Answer the following questions in about 150 words each: (a) Examine the relevance of corporate social responsibility in a world…

(a) Relevance of Corporate Social Responsibility in Increasing Environmental Crises

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) bridges economic activity and ecological accountability by operationalising John Elkington’s ‘Triple Bottom Line’ (People, Planet, Profit). It expands Archie Carroll’s CSR pyramid from mere voluntary philanthropy to mandatory ecological stewardship. In India, this transition is institutionalised through Section 135 and Schedule VII of the Companies Act 2013, mandating corporate spending on environmental sustainability, conservation, and agroforestry.

Sociologically, Ulrich Beck’s ‘Risk Society’ illustrates that industrial modernisation produces manufactured ecological hazards that traditional market mechanisms fail to address. However, CSR often degenerates into ‘greenwashing’—cosmetic compliance and superficial carbon-offsetting that obscure systemic resource extraction and ecological degradation. Furthermore, CSR projects frequently lack community-led participatory governance, functioning instead as top-down corporate public relations. CSR is therefore relevant only if it moves beyond compensatory tokenism to structural ecological modernisation that re-embeds business operations within planetary boundaries.

(b) Civil Society and Deepening the Roots of Democracy

Civil society acts as an intermediary realm between the private sphere and the state, vital for deepening substantive democracy. Robert Putnam demonstrated that dense networks of civic engagement generate ‘social capital’ (trust and reciprocity) essential for institutional performance. Jürgen Habermas framed this space as the ‘public sphere’, where communicative rationality and deliberation hold state power accountable.

In India, grassroots mobilisations have expanded democratic citizenship from formal voting to participatory governance. The Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) pioneered social audits, leading to the Right to Information Act, while the Narmada Bachao Andolan articulated subaltern ecological rights against state developmentalism. However, civil society is vulnerable to ‘NGO-ization’—the depoliticisation of radical movements through donor funding—and elite capture, where urban, middle-class associations prioritise aesthetic and consumerist concerns over structural redistribution. Thus, civil society deepens democracy primarily when it retains its contentious, rights-based character rather than functioning merely as an outsourced delivery arm of state policy.

(c) Functions of Religion in a Pluralistic Society

In a pluralistic society, religion exhibits a dual sociological character. Émile Durkheim identified religion as a source of the ‘collective conscience’ and social solidarity, whereas Peter Berger observed that pluralism fractures the singular ‘sacred canopy’, compelling traditions to co-exist in an open market of meaning.

S.N. Eisenstadt’s framework of ‘multiple modernities’ demonstrates that religious traditions provide distinct moral frameworks that enrich democratic discourse without requiring total secularisation. In India, syncretic developments such as the Bhakti-Sufi traditions historically fostered cross-communal solidarity, mutual tolerance, and shared cultural practices. Conversely, when religious identities become politicised, pluralism risks degenerating into communalism, competitive fundamentalism, and boundary-marking that fragment national integration. Ultimately, in pluralistic societies, religion functions either as an integrative moral resource or as an axis of polarization, contingent upon state neutrality and the strength of inter-group civic ties.

(d) Critical Analysis of David Morgan’s Views on Family Practices

David Morgan reoriented the sociology of the family from the conventional structural-functionalist view (Talcott Parsons, G.P. Murdock), which treated the family as a fixed institution, toward the fluid concept of ‘family practices’—understood as ‘doing family’. Drawing upon practice theory (Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens), Morgan foregrounded everyday, relational, and reflexive activities that individuals construct and label as familial.

Morgan’s approach successfully accounts for modern relational fluidity, destigmatising diverse formations such as single-parent households, cohabitation, and queer kinships. However, this interactional framework attracts critical scrutiny for over-emphasising agency. By prioritising micro-level negotiations, Morgan creates an artificial dualism between everyday practices and institutional structures. This downplays the enduring power of structural constraints—such as property laws, endogamous caste codes, and patriarchal divisions of domestic labour—that continue to determine and constrain family practices. Therefore, while Morgan’s framework captures subjective relationality, it must be balanced with structural political economy to explain the reproduction of familial inequalities.

(e) Women’s Education and Eradication of Patriarchal Discriminations

Women’s education is central to Human Capital Theory and Amartya Sen’s Capability Approach, enhancing female agency, autonomy, and voice. Demographic evidence from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) confirms that maternal education directly correlates with delayed age at marriage, decline in Total Fertility Rate (TFR), lower maternal mortality, and increased participation in household decisions.

However, education alone has not eliminated patriarchal structures. ASER data highlights persistent gender gaps in foundational and technical learning. Structurally, higher educational attainment has coincided with low female labour force participation (FLFP) and occupational segregation (educated ghettoization), reflecting the enduring burden of unpaid care work. Moreover, among middle and upper strata, education often leads to ‘dowry inflation’, where a woman’s schooling is leveraged to secure higher-status marital alliances rather than economic independence. Persistent son-meta preference across educated classes indicates that cognitive advancement does not automatically dissolve patriarchal mindsets. Education is a vital catalyst, but eradicating patriarchal discrimination requires concurrent labour market transformation and cultural restructuring.