Globalisation & Indian society

Youth aged 15–29 formed 27.2% of India's population in 2021 (MoSPI, Youth in India 2022), the first generation raised wholly after the 1991 reforms. Globalisation reached them as a ladder and a pressure at once; the balance differs by sphere and by who the young person is.

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Economic sphere

• Opportunity: IT, services and start-ups tied young Indians to global demand; the gig economy is the newest ladder.
  • NITI Aayog (2022): 77 lakh gig workers in 2020–21, projected to reach 2.35 crore by 2029–30.
• Mobility and remittances: study and work abroad turn 'brain drain' into a circulation of skills and capital back home.
• Precarity: gig and contract work lack a wage floor or pension; the Code on Social Security, 2020 recognises gig workers for the first time.
• Skill polarisation: growth rewards the credentialed; degrees without skills leave educated youth waiting longest for work.
  • NITI Aayog: about 47% of gig work is medium-skilled, 22% high-skilled and 31% low-skilled.

Prepared by Minimalist IAS to the answer standard of Shivam Singh (mentor, 7 years) · facts checked against official sources (how we verify) · updated 8 Nov 2026. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.

Globalisation has put malls, brands and one-click shopping at the centre of urban Indian life, yet sociologists also see glocalisation, the mixing of the global with the local. In my view, aggressive consumerism is a real but partial outcome, not the whole.

Where the charge holds

• Manufactured wants: advertising, EMI credit and fast fashion fuel status consumption, debt and waste.
• Homogenisation: critics warn of the 'McDonaldisation' of the world, as cultures buy into a dominant American dream.

Prepared by Minimalist IAS to the answer standard of Shivam Singh (mentor, 7 years) · facts checked against official sources (how we verify) · updated 16 Oct 2026. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.

NFHS-5 (2019–21) found 24% of Indian women and 23% of men overweight or obese, and the Economic Survey 2024-25 calls India's consumption of ultra-processed (HFSS) foods rising and alarming. Yet fast food keeps growing; the reasons lie in how Indians now live, earn and shop.

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Why fast food grows despite health concerns

• Time poverty: urbanisation, nuclear and dual-income families and long commutes make convenience the deciding factor.
• Income and youth: rising incomes and a young population treat eating out as leisure and status.
• Platform economy: delivery apps, cloud kitchens, digital payments and deep discounts make fast food cheap at any hour.
• Engineered appeal: foods high in salt, sugar and fat are designed to be craved; advertising targets children.
• Concern as a market: 'baked', 'millet' and 'diet' options let consumers ease guilt without changing habits.
• Knowledge–behaviour gap: awareness rarely changes eating when healthy food is dearer, slower or harder to find.

Prepared by Minimalist IAS to the answer standard of Shivam Singh (mentor, 7 years) · facts checked against official sources (how we verify) · updated 16 Oct 2026. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.

PLFS 2020–21 puts India's female migration rate at 47.9%, and 86.8% of women migrants moved for marriage. Against that norm, the young unmarried woman who moves alone for work in IT, BPO, retail or garment exports is a new figure created by globalisation, and her move reshapes both freedom and family.

Personal freedom: what has grown

• Economic independence: her own income, savings and career choices; marriage is often delayed and partner choice negotiated rather than dictated.
• Everyday autonomy: mobility, dress, friendships and digital networks; hostels and paying-guest rooms become spaces of self-management.
• Identity: exposure to global work culture and individualism builds confidence and new role models.
• Legal backing: the Vishaka guidelines (1997) and the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2013 make offices safer to enter.

Prepared by Minimalist IAS to the answer standard of Shivam Singh (mentor, 7 years) · facts checked against official sources (how we verify) · updated 16 Oct 2026. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.

The family is the site of primary socialisation, whose most critical stage comes in the early years (NCERT). A phone in place of the lap robs that first school of its teacher.

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Impact on socialisation

• Attachment: cuddling and eye contact build trust; a screen cannot respond, so security weakens.
• Language and thought: words grow in back-and-forth talk; passive viewing slows vocabulary, attention and imagination.
• Social skills: shared meals and play teach turn-taking, empathy and patience; screens teach none of these.
• Self-control: the phone as pacifier stops a child learning to wait or calm down; tantrums follow its removal.
• Values: advertising and unfiltered content become silent teachers, sidelining parents.
• Health: poor sleep, eye strain, less outdoor play.

Prepared by Minimalist IAS to the answer standard of Shivam Singh (mentor, 7 years) · facts checked against official sources (how we verify) · updated 16 Oct 2026. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.

The New Economic Policy of 1991 raised growth and aspirations but spread them unevenly across regions and groups. In a plural society, identity became a means to claim or defend economic space, so liberalisation has both sharpened and softened ethnic and communal lines.

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Impact on ethnic identity

• Relative deprivation: regional gaps and jobless growth feed statehood demands framed as identity; Telangana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh in 2014.
• Nativism: migrants moving to richer states and cities compete for jobs and housing, sparking sons-of-the-soil hostility to outsiders.
• Displacement: demand for land and minerals meets Adivasi resistance, as when the Dongria Kondh defended the sacred Niyamgiri hills in Odisha.
• Cultural assertion: global markets spread cosmopolitan tastes and, in reaction, a defensive pride in language, dress and tradition.

Prepared by Minimalist IAS to the answer standard of Shivam Singh (mentor, 7 years) · facts checked against official sources (how we verify) · updated 16 Oct 2026. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.

The Time Use Survey 2024 found women aged 15–59 doing unpaid domestic work spend about 305 minutes a day on it. Pandemic lockdowns brought paid work into this unequal space.

Gains for family relationships

• Time and presence: no commute means shared meals, and fathers drawn into parenting that office hours denied.
• Care: migrant professionals moved back near ageing parents; couples shared childcare.
• Flexibility: women keep careers through childbirth, childcare or a spouse's transfer.

Prepared by Minimalist IAS to the answer standard of Shivam Singh (mentor, 7 years) · facts checked against official sources (how we verify) · updated 16 Oct 2026. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.

Census 2011 put India's urban share at 31.16 per cent, low but growing fast. Tier 2 cities and a consumption-minded new middle class now rise together.

How Tier 2 growth creates a new middle class

• Jobs: IT services, back offices, hospitals, colleges and real estate in Indore, Surat or Coimbatore create salaried work.
• Enablers: low costs, broadband, UPI and highways; the Smart Cities Mission and AMRUT upgrade infrastructure.
• Enterprise: by 2026, around 50% of DPIIT-recognised startups originate in Tier-II and Tier-III cities.

Prepared by Minimalist IAS to the answer standard of Shivam Singh (mentor, 7 years) · facts checked against official sources (how we verify) · updated 16 Oct 2026. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.

Globalisation integrates economies through flows of goods, capital, people and ideas; new technology is both its vehicle and its product. With finite water, energy, land and minerals, the two together decide how much each unit of resource yields, and who controls the inputs technology itself needs.

A two-way relationship

• Technology drives globalisation: containerisation, cheap telecom and the internet cut transport and coordination costs, letting production spread across global value chains.
• Globalisation spreads technology: trade in capital goods, foreign investment, licensing and skilled migration diffuse know-how, as India's IT and business-process services show.

Prepared by Minimalist IAS to the answer standard of Shivam Singh (mentor, 7 years) · facts checked against official sources (how we verify) · updated 16 Oct 2026. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.

NITI Aayog's 2022 report (after this exam) estimated 77 lakh gig workers in 2020–21, rising to 2.35 crore by 2029–30. For women, this flexible platform work opens doors, but on uneven terms.

How gig work empowers women

• Flexible entry: low barriers and flexible hours suit women with care duties: delivery, beauty services, tutoring, online selling.
• Income and voice: own earnings raise bargaining power, savings and say in household decisions.
• Reach: home-based producers and SHG members sell online; small-town women find work without migrating.

✏️ Diagram to draw in your answer

Prepared by Minimalist IAS to the answer standard of Shivam Singh (mentor, 7 years) · facts checked against official sources (how we verify) · updated 16 Oct 2026. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.

NCERT notes that the IT hubs of Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune have made the industry a major source of employment. In MeitY's 2025 note (since then), industry revenue rose from US$ 118 billion (2014-15) to a projected US$ 283 billion (2024-25, NASSCOM figures), and the cities hosting it have changed in both economy and society.

Economic implications

• Jobs and multiplier: the industry employs an estimated 5.43 million professionals (FY 2023-24, since then), and each job sustains drivers, guards, cooks and retailers.
• Exports and forex: export revenue, projected at US$ 224 billion in 2024-25, cushions the current account.
• Land and rents: housing costs soar, and peri-urban farmland turns into tech parks, enriching some farmers and displacing others.
• Regional imbalance: jobs concentrate in a few metros, widening the gap with tier-2 cities and poorer States.
• Dual economy: well-paid formal employees live beside informal service workers who lack social security.

✏️ Diagram to draw in your answer

Prepared by Minimalist IAS to the answer standard of Shivam Singh (mentor, 7 years) · facts checked against official sources (how we verify) · updated 16 Oct 2026. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.

A cryptocurrency is a privately issued digital token, secured by cryptography and recorded on a decentralised ledger, the blockchain, with no central bank or sovereign behind it; Bitcoin is the best-known. Its spread raises questions for societies everywhere, India included.

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How it affects global society

• Cheaper transfers: cross-border payments and remittances without banks, and access for the unbanked.
• Innovation: smart contracts, tokenised assets and decentralised finance open new business models.
• Volatility and fraud: speculative bubbles, Ponzi schemes and exchange collapses wipe out household savings.
• Crime and security: pseudonymity aids ransomware, dark-web trade, money laundering, terror financing and sanctions evasion.
• Monetary sovereignty: private money outside official control can weaken central banks' grip on money supply and capital flows.
• Energy cost: proof-of-work mining consumes large amounts of electricity.
• Divided responses: states range from adopting it as legal tender to banning it outright.

Prepared by Minimalist IAS to the answer standard of Shivam Singh (mentor, 7 years) · facts checked against official sources (how we verify) · updated 16 Oct 2026. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.

NCERT's sociology texts frame the debate as homogenisation versus glocalisation: does a global market make cultures alike, or blend global forms with local content? In India, globalisation strains diversity at the margins but has not overwhelmed pluralism; the graver threat is the identity backlash it can provoke.

Where the threat is real

• Homogenisation: global brands, English-language media and fast food sell one aspirational lifestyle, crowding out local dress, crafts, cuisines and festivals.
• Endangered languages: the SPPEL documentation scheme has identified 117 endangered languages (PIB, 2025), among them Toda of the Nilgiris.
• Dislocation: market forces and large projects displace artisans, tribal communities and small traders, and the cultures tied to those livelihoods erode.
• Backlash: a sense of cultural invasion fuels exclusivist identity politics on religious, linguistic and regional lines, amplified by social media; this threatens pluralism more than foreign goods do.

✏️ Diagram to draw in your answer

Prepared by Minimalist IAS to the answer standard of Shivam Singh (mentor, 7 years) · facts checked against official sources (how we verify) · updated 16 Oct 2026. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.

School closures in 2020 turned India's digital education platforms, built since 2017, from add-ons into the main channel for teaching, learning and administration. Their contribution spans access, teaching quality and governance, within limits set by the digital divide.

Contribution to teaching and learning

• One content backbone: DIKSHA (2017) hosts school e-content linked to QR-coded textbooks; SWAYAM (2017) offers MOOCs; e-PG Pathshala, the National Digital Library and Virtual Labs open lectures and experiments to all.
• Beyond the internet: SWAYAM Prabha DTH channels, community radio and PM eVidya (May 2020), with one channel per class, reached homes without broadband and served learners with disabilities.
• Pandemic continuity: States combined television, radio and messaging apps, as Kerala did with its Victers channel, so learning went on through closures.

Prepared by Minimalist IAS to the answer standard of Shivam Singh (mentor, 7 years) · facts checked against official sources (how we verify) · updated 16 Oct 2026. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.

NCERT frames this debate as homogenisation versus glocalisation: will all cultures become alike, or will the global blend with the local? India's experience suggests both are happening at once.

Signs that local identity is being lost

• Language shift: English dominates jobs and aspiration, and smaller mother tongues and tribal languages lose young speakers.
• Uniform consumption: global brands, fast food, fashion and streaming push a uniform culture, which political scientists call cultural homogenisation.
• Crafts and livelihoods: mass-made goods undercut handloom and crafts, and migration thins the village patrons of folk arts.
• Commercialised festivals: rituals turn into branded events, valued for spectacle more than community.

Prepared by Minimalist IAS to the answer standard of Shivam Singh (mentor, 7 years) · facts checked against official sources (how we verify) · updated 16 Oct 2026. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.

Globalisation carries global brands, media and lifestyles into India, yet it also produces cultural heterogenisation: each culture becomes more distinct even as contact grows. In India, homogenisation and specificity rise together.

The homogenising pull

• Common consumer culture: global brands, fast food, English, Hollywood and streaming content narrow differences in dress, taste and aspiration among urban youth.

Prepared by Minimalist IAS to the answer standard of Shivam Singh (mentor, 7 years) · facts checked against official sources (how we verify) · updated 16 Oct 2026. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.

India's IT-ITeS industry is estimated to employ 5.43 million professionals (FY 2023-24), and Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Gurugram are among its hubs. The statement holds on both counts.

New avenues of employment

• Direct jobs: women account for 36% of the IT workforce, a scale of formal, salaried work for young graduates that few other sectors match.
• Export earnings: IT-BPM exports are estimated at about USD 200 billion (FY 2023-24), largely earned from these few cities.
• Outsourcing advantage: NCERT notes that skilled English-speaking staff work at lower wages, so a firm in Hyderabad serves clients abroad.
• Indirect jobs: cab drivers, security guards, canteens, paying-guest hostels and delivery workers depend on tech parks such as Electronics City and HITEC City.
• New ecosystems: start-ups and Global Capability Centres cluster where talent already exists, so Bengaluru draws more firms each year.

Prepared by Minimalist IAS to the answer standard of Shivam Singh (mentor, 7 years) · facts checked against official sources (how we verify) · updated 16 Oct 2026. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.

Census 2011 data, published since the exam, grouped 19,569 raw mother-tongue returns into 121 languages, a measure of the plural core that globalisation meets. Since 1991, the free flow of goods, media and people has changed India's visible culture quickly; its core of language, faith, kinship and region changes slowly.

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How globalisation has eroded diversity

• Consumer culture: global brands, malls, fast food and Western dress create a similar urban lifestyle across the metros.
• Language shift: English has become the language of aspiration; smaller languages and dialects lose speakers as schooling and jobs move.
• Crafts and livelihoods: handloom and artisan products compete with cheap mass-produced goods, breaking the bond between craft and community.
• Family and values: nuclear households, individual choice in careers and marriage, and consumerism loosen customs once set by the community.

Prepared by Minimalist IAS to the answer standard of Shivam Singh (mentor, 7 years) · facts checked against official sources (how we verify) · updated 16 Oct 2026. UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.