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Sociology Optional PYQ Solutions · Model answer

Discuss the salient features of Indian middle class.

  • UPSC 2013
  • Social Classes in India

The Indian middle class is an anomaly in comparative sociology. In the West it grew out of trade and industry; in India it was manufactured by a colonial state that needed clerks, lawyers and teachers. That origin explains nearly every distinctive feature it still carries.

You are reading the opening of the model answer. The full answer is part of Sociology Optional PYQ Solutions.

What the full answer covers

  • Born of the state, not of industry
  • Education, not income, as the defining criterion
  • Heterogeneity
  • Ideological weight out of proportion to size
  • Critique
  • Conclusion

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