Society, Community and Institution

Prerequisites

• None in sociology: this is the first page of the chapter. Read the chapter overview for the map.
• Tribal Social Organisation and the Ghotul: clan, marriage and village council facts that this page uses as examples
• Local Government in Chhattisgarh: the Gram Sabha and panchayat, which appear here as a modern community institution

The Hook: One Village, Four Words

Why it matters: GS-IV regularly asks for definitions and distinctions (“Distinguish between community and association”, “What is a social institution?”). A good answer names the sociologist, gives the distinguishing features and adds an Indian example.

Society (समाज)

Definitions to quote

The key idea: society is not a crowd of people but the pattern of relationships among them. Relationships require mutual awareness: two strangers on a bus are not in a social relationship; a passenger and a conductor are.

Characteristics of society

1. Likeness (shared needs, values and a sense of belonging) and difference (division of labour, roles). MacIver stressed that society needs both.
2. Interdependence: families depend on markets, villages on the state.
3. Co-operation and conflict both exist; conflict is also a social relationship.
4. Abstract: you cannot see “society”, only people acting within relationships.
5. Dynamic: it changes continuously.
6. Culture: every society transmits a way of life (see Culture).

Community (समुदाय)

Definition and bases

MacIver and Page: a community is “an area of social living marked by some degree of social coherence”. Its two bases are:

1. Locality: a defined territory, such as a village, a town, a tribal settlement.
2. Community sentiment: a sense of belonging, which MacIver and Page break into we-feeling, role-feeling (each person knows their place and duties) and dependency-feeling (each depends on the community for physical and psychological needs).

A community is not deliberately created; it grows. Members share a whole common life, not one interest. Examples: a village, a tribe, a town, a diaspora that keeps a strong sense of shared identity.

Chhattisgarh illustration

A Muria or Gond village of Bastar is a community in the textbook sense: a defined territory, clans that know their duties to each other, a village priest and headman, common deities, collective labour at sowing and harvest, and shared festivals such as the Madai (मड़ई). The everyday Indian use of “community” for a caste or religious group (“the Satnami community”) is looser; in an answer, say that it is used in the sense of a group with strong community sentiment, even if not confined to one locality.

Association (संघ / समिति)

MacIver and Page: an association is “an organisation deliberately formed for the collective pursuit of some interest, or set of interests, which its members share”.

Community vs association

Institution (संस्था)

Definitions to quote

An institution is a set of rules and procedures, not a group of people. MacIver’s famous line: “We belong to associations, but not to institutions.”

Association vs institution

The major social institutions

Characteristics of institutions

1. Social origin and permanence: they outlive individuals.
2. Norm-bound: built of folkways, mores and laws.
3. Purpose: each meets a basic social need.
4. Symbols and structure: a wedding ring or mangalsutra, a flag, a courtroom.
5. Interrelated: a change in the economy (wage work in Korba or Bhilai) changes the family (nuclearisation) and marriage (later age at marriage).
6. Resistant to change, but not unchanging.

Kinds of Groups

Primary and secondary groups

Charles Horton Cooley, Social Organization (1909), defined primary groups as those “characterised by intimate face-to-face association and co-operation”. He called them the “nursery of human nature” and gave three examples: the family, the play-group of children and the neighbourhood or community group of elders.

In-group and out-group

W. G. Sumner, Folkways (1906): the in-group is “we” (loyalty, co-operation), the out-group is “they” (indifference or hostility). The same person can be in-group in one context and out-group in another: a fellow Chhattisgarhi in Delhi becomes “one of us”.

Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft

Ferdinand Tönnies, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (1887):

Mechanical and organic solidarity

Émile Durkheim, The Division of Labour in Society (1893):

flowchart LR
    A["Society
web of relationships"] --> B["Community
locality + sentiment"]
    A --> C["Association
deliberate, specific purpose"]
    B --> D["Institutions
rules and procedures"]
    C --> D
    D --> E["Family, marriage, kinship,
caste, religion, economy,
polity, education"]

Analysis for Mains: The Indian Village as a Community

1. The “little republic” view: Sir Charles Metcalfe (1830) described Indian village communities as “little republics”, self-sufficient and unchanging.
2. The correction: village studies after Independence (for example S. C. Dube, Indian Village, 1955; M. N. Srinivas’s work on Rampura) showed villages were linked to wider caste, market, pilgrimage and political networks, and were internally unequal.
3. Chhattisgarh today: the tribal village keeps strong community sentiment and customary institutions, now recognised in law through PESA (1996) and the Chhattisgarh PESA Rules (2022). The plains village is more stratified by caste and land, and more tied to markets, the PDS and paddy procurement.
4. Change: migration for work, roads and mobile phones, and urbanisation move many relationships from Gemeinschaft towards Gesellschaft, from mechanical towards organic solidarity. Associations (SHGs, co-operatives, farmer producer organisations) increasingly do what kinship once did.

Memory Tricks

Don’t Confuse

Common Mistakes

Practice

All questions below are original practice questions written in CGPSC style. They are not previous-year questions.

Level 1: Foundation

1. The two bases of a community according to MacIver and Page are ______ and ______.
2. Who called the primary group the “nursery of human nature”?
3. Durkheim associated ______ law with mechanical solidarity and ______ law with organic solidarity.

Level 2: Prelims-style MCQs

Q1. Consider the following statements:

1. According to MacIver, an association is deliberately formed for the pursuit of specific interests.
2. MacIver held that people are members of institutions in the same way as they are members of associations.
3. A community requires a definite locality.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

• (a) 1 only
• (b) 1 and 3 only
• (c) 2 and 3 only
• (d) 1, 2 and 3

Q2. Match List I (Concept) with List II (Thinker):

• (a) A-3, B-1, C-4, D-2
• (b) A-2, B-4, C-1, D-3
• (c) A-3, B-4, C-1, D-2
• (d) A-4, B-3, C-2, D-1

Q3. Which one of the following is an institution rather than an association?

• (a) A women’s self-help group in Dhamtari
• (b) A primary agricultural co-operative society
• (c) Marriage
• (d) A political party

Q4. In Durkheim’s scheme, a society held together mainly by the similarity of its members’ work and beliefs, with a strong collective conscience and repressive law, shows:

• (a) Organic solidarity
• (b) Mechanical solidarity
• (c) Gesellschaft
• (d) Anomie

Q5. Which of the following is not among the three examples of primary groups given by Cooley?

• (a) The family
• (b) The play-group of children
• (c) The trade union
• (d) The neighbourhood or community group of elders

Level 3: Mains Answer Writing

Q1. (60 words) Distinguish between community and association with one example of each from Chhattisgarh.

Q2. (150–200 words) “Social institutions are interrelated: change in one changes the others.” Explain with reference to family and economy in Chhattisgarh.

Quick Revision Table

Key Takeaways

What’s Next

• Socialisation: how these groups and institutions make an individual into a member of society
• Status and Role: the positions people hold inside groups
• Social Aspects of Chhattisgarh: caste, tribe and family in the state
• Western Thinkers: Durkheim and others in more depth