Answer the following questions in about 150 words each : 10×5=50 (a) Explain the emerging challenges in establishing gender…

(a) Challenges to Gender Equality in the Informal Sector

The informal sector absorbs over 90% of working women in developing economies like India, yet deep structural asymmetries perpetuate gender inequality. A primary impediment is the disproportionate burden of unpaid care and domestic work, which restricts women to low-yielding, home-based, or piece-rate activities. Furthermore, informal women workers lack institutional social protection, maternity entitlements, and occupational safety nets, leaving them vulnerable to economic shocks and health crises.

In the emerging platform and gig economy, algorithmic biases often penalize women for discontinuous work profiles caused by domestic responsibilities, reinforcing occupational segregation under a guise of digital neutrality. Although grassroots initiatives like the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) and legislative interventions like the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act provide collective bargaining power and legal protection, they remain partial remedies against deep-seated patriarchal norms. Achieving substantive equality requires transforming informal social protection frameworks and instituting universal care infrastructure.

(b) Relevance of Vilfredo Pareto’s Circulation of Elites

Vilfredo Pareto posited history as a "graveyard of aristocracies," driven by the cyclical alternation between speculative, innovative "foxes" (Class I residues) and coercive, conservative "lions" (Class II residues). In contemporary scenarios, this circulation is visible in democratic transitions where traditional political dynasties yield ground to populist, technocratic, or meritocratic leadership, as observed in Indian electoral dynamics. Similarly, modern corporate governance exhibits high CEO turnover, shifting between innovative disruptors (foxes) and cost-stabilizing administrators (lions).

However, Pareto’s model possesses significant limitations. Gaetano Mosca’s emphasis on the cohesiveness of the organized minority, alongside modern democratic institutionalization, shows that power is not purely cyclical among closed oligarchies. Universal franchise, mass political mobilizations, and constitutional safeguards enable genuine bottom-up democratization rather than mere horizontal elite circulation. Thus, while Pareto effectively illuminates elite psychology and intra-elite displacement, his theory underplays structural democratization and mass agency in contemporary societies.

(c) Comparative Analysis of E. B. Tylor and Max Müller on Religion

Both Edward Burnett Tylor and Friedrich Max Müller pioneered intellectualist approaches to the evolutionary origins of religion, viewing belief as an early attempt to explain existential phenomena. Tylor propounded animism, identifying the belief in the soul and spiritual beings—prompted by dream experiences, shadows, and death—as the earliest form of religion, evolving unilinearly into polytheism and monotheism. Conversely, Müller advocated naturism, arguing that religion arose from human encounters with awe-inspiring natural forces, where metaphorical descriptions suffered a "disease of language" or linguistic corruption, transforming descriptive nature words into personified deities.

However, both theories suffer from intellectualist reductionism by treating primitive human beings merely as individual philosophers rather than social actors. As Émile Durkheim argued, both scholars ignored religion's core function in reinforcing social solidarity and sacred-profane binaries. Later, Clifford Geertz demonstrated that religion is a dynamic cultural system of symbols and meanings, rather than an archaic cognitive error or a linguistic misapprehension.

(d) Cults and their Growth in the Contemporary World

Sociologically, Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge define a cult as a loosely structured, non-traditional religious or spiritual group that offers novel, esoteric compensators to individuals seeking meaning outside institutionalized orthodoxies.

The proliferation of cults and New Religious Movements (NRMs) in the contemporary world is driven by existential anomie and the alienation wrought by rapid secularization and hyper-individualism. Modern society functions as a spiritual marketplace where rational actors consume alternative spiritual goods. In India and globally, movements such as ISKCON and the Brahma Kumaris expanded by offering psychological solace, community, and accessible interpretations of sacred traditions to urban middle classes confronting structural dislocations. Furthermore, internet-mediated recruitment and decentralized digital networks have globalized these networks, lowering entry barriers. Relative deprivation—material, social, or psychic—compels individuals toward cultic associations, which provide personalized identity, therapeutic healing, and moral community in an otherwise fragmented world.

(e) Talcott Parsons’ Theory of Social Change

Talcott Parsons formulated an evolutionary model of social change grounded in functional equilibrium, structural differentiation, adaptive upgrading, inclusion, and value generalization. He conceptualized change as an orderly transition across pattern variables, moving from traditional particularism, ascription, and affectivity toward modern universalism, achievement, and affective neutrality.

However, Parsons’ theory is inadequate for capturing the full reality of social transformation. By prioritizing equilibrium and normative integration, it fails to explain change arising from violent rupture, class struggle, and ideological revolutions, as highlighted by conflict theorists like Karl Marx and Ralf Dahrendorf. Additionally, Immanuel Wallerstein’s world-systems theory demonstrates that global inequalities stem from coercive core-periphery exploitation rather than internal adaptive differentiation. In India, the persistence of caste endogamy and gender-based violence reflects deep structural lag and entrenched hierarchies, proving that social change is contested and uneven rather than smoothly evolutionary. Parsons’ framework remains a useful taxonomy of systemic adjustment, but falls short of a comprehensive theory of change.