CHAPTER 5

1. It might be useful to make a distinction between citizenship and membership of a society. There are several members of Indian origin who have taken citizenship of the country they have settled in. And yet they are differentiated from the ‘natives’ and generally referred to as ‘Indians’. So culturally they remain Indian, but with regard to nationality, they become British, or American, or Thai. The link with their native culture is somehow maintained.

2. The letter G stands for Group. G-77 is a Group of 77 nations.

3. But when a bus is hired to transport a wedding party—the baraat—then the travellers in that hired bus constitute a group. Students in a school bus or people in a tour bus also form a group.

4. A renegade is a person who deserts a cause or a faith and joins another group.

5. Sociologically, a family is defined as a group consisting of the husband and wife and their children, biological or adopted.

6. Sociometry is the science of measurement of social relationships.

7. The Indian Premier League is a Twenty-20 cricket competition created by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The first season of the IPL was held in India during April–June 2008, the second session was held in South Africa in May 2009, and the third was played again in India in March–April 2010.

8. Georg Simmel (1858–1918) introduced the concept of dyad to designate a social group with two members. Such groups collapse as soon as one of the members withdraws from it.

9. It must be said that it is not necessary that their ranks be identical. Such groups are seen to consist of persons of different neighbourhood ranks, such as deputy director and assistant director; however, they will not let the peons or drivers join the group.

10. Although an OCI makes the person settled overseas a ‘citizen’ of India, thereby accepting his membership, the Card does not give the person voting rights. It is like a life-long visa, in the sense that persons holding this card do not require a visa for entry; this, however, does not make it a travel document. The OCI are thus distinguishable from ordinary citizens of India. Nevertheless, OCIs are treated as Indians.

11. We shall discuss the concepts of status and role at length in Chapter 17.

12. The expression ‘face-to-face’ is taken from Charles H. Cooley. See his book, Social Organization: A Study of the Larger Mind (Chapters III and IV). New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1909.

13. The reader is advised to consult Roethlisberger and Dickson, 1939 (Ch. 21, pp. 493–510). It was reprinted in Part Two, Section A, Ch. 4 of Talcott Parsons, et al. (eds), 1965: 348–56.

14. Reference groups are, to quote Merton, ‘any of the groups of which one is a member, and these are comparatively few, as well as groups of which one is not a member, and these are, of course, legion, can become points of reference …’ (Merton, 1964: 233).