Social Movements

The One Thing

Social movements are sustained, organised forms of collective action through which people build shared identities and seek to promote, resist, or transform social change. Their development and success depend on grievances, organisation, resources, leadership, strategies, public support, and political opportunities.

Chronology

Who and What

• Social Movement: A sustained and organised collective action aimed at promoting, opposing, or transforming some aspect of society. It generally involves collective participation, organisation, continuity over time, shared goals, and some degree of opposition or social transformation.
• Collective Action: Joint action by a group of people to achieve a shared objective.
• Collective Identity: A shared sense of belonging and common purpose developed by members of a movement.
• Social Change: Significant alteration in social relationships, institutions, values, behaviour, or patterns of power.
• Reform Movement: A movement seeking limited or gradual changes within existing social and political institutions.
• Revolutionary Movement: A movement aiming to bring about fundamental and rapid changes in the political, economic, or social system.
• Redemptive Movement: A movement seeking to transform individuals or communities by promoting a new moral, religious, or cultural way of life.
• Alternative Movement: A movement encouraging limited changes in specific behaviours or practices rather than transforming the whole of society.
• Resistance Movement: A movement opposing a policy, practice, law, or form of domination.
• New Social Movements: Movements focused on identity, gender, environment, peace, human rights, and quality of life, rather than only class or economic interests.
• Class-Based Movement: A movement formed around the economic interests and experiences of a social class, such as workers or peasants.
• Tribal and Ethnic Movement: A movement seeking recognition, autonomy, protection of cultural identity, or control over land and resources for a tribal or ethnic community.
• Women's Movement: Collective action seeking equality, dignity, safety, education, political participation, and freedom from discrimination for women. In India, it has addressed education, equal wages, property rights, domestic violence, sexual harassment, political representation, and reproductive rights.
• Environmental Movement: Collective action to protect nature, forests, rivers, land, biodiversity, and people's livelihoods from harmful development or exploitation.
• Dalit Movement: A movement against caste-based discrimination and untouchability seeking equality, dignity, representation, and social justice.
• Peasant Movement: Collective action by cultivators and agricultural communities concerning land rights, rents, prices, debt, wages, and state policies.
• Resource Mobilisation Theory: The view that movements grow when they can organise resources such as money, leadership, communication networks, skills, time, and supporters.
• Relative Deprivation Theory: The explanation that movements may arise when people feel deprived or treated unfairly compared with others or with their own expectations.
• Political Opportunity Theory: The view that movements are more likely to succeed when political institutions are divided, open to pressure, or undergoing change.
• New Social Movement Theory: An approach explaining contemporary movements through identity, culture, lifestyle, human rights, and environmental concerns.
• Repertoires of Collective Action: The recognised methods used by movements, including petitions, marches, protests, strikes, boycotts, sit-ins, public meetings, campaigns, and legal action.

Causes and Consequences

• Shared grievances can initiate collective action. Groups may experience inequality, exclusion, threats to their rights and interests, poverty, caste oppression, gender discrimination, cultural marginalisation, environmental damage, or perceived injustice. However, shared grievances alone do not automatically produce a successful movement.

• Organisation converts grievance into sustained action. A social movement differs from a temporary crowd because it has longer-term aims, organisation, leadership, continuity, and sustained activities. Resources such as money, communication networks, skills, time, and supporters are central to the Resource Mobilisation Theory.

• Perceived unfairness can intensify mobilisation. Relative Deprivation Theory explains movements through the feeling that people are deprived or treated unfairly in comparison with others or with their own expectations. Causes are therefore not limited to poverty; identity, dignity, rights, culture, environment, and gender can also motivate collective action.

• Political conditions influence movement success. Political Opportunity Theory suggests that movements are more likely to succeed when institutions are divided, open to pressure, or undergoing change. Globalisation and new communication technologies have also enabled movements to connect local struggles with national and international networks.

• Movements use varied repertoires of collective action. Conventional methods include petitions and elections, while non-conventional methods include strikes, civil disobedience, blockades, boycotts, and sit-ins. These methods allow movements to exert public pressure beyond formal political institutions.

• Movements may pursue different forms of change. Reformative movements seek gradual institutional change; revolutionary movements seek fundamental transformation; redemptive movements promote a new moral, religious, or cultural way of life; alternative movements target specific behaviours; and resistance movements oppose particular policies, laws, practices, or forms of domination.

• Historical examples illustrate different movement aims. The Bhakti movement challenged rigid social hierarchies and emphasised devotion, spiritual equality, and access to religious expression. Anti-caste movements led by social reformers and Dalit leaders challenged untouchability, caste oppression, and unequal access to education and public resources.

• Peasant and class-based movements address material and structural interests. The Tebhaga movement of 1946–47 involved sharecroppers in Bengal demanding a larger share of the crop they cultivated. The Telangana peasant struggle, especially during 1946–51, opposed feudal exploitation and demanded land and social justice. Farmers' movements have also raised issues of remunerative prices, debt relief, land rights, input costs, and agricultural policies.

• Tribal and ethnic movements link identity with resources and autonomy. Movements of tribal communities often focus on land alienation, forest rights, displacement, autonomy, cultural identity, and control over natural resources. Their demands may therefore combine economic, political, cultural, and environmental concerns.

• Environmental movements challenge harmful development. The Chipko movement, prominent in the 1970s in the Himalayan region, used non-violent resistance to protect forests from commercial felling. The Narmada Bachao Andolan raised concerns about displacement, rehabilitation, environmental damage, and the rights of communities affected by large dams.

• Social movements deepen democracy. They allow people outside formal political institutions to express demands and hold authorities accountable. They can produce laws, policy changes, greater public awareness, new identities, institutional reforms, and changes in everyday behaviour.

• Movements also face significant limitations. State repression, internal divisions, limited resources, co-option by political groups, and conflict between different goals may restrict their effectiveness. Movements can be divided by class, caste, gender, region, ideology, or differences in leadership.

• Movements and political parties have different primary functions. Political parties mainly seek governmental power through elections, whereas social movements use wider forms of public mobilisation and pressure. Movements may cooperate with political parties and the state, but their independent identity and critical role can weaken if they become fully absorbed into formal politics.

• Success has no mathematical formula. It depends on organisation, leadership, participation, resources, public support, political opportunities, effective strategies, changing historical and political conditions, and the response of authorities.

What Gets Asked

• How does a social movement differ from a temporary crowd and from a political party?
• Why do shared grievances not automatically produce a successful social movement?
• Compare Resource Mobilisation Theory, Relative Deprivation Theory, Political Opportunity Theory, and New Social Movement Theory.
• Distinguish reform, revolutionary, redemptive, alternative, and resistance movements.
• How do the Bhakti movement, anti-caste movements, the Tebhaga movement of 1946–47, the Telangana peasant struggle of 1946–51, the Chipko movement of the 1970s, and the Narmada Bachao Andolan illustrate different causes and strategies?
• Evaluate the democratic contributions and limitations of social movements, including their capacity to produce reform, their vulnerability to repression or co-option, and the effects of internal divisions.