Cultural Change

This is Chapter 2 of Social Change and Development in India. Chapter 1, Structural Change, showed how colonialism remade work and settlement; this chapter looks at culture — ‘socially established norms or patterns of behaviour’ — as distinct from social structure, ‘a continuing arrangement of persons in relationships defined or controlled by institutions’. In the rationalised reprint it runs 14 pages of text (pages 15–28), with five boxes, a box of extracts (Box 2.1), seven activities and three questions. It has two parts: 2.1 on social reform movements, and the sections on the four processes (oddly, both 2.2 and 2.3 carry the heading ‘Different Kinds of Social Change’).

• Builds on Chapter 1 (colonialism's paradoxes; English education) and leads into Chapter 3 (the Constitution as an instrument of social change) and Chapter 8 (social movements).
• Pairs with live chapters: Indian Society, Chapter 3 Social Institutions (caste and its change — Sanskritisation and dominant caste appear there too); Political Theory, Chapter 8 Secularism (keps108 — the state's secularism, a different idea from the sociological secularisation here); Themes in Indian History III, Mahatma Gandhi and the Nationalist Movement (lehs303); Structural Change (lesy201).
• UPSC: GS1 has asked about the women's question in 19th-century reform (2017), Young Bengal and the Brahmo Samaj (2021), Phule and the subaltern classes (2025), caste taking ‘new identities and associational forms’ (2018), and customs, tradition and reason (2020; Essay 2018). Prelims has asked about Sanskritisation (1983), Ram Mohun Roy (1982, 2025), Ranade and the National Social Conference (1996, 2012) and Vidyasagar and girls' education (2021).

• Two developments: deliberate social reform (19th–early 20th century) and four less deliberate processes — Sanskritisation, westernisation, modernisation, secularisation.
• Reform was ‘modern’ because of Satish Saberwal's three aspects: communication, organisation, ideas — and a mix of liberalism with reinterpreted tradition (Box 2.1).
• Sanskritisation (M.N. Srinivas): a ‘low’ caste, tribe or group adopts the ways of a high, especially dwija, caste; it pre-dates colonial rule; regional variation and de-Sanskritisation.
• Five critiques: positional not structural change; accepts upper-caste superiority; justifies purity–pollution; spreads dowry and seclusion of women; erodes Dalit culture and the worth of labour.
• Westernisation (Srinivas): change from 150+ years of British rule at the levels of technology, institutions, ideology, values — often external forms without democratic values.
• Modernisation: universal, chosen, achieved (Rudolphs, 1967). Secularisation: religion's hold declines — but rituals serve secular ends and caste becomes a political pressure group (Kothari).

The social reform movements of the 19th century arose in response to the challenges colonial Indian society faced. The best-known issues were sati, child marriage, the ban on widow remarriage and caste discrimination. NCERT is careful: fighting social discrimination was not new — it was central to Buddhism, the Bhakti and the Sufi movements. What marked the 19th-century attempts was their modern context and mix of ideas.

The sociologist Satish Saberwal sketches three aspects of this modern framework of change in colonial India. Modes of communication: the printing press, telegraph and later the microphone, steamships and railways moved ideas quickly; reformers from Punjab and Bengal exchanged ideas with those of Madras and Maharashtra — Keshab Chandra Sen of Bengal visited Madras in 1864, Pandita Ramabai travelled across the country, and Christian missionaries reached what are now Nagaland, Mizoram and Meghalaya. Forms of organisation: modern bodies such as the Brahmo Samaj in Bengal and the Arya Samaj in Punjab; the All-India Muslim Ladies Conference (Anjuman-e-Khawatin-e-Islam), founded in 1914; debate through public meetings, newspapers and journals; translations — Vishnu Shastri published a Marathi translation of Vidyasagar's book in Indu Prakash in 1868. The nature of ideas: liberalism and freedom; new ideas of homemaking and marriage and of the roles of mothers and daughters; a self-conscious pride in culture and tradition; and above all the value of education, seen as necessary both to become modern and to keep an ancient heritage.

NCERT calls reform ‘a creative combination of modern ideas of western liberalism and a new look on traditional literature’. Box 2.1 gives examples. Raja Ram Mohun Roy attacked sati with appeals to humanitarian and natural-rights doctrines and to the Hindu shastras. M.G. Ranade's writings on the texts of Hindu law and the Vedic authorities for widow marriage set out the shastric sanction for widow remarriage. The new education was modernising and liberal, its humanities drawn from the European Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment — humanistic, secular and liberal. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan stressed free enquiry (ijtihad) and argued that the Quran's revelations agreed with the laws of nature found by modern science. Kandukuri Viresalingam wrote on the sources of knowledge drawing on navya-nyaya logic, while also translating a British biologist's works.

The same mix shaped the debate on women's education, which was argued intensely. NCERT notes that Jotiba Phule opened the first school for women in Pune. Reformers argued that a society could not progress without educated women. Some claimed women had been educated in pre-modern India; others replied that this had been true only of a privileged few. And the past itself was contested: Phule recalled the glory of a pre-Aryan age, while Bal Gangadhar Tilak stressed the glory of the Aryan period. Reform, NCERT concludes, opened a period of questioning, reinterpretation and intellectual and social growth.

The reform movements shared themes but differed sharply. For some, the concerns were confined to the problems of upper-caste, middle-class women and men; for others the injustices suffered by discriminated castes were central. For some, social evils had come from a decline of the true spirit of Hinduism; for others, caste and gender oppression were intrinsic to the religion.

Debate ran within communities. Muslim reformers argued over polygamy and purdah: at the All India Muslim Ladies Conference, Jahanara Shah Nawaz proposed a resolution against polygamy, arguing that the polygamy practised by some sections of Muslims was against the true spirit of the Quran and that educated women should use their influence to end it. The resolution was hotly debated in the Muslim press; the leading women's journal in Punjab, Tahzib-un-Niswan, supported it, while others disapproved (Maitrayee Chaudhuri, 1993). Among Hindus, the Brahmo Samaj opposed sati, while orthodox members of the Bengal Hindu community formed the Dharma Sabha and petitioned the British, arguing that reformers had no right to interpret sacred texts.

NCERT treats Sanskritisation, westernisation, modernisation and secularisation in turn, but warns that they overlap, often co-exist and sometimes work very differently. Sanskritisation pre-dates colonial rule; the other three are best understood as complex responses to the changes colonialism brought. The same person may be modern in some ways and traditional in others — a co-existence often called ‘natural’ to India, though sociology does not accept ‘naturalist’ explanations. Colonial modernity had its own paradoxes: the English-educated middle class read the Enlightenment and liberal democracy, yet, humiliated by colonial rule, asserted pride in traditional learning.

Modernity therefore meant not only new ideas but a rethinking of tradition; culture and tradition are living things, learnt and modified. NCERT's example: the sari, a loose unstitched cloth worn differently in each region, is now worn by the middle-class woman in a standard way combining it with the western petticoat and blouse. Diversity means that these processes affect regions, classes, castes — and men and women of the same family — differently.

The term was coined by M.N. Srinivas. Briefly, it is 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, in particular a ‘twice-born’ (dwija) caste. Its influence is many-sided — in language, literature, ideology, music, dance, drama, style of life and ritual. It happens primarily within the Hindu space, though Srinivas argued it could be seen in sects and religious groups outside Hinduism too.

It worked differently in different regions. Where a highly Sanskritised caste was dominant, the whole region's culture became somewhat Sanskritised; where non-Sanskritic castes were dominant, their influence was stronger — ‘de-Sanskritisation’. In Punjab, Sanskritic influence was never strong; for centuries until the third quarter of the 19th century, Persian influence dominated.

Srinivas argued that Sanskritisation usually improves a group's position in the local caste hierarchy, and that it normally presupposes either an improvement in the group's economic or political position or a higher group self-consciousness from contact with a source of the ‘Great Tradition’ of Hinduism — a pilgrim centre, a monastery or a proselytising sect. But in a highly unequal society there were, and are, obstacles: traditionally the dominant caste punished low castes audacious enough to try. NCERT adds that the ‘reference model’ is usually financially better off, and that the aspiration to be like the higher group arises only when people become wealthier.

NCERT lists five criticisms. One: it exaggerates mobility — it brings no structural change, only positional change for some, so inequality persists. Two: its ideology accepts the ways of the ‘upper caste’ as superior and of the ‘lower caste’ as inferior, so imitation seems natural and desirable. Three: it seems to justify a model resting on inequality and exclusion — as if belief in the purity and pollution of groups were acceptable. Four: adopting upper-caste rites leads to secluding girls and women, adopting dowry instead of bride-price and practising caste discrimination against others. Five: it erodes Dalit culture — the worth of the labour ‘lower castes’ do is degraded and made ‘shameful’, and identities and knowledge based on work, crafts, medicine, ecology, agriculture and animal husbandry are treated as useless in the industrial era.

History also moved past it. With the anti-Brahminical movement and regional self-consciousness in the 20th century, several Indian languages tried to drop Sanskrit words. The Backward Classes Movement stressed secular routes to mobility. Dominant castes no longer wanted to pass for Vaishyas, Kshatriyas or Brahmins: it was prestigious simply to be a member of the dominant caste. And in recent years Dalits have asserted pride in their identity as Dalits.

M.N. Srinivas defines westernisation as ‘the changes brought about in Indian society and culture as a result of over 150 years of British rule’, at different levels — technology, institutions, ideology and values. NCERT distinguishes kinds. One is a westernised sub-culture of the minority who first came in contact with western culture — Indian intellectuals who adopted its ways of thinking and living and supported its spread; many early 19th-century reformers were of this kind. Another is the general spread of western traits — technology, dress, food, habits: a television, fridge, sofa set and dining table in middle-class homes across the country.

Westernisation involves imitating external forms of culture; it does not necessarily mean adopting modern values of democracy and equality. Activity 2.5 offers examples: western-educated people who hold prejudiced views of ethnic or religious communities; families with western interiors but conservative ideas about women; and female foeticide, which combines discrimination against women with very modern technology. NCERT also asks whether such contradictions are only Indian — racist and discriminatory attitudes exist in western societies too.

The West shaped art and literature too: Raja Ravi Varma, Abanindranath Tagore, Chandu Menon and Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay all grappled with the colonial encounter. Westernisation is also blamed for generational conflict — NCERT asks whether it is the only cause, and whether conflict is necessarily bad. Srinivas suggested that ‘lower castes’ sought to be Sanskritised while ‘upper castes’ sought to be westernised; NCERT says this is hard to maintain: elite Thiyyas in Kerala, not an ‘upper caste’, consciously westernised as a move to a cosmopolitan life critical of caste, and western education opened new opportunities for many groups in the North-East.

The term modernisation has a long history. From the 19th and especially the 20th century it came to mean positive, desirable values; people and societies wanted to be modern. At first it meant better technology and production; later it came to mean the path of development taken by western Europe and North America — with the suggestion that other societies have to and ought to follow it. In India, capitalism began in a colonial context, so its modernisation and secularisation are distinct from the West's.

NCERT quotes Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph (1967): modernity assumes that local ties and parochial outlooks give way to universal commitments and cosmopolitan attitudes; that utility, calculation and science take precedence over emotion, the sacred and the non-rational; that the individual, not the group, is the primary unit; that associations rest on choice, not birth; that mastery replaces fatalism; that identity is chosen and achieved, not ascribed; and that work is separated from family, residence and community in bureaucratic organisation. In short: how you behave, what you think, what job you do is no longer decided by family, tribe, caste or community; a scientific attitude gains ground.

In the modern West, secularisation usually meant a decline in the influence of religion, and modernisation theorists assumed that modern societies become increasingly secular. Its indicators: involvement with religious organisations, their social and material influence, and the degree to which people hold religious beliefs. But recent years have seen an unprecedented growth of religious consciousness and conflict worldwide — and even earlier, the assumption did not fully hold: modern communication, organisation and ideas produced new religious reform organisations. Moreover, much ritual in India serves secular ends.

An extract in NCERT puts it this way: rituals also have secular dimensions — occasions to socialise with peers and superiors and to display wealth, clothes and jewellery; in recent decades their economic, political and status sides have become conspicuous, so that the number of cars outside a wedding house and the VIPs who attended indicate a household's local standing.

There has also been debate over the secularisation of caste. Traditionally caste worked within a religious framework of purity and pollution. Today it often functions as a political pressure group: India has seen caste associations and caste-based parties pressing demands on the state. This changed role is called the secularisation of caste.

Numbers

One-liners

• Reform was old in aim, new in context: communication, organisation, ideas (Saberwal).
• Reformers mixed natural rights with the shastras, ijtihad with science.
• Reformers split over whose problems mattered and whether religion or its decline was to blame.
• Sanskritisation pre-dates colonial rule; the other three processes respond to it.
• Sanskritisation: positional change without structural change.
• Westernisation can stop at external forms; modern values do not follow automatically.
• Modernity: from ascribed to achieved, from birth to choice.
• In India rituals gain secular functions; caste becomes a political pressure group.
• Ask not whether caste is disappearing, but what form it is taking (Kothari).

Traps to avoid

• Sanskritisation was coined by M.N. Srinivas; the model is usually a ‘twice-born’ caste, not only Brahmins.
• Dowry replacing bride-price and seclusion of women are effects of Sanskritisation, not of westernisation.
• The Dharma Sabha was the orthodox opponent of reform, not a reform body.
• Phule recalled a pre-Aryan golden age; Tilak an Aryan one.
• Secularisation (a social process) is not secularism (a state principle).
• Westernisation's period in Srinivas's definition: over 150 years of British rule.
• Box 2.5 is cited as Kothari 1977, the reference list says 1997; the essay is from 1970.
• ‘Julius Huxley’ in Box 2.1 is an NCERT slip (likely T.H. Huxley).
• Kumud Pawade (1938) — 1938 is her birth year, not the date of the autobiography.
• Both sections 2.2 and 2.3 are headed ‘Different Kinds of Social Change’ in the reprint.

Prelims — what UPSC asks

• Concept: Sanskritisation as imitation of higher-caste ways to raise status (1983; the stem says ‘upper class’ — choose Sanskritisation anyway).
• Reformers: Ram Mohun Roy's positions — widow remarriage, not sati (1982); respect for Eastern philosophy together with reason and equality (2025) — exactly Box 2.1's ‘mix of ideas’. Ranade and the Indian National Social Conference (1996, 2012 — the 2012 key is debatable: the Conference met alongside the INC sessions and is often described as its social-reform wing, so check the statements carefully); Vidyasagar and girls' education (2021).
• Build a table of reformer — region — organisation — year — issue (section 2) and of concept — author — work.

Mains — where it appears and how to answer

• Reform movements (GS1): the women's question in 19th-century reform (2017) — issues (sati, widow remarriage, child marriage, education, purdah, polygamy) and debates (scripture vs reason, orthodox vs reform, within Hindu and Muslim communities, women as subject vs speaker); Young Bengal and the Brahmo Samaj (2021); Phule and the subaltern classes (2025).
• Tradition and change: customs and traditions vs reason (2020) and the Essay ‘Customary morality cannot be a guide to modern life’ (2018) — use the Rudolphs' modernity and the reformers' reinterpretation of tradition; avoid a simple tradition-bad, modern-good line.
• Caste: caste ‘assuming new identities and associational forms’ (2018) — Kothari's secularisation of caste, caste associations, dominant-caste pride, Dalit assertion; pair with Indian Society Chapter 3 for continuity and change in caste.
• Keep reformers in their historical context and attribute criticisms (anti-caste, feminist, Dalit-Bahujan); no present-day political commentary.

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