Cultural Change

Written and reviewed by Subhra Gupta, Humanities faculty at UniDrill (M.A. Sociology, University of Delhi · 7 years teaching Humanities). Based on NCERT Sociology Class XII (Social Change and Development in India), Chapter 2.

How is a sari like a story about colonial India?

The sari was once just a loose, unstitched piece of cloth, worn in different ways in different regions. The way the modern middle class woman wears it today, with a petticoat and a blouse, is a new combination of the traditional sari and western undergarments. Nobody planned it, and nobody thinks of it as "western". That is how cultural change usually works: it is rarely a clean swap of the old for the new. People learn a culture, then change it. This chapter is about how that happened in India under the pressure of colonial rule, deliberately through reform movements and less deliberately through four processes: sanskritisation, westernisation, modernisation and secularisation.

Structure and culture

Sociologists define social structure as a "continuing arrangement of persons in relationships defined or controlled by institutions", and culture as "socially established norms or patterns of behaviour". The previous chapter showed structural change (industry, cities). Change in structure leads to change in culture: ways of life, norms, values, fashions and even body language. The chapter looks at two related developments, both shaped by colonial rule.

Sanskritisation pre-dates colonial rule. The other three are better understood as complex responses to the changes colonialism brought.

Social reform movements of the 19th and early 20th century

The well known issues were sati, child marriage, the ban on widow remarriage and caste discrimination. Efforts against social discrimination are older: they were central to Buddhism, Bhakti and Sufi movements. What marked the 19th century attempts was the modern context and a creative mix of ideas: modern western liberalism combined with a fresh look at traditional literature.

What was modern about it. The sociologist Satish Saberwal describes the modern framework of change in colonial India in three aspects: modes of communication, forms of organisation, and the nature of ideas.

Debate, not agreement. The reformers differed. For some the concern was problems faced by upper caste, middle class women and men. For others the injustice done to discriminated castes was central. Some saw social evils as caused by a decline from the true spirit of a religion; others held that caste and gender oppression were intrinsic to the religion. Whether women had been educated in the past was itself contested. Some said yes, others said that was true only of a privileged few. Debates took place inside communities too: sati was opposed by the Brahmo Samaj, while some orthodox members of the Hindu community in Bengal formed the Dharma Sabha and petitioned the British, arguing that reformers had no right to interpret sacred texts. On polygamy, a leading women's journal in Punjab supported the resolution while others disapproved.

Pause and predict: why did reformers argue about women's education by quoting both ancient texts and modern ideas?

Check your answer: because they were trying to persuade people who trusted tradition and people who trusted modern reason. Using both made the case stronger, and it also shows that 19th century reform was about redefining tradition and modernity together, not choosing one.

Four processes at a glance

These processes overlap and often co-exist. The same person can be modern in some ways and traditional in others. The poet A.K. Ramanujan's recollection of his father is a classic picture: white turbans and a caste mark, yet western ties and collar studs, English jackets over muslin dhotis worn in the traditional style. This mix of traditional and modern is often seen as natural in India and many non-western countries, but sociology does not stop at calling it "natural". It asks how colonial modernity, with its paradoxes, produced it.

Sanskritisation

M.N. Srinivas coined the term. It is primarily a process within Hindu society, though Srinivas argued it was visible even in sects and religious groups outside Hinduism. Its effect appears in language, literature, ideology, music, dance, drama, lifestyle and ritual.

It did not work the same way everywhere. Where a highly sanskritised caste was dominant, the culture of the whole region was sanskritised to some extent. Where non-Sanskritic castes were dominant, their influence was stronger, a situation that can be called de-Sanskritisation. In Punjab, Sanskritic influence was never strong, and until the third quarter of the 19th century the Persian influence was dominant.

What it needs. Srinivas argued that sanskritisation usually improves a group's position in the local caste hierarchy. It normally assumes an improvement in economic or political position, or higher group self-consciousness through contact with a source of the 'Great Tradition', such as a pilgrim centre, a monastery or a proselytising sect. The 'reference model' is usually financially better off, and the wish to be like a higher placed group arises only when people become wealthier.

But obstacles remained. In a deeply unequal society, the dominant caste traditionally punished lower castes that dared to adopt higher caste practices. The autobiography of Kumud Pawade, a Dalit woman who became a Sanskrit teacher, shows reactions that ranged from surprise to hostility, from guarded acceptance to brutal rejection. Her account of her struggle shows that caste, as she put it, is something that comes by birth and cannot be cast off even by dying.

Later developments. With the growth of the anti-Brahminical movement and regional self-consciousness in the twentieth century, several Indian languages tried to drop Sanskrit words. The Backward Classes Movement emphasised the role of secular factors in upward mobility. Dominant castes no longer wished to pass for Vaisyas, Kshatriyas or Brahmins, and it became prestigious to belong to a dominant caste. Recent years have also seen Dalit assertion, with pride in a Dalit identity.

Two views. For the exam: sanskritisation is the process by which lower groups adopt the practices of higher castes to improve their status. Another reading: critics argue that it is a limited account of mobility because it describes movement of individuals within an unequal order, and because it treats the practices of dominant groups as the standard. Later movements, as the textbook notes, rejected that standard and emphasised assertion of their own identities.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: sanskritisation is a process within caste society, associated with Srinivas. In reality: Srinivas first developed the idea in his study of the Coorgs of Karnataka (1952), where he saw groups adopting the customs of higher placed castes, and he later saw that the same process was not limited to one region. Why it matters: it explains why the textbook insists on regional variation and the point about de-Sanskritisation.

Pause and predict: a family of a lower placed caste becomes financially better off and starts following the rituals of a higher caste. Which process is this and what does it change?

Check your answer: sanskritisation. It may raise the group's position in the local caste hierarchy, but the critics' point is that it changes position within the hierarchy, not the structure of inequality itself.

Westernisation

Srinivas defined westernisation as changes brought about in Indian society and culture as a result of over 150 years of British rule, covering technology, institutions, ideology and values.

Form is not value. Westernisation involves imitation of external forms of culture. It does not necessarily mean people adopt the modern values of democracy and equality. A person may be western in dress and still hold prejudiced views about particular groups. A family may do up its home in a western style and still hold conservative ideas about women's role. The practice of female foeticide joins a discriminatory attitude with very modern technology. The textbook adds that racist and discriminatory attitudes are not unique to non-western societies.

Art and literature too. Ravi Varma, Abanindranath Tagore, Chandu Menon and Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay were all grappling with the colonial encounter. Ravi Varma's first paid commission in 1870 was a portrait of the family of Kizhakke Palat Krishna Menon. It blended a flat, two dimensional style with new techniques of perspective and illusion possible in oil painting, and arranged seated figures by age and hierarchy in the manner of nineteenth century European portraits of the bourgeois family. This was striking because the family belonged to the matrilineal Nayars of Kerala, but the portrait resembled the patrilineal nuclear family of the modern West.

Not just upper castes. Srinivas suggested that lower castes sought to be sanskritised while upper castes sought to be westernised. In a country as diverse as India this is hard to sustain. Studies of the Thiyyas of Kerala, who are by no means considered upper caste, show conscious efforts to westernise: elite Thiyyas adopted British culture as a step towards a more cosmopolitan life that criticised caste. In the North East, western education opened new opportunities, and among Nagas of an earlier generation, English became a way for people whose tribes speak entirely different languages to communicate with one another and with the world.

Generations. Generational conflict is often seen as a result of westernisation. The chapter asks whether it is the only reason and whether conflict is necessarily bad. An Assamese short story in the chapter shows a parent who loves their children but feels like a stranger among them, as the children prefer different clothes, music and ways of thinking.

Modernisation and secularisation

In its early use, modernisation meant improvements in technology and production under British rule. It then grew to mean the path of development that Western Europe and North America had taken, with the suggestion that other societies should follow the same path. In India capitalism began under colonial rule, so the story of modernisation and secularisation is distinct from the West's.

Rudolph and Rudolph describe modernity as the assumption that:

Secularisation. In the modern West, secularisation usually means a decline in the influence of religion. Theorists of modernisation assumed that modern societies become increasingly secular, and indicators include involvement in religious organisations, the social and material influence of religious bodies, and the extent of religious belief. But even in the past this assumption was not entirely true: modern forms of communication, organisation and ideas led to new religious reform organisations, and recent years have seen an unprecedented growth of religious consciousness and conflict worldwide.

In India, two features stand out.

How Rajni Kothari reads it. Kothari argues that it is not enough to ask whether caste is disappearing. A better question is what form caste takes under the impact of modern politics, and what form politics takes in a caste oriented society. Politics is a competitive enterprise in which support has to be organised through the groupings in which people actually live, so politicians mobilise existing identities, and in doing so they change the form of those organisations, including caste.

Two views. For the exam: in the modern West secularisation means the decline of religion's influence; in India, the chapter also uses it for the changing role of caste and for the non-religious dimensions of ritual. Another reading: some scholars argue that modernisation does not necessarily reduce religion. The textbook itself notes growing religious consciousness in recent years and the rise of new religious reform organisations. Both readings agree that "modern" does not simply mean "less religious".

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: tradition and modernity are shown as mixing. In reality: the book the textbook cites for the definition of modernity is titled The Modernity of Tradition (Rudolph and Rudolph, 1967), which argues that traditional institutions in India, such as caste, adapted to modern politics instead of simply disappearing. Why it matters: it supports the chapter's claim that culture and tradition are living things that people learn and modify.

Exam traps

60-second revision

Where this chapter connects

• Previous: Structural Change explains the colonial industrialisation and urbanisation that the cultural changes here grew out of.
• Next: The Constitution and Social Change shows how reform ideas of equality and justice were written into law.
• Related: Patterns of Social Inequality and Exclusion gives the background on caste, and Social Institutions: Continuity and Change covers family, caste and tribe.