Revision summary
The old working-class problem was the mill and the union. The informal majority now faces hidden employers and no career. Migration and home-based women’s work broke the factory neighbourhood. Caste and gender structure the worst informal tasks. Organisation must follow the chain, not wait for a mill gate.
Model answer
Introduction
The informal-sector working class in India now faces problems of no employer, no union, and no career, more than the old mill-strike against a visible factory boss. The nature of the problem changed with liberalisation and rural out-migration.
Body
Older working-class problems
- Organised mills and plantations had wages, unions, and a clear opponent. Desai could map industrial class in that frame.
- Informal work always existed. It was not yet the majority story of ‘working class’ in public talk.
Changing problems
- Contract chains hide the principal employer. Social security codes struggle to find a contributor.
- Circular migrants, women home-workers, and app or workshop casuals lack the mill neighbourhood as a solidarity space.
- Skill polarisation: a small formal core, a large unprotected periphery.
- Caste and gender sort tasks: Dalit sanitation, women domestic work, Muslim artisanal clusters.
What remains
- Surplus extraction remains. The form of struggle shifts to street-vendor law, NREGA fallback, and sporadic strikes.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD MILL[Mill union boss] --> OLD[Old working class] INF[Contractor migrant home work] --> NEW[Informal problems] NEW --> SEC[No security no union]
Conclusion
Informal working-class problems changed from factory bargaining to insecurity without a workplace community. The class is larger and harder to organise, not less exploited.
Quick related
Students also ask
-
What are the factors accounting for the resurgence of ethnic identity movements in India?
Next question in the 2016 paper (Q6). View answer →
-
Is the working class disappearing?
The mill form shrank. The working class as sellers of labour grew in informal shape.
-
Do labour codes solve this?
They can name the worker. Delivery needs a visible employer and organisation.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.
-
2020 · Q7(a) · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
Elaborate the causes, consequences and other concerns of growth of urban settlements in India. -
2019 · Q5(e) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Elucidate the concerns of growing urban displacement dynamics in India -
2019 · Q7(a) · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
Do you think that 'demonetization' has accelerated the economic growth in India? How do you understand the in formalization of labour, underemployment and gender discrimination in this context? -
2018 · Q5(b) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Construct a sociological narrative on the increasing trend of child abuse in India. -
2017 · Q5(d) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Do you agree that the issue of child labour raises questions about and beyond the informal sector ? Give reasons. -
2017 · Q6(b) · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
Examine the impact of heritage tourism on urban socio-spatial patterns in India -
2016 · Q6(a) · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
Write a detailed note on the effects of growing slums in urban areas. -
2015 · Q5(d) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Issues relating to the informal labour market in urban India.
More from this paper
Q1(a) · UPSC Mains 2016 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Salient features of A.R. Desai's Marxist Sociology
Perspectives on the study of Indian society
Desai applied Marxism to nation, agrarian structure, and the Indian state. Nationalism is read as a bourgeois project in a colonial economy. Village harmony is rejected for landlord–peasant–labour relations. The state and planning are class instruments, not neutral tools. Caste is real but not the first mover in his scheme.
Q1(b) · UPSC Mains 2016 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Significance of Village Studies in Indian Sociology
Rural and Agrarian Social Structure
Village studies established the field view against book-view Indology. Rampura and Sripuram supplied core concepts of Indian sociology. They linked caste to land, faction, and later to class and power. They shaped policy talk about rural change. Migration and gender gaps now bound their claim to represent India.
Q1(c) · UPSC Mains 2016 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
'Isolationism' as a dominant feature of colonial tribal policy
Tribal communities in India
Colonial policy used excluded areas and inner lines as isolation. The aim mixed protection of custom with forest and frontier control. Isolation was never total; markets and missions entered. Elwin inherited protection; Ghurye attacked it as stagnation. Schedules today still carry this spatial exception.
Toppers' copies
Toppers' copies for this question will be uploaded soon.