Breaking down the question
The command word is illustrate, which signals that the examiner wants vivid, concrete examples, not abstract theory alone. The subject is the conflicts and tensions that accompany social change — the friction, dislocation and strain that transformation produces as old structures give way to new ones. The question assumes that change is rarely smooth; your task is to show why, and to picture the resulting tensions with well-chosen illustrations.
Social change means significant alteration over time in the structure, institutions, values and relationships of a society. Because different parts of a society change at different speeds, and because change redistributes power, status and meaning, it generates conflict along several fault lines — cultural, normative, generational, class and identity. Organising these fault lines and illustrating each is the core of a strong answer.
The word illustrate also rewards Indian grounding. India's rapid transition from a traditional agrarian order to a modern industrial and globalising one offers a rich store of examples the examiner will expect to see.
How to approach it
Frame the answer around a simple thesis: change is uneven and redistributive, and therefore conflict-generating. Then organise the tensions into clear categories, illustrating each with a concrete example rather than listing them abstractly.
Move through cultural lag (Ogburn), normative breakdown and anomie (Durkheim), class and economic conflict (Marx), generational and value conflict, and identity and status tensions, drawing on M. N. Srinivas for Indian illustrations such as Sanskritisation and Westernisation. The theoretical accounts of how and why societies change are elaborated in our notes on theories of social change. Close by observing that such conflict is not merely destructive; it is often the very mechanism through which change is negotiated and absorbed.
Model answer
Social change — significant transformation over time in a society's structure, institutions and values — rarely proceeds without friction. Because different elements of society change at different rates, and because change redistributes power, status and meaning, it generates conflicts and tensions along several recognisable fault lines. These can be illustrated across the cultural, normative, economic, generational and identity dimensions of social life.
The first and most general source of tension is cultural lag, a concept William F. Ogburn advanced to describe the uneven pace of change between the material and non-material spheres. Technology and material culture typically change faster than the values, laws and institutions meant to govern them, and the gap between the two produces maladjustment. The rapid spread of the internet and social media, for instance, has outrun the legal and ethical frameworks for privacy, misinformation and digital rights, generating persistent tension between technological capacity and social regulation. Advances in medical technology similarly race ahead of settled ethical consensus, straining older moral certainties.
A second source is normative breakdown and anomie, a condition Émile Durkheim analysed as the weakening of shared norms during rapid change. When old rules lose their grip before new ones are firmly established, individuals experience a sense of normlessness, insecurity and moral confusion. The dislocations of rapid urbanisation and industrial migration — as people move from close-knit village communities to anonymous cities — illustrate this vividly, producing rootlessness, weakened social control and the personal strains Durkheim linked to rising deviance and suicide. The individual caught between a fading traditional order and an unsettled modern one feels the tension acutely.
A third, deeper source of conflict is economic and class tension, emphasised by Karl Marx. Industrialisation and the spread of capitalism reorganise the relations of production, creating new classes and sharpening the antagonism between them. The transformation of agrarian societies into industrial ones displaces peasants and artisans, concentrates wealth, and pits labour against capital, generating strikes, agitations and movements. In India, land reforms, mechanisation of agriculture and the shift to a market economy have produced enduring tensions between landed and landless, organised and informal labour, and the beneficiaries and casualties of liberalisation.
A fourth source is generational and value conflict. Change is absorbed unevenly across age groups, so that the young, more exposed to new ideas through education and media, embrace values their elders resist. The clash over choice in marriage — between the individual's claim to select a partner across caste or community lines and the family's insistence on tradition — is a familiar and often painful illustration, as are conflicts over dress, careers, gender roles and lifestyle between generations within the same household.
A fifth source concerns identity, status and cultural tension, especially visible in India. M. N. Srinivas showed how lower castes seek upward mobility through Sanskritisation — adopting the practices of higher castes — while the educated embrace Westernisation, and the two processes generate competing aspirations and resentments. The assertion of new group identities, the politics of reservation, and movements around caste, region, language and religion all express the tensions of a society renegotiating status and belonging under conditions of rapid change. Alongside these run the tensions of tradition versus modernity, and of a globalising culture pressing against local identities, sometimes provoking revivalist and fundamentalist reactions.
Finally, change strains the family and gender order. As women enter education and employment and the joint family gives way to nuclear households, authority and roles within the family are renegotiated, producing conflict over autonomy, property, care of the elderly and the division of domestic labour.
It is important to recognise, however, that these conflicts are not purely destructive. Sociologically, conflict and tension are often the very means by which a society negotiates, tests and eventually absorbs change; movements, agitations and debates are the process through which new arrangements are legitimated and old ones revised. Change without any tension would imply a society with no entrenched interests or values to defend, which no real society is.
In sum, societies undergoing social change experience conflicts and tensions because change is uneven in pace and redistributive in effect — generating cultural lag, anomie, class antagonism, generational discord and identity struggle. Illustrated through India's transition from a traditional to a modern order, these tensions reveal social change as a contested, negotiated process rather than a smooth and painless advance.
Examiner's perspective
Because the command word is illustrate, the examiner rewards concrete examples over abstract exposition. The strongest scripts organise the tensions into clear categories — cultural lag, anomie, class conflict, generational discord, identity and status strain — and attach a vivid illustration to each, drawing generously on Indian material such as Sanskritisation, urban migration and the conflicts over marriage choice.
Marks are earned by the apt use of Ogburn on cultural lag, Durkheim on anomie, Marx on class antagonism and Srinivas on Indian mobility. A mature answer adds the reflective point that conflict is often the mechanism of change rather than merely its by-product, and it closes with a synthesis rather than trailing off after a list. The common weakness is a bare enumeration of tensions with neither theoretical anchoring nor concrete example.