Write short note: Social Movement. (1987)
A social movement is a sustained, collective and organised effort by a number of people to bring about, resist or reverse change in some aspect of society. Herbert Blumer called movements collective enterprises to establish a new order of life. Ralph H. Turner and Lewis M. Killian stress sustained action on behalf of change; M. S. A. Rao makes collective mobilisation, ideology and organisation its three essential components; Mario Diani (1992) adds informal networks and a shared collective identity.
Essential elements
- Collectivity — a plurality acting together, not an aggregate of individuals.
- Shared grievance — a condition redefined as unjust and remediable.
- Ideology or frame — naming the problem, the adversary and the remedy.
- Organisation and leadership — enough structure to outlive the first outburst.
- Collective identity — a durable sense of “we”.
- Extra-institutional action — claim-making outside routine channels.
- Change orientation — towards change, or against it.
What a movement is not
| Allied form | Difference |
|---|---|
| Crowd / mob | Momentary, unorganised, no ideology |
| Agitation | Focused on a single demand; ends when it is met, as the Jallikattu protests did in 2017 |
| Interest or pressure group | Works within institutions, lobbying rather than mobilising |
| Revolution | Aims to seize state power and replace the whole order |
Types
- Blumer: general movements (broad, diffuse — the women’s movement), specific movements (defined goals and organisation), expressive movements (change the participant rather than society).
- David Aberle (1966): alternative, redemptive, reformative and transformative, by the locus and amount of change sought.
- Rao: reformist, transformative and revolutionary, by the depth of change.
- Ghanshyam Shah classifies Indian movements by participant base — peasant, tribal, Dalit, backward caste, women’s and industrial working class.
- Movements may also be conservative or counter-movements: the Dharma Sabha opposed the abolition of sati in 1829.
Life cycle
Blumer’s sequence runs from social ferment through popular excitement and formalisation to institutionalisation — after which the movement becomes an organisation, a party or a bureaucracy, as Robert Michels‘s iron law of oligarchy predicts. Many movements instead fragment, are repressed or are co-opted.
Indian illustrations
Peasant struggles such as Tebhaga (1946–47); B. R. Ambedkar‘s Mahad Satyagraha (1927) and the Dalit movement; Chipko (1973) and the Narmada Bachao Andolan; the women’s movement; the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (2020–21), which forced the repeal of the farm laws. Contemporary movements increasingly mobilise through digital networks — the Ladakh agitation for statehood and Sixth Schedule protection, which has run through hunger strikes, mass marches and the Leh violence of September 2025, shows the classical Gandhian repertoire and social media working together.
Significance
Movements are the chief means by which those without institutional power make claims. Alain Touraine gives them three functions — mediation between individual and society, pressure on decision-makers, and clarification of collective consciousness. In a democracy they extend citizenship, translate grievance into law, and register the strains that elections do not.
Conclusion
A social movement is best defined as organised, ideologically framed and sustained collective action for change. Its distinguishing mark is not size or intensity but continuity — the capacity to keep a grievance alive until the social order answers it.