Religion and Social Differentiation: A Town in Uttar Pradesh Author(s): S. P.

Jain Reviewed work(s): Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Jan. 20, 1968), pp. 201-202 Published by: Economic and Political Weekly Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4358157 . Accessed: 25/01/2013 17:33
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Religion

and

Social
S P Jain

Differentiation

A Town in Uttar Pradesh

This study of a small town in Uttar Pradesh shows that religion continuies be the basis of social to 1I differentiationin terms of occupation and educationt. is seen that the occupationalpattern and educational achievements of the Hindus are quite distinct from those of the Muslims. (The author wishes to thank V S D'Souza, Departmentof Sociology,Punjab University,Chandigarh, for his guidance.)
EVERY society reflects social differentiation in some form or the other. There are societies where social differ entiations exist as a part of the whole and there Isocial system, are others where the constituent groups and sub-groups reflect this differentiation. In the former type, one may include the highly industrialised societies where social differentiations exist in the form of class structure, while in the latter type of societies, which are still in the process of chanige, differentiations exist between various groups and sub-groups. These may be, for example, religious groups or caste groups. Our society, where induistriali sation is still making headway, falls in the latter type. Consequently, the different institutions in it are also experiencing great changes. Despite the fact that the various institutions of our society are experiencing considerable changes, the different religious groups are still characterised by their traditional systems. These groups may be still found to exhibit social differentiations in terms of occupation, education, family, and kinship structure and stratification. As Gist, 1 on the basis of his study of a large city in Central India, has pointed out, "A man's religion still counts. If he is a Muslim or a Sikh.. .there is perhaps more than an even chance that he will be attracted in a given occupational pattern". He concludes that, though the traditional occupational system is changing due to increased urbanisation and industrialisation, occupational differentials based on religion still remain. Similar observations have been made by Desai with regard to the factor of education.2 As the above studies were conducted in large cities, the picture with regard to the middle-sized communities, which do not fall either in the category of villages or cities but exhibit an inter-mixture of rural and urban munities, namely, Hindus and Muslims. features, remains unknown. Further- The Hindus constitute approximately more, such communities are charac- 38 per cent and the Muslims 62 per terised by social change on the oine cent of the total population. The hand and traditional patterns on the economy of the town is predominantly other. agricultural. A majority of the people TIhe present paper seeks to find out are engaged in agricultural pursuits. the extent to which social differentia- The town has developed educational tions exist between the Hindus and the facilities. It has a number of small Muslims in the community under villages on its boundaries. Thus the study. The study of social differen- town displays a good intermixture of tiations will be made in terms of occu- rural-urban characteriltics, on the one pation and education. Though, one hand, and features of a traditional town may study social differentiations in on the other. terms of a number of factors, such as METHODOLOGY family and kinship, stratification pattern, and mobility pattern, with a view For the collection of data, a sample to delimiting the scope of the present of 236 household heads was drawn by paper we will confine ourselves to the method of systematic sami ling from occupation and education only. the universe. Religionwise there were The community selected for the pur- 81 Hindus and 155 Muslims in our pose of our study is a middle-sized sample. The sample thus represented town of nearly 19,000 population (1961 nearly eight per cent of the total numCensus) in western Uttar Pradesh. The ber of household heads in the town is inhabited by two religious com- community.

TABLE 1:

DISTRIBUTION OF HINDUS AND MUSLIMS BY OCCUPATIONALCATEGORIES

(Per Cent) Occupational Category Unskilled manual workers Skilled manual workers Lower Professional and administrativejobs Small business Highly skilled and supervisory posts Clerks and shop assistants Intermediate professions, salaried posts and secondary teachers Medium business Agriculturists Unclassified
Total

Hindu 8.6 30.9 9.9 15.0 12.3 1.2 1.2 16.0 4.9
100.0

Muslim 19.4 29.7 3.9 8.4 3.9 1.3 1.3 1.9 27.0 3.2
100.0

(81)

(155)

201

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January 20, 1968

TABLE

January 20, 1968 reparately. It is evident from Table 2 that education am0ng the memoers of (Per Cert) the two religious groups is very poor. As mnanyas 64.2 per cent of the Hindus Muslim Hii.du and 84.5 per cent of the Muslims are illiterate. As regards the representation 3.3 12.3 of Hindus and NMuslims the other on 4.5 11.3 educational lei els, one finds a striking difference. At the primary level there 8.5 are 12.3 per cent Hindus as against 3.3 7.7 3.7 per cent Mlusims. Again, middle stan64.2 84.5 dard finds a highler percentage (11.3) of 100.0 100.0 Hindus than Muslim, (4.5 f er cent). (155) (81) Furthermoie, 8.6 per cent Hindus arc educated up to the high school level, as against none among the Muslims. Interdefinite tendency among Hindus to go estingly enough, the representation of in for certain occupations. Muslims at the intermediate educational On the other nand, the Muslim popu- level and above is much higher thari of lation gravitates mainly into two occuipa- the Hindus, namely, 7.7 per cent as tions, viz, skilled manual workers and against 3.7 per. cent. agriculturists. The former category ac counts for 29.7 per cent of the Muslims RELIGION AND EDUCATION and the latter for 27.0 per cent; 19.4 The extent to which the Hiridus and per cent of the Muslim population are the Muslims differ in their occupational unskilled workers and 8.4 per cent small businessmen. In the remaining cate- and educational pattern is evident from gories the representation is insignificant the foregoing analysis. Though a On comparing the occupational pattern predominant percentage of the members of the two religious groups, it is seen of both the religious gr' ups are that skilled maniual workers and agri- found in occupations like skilled culturists claim the largest percentage of manual w rk and agriculture, there is both Hindus and Muslims. Significantly, evidence of a definite tendency among skilled manual workers have by and the Hindus and the Muslims to go in large an equal percentage of the two for particular occupations. Similarly, a religious groups. On the other hatid, comparative study of the two religious compared to Hindus (8.6 per cent) a groups, in terms of their educational much higher percentage of Muslinms achievement, goes to show distinct edu(19.4 per cent) are unskilled workers. cational patterns-among the Hindus and As regards small business, a higher per- the Muslims. The levels of education centage of Hindus (15 per cent) are among the former are higher than the latter. small businessmen as compared to Mus- among It may, be said, therefore, that the lims (8.4 per cent). On the whole, nearly 49.6 per cent Muslims are rep- occupational and educational diffcrenresented in agricultural pursuits such as tials in the community under study are unskilled workers and agricultural based on the factor of religion. Ve can also say that the traditional social labourers including unclassified occupa tions. As against this, 37.2 per ceiit structure of the community is not Hindus are engaged in the lower pro- undergoing changes and that the factor fessions and administrative jobs, small of religion is potent in determining the occupationai and educational pattern of business and highly skilled works the people. Thus, though members of the two religious groups are predominantly in occu- NOTES pations such as skilled manual work 1 N P Gist, "Occupational Differentiaand agriculture, there is evidence of a tion in South India"; Social Forces, distinct tendency among the Hindus and Vol 33, No 2, December 1964. Muslims to predominate in certain other 2 1 P Desai, "High Students in Poona"; occupations, and hence the occupational Deccan College Monograph Series, patterns of the two religious groups are No 12; Deccan College, Poona, 1953. different to a certain extent. 3 N V Sovani, "Poona: A Resurvey"; We may now analyse the educational Gokhale Institute of Economics and pattern of the Hindus and the Muslims Politics, Poona, 1946, p 156.

2:

DISTRIBUTION OF HINDUS AND MUSLIMS BY EDUCATIONAL LEVELS

Level of Education Primary Middle High School Inter and above Illiterate Total

For the purpose of the present study the classification of occupationis pieSovani3 was adopted. pared by Though there are a number of occupational classifications prepared by different scholars and agencies, we preferred Sovani's classification because in placing the different occupations in his scheme he took into consideration the criteria of status and economic position It was realised that the use of Sovani's classification would enable us to understand the occupational pattern of the town in a balanced way. It may be noted, however, that we have accepted Sovani's classification with slight modifications. Keeping in view the data at our disposal we have excluded those occupations from the scheme in whicth there was no representation. Thus, in all, nine occupational categories were used, with liberal use of an unclassified category for occupations that did not fit logically into the occupational scheme. The nine categories are: (1) unskilled manual workers, (2) skilled manual workers, (3) lower professional and administrative jobs, (4) small business, 5, highly skilled and supervisory posts. (6) clerks and shop assistants, (7) intermediate professions, salaried posts and secondary teachers, (8) medium tIusiness, and (9) agriculturistsand unclassified.
AND OCCUPATION RELIGION

The factor of religion seems to be a compulsive force in the selection of occupations. It is evident from Table I that 30.9 per cent of Hindus are skilled manual workers, 16.0 per cent agricultiurists, and 15 per cent small businessmen. Highly skilled and supervisory workers, lower professionals and administrativepost holders, and unskilled manual workers are 12.3, 9.9 and 8.6 per cent, respectively, among Hindus. Thus there is a
202

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