A comprehensive textbook that deals with the issue of social movements from both theoretical and contextual points of view and analyses major cognitive concerns of social movements across disciplines.


In contemporary times, social movements are a matter of everyday discourse among researchers, teachers, planners and politicians, administrators and law-enforcing machineries, social activists and common people alike. The book begins by locating social movements within broad and contemporary social processes. It explains the meaning, basic features, origins and types, and the basic perspectives of social movements. It goes on to deal with the major experiences of nine social movements in India, namely, peasant, tribal, Naxalite, Dalit, working class, women, ethnic, student and youth, and environmental movements. The book also analyses the role of information technology, media, civil society, NGOs and the middle class in the spread and continuation of such movements. The experiences of queer, new religious, and anti-systemic and anti-displacement movements would also help readers understand how globalization has offered new avenues of protest to diverse sections of the population.

Key Features:

•             Analyses the major theoretical concerns of social movements and uses them to analyse specific social movements in India and other parts of the globe

•             Provides the genealogy, growth and impact of prominent social movements in India and abroad

•             Includes pedagogically rich content, which closely follows UGC course curriculum guidelines for the subject