Social Change and Development in India is the second of NCERT's two Class XII Sociology books. Where Indian Society describes the structure of Indian society, this book follows how it has changed: under colonialism, through the Constitution and democracy, in villages and factories, under globalisation, through the media, and through social movements. As Class 12 Sociology NCERT notes for UPSC, it supplies the vocabulary for GS1 answers on social change, globalisation and movements.

The book has eight chapters in every edition from 2019-20 to the rationalised reprint of 2026-27. The reprint renames chapter 3, from "The Story of Indian Democracy" to "The Constitution and Social Change", cuts it by more than half, and shortens most other chapters. These notes follow the full 2021-22 text and mark what the reprint dropped.

What the book covers, by theme:

  • Change under colonialism: colonialism as a capitalist structure, deindustrialisation, port cities, plantations and urbanisation (ch. 1); social reform and the four processes of sanskritisation, westernisation, modernisation and secularisation (ch. 2).
  • Democracy: the Constitution as an instrument of social justice, the Constituent Assembly, Panchayati Raj, tribal self-government, parties and pressure groups (ch. 3).
  • The economy as society: caste and class in the agrarian structure, land reform, the Green Revolution and migrant labour (ch. 4); informal work, the control of work, mines, home-based work and the 1982 Bombay textile strike (ch. 5).
  • Globalisation and media: the economic, political and cultural dimensions of globalisation and glocalisation (ch. 6); print, radio and television from the colonial press to satellite channels (ch. 7).
  • Collective action: theories and types of social movements, and the ecological, peasant, workers', Dalit, tribal and women's movements (ch. 8).

Each chapter page carries figures drawn from NCERT's text and boxes and from dated official data: the colonial port city as a link to the British core, India's urban share since 1901, M.S.A. Rao's three kinds of urban impact, Saberwal's modern framework of reform, sanskritisation and its criticisms, the three tiers of Panchayati Raj, land reform outcomes, the circulation of labour, India's changing employment structure, the bidi value chain, the global making of a car, the digital divide, the media's three periods, and the types of social movements.

For UPSC, this book directly feeds GS1 (Indian Society; effects of globalisation; social empowerment; modern Indian history) and supports GS2 (local government, pressure groups, social justice) and GS3 (land reform, labour, agrarian distress).