SocietyNCERT Class 12 · Social Change and Development in India

Social Movements

How sustained, organised collective action by ordinary people pushes for (or resists) social change, and how sociology classifies and studies these movements.

⏱ 7 min readGS-I6 sections5 memory tricks

Why this matters for UPSC

A high-yield GS-I 'Indian Society' chapter that supplies the core vocabulary for social empowerment, civil society and people's movements. Prelims loves matching movements to their type and leaders (Chipko, Narayana Guru, Naxalite, RTI) and static hooks like Article 326 and the Chartism figures; Mains uses it for women's movements, environmental movements, NGOs/civil society and the old-vs-new social-movement debate.

Understand the chapter

What Makes a Social Movement (Features)

A social movement is sustained collective action over time, usually aimed at the state to demand (or prevent) a change in policy or practice. It is not the same as a spontaneous, disorganised protest, it needs organisation with leadership and structure, shared objectives and a common ideology, and a general orientation to change. These features are not fixed and can shift over a movement's life. Movements also work through mobilisation, consensus-building, lobbying and distinct modes of protest, not protest alone.

Four markers: sustained collective action, organisation/leadership, shared goals and ideology, orientation to bring or prevent change.
Counter-movements arise to defend the status quo: against Rammohun Roy's anti-sati campaign, defenders formed the Dharma Sabha.
Modes of protest: candle/torch processions, black cloth, street theatre, songs; Gandhi's ahimsa, satyagraha, charkha, salt defiance.
Box 8.2: Gandhi turned everyday items, khadi cloth and Dandi salt, into symbols of resistance against foreign power and capital.

Social Change vs Social Movement (Key Distinction)

Social change is continuous, gradual and the cumulative sum of countless individual and collective actions across time and space, with no single goal. A social movement, by contrast, is goal-directed, organised and sustained effort aimed at specific change. The chapter's clean example: sanskritisation and westernisation are forms of social change, while the 19th-century reformers' deliberate campaigns are social movements.

Social change = ongoing, directionless aggregate; social movement = targeted, organised, time-bound effort.
Sanskritisation and westernisation are social change; anti-sati and widow-remarriage campaigns are social movements.

Why Sociology Studies Movements (Durkheim vs Marx/Thompson)

Sociology emerged amid upheaval, the French Revolution (liberty, equality, fraternity) and Britain's Industrial Revolution, so movements were central from the start. Emile Durkheim, anxious about social order and integration, tended to see movements as forces of disorder. Scholars influenced by Karl Marx, like historian E.P. Thompson, argued the 'crowd' was not a mindless mob but acted on a 'moral economy', a shared sense of right and wrong.

Durkheim: focus on social integration (division of labour, religion, suicide); movements seen as disorder.
Marxist view / E.P. Thompson: the poor protest with reason, a 'moral economy', not anarchy, often because they had no other outlet.

Types of Social Movements

Movements are classified by the depth of change they seek into three types. A redemptive (transformatory) movement changes the personal consciousness and conduct of its members; a reformist movement seeks gradual, incremental change within existing arrangements; a revolutionary movement seeks to radically transform social relations, often by capturing state power. In reality most movements blend all three, and a movement's orientation can shift over time, for example revolutionary to reformist, or mass protest to an institutionalised 'social movement organisation'.

Redemptive: Narayana Guru reforming the Ezhava community in Kerala (changing personal consciousness).
Reformist: 1960s linguistic reorganisation of states; the Right to Information campaign.
Revolutionary: the Bolshevik Revolution (deposing the Tsar); the Naxalite movement against landlords and state officials.
Perception matters: 1857 was a 'mutiny' to the British but the 'first war of Independence' to nationalists.

Old vs New Social Movements and Civil Society

Old social movements centred on reorganising power relations, wages, working conditions, social security, and worked through political parties (the Congress led India's national movement; the Communist Party led China's revolution). New social movements focus on quality-of-life and identity issues such as a clean environment, gender and regional statehood; they cut across class lines and are often international in scope. Rajni Kothari linked India's 1970s surge to disillusionment with a parliamentary democracy 'captured by elites', pushing people into non-party formations; civil society is now the umbrella term covering both parties/trade unions and NGOs, women's and environmental groups.

Old: class-based, party-led, focused on redistributing power (trade unions, workers' parties).
New: identity politics and quality-of-life, cross-class, global (women's movement, statehood, environment).
Rajni Kothari: state institutions captured by elites, so the poor turn to non-party political formations.
Globalisation links: WTO rules and transnational firms; old and new movements ally in the World Social Forum.

Ecological Movements and Chipko

Ecological movements critique a development model that depletes natural resources and wrongly assumes everyone benefits, big dams and industries displace people and pollute. The Chipko Movement in the Himalayan foothills, chronicled by Ramachandra Guha in 'Unquiet Woods', saw villagers, especially women, hug trees to stop forest contractors felling oak and rhododendron. It fused two concerns: social inequality (subsistence villagers versus a profit-seeking, timber-selling state) and ecological sustainability (felling caused floods and landslides), so the 'red' and 'green' issues were one.

'Economy of subsistence' (firewood, fodder, daily needs) pitted against the 'economy of profit' (timber revenue).
'Red' (livelihood/justice) and 'green' (ecology) issues interlinked in a single movement.
Chipko means 'to embrace/cling'; began 1973 in Chamoli district, Uttarakhand (then UP); leaders Sunderlal Bahuguna and Chandi Prasad Bhatt.

Key terms

Social movement: Sustained, organised collective action with shared goals aimed at producing or resisting social change, usually directed at the state.
Counter-movement: Organised resistance arising to defend the status quo against a reform movement (e.g., Dharma Sabha against anti-sati reform).
Redemptive movement: A movement seeking to transform the personal consciousness and conduct of its individual members.
Reformist movement: A movement seeking gradual, incremental change within existing social and political arrangements.
Revolutionary movement: A movement seeking radical transformation of social relations, often by capturing state power.
Moral economy: E.P. Thompson's idea that the protesting crowd acts on a shared sense of right and wrong, not mindless anarchy.
Old vs new social movements: Old are class-based, party-led and power-focused; new are identity/quality-of-life based, cross-class and often global.
Civil society: The arena of non-state collective life: parties, trade unions, NGOs, women's, environmental and tribal groups.
Universal adult franchise: The right of every adult citizen to vote, guaranteed by the Constitution under Article 326.
Satyagraha: Gandhi's method of non-violent resistance, turning everyday items like khadi and salt into symbols of protest.

Must-know facts exam-ready

Universal adult franchise in India is guaranteed by Article 326; voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 by the 61st Constitutional Amendment Act, 1988.
Chartism (England): the People's Charter drew 1.25 million signatures in 1839 and 3.25 million in 1842, demanding universal male suffrage and the right to contest without owning property.
Britain extended broad voting rights only after WWI, in 1918 (all men over 21, plus specified women over 30); suffragettes fought for full women's suffrage.
Raja Rammohun Roy founded the Brahmo Samaj (1828) and campaigned against sati; sati was banned by the Bengal Sati Regulation, 1829.
Three types: redemptive (Narayana Guru/Ezhava), reformist (linguistic states, RTI), revolutionary (Bolshevik, Naxalite).
Right to Information, the chapter's reformist example, became the RTI Act, 2005.
The revolutionary Naxalite movement traces to the 1967 Naxalbari uprising in West Bengal.
Chipko Movement: Himalayan foothills, chronicled by Ramachandra Guha in 'Unquiet Woods'; began 1973 in Chamoli, Uttarakhand; leaders Sunderlal Bahuguna and Chandi Prasad Bhatt.
Durkheim viewed movements as disorder (threat to integration); E.P. Thompson (Marxist) saw the crowd's 'moral economy'.
Rajni Kothari linked India's 1970s movement surge to disillusionment with an elite-captured parliamentary democracy and the rise of non-party political formations.
Old and new movements ally globally in the World Social Forum; binding global rules come via the WTO.
1857 was a 'mutiny/rebellion' to the British but the 'first war of Independence' to Indian nationalists.

Timeline

1789French Revolution: movements overthrow the monarchy for 'liberty, equality, fraternity', forming sociology's backdrop.
1828Raja Rammohun Roy founds the Brahmo Samaj and campaigns against sati.
1829Bengal Sati Regulation bans sati; defenders of the practice form the Dharma Sabha in response.
1839People's Charter (Chartism) gathers 1.25 million signatures in England (3.25 million by 1842).
1917Bolshevik Revolution deposes the Tsar to create a communist state (revolutionary movement).
1918Post-WWI, Britain extends voting rights (all men over 21; specified women over 30).
1967Naxalbari uprising sparks the revolutionary Naxalite movement.
1973Chipko Movement begins in Chamoli, in the Himalayan foothills.

Memory tricks remember it for good

The 3 R's: Redemptive, Reformist, Revolutionary

Redemptive = change the person (Narayana Guru); Reformist = gradual change of the system (RTI, linguistic states); Revolutionary = seize power and remake relations (Bolshevik, Naxalite).

💡 Recall the three-fold classification of movements in increasing depth of change.

SOSO defines a movement

Sustained collective action; Organised with leadership/structure; Shared objectives and ideology; general Orientation to bring or prevent change.

💡 Recall the four features that separate a real movement from a spontaneous protest.

OLD PARTY, NEW IDENTITY

OLD movements = class-based, led by Parties/trade unions, redistribute power; NEW movements = Identity and quality-of-life, cross-class, global (environment, gender, statehood).

💡 Recall the old-vs-new social movement contrast.

Durkheim DISORDER vs Thompson MORAL

Durkheim feared movements as DISORDER (a threat to integration); Marxist E.P. Thompson saw the crowd's MORAL economy (reasoned protest).

💡 Recall the two classic sociological readings of collective protest.

Chipko = RED + GREEN trees

RED = social inequality/livelihood (subsistence villagers vs a profit-seeking state); GREEN = ecological sustainability (felling caused floods and landslides).

💡 Remember Chipko fused justice ('red') and ecology ('green') in one movement.

Traps to avoid

Social change is not a social movement: change is continuous and goalless (sanskritisation, westernisation), while a movement is organised and goal-directed. Do not equate them.
Spontaneous riots or flash protests are not social movements; organisation, leadership and shared ideology are essential.
Redemptive is not revolutionary: redemptive changes the individual's consciousness (Narayana Guru), revolutionary seizes state power (Naxalite/Bolshevik); RTI is reformist, not revolutionary.
Counter-movements are not random anti-socials, they are organised defenders of the status quo (Dharma Sabha against anti-sati reform).
'Old vs new' is about focus, not strict chronology: new movements stress identity and quality-of-life and cut across class; they are not simply 'recent' class struggles.
Chipko is not only environmental, it equally raised livelihood and social-inequality ('red') concerns; reducing it to tree-saving misses half the point.

Exam focus

🧠 Prelims angles

Match-the-type: Narayana Guru to redemptive, RTI and linguistic states to reformist, Naxalite and Bolshevik to revolutionary.
Chipko hooks: region (Himalayan foothills/Chamoli, Uttarakhand), leaders (Bahuguna, Bhatt), chronicler (Ramachandra Guha, 'Unquiet Woods'), 'red and green' issues.
Static linkages: Article 326 (universal adult franchise), 61st Amendment (voting age 18), Bengal Sati Regulation 1829, RTI Act 2005.
Chartism facts: the People's Charter, 1839 (1.25 m) and 1842 (3.25 m) signatures, demand for universal male suffrage; British suffrage in 1918.
Thinkers and terms: Durkheim (integration/disorder), E.P. Thompson ('moral economy'), Rajni Kothari (non-party political process), civil society.
Reformers and bodies: Brahmo Samaj vs Dharma Sabha; Narayana Guru and the Ezhava community of Kerala.

✍️ Mains angles GS-I

How do new social movements differ from old social movements in India?Contrast class/party/power-redistribution (old) with identity/quality-of-life/cross-class/global (new); use Kothari, civil society, women's and environmental movements; conclude that both now ally (World Social Forum).
The Chipko movement shows ecological and social-justice concerns are inseparable. Examine.Use 'economy of subsistence vs economy of profit' and the 'red-green' linkage; villagers vs a revenue-seeking state; floods/landslides; women's central role; widen to other ecological movements.
Social movements are essential to deepening democracy and rights. Comment.Trace rights won through struggle (eight-hour day, franchise/Chartism, civil rights, anti-apartheid); link to Kothari's non-party political process filling gaps in an elite-captured democracy.
Distinguish social change from a social movement with examples.Change is continuous, aggregate and goalless (sanskritisation/westernisation); a movement is organised, sustained and goal-directed (19th-century reform); note movements can institutionalise into social movement organisations.

Practice Society questions from this syllabus →

Last-minute revision tick as you recall

Social movement = sustained + organised + shared-goal collective action, usually aimed at the state.
Four features (SOSO): Sustained, Organised, Shared goals/ideology, Orientation to (prevent) change.
Change is continuous and goalless; a movement is targeted and organised.
3 types: Redemptive (Narayana Guru) | Reformist (RTI, linguistic states) | Revolutionary (Bolshevik, Naxalite).
Durkheim = disorder; Thompson = 'moral economy'; Kothari = non-party politics in the 1970s.
Old = class/party/power; New = identity/quality-of-life/cross-class/global.
Civil society is the umbrella; old + new ally in the World Social Forum; WTO sets global rules.
Chipko: Himalaya, women hug trees, Ramachandra Guha's 'Unquiet Woods', red + green issues.
Static hooks: Article 326 franchise; sati ban 1829; RTI 2005; Chartism 1839/1842.

← PreviousMass Media and Communications

Distilled from NCERT Class 12 · Social Change and Development in India for UPSC. Always cross-check facts with the original NCERT.