UPHESC Assistant Professor Sociology 2025, 2026 PYQs

Concept: Bhargava contrasts idealised doctrines with 'really existing secularisms' — how secular states actually work.

1. In practice (e.g., India's 'principled distance'), the state engages with religion: it accommodates some practices and criticises or reforms others (e.g., untouchability).
2. So it is neither strict exclusion (C, French laïcité ideal) nor surrender to religion (D), and it is practice, not mere theory (A).

Short trick: Bhargava = 'principled distance' → engage, accommodate, criticise.

Concept: A reference group (Hyman 1942; Merton) is any group used as a standard for evaluating oneself — one need not belong to it.

1. I is wrong — reference groups can be imaginary, past or symbolic (e.g., celebrities on media).
2. II is correct — positive (to imitate) and negative (to avoid) reference groups (Newcomb, Merton).
3. III and IV are correct — they shape attitudes, aspirations and anticipatory socialisation.

Short trick: Reference group = a 'mirror' you choose — real or imagined, liked or disliked.

Concept: Social movements are classified by the direction and extent of change they seek (Blumer, Aberle, Rao).

1. Reform: partial change within the system (II).
2. Revolutionary: total transformation of the social order (IV).
3. Reactionary/regressive: return to the past — 'put the clock back' (I).
4. Resistance: block changes already under way (III).

Short trick: Reform = Part, Revolution = Whole, Reaction = Back, Resistance = Stop.

Concept: Subnationalism = loyalty to a regional, linguistic or ethnic identity below the level of the nation (e.g., Dravidian, Assamese, Naga, Khalistan movements).

1. A is true — such assertions can strain the idea of a single, unified national identity.
2. R is true — it is the assertion of regional/ethnic identity for recognition and autonomy within the state.
3. Because subnationalism means demanding autonomy for a regional identity, it challenges a unified nation — R explains A.

Short trick: Regional identity + autonomy demand → tension with 'one nation'.

Concept: Peasant movements in India (Telangana, Tebhaga, Naxalbari) arose mainly from skewed landownership and exploitative tenancy.

1. A few landlords controlled most land; tenants, sharecroppers and labourers faced high rents, debt and eviction.
2. Urbanization, industrial jobs or technology are not the root causes cited (A. R. Desai, Kathleen Gough).

Short trick: Agrarian unrest = Land inequality (Tebhaga: 'two-thirds share' demand).

Concept: Urban economics: people migrate to cities as long as benefits (wages, amenities) exceed costs; housing and land rents are the main 'congestion cost'.

1. As cities grow, land and housing prices rise and reduce real income.
2. Unless higher wages or consumption benefits compensate, the city becomes less attractive and growth slows — a limit to urbanization.
3. B, C, D are not logical consequences of high land prices.

Short trick: City size limit: Wage gain − Rent cost = net attraction.

Concept: The median needs at least ordinal data — values must be ranked to find the middle one.

1. Nominal categories (religion, gender, caste names) have no inherent order; any arrangement is arbitrary — R is true.
2. Hence a median of a nominal variable cannot be defined — A is false. Only the mode applies to nominal data.

Short trick: Nominal → Mode; Ordinal → Median; Interval/Ratio → Mean.

Concept: Ambedkar (speech of 25 Nov 1949): social democracy is 'a way of life which recognises liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life'.

1. He warned that political democracy cannot last unless there lies at its base social democracy.
2. The three principles form a 'union of trinity' — divorcing one from the others defeats democracy.
3. B, C, D leave caste hierarchy intact, which he opposed.

Short trick: Ambedkar's trinity: Liberty–Equality–Fraternity ('one man one vote' must become 'one man one value').

Concept: Murray Bookchin (social ecology) argues that natural evolution tends toward greater complexity, subjectivity and flexibility ('first nature' giving rise to 'second nature').

1. A is true in his framework — evolution produces organisms with more self-directedness and choice.
2. R is true — such organisms can respond actively to new environmental challenges and opportunities.
3. Because subjectivity and flexibility increase adaptability, evolution favours them — so R explains A.

Short trick: Bookchin: evolution → more subjectivity + flexibility → better adaptation (participatory evolution).

Concept: C.R. Kothari classifies sampling designs by element selection (unrestricted/restricted) and representation basis (probability/non-probability).

1. Unrestricted probability = simple random sampling (I).
2. Restricted probability = complex random designs: stratified, systematic, cluster (II).
3. Unrestricted non-probability = haphazard/convenience sampling (III).
4. Restricted non-probability = purposive/judgement, quota sampling (IV).

Short trick: Kothari's 2×2 grid reads straight down: I, II, III, IV.

Concept: Mailed questionnaires are cheap, reach scattered respondents and are free from interviewer bias — A is true.

1. But their key limitation is inflexibility: once sent out, the questions cannot be changed and ambiguous answers cannot be probed or clarified.
2. So R is false.

Short trick: Questionnaire: cheap + wide + no interviewer bias, BUT rigid (no probing).

Concept: Agricultural technology moved from the Green Revolution (seeds, inputs) to the ICT revolution (information).

1. Green Revolution → higher agricultural productivity (II).
2. The new ICT revolution → better information flow: less waste and efficient supply chains (IV).
3. Early computing in agriculture → costly, bulky, power-hungry machines (III).
4. Today's ICT footprint (spread) → mobile/wireless reach even to smallholder farms (I).

Short trick: Footprint = reach → wireless reaches the smallholder; only option D gives a-II, c-III.

Concept: Cornwallis's Permanent Settlement (Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, 1793) fixed the land revenue permanently with zamindars.

1. Of the rent collected from cultivators, 10/11 went to the Company (State) and 1/11 was kept by the zamindar for his services.
2. B reverses the shares; A and C are wrong.

Short trick: Permanent Settlement: State 10/11, Zamindar 1/11 (Sunset law for default).

Concept: Narmadeshwar Prasad lists among the conditions of modernization the emergence of a devoted, dynamic and committed leadership.

1. Such leadership motivates people, articulates goals and guides institutions through the change from tradition to modernity.
2. Modernization increases structural differentiation (not B), widens awareness of other societies (not C) and challenges traditional elites (not D).

Short trick: Modernizing leadership = inspire + manage the transition.

Concept: Davis and Moore (1945): stratification is a device by which society ensures that the most important positions are filled by the most qualified persons.

1. Training for such positions (e.g., doctors) is long and costly; high rewards motivate people to undergo it.
2. Rewards also keep the trained persons in those roles, so society's investment is not wasted.
3. A, B, D would waste talent and training.

Short trick: Davis–Moore: high rewards → scarce talent trained → stays in important jobs.

Concept: Sutherland (1939): white-collar crime = crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation. 'Crimes of the powerful' (Pearce, 1976) = crimes by those who control state or corporate power.

1. The accountant's embezzlement is occupational crime for personal gain — white-collar.
2. The minister's bribery misuses state power to shape public policy — a crime of the powerful.
3. A and D describe lawful acts on one side; C mixes blue-collar theft with lawful protest.

Short trick: White-collar = job + status (Sutherland); Powerful = state/corporate power (Pearce).

Concept: Dumont, a student of Mauss and influenced by Lévi-Strauss, used a structuralist approach to caste.

1. Caste is explained by an underlying binary opposition — pure vs impure — which orders the whole system.
2. He stresses ideology and the 'encompassing' hierarchy of values, not conflict, colonial discourse or interaction.

Short trick: Dumont = Structuralism: Pure/Impure binary → hierarchy.

Concept: Martinelli (Global Modernization, 2005) says modernization is not every innovation in history (like the wheel).

1. It is a specific, historically located set of large-scale changes — industrialization, democratization, secularization, urbanization, etc. — of roughly the last two centuries.
2. So it is neither a linear process since early inventions (B), nor any market-linked change (C), nor merely technological (D).

Short trick: Modernization = a 'package' of big changes in the last ~200 years, not the wheel.

Concept: Rural geographers/sociologists (e.g., Michael Woods) distinguish productive, environmental and symbolic functions of rural space.

1. Symbolic: the countryside as an idyll, a carrier of national identity (e.g., 'village India', 'English countryside') and a contrast to urban modernity.
2. B is an environmental function; C and D are productive/resource functions.

Short trick: Symbolic = meaning (identity, rural idyll), not material output.

Concept: Bina Agarwal's feminist environmentalism and Vandana Shiva's ecofeminism show that the gendered division of labour links women closely to natural resources.

1. Rural women collect fuel, fodder and water; deforestation and water scarcity increase their workload and walking time first.
2. Women were central in Chipko and other movements (not B); access to resources is gendered, not neutral (C).

Short trick: Bina Agarwal: gendered division of labour → women bear ecological degradation first.