Question

essay on social problems in india

Answer 1

The social problems in India today have their roots in the diversity of religion, language, region, culture and caste. Attachment to one’s region, language, religion is a natural sentiment but when these attachments grow to an extreme level to breed intolerance for other religions, regions or languages, problems are bound to rise.In common parlance religion and secularism are juxtaposed as op-positional forces and communalism is viewed as the degenerate manifestation of religion. Thus, the term communalism is used pejoratively and is believed to be a negative social force in contemporary India.  Communalism has come to be perceived as the tendency on the part of a religious group to affirm that it is a political entity.The social problems in India have risen because of a growing intolerance of divergent views. What has gone wrong with the Indian society and culture where tolerance was so deeply embedded in people’s consciousness ?Communal Divide in India, partly of course, resulted from the involvement of masses of people in the freedom struggle, divided along communal lines, ensured the descent of communal tension of the elite level to the base of society.Since Independence India has experimented with an extremely modern political system, namely, multi­-party parliamentary democracy based on universal adult franchise. However, this very modern system in India is often operated with pre-modern units of mobilization.Thus the choice of candidates by most political parties is dictated by the caste or communal or linguistic composition of constituencies and these identities are freely used in mobilizing votes and support.Caste is not a natural institution, but caste attachment based on kinship is one of the most fundamental factors to reckon with in the Indian society. Caste system is a major social problem in India.  Practically all other religionists in India, sometimes including atheists, go by caste considerations even when they do not subscribe to the theory of caste system. Thecaste system is the root cause of poverty in India . The other caste based problems in India are untouchability, caste conflicts, reservation policy, caste barriers and casteism.