Cultural Change | Chapter-2 | Class12 | Sociology | NCERT|

                     Chapter-2

             Cultural Change

• first deals with the deliberate and conscious efforts made by the 19th century social reformers and early 20th century nationalists to bring in changes in social practices that discriminated against women and ‘lower’ castes.

•  The second with the less deliberate yet decisive changes in cultural practices that can broadly be understood as the four processes of sanskritisation, modernisation, secularisation and westernisation.

SOCIAL REFORM MOVEMENTS IN THE

19TH AND EARLY 20TH CENTURY

• 19th century social reform attempts was the modern context and mix of ideas.
•  Mix of ideas- It was a creative combination of modern ideas of western liberalism and a new look on traditional literature.

Example:-

1. Ram Mohun Roy attacked the practice of sati on the basis of both appeals to humanitarian and natural rights doctrines as well as Hindu shastras.

2.  Ranade’s writings entitled The Texts of the Hindu Law on the Lawfulness of the Remarriage of Widows and Vedic Authorities for Widow Marriage elaborated the shastric sanction for remarriage of widows.
3. Sir Sayed Ahmed Khan’s interpretation of Islam emphasised the validity of free enquiry (ijtihad) and the alleged similarities between Koranic revelations and the laws of nature discovered by modern science.

Three aspects to the modern framework of change in colonial India:

1.  Modes of communication
2.  Forms of organisation, and
3.  The nature of ideas

Modes of communication- New technologies speeded up various forms of communication. The printing press, telegraph, and later the microphone, movement of people and goods

through steamship and railways helped quick movement of new ideas. Within India, social reformers from Punjab and Bengal exchanged ideas with reformers from Madras and Maharashtra.

Modern social organisations- like the Brahmo Samaj in Bengal and Arya Samaj in Punjab were set up. The All-India Muslim Ladies Conference was founded in 1914. Indian reformers debated not just in public meetings but through public media like newspapers and journals.

The Nature of ideas- New ideas of liberalism and freedom, new ideas of homemaking and

marriage, new roles for mothers and daughters, new ideas of self-conscious pride in culture and tradition emerged. The value of education

became very important. It was seen as very crucial for a nation to become modern but also retain its ancient heritage.

Sati was opposed by the Brahmo Samaj. Orthodox members of the Hindu community in Bengal formed an organisation called Dharma Sabha and petitioned the British arguing

that reformers had no right to interpret sacred texts. 

Sanskritisation

The term sanskritisation was coined by M.N. Srinivas. It may be briefly defined as the process by which a ‘low’ caste or tribe or other group takes over the customs, ritual, beliefs, ideology and style of life of a high and, in particular, a ‘twice-born (dwija) caste’.

The Sanskritisation of a group has usually the effect of improving its position in the local caste hierarchy.

Sanskritisation suggests a process whereby people want to improve their status through adoption of names and customs of culturally high-placed groups.

Criticism of Sanskritisation

1. it has been criticised for exaggerating social mobility or the scope of ‘lower castes’

       to move up the social ladder. For it leads.          to no structural change but only positional change of some individuals.

2. it has been pointed out that the ideology of sanskritisation accepts the ways of the ‘upper caste’ as superior and that of the

‘lower caste’ as inferior.

3. ‘sanskritisation’ seems to justify a model that rests on inequality and exclusion. It appears to suggest that to believe in pollution and purity of groups of people is justifiable or all right

4. sanskritisation results in the adoption

of upper caste rites and rituals it leads to practices of secluding girls and women, adopting dowry practices instead of bride-price and practising caste discrimination against other groups, etc.

Westernisation 

• “the changes brought about in Indian society and culture as a result of over 150 years of British rule, the term subsuming changes occurring at different levels…technology, institutions, ideology and values”

Different kinds of westernisation

Box. 2.2 Ways of thinking …John Stuart Mill’s essay ‘On Liberty’ soon after its publication became a text in Indian colleges. Indians came to know about Magna Carta, and the struggle for liberty and equality in Europe and America.

Box. 2.3 Ways of living Devaki recalls that when she was small, in her house boiled eggs were eaten in eggcups and her mother would make the porridge and serve it separately on the table with the hot milk and sugar, to be mixed in each person’s bowl. This was distinctly different from other households. Devaki says, where boiled eggs were not eaten in egg cups and where the porridge, milk and sugar were all mixed together, cooked in a pan, and then served.. She remembers asking her mother why they ate porridge like that and her mother saying that this was the way they used to eat porridge in the estate.

MODERNISATION AND SECULARISATION

Modernisation referred to improvement in technology and production processes.

Increasingly, however, the term had a wider usage

‘Modernity’ assumes that local ties and parochial perspectives give way to universal

commitments and cosmopolitan attitudes; that the truths of utility, calculation, and science

take precedence over those of the emotions, the sacred, and the non-rational; that the

individual rather than the group be the primary unit of society and politics 

Secularisation

secularisation has usually meant a process of decline in the influence of religion.

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