(a) According to Mead the idea of self develops when the individual becomes self-conscious. Explain. (20 marks) (b) Analyse the…

(a) Mead on the self and self-consciousness For Mead (Mind, Self and Society, 1934, compiled from his lectures by C. W. Morris) the self is not present at birth. It arises in social experience, and its defining feature is reflexiveness: the individual can become an object to itself. This is self-consciousness, and it is acquired by taking the attitude of others towards oneself, so the self develops together with self-consciousness, not before it.

Mechanism and stages:

• Significant symbols: language and gestures that arouse in the speaker the same response they arouse in others. They make communication and thought (an internalised conversation of gestures) possible.
• Role-taking: seeing oneself from the standpoint of others. This goes beyond Cooley's looking-glass self (1902), which stops at imagined judgements of others.
• Play stage: the child takes the roles of particular others, such as mother or doctor, one at a time, and the self remains fragmentary.
• Game stage: as in a baseball team, the child must anticipate the roles of all participants together under rules. This forms the generalised other, the organised attitudes of the community, which gives the self unity and a sense of social norms.

The I and the Me:

• The Me is the organised set of others' attitudes that the individual assumes; the I is the spontaneous response to the Me. The self is the conversation between them, and self-consciousness arises when the I reflects on the Me.
• The I allows creativity and social change, while the Me ensures conformity.

Evaluation: the theory explains the social origin of the self and inspired Blumer's symbolic interactionism, but it neglects emotion and the unconscious (Freud) and underplays the role of power and inequality in shaping selves.

(b) From ideology to identity politics in India Ideology-based phase (1950s-70s): under the "Congress system" (Kothari, 1964) a dominant, catch-all party absorbed diverse interests, while the Socialists, Communists, Swatantra and Jana Sangh differed over planning, land reform, the market and the nature of the nation. Elections and policy debate revolved around programmes such as planned development, "garibi hatao" (1971) and secularism-socialism.

Transition:

• The Congress system declined from the late 1960s and regional and caste-based parties rose; Lohia's socialists pressed for reservation for backward castes.
• The Mandal Commission (set up 1979, report 1980) and the announcement of 27% OBC reservation in central jobs (7 August 1990; upheld in Indra Sawhney, 1992, with the creamy-layer exclusion and 50% ceiling) made caste a political category and helped parties such as the BSP (1984), SP (1992) and RJD (1997).
• Mobilisation on religious identity, as in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and on region, language, tribe and gender, including Dalit, adivasi and women's movements (new social movements).
• After the 1991 liberalisation, major parties converged on market-oriented economic policy, leaving identity and representation as the main lines of competition in the coalition era.

Nature of the change:

• It is not a clean break: ideology and identity overlap (Mandal and Mandir politics), and recent elections combine identity with welfare delivery and leadership.
• Gains: wider participation of marginalised groups, what Yadav calls the "second democratic upsurge" and Jaffrelot the "silent revolution".
• Costs: fragmentation, vote-bank politics, polarisation, and weaker debate on structural questions of class and redistribution.

(c) Coexistence of little and great traditions Redfield (1956) distinguished the great tradition, textual and cultivated by the literate few (Sanskritic in India), from the little tradition, oral and local, of the village. Indian studies show interaction, not separation:

• Marriott (1955): universalisation raises local elements into the pan-Indian tradition (a village goddess identified with Durga), while parochialisation localises Sanskritic elements (vernacular Ramayanas). Srinivas's Sanskritisation shows lower groups adopting great-tradition practices.
• Singer (1972): in modernising Madras, people keep both through compartmentalisation, and cultural performances such as recitation, temple festivals, music and dance carry both traditions.
• Today: village deities are worshipped alongside Brahmanical temples; pilgrimage and mass media such as the televised Ramayana connect both; in Puri the non-Brahmin Daita servitors of the Jagannath temple, believed to be of tribal descent, serve beside Brahmin priests.
• Dalit and tribal assertion revalues little traditions and challenges claims of Sanskritic superiority.

They thus coexist through two-way exchange, not as separate layers.