Social Problems in Indian Context

India’s unique caste system continues to play a critical role in social relationships. In the recent decades, caste identity has acquired some new functionality, particularly in sociopolitical life. The caste-based identities, self-perceptions, inter-caste relationships, and caste-related tensions are some of the areas studied by social psychologists. For example, Rath and Sircar analysed inter-caste relationships and examined attitudes and opinions of six caste groups and found that the lower caste groups perceived themselves negatively. Two decades later, Majeed and Ghosh, in their study of scheduled castes, found that they do indeed devalue their own group. It is bound to attract a wide readership among those concerned with anthropology, sociology, social theory, human development, development studies, political science, social movements and gender studies.