political Economy: Entries A-F:

‘The main body of class analysis is based on Marxist and Weberian approaches. The Marxist conception of class defines it as a group of people with a common relationship to the structure of political and economic power within a particular society. The Weberian perspective views class as a group of individuals who are categorized according to common socioeconomic indicators that are termed ‘life chances’. While the Marxist and Weberian approaches differ in many respects they share three important characteristics. First both approaches hold the control of economic resources as central to class analysis. Second the approaches define a particular class location in relation to its links with other class location in relation to its links with other class locations. Third they both view class as an explanatory factor in determining the means and limitations of an individual’s pursuit of material resources such as income’.

‘We can define class as a large scale grouping of people who share common economic resources, which strongly influence the type of lifestyle they are able to lead. Ownership of wealth together with occupation are the chief bases of class differences’- Anthony Giddens.

Erik Olin Wright:

Three types of classes:

Control over investment or money capital
Control over factory and offices
Control over labour power.

Above 85 percent people of the world belong to third category.

Class according to Max Weber

Max Weber argued that class can be understood by understanding people’s access to economic wealth, social prestige and political power( three-component theory of stratification).

Economic wealth: There are people who own property and there are those don’t. And there are those who own very less.

Social Prestige/status: There are people who are highly respected in society because of their status. For example people who occupy certain position are more respected than people who do not occupy that position. For example a professor who owns no car (economic wealth) is more respected in society than a thief who owns three such cars. This is social prestige.

Political power: Sometimes people with no economic wealth and no social status have more power to influence their will in society than those who have (wealth and status). For example a woman without wealth or status can impose her will as against the will of rich or prestigious male in society because such woman may have support from organized sources such as women’s workers’ union. These organized sources may be religious, ethnic, racial, ideological but it is powerful because it can force society to accept their will. Weber sees class divided into class (economic wealth), status (social prestige) and party (political power).

Karl Marx and the theory of class

For Karl Marx there is only two types of classes. One is called the dominant class and another is the dominated class. The main difference between these two is that the dominant class owns the means of production (factory for example) and the dominated class workers on the means of production to produce (work as a factory worker). For Karl Marx the class that owns the means of production (ie wealth) automatically controls political power and social status.

Marx saw different dominant class in different economic society with different means of production. Here are some examples:

Primitive Communism Society

There are no classes in this society

Slave Master Society

Exploited slave class and the slave owning class called the masters class.

Feudalism

Feudal lords (exploiters – ruling class) who owns the agricultural land and serfs (exploited class) who work in these lands. Bourgeois or traders class destroy feudalism. They free serfs from dependence on lords and thus prepare the ground for capitalistic society.

Capitalistic society

Exploitation of workers (proletariat) by capitalists (bourgeoisie).

Socialistic society

Working class who wants socialism and controls the state and former capitalists who want to go back to capitalistic society.

Communistic society

No class

Class system is different from caste, ethnicity and gender:

Class system are not based on religious and legal provisions. For example the people of two different classes can marry.
Individual’s class is achieved and not ascribed.
Class is fluid that means there can be social mobility upwards or downwards.
Class differences are based on economic differences between groups or individuals.

Class structure in Nepal

Ownership of housing units: Altogether, 85.26 percent of the households reside in their own house whereas 12.81 percent in rented, 0.63 percent in institutional and 1.30 percent in other arrangements. In urban areas, 40.22 percent live in rented house. Kathmandu district has the highest percentage (58.65) of households living in rented house.
Type of foundation of house: Nearly ten percent (9.94 %) of total households live in houses with the foundation having RCC pillar, 17.57 percent households in house with foundation made up of cement-bonded bricks, 24.9 percent in wooden pillar, 44.21 percent in mud-bonded bricks and 2.33 in other type of foundations. In urban areas, 28.42 percent of the households live in houses with the foundation having RCC pillars ( reinforced concrete column )

Usual fuel for cooking: About two-third of the total households (about 64 percent) use Firewood as the usual source of fuel for cooking followed by LPG (21.03 percent), cow

dung (10.38 percent). Bio-gas and Kerosene is used for cooking by 2.43 and 1.03 percent

of the total households respectively. Very few households (0.08 percent) use Electricity as usual fuel for cooking. In urban areas, more than two third (67.68 percent) of the total households use LPG as their usual fuel for cooking.

Toilet in the house: More than one third (38.17 percent) of the total households do not have a toilet in their houses. Almost all the households without toilet (95.4%) are in rural areas. More than 75 percent of households in Saptari, Siraha, Rolpa and Rautahat districts do not have a toilet in their houses.

Household facility	Nepal	Urban	Rural
Radio	50.82	53.56	50.17
TV	36.45	60.67	30.66
Cable TV	19.33	53.80	11.10
Internet	3.33	12.11	1.24
Telephone	7.37	22.66	3.72
Mobile phone	64.63	84.07	59.98
Motor	1.57	4.03	0.98
Motorcycle	9.58	23.62	6.23
Cycle	32.38	29.95	32.96
Refrigerator	7.16	23.21	3.33

Absent member in households: One in every four households (25.42%; 1.38 million households) reported that at least one member of their household is absent or is living out of country. Total number of absent population is found to be 1,921,494 against 0 .76million in 2001. The highest proportion (44.81 percent) of absent population is from the age group 15 to 24 years. Gulmi, Arghakhanchi and Pyuthan districts reported the highest proportion of their population being absent (staying abroad).

Percent of households receiving remittance has increased from 23 percent in 1995/96 to about 56 percent in 2010/11

Food: In NLSS-III, around 8 percent of households reported that they could not afford to eat what they normally eat at one or more times during the past 30 days from the day of enumeration. Most of the households that experienced food shortages tried to overcome the situation by resorting to “borrowing the food or money to buy food”.

Nutrition Status of Children

The proportions of children (less than 5 years of age) who are underweight, stunted and wasted are 31, 42 and 14 percent respectively. The corresponding proportions for severe underweight, stunting and wasting among children are 8, 15 and 3 percent respectively.

Land tenure

About 95 percent of the agricultural households own land and 10 percent rent out some or all of their land to others. On the other hand, 32 percent of households operate at least some land rented-in from others. At the other extreme, 5 percent households do not own any land but operate land owned by others on contractual basis.

*Agriculture Equipment *

A large majority of farmers still use locally made agricultural tools. Mechanization of agriculture is at a very low stage. About 52 percent of farmers own the most basic equipment – a plough or improved type of plough (bikase halo). About 33 percent of farmers use bins and containers for grain storage. Only one percent of farmers own tractor or power tiller.

Food

Overall, 16 percent of the respondents think that food consumption in their households is “less than adequate” (or inadequate), while 82 percent say it is “just adequate” and the remaining 2 percent answer “more than adequate”. The percentage of households reporting “inadequacy” of food consumption is higher in rural areas than in urban areas. The proportion of respondents reporting “inadequacy” is the highest in the far-western region (25 percent) and the lowest in the central region. Among analytic domains, this proportion is the highest in the mountains and the lowest in the Kathmandu valley urban areas,

Clothing

At the national level, 17 percent of households report to have “inadequate” clothing for their family members while 82 percent report it as “just adequate”. About a third and a fourth of the households in the mid west and the far west development regions respectively report to have less than adequate clothing for their family.

Among the domains, the highest incidence of reported clothing inadequacy is in the mountains (33 percent) followed by the rural mid and far western hills (31 percent) while the lowest incidence is in the Kathmandu valley urban areas (6 percent) followed by the urban Tarai (9 percent). The poorest quintile has the highest proportion of households reporting clothing inadequacy (35 percent) while the top quintile has only 4 percent of households reporting this “inadequacy”.

Health Care

Overall, 18 percent of households perceive their health care to be “less than adequate”. The percentage of households reporting health care as “just adequate” is 79 percent.

Schooling

In Nepal, 16 percent of households in the country think that schooling for their children is less than adequate, 70 percent think to be just adequate, and for 13 percent it is “not applicable” (i.e., they don’t have school-age children). The proportion of households reporting less than adequate schooling is roughly one fourth in each of the following regions: the mountains zone, mid and far west development regions, the rural mid and far west hills, and the rural mid and far west Tarai. A similar proportion of households in the poorest household consumption quintile think that schooling for their children is inadequate .

Income

About 49 percent of the households in the country perceive their total income as less than adequate and 50 percent think it to be just adequate. The percentage of households reporting their income as “more than adequate” is around one percent only

Food Security

In NLSS III, households are asked whether they had experienced any food shortages or shortage of money to buy adequate food for the family in the last 30 days preceding the day of enumeration. They are also asked what coping strategy they had to resort to in case of such shortages. Overall, about 8 percent households in the country report shortage of foods or money to buy foods in the last 30 days; this proportion is double for rural areas than for urban areas. Among the households who experience food shortage, the highest proportion (about 43 percent) faces the shortage for 3 to 5 days and about one-fourth of them face 1 to 2 days of such scarcity. There seems no significant difference between urban and rural areas regarding the proportion of households reporting food shortages for 5 days or less

Stunting Among Children

This is the proportion of children under five that fall below minus two and below minus three standard deviations from median height-for-age of WHO reference population.

Forty-two percent of children under five are stunted and 15 percent are severely stunted. Stunting is slightly higher among females than among males.

Underweight Children

This is the proportion of children under five that fall below minus two and below minus three standard deviations from median weight-for-age of WHO reference population25.

Thirty-one percent of children (less than five years of age) are underweight and 8 percent are severely underweight. Both the rates for females are higher than those for males.

Wasted

Fourteen percent of children are wasted and 3 percent are severely wasted. The wasting rates for females are slightly bigger than those for males.

Traian Caldarar

Sociology BA LLB — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:41:42 +0000

Another recent case of a feral child, Traian Caldarar (found in 2002) is often referred to as ‘the Romanian Dog Boy’ or ‘Mowgli,’ after the main character in the Jungle book. He had lived apart from his family for 3 years since the age of 4. When he was found at the age of 7 he was said to be the size of an average 3 year old due to a lack of proper nutrition. His mother was a victim of domestic violence who left her husband. It is believed that Traian also ran away from the home sometime afterwards. Traian lived in the wild and when he was found in 2002 in Brasov, Rom?nia. He found shelter in a cardboard box covered with a sheet. Traian had a severe case of rickets, poor circulation, and infected wounds. Because of his age, those who discovered Traian believed that stray dogs helped to keep him alive.

Traian was only found because a car belonging to a shepherd named Manolescu Ioan broke down and he had to walk through pastures, during which he spotted the boy. When he was found, the body of a dog was found nearby and many assume that he was eating the dog as a way to stay alive. Once he was taken into care, he would sleep under his bed instead of on it and would often want to eat. When he didn’t have food he became very irritable and often slept right after meals.

In 2007, it was reported that Traian was doing well under the care of his grandfather and in grade 3 at school. When asked about his school, he said “I like it here, coloring, play and learn to write and read. We have toys, cars, teddy bears, and the food is very good,” (translasted from Romanian newsite