Model answer & approach
- Justify that the Indian traditions are modernizing. Also discuss its contributing factors. (Answer in 150 words)
Introduction
Indian tradition has not been replaced by modernity so much as reworked by it, a process Yogendra Singh called the modernisation of Indian tradition.
Body
1. Tradition itself is modernising: Caste has become the raw material of caste associations that behave as interest groups and electoral blocs, which Rudolph and Rudolph called the modernity of tradition. Sanskritisation, in Srinivas's account, uses a traditional idiom for thoroughly modern mobility, and Milton Singer found Madras industrialists compartmentalising orthodox households with rational management at the firm. The joint family survives as a property and ritual unit while households nucleate, and arranged marriage now runs through matrimonial portals.
2. What is bringing it about: Colonial education, print and law began it; the Constitution, Article 17 and the Hindu Code Bill continued it by statute. Industrialisation and urbanisation loosened the occupational basis of caste, competitive politics rewarded the aggregation of traditional groups, and market, media and migration carried new wants into old forms.
Conclusion
Tradition modernises because it is a resource people use, not a shell they discard.
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