Breaking down the question

The question links two things: globalisation and the scope of sociology in India. It asks whether the second has changed under the influence of the first. The command word Comment invites a reasoned position supported by evidence, not a mere description.

Two terms need unpacking. Scope of sociology means the range of subject matter, concepts and concerns the discipline addresses. Globalisation refers to the intensifying interconnection of societies through flows of capital, people, ideas and culture. The question is whether globalisation has widened, reoriented or complicated what Indian sociology studies.

The Indian specificity matters. The examiner wants engagement with how globalisation has reshaped Indian society — and therefore Indian sociology — rather than an abstract account of the discipline's scope.

How to approach it

Begin by establishing the traditional scope of Indian sociology, which was long centred on village studies, caste, kinship, tribe and religion — the concerns of a largely agrarian, tradition-bound society studied by figures such as M. N. Srinivas. Then argue that globalisation since the 1991 reforms has significantly changed both the objects and the orientation of the discipline.

Develop the argument in a few moves:

  • New subject matter. Globalisation introduced consumerism, the new middle class, transnational migration and diaspora, call centres and the IT economy, media cultures and urban lifestyles — themes largely absent from earlier sociology.
  • New conceptual concerns. The local can no longer be studied in isolation. Giddens's stress on how distant events shape local life, and the reflexivity of modern institutions, have entered Indian analysis.
  • Reorientation, not replacement. Caste and religion have not disappeared but are studied afresh — caste in call centres, religion in a globalised public sphere.

Conclude that the scope has genuinely widened and reoriented while retaining continuity with classical concerns. For the disciplinary grounding, see our notes on the scope of sociology and other social sciences.

Model answer

The scope of a discipline is not fixed; it expands and shifts with the society it studies. Indian sociology took shape around the concerns of an agrarian, caste-ordered and largely rural society. Its classical preoccupations — village community, caste, kinship, tribe and religion — were exemplified in M. N. Srinivas's village studies and his concepts of Sanskritisation and the dominant caste. Globalisation, gathering force after the economic liberalisation of 1991, has substantially altered the terrain Indian sociology must map, and its scope has changed accordingly.

Most visibly, globalisation has furnished sociology with new objects of study. The rise of a consumerist new middle class, the information-technology economy and its call-centre workforce, transnational labour migration and the diaspora, satellite media and globalised popular culture, and rapid urbanisation are now central themes. These phenomena were marginal or absent in the sociology of the 1950s and 1960s. The discipline has correspondingly expanded into the sociology of work, of consumption, of media and of the city.

Globalisation has also reoriented sociology conceptually. As Anthony Giddens argues, globalisation intensifies the influence of distant events on local life, so that the village or neighbourhood can no longer be studied as a self-contained unit. Indian sociologists increasingly analyse the local as embedded in transnational flows — a farmer linked to global commodity prices, a young worker to a Western clientele. The reflexivity Giddens associates with late modernity is evident as Indian society continuously monitors and reshapes its own traditions under global exposure.

Crucially, this is a reorientation rather than a replacement. Caste, religion and kinship have not vanished from the sociological agenda; they are examined in new settings — caste discrimination in the corporate workplace, religious identity in a globalised public sphere, kinship strained and stretched by migration. There is also a debate over indigenisation, with sociologists insisting that global concepts be adapted to Indian realities rather than imported wholesale.

In sum, the scope of sociology in India has indeed been changing. Globalisation has widened its subject matter, sharpened its conceptual tools and connected the local to the global, while its classical concerns endure in transformed guise. The discipline has become more plural, more comparative and more attentive to interconnection, without abandoning its rootedness in Indian social reality.

Examiner's perspective

Examiners look for a clear thesis — that the scope has changed — supported by concrete illustration rather than vague assertion. The strongest ten-mark answers contrast the classical agenda of village and caste with the newer agenda of middle class, migration, IT economy and media, giving the reader a visible before and after.

Anchoring the shift in the 1991 reforms and citing Giddens on the local-global link lends analytical weight. The Indian debate on indigenisation is a valuable addition that shows disciplinary awareness.

The commonest weakness is writing generally about globalisation with no reference to sociology's scope, or vice versa, missing the link the question insists upon. A balanced conclusion — widening and reorientation with continuity, not wholesale rupture — reflects the nuanced judgement the higher band rewards.