ISSN (Print): 2328-3734, ISSN (Online): 2328-3696, ISSN (CD-ROM): 2328-3688
American International Journal of
Research in Humanities, Arts
and Social Sciences
AIJRHASS 13- 232; © 2013, AIJRHASS All Rights Reserved Page 156
AIJRHASS is a refereed, indexed, peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary and open access journal published by
International Association of Scientific Innovation and Research (IASIR), USA
(An Association Unifying the Sciences, Engineering, and Applied Research)
Available online at http://www.iasir.net
ALIENATION AND INCLUSION POLICY: A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY
OF BARARA VILLAGE OF AGRA DISTRICT
Professor Poornima Jain
Head, Sociology and Political Science & LLLE
DEI (Deemed University), Agra.
I. INTRODUCTION
Alienation is a socio - psychological state within an individual in which he feels „no sense of belonging‟ to his
community, group or nation. The alienated person, as described by Fromm (1963) does not experience himself as
the centre of his world, as the creator of his own acts but acts and their consequences become his masters ,whom he
obeys or whom he even worships. Seeman (1959) believes that the broad concept of alienation might be
conceptualized in five fold dimensions: powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, isolation, and self
estrangement. Alienation has been treated as personality variable by many investigators.
Alienation means separation from the group to which one belongs. It is generally expected that persons who benefit
from the reservation policy assume more social responsibility and accountability. After availing the benefits of
Inclusion policy, they are expected to play a vital role in the development of their community. If they alienate from
their people, they render a disservice to them. Alienation, thus becomes inevitable. It is found that “Reservation
Results in Alienation”(Paswan,Jaideva,2002).
From the above discussion, the importance of studying the feeling of alienation among reserved as well as
unreserved categories becomes self explanatory. Despite reservation quota in all central and state government
services, the scheduled castes have not been able to get their satisfactory representation into either of these. The
question arises whether the special privileges granted to scheduled caste tended to foster security, self pride and self
independence among them. Singh (1987) in his study of Jaunpur district concludes that depending so much on
government initiative, the scheduled castes will be isolated from mainstreams of life and their personal initiative will
be killed.
Present paper is an attempt to explore the state of alienation in reserved as well as unreserved categories in Barara
village as an outcome of the Inclusion policy, as it empowers the traditionally deprived and alienated sections on the
one hand and on the other, empowered persons of the Reserved category may due to one or the other reason feel
alienated within their own category or vis a vis General Castes‟ peoples and vice-versa.
Objectives of the study are: to study the feeling of segregation among rural people in social and judicial areas.; to
study the feelings of rural people about fair justice given to them; the feelings of uncertainty among general category
and reserved category about their children‟s education, career and future; and also to study the feelings of insecurity
among people of reserved categories with regard to income, justice, and safety.
II. METHODOLOGY
Two phases of survey has been designed for the present study. First, we have selected one village from the list of the
villages procured from the Agra Tehsil by Lottery Method. Preliminary Survey of the selected village was carried
out for getting basic information of the respondents. Out of a total 1333 households, a 14% sample consisting of
188 households were selected by simple random sampling. Structured Interview schedule, and observation were
ABSTRACT: Alienation has been fundamental to a social system which is differentiated and segmental in
nature. As a characteristic of modern industrial or post- industrial society, it is also present in rural society
which has several roots. Although, the Government of India has done social engineering through the affirmative
action, yet, its implications could not to some extent be kept on the right track. The present paper examines
alienation among rural people, which has been caused as a result of inclusion policy.