EDITION - II

Dear Aspirants,

I take immense pleasure by communicating with you

via the Sociology-Newsletter, an another innovative initiative
by ARAM IAS Academy. The Sociology-Newsletter is designed
to strengthen aspirant’s understanding towards sociology
and develops the ability to correlate the sociology with
current affairs, thus scoring made easy. I request the
aspirants to follow this newsletter continuously for excelling
in Sociology Optionals.

Regards,
S.Rijesh,
Faculty of Sociology.
 Introduction to Edition - 2

In this edition, we will discuss the mob mentality and the

reasons for some mass gatherings turn violent. This edition of
Sociology Newsletter will further analysis the importance and
consequence of protest movement. The edition also discuss
youth unrest in India.
 MOB MENTALITY
From Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street to Black Lives Matter

and the Women ’s March, protests across the globe are questioning

the social, political and economic status quo.

Mob: A large crowd of people, especially one that is disorderly and

intent on causing trouble or violence

Social Protest:
Social protest is a form

of political expression

that seeks to bring about

social or political change

by inuencing the
knowledge, attitudes,

and behaviours of the

public or the policies of an organisation or institution.

Protests often take the form of overt (done or Shown openly) public

displays, demonstrations, and civil disobedience, but may also

include covert (not openly displayed) activities such as petitions,

boycotts, lobbying, and various online activities.

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 A famous Mob: French Revolution of 1848
The reign of King Louis Philippe, the last king of France, came

to an abrupt and ignominious end on Feb. 24, 1848, after days of

increasingly violent demonstrations in Paris and months of

mounting agitation with the government’s policies. The protesters

surging through the city at rst were fairly orderly, but later, the

whole demonstration turned violent.

Gustave Le Bon:
Several decades later, in 1895, those events

became grist for one of the rst concerted

scholarly efforts to understand the mob mentality,

Gustave Le Bon’s “ The Crowd: A Study of the

Popular Mind.” Ever since, social scientists have

sought to describe the dynamics of humans in

protest.

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 Studying a clash:
A full account of the violent clash, the inside story, from those

who know, may never emerge, given the lack of neutral chroniclers.

Hence, it is social scientist need to study to understand the mob

mentality.

Cause of Violence in Protest:

"Crowds do not act with one irrational mind,” James Jasper, a

sociologist at the City University of New York and author of “ The

Emotions of Protest,” said. “ There are many groups, doing different

things, for different reasons. That is crucial to understanding how

they ultimately behave.”

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 “An agglomeration of men presents new characteristics very
different from those of the individuals composing it,” Le Bon
concluded.

Thus,“ The sentiments and ideas of all the persons in the

gathering take one and the same direction, and the individual
conscious personality vanishes. A collective mind is formed.”
“It was as if the whole multitude were sharing in some
superhuman inspiration. They seemed different from their former
selves.There was more madness in their running, more strength in
their hands, the ash in their eyes was ery and inspired, the
muscles of their bodies more powerful.”
To conclude, only a few with “mob mentality” creates violent in
the protest.

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 Two Principles:
1. Where under specic conditions, peacefully minded protesters
may indeed act out violently. For instance, when a barricade is
broken by others, when the police strike down someone nearby.
“ Very often these incidents are initiated by the police,” Dr.
Jasper said.

2. At the same time, as a rule, impulsive violence is less likely to

occur in crowds that have some social structure and internal
organisation. The protests of the civil rights movement were
tactical and organised, as far back as the 1950s.

Importance of protest:
Where there is no democracy, there is no contestation, and we
should be seriously worried about the health of the country if there
are no protests. Of course, democratic and peaceful protests are very
much a sign of a living democracy. In democratic societies, freedom
of expression is tolerated and protests are acceptable.

Socialist political leader Ram Manohar Lohia Said, “If the roads
become silent then the Parliament will stray”.

Consequence of Protest:
One can roughly distinguish between political, biographical,
and cultural outcomes.

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 1. Political consequences are those effects of movement activities
that alter in some way the movements ’political environment.
2. Biographical consequences are effects on the life course of
individuals who have participated in movement activities,
effects that are at least in part due to involvement in those
activities.
3. Cultural outcomes can be seen as the impact that social
movements may have in altering their broader cultural
environment.
More recently, scholars have started to investigate the effects
that social movements and protest activities may have on other
aspects of society, such as the economy and market-related
institutions, or on other movements. In addition, one should also
consider the distinction between internal and external outcomes as
well as that between intended and unintended consequences.

Protest and Agitation:

Protest is a social process of opposition against any person,
group or even wider society. It may occur at individual or collective
level, may involve action or inaction as a tool of protest. Opposition is
central in protest while a purpose is central in an agitation. Protest
presupposes a prior event against which a protest is done. Protest
can also be distinguished on the basis of mode of protest. This could
be a candle and torch light procession, use of black cloth, songs,
poetry, violence etc. While protest is a reaction to an event that has
already occurred, an agitation can also be a future occurrence
against any event or incidence.Dissatisfaction is also central to
agitations while dissent is central to protests.

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 Reasons for Protest:
1) Discontent With Existing Conditions and Relative
Deprivation:

For social movements to arise, certain political, economic, or

other problems must rst exist that prompt people to be
dissatised enough to begin and join a social movement.In this
regard, recall that one of the essential conditions for collective
behavior in Smelser’s value-added theory is structural strain, or
social problems that cause people to be angry and frustrated.
Without such structural strain, people would not have any
reason to protest, and social movements would not arise.
2) Social Networks and Recruitment:

This huge drop-off from sympathizers to activists underscores

another fundamental point of social movement scholarship:
people are much more likely to participate in social movement
activity when they are asked or urged to do so by friends,
acquaintances, and family members. As David S. Meyer
observes, “The best predictor of why anyone takes on any
political action is whether that person has been asked to do so.
Issues do not automatically drive people into the streets.” An
interesting development in the modern era is the rising use of
electronic means to recruit people into social movement
activities and to coordinate and publicise these activities.
3) Resource mobilization theory:

It is a general name given to several related views of social

movements that arose in the 1970s (McCarthy & Zald, 1977;
Oberschall, 1973; Tilly, 1978). This theory assumes that social

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 movement activity is a rational response to unsatisfactory
conditions in society. Because these conditions always exist, so
does discontent with them. Despite such constant discontent,
people protest only rarely. If this is so, these conditions and
associated discontent cannot easily explain why people turn to
social movements. What is crucial instead are efforts by social
movement leaders to mobilize the resources—most notably,
time, money, and energy—of the population and to direct them
into effective political action.

Economic crisis is immediately transformed into social crisis:

(Sociologist - Jürgen Habermas)

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 What is Collective action?

Sociologist use the term collective behaviour to refer to

spontaneous and transitory behaviour of group of people in response
to specic events. Panics, Riots and crowds are examples of collective
behaviour.

The collective behaviour is different from the institutional

behaviour which is recurrent and follows an orderly pattern with a
relatively stable set of goals, expectation and values. Going to class
or going to church can be an example for institutional behaviour.

Youth unrest:
Youth unrest which is often described as student revolt, student
power and student activism - has become today an establishment
fact, reality. The Student unrest is very common to every nation of
the world and last three decades such student unrest increased very
much.

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 Who are youth?
According to T. K. Oommen (1990), Indian youth have the following
features:
1. It is an age group between 15-30 years.
2. Youth is full of psychic energy;
3. Youth are neither progressive nor conservative in nature. The
uniqueness of youth lies in their
4. potential for a new start; their willingness to penetrate into a
new world of experience;
5. Youth are 'unattached to' and 'unsettled' in society; they have not
yet developed any vested interest in the maintenance of the
status quo.

Factors leading to Youth and Student Movements:

Youth movements may be dened as political or religious or
social reform movement or agitation consisting chiey of young
people. Youth movements have played a key role in social
transformation.

As Chock (2012) quite rightly pointed out, "Young people are

key actors in powerful social movements that transform the course of
human history. Indeed, youth have been deeply important to every
progressive social movement, including the Civil rights movement,
the transnational LGBTQ movement, successive waves of feminism,
environmentalism, and environmental justice, the labour, anti-war,
and immigrant rights movements and more”.She argues that we have
much to learn from young people who have already engaged in

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 mobilising their peers, families and communities towards positive
social transformation.

Types of Youth Unrest:

The youth unrest has assumed different forms. In no country,
the youth unrest takes place for the same reason and assumes the
same form all the time. The nature of youth unrest is that it is
unsteady, irregular and sometimes happens spontaneously. Myron
Weiner has classied the student unrest into four types.

Myron Weiner’s Classification of Youth Unrest:

According to Myron Weiner, the so called student indiscipline
or youth unrest assumes four forms. They are as follows:
1) Political Activities and Movements:

Students often take up political issues and join hands with other
non-youth organisations and political parties and ght for
them. Students have participated in various political movements
launched for issues such as border disputes, steel plant location,
price rise, water dispute, anti-Hindi and anti-English agitations,
emergency, postponement of elections, dismissal of ministers,
etc. They have taken out processions, staged demonstrations,
gheraoed ministers, resorted to violence and conicted with
police authorities.
2) Student Agitations for Educational Causes:

Students have agitated for educational causes also. Students

have agitated demanding the appointment of lecturers, enough
supply of laboratory equipments and library books, cancellation
of donation and capitation fees, reforms in examination system
and type of question papers, retainment of carry over system,

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 recognition of the student union, participation of students in
University administrative bodies such as senate, syndicate,
academic councils, postponement of examination, etc.
3) Agitations against Non-University Authorities:

Students have agitated for non-educational and non-political

causes also. For example, they have agitated demanding special
concessions for travelling in buses and trains, concessions in
commercial recreational centres.
4) Spontaneous Student Agitations:

Sometimes, students do agitate suddenly in an unexpected

manner. They may quarrel with bus conductors, auto-rickshaw
drivers, hotel-owners, police and public servants, and may even
go on strike against them. These agitations can be treated as
spontaneous outbursts of youth force. If these agitations are not
handled carefully they may be intensied and prolonged in still
worse a way.

Types of youth in youth protest:

1. Socially isolated - Youth who feel alienated and cut off from the
larger society.

2. Unattached to family - Youth who lack intimate ties with their

families are encouraged to participate in agitation. Young
persons with warm and satisfying family ties have no emotional
need to join agitation.

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 3. Personally maladjusted - Youth who have failed to nd a
satisfying life role, for example those who have not developed
an adequate interest in studies, are unemployed or
underemployed or unsuccessful they join agitation because of
an emotional need to ll the void in their lives.

4. Migrants - They have little chance of getting integrated into the

larger community, joining agitation acts as refuge for them.

5. Marginals - Youth who are not fully accepted and integrated

with their caste, religious, linguistic group feel uneasy,
insecure and resentful. They nd it difcult to resolve the
discrepancy in self image and public image which necessities
them to join agitation to get some recognition.

History of Youth Protest in India:

The roots of a student movement in India could be traced back
to nearly 200 years ago with the formation of the Academic
Association in undivided Bengal’s Hindu College under the guidance
of Henry Louis Vivian Derozio, a teacher there and a reformer, in
1828. His disciples, who formed the Young India group of free
thinkers, played a part in the Bengal Renaissance of the 19th
century.
In 1905, students of Eden College in Calcutta (now Kolkata)
burned down the then viceroy Lord Curzon’s efgy to protest the
partition of Bengal, one of the rst documented instances of
students ’protest.

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 The rst students ’strike in undivided India took place in 1920
in King Edward Medical College, Lahore, against academic
discrimination between Indian and English pupils.
After Independence, almost all major political parties started
their student wings and several independent student groups catering
to socially and economically deprived sections also came up. Post-
independent India have seen several students ’movements that have
been etched into the memory of the nation.

Few Example of Students unrest in India:

1) Anti-Hindi movement in Tamil Nadu, 1965:

Although the protest against Hindi had been going on for

decades in Tamil Nadu, it became a ashpoint when a large
number of students across the state launched a stir against the
Ofcial Languages Act of 1963, which made Hindi an ofcial
language along with English. Despite protests by the Dravida
Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Parliament, the law was passed.
But then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru assured that English
will continue to be ofcial language. After Nehru’s death in
1964, the Congress government in the state introduced a three-
language formula in the state assembly, leading to students
taking to the streets. There were self-immolations by several
students, and about 70 people died in the ensuing violence. The
agitation ended when then PM Lal Bahadur Shastri assured
that Nehru’s promise would be kept.

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 2) Bihar student movement, 1974 (also called JP
movement):

The Chatra Sangarsh Samiti led by Jai Prakash Narayan

focused on corruption, nepotism, electoral reforms, subsidised
food and education reforms. It was a non-violent protest, which
started from Patna University and spread to several other
educational institutes in Hindi-speaking states of northern
India. Nitish Kumar, now the Bihar chief minister; Lalu Prasad,
a former Bihar CM; and Mulayam Singh Yadav, a former UP CM,
were some of the prominent youth leaders who participated in
the JP movement that promoted the idea of socialism.
3) Student movement in Emergency, 1975:

In several universities and academic institutions across India,

students and faculty members organised underground protests,
using pamphlets and leaets to protest against the imposition
of Emergency. Over 300 student union leaders, including then
Delhi University Students Union president Arun Jaitley and Jai
Prakash Narayan, who headed the Chatra Sangarsh Samiti,
were sent to jail.
4) Anti-Mandal agitation, 1990:

On August 1990, students from across India started a protest

against the introduction of 27% reservation in government jobs
for people from the Other Backward Classes. The government,
led by VP Singh, implemented the Mandal Commission
recommendations submitted to the government in 1980.
Although the protest began in Delhi University, it spread to
several educational institutes across the country, leading to

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 violent protests in many parts of the country. Students in
several places boycotted exams. The agitation ended when
Singh resigned on November 7, 1990, after the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) withdrew support to his Janata Dal
government.
5) Anti-CAA protest, 2019:

The recent spate of protests by students against the Citizenship

(Amendment) Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC)
has sparked an interest in youth activism and student politics,
and their role in postcolonial Indian history.The students
protested against the CAA and NRC nd themselves part of a
momentous historical moment. However, whether this moment
marks the beginning of a new chapter in the history of student
politics is a question for future sociologist.

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