Page 21 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Social Structure and Social Change

Notes social structure. These have been attacked from time to time by social and religious reform
movements, secularization process and host of others. But the system seems to have a remarkable
resilience. It yields some ground but returns again. For instance, when caste is sought to be
dislodged from the religious (ritual) domain, it enters into the political process and caste
consciousness comes back with a vengeance through urbanization. In the face of scientific temper,
religiosity and ritualism also increased and a substantial segment of the modern educated class
shows latent and sometime overt acceptance of the religious phenomenon sometimes steeped in
irrationality and superstition. Moreover, even the religious ideologies that emerged outside India
such as Islam and Christianity too accept some of these attributes and become Indianized’. The
joint family norms instead of fading away in the face of urbanization and industrialization may
still be retained by adapting to the process of democratization and acceptance of dissent. The joint
family today is more democratic and the traditional autocratic authority of the karta (head of the
joint family) has become a thing of the past. All these examples point to the fact that what is being
continued is a transformed version-of the past, When a Clifford Geertz talks about “Old Societies,
New states”, he has a point.
Another dimension of continuity in Indian society may be explained through the continuity of
Little Traditions’ with Great Traditions. Even among the modern, educated urban people, during
sickness in the family, a modern physician visits the patient in the morning and the same family
takes recourse to sorcery ganda and taveez (amcelet) bhabhut from the so called godmen, swamis and
babas, Pirs and faqirs. A common sight in any Indian village is the puja for the tractor bought by a
farmer, invoking the blessings of the local deity, performing aarti and applying sindoor to the
tractor, a product of modern technology. Not only the continuity between the Little Traditions and
Great Traditions, even two different Great Traditions may go together or get fused into one
another. For the vast multitudes of the Hindu masses paying respect to the mazar of a Sufi saint
alongwith praying in a temple is not unusual or mutually contradictory. It does not dilute their
Hindutua. The contribution of a number of Muslims to the Shastriya Sangeet is well known and a
number of these musicians have been paying their respect to Saraswati before starting their daily
riyaz (practice) of music both vocal as well as instrumental. Ustad Bismillah Khan playing Shehnai
on the thresh hold of Kashi Vishwanath temple immediately after performing Haj at Mecca is a
pleasant sight to many. It tells us that there is something inherent in Indian civilization, which
facilitates the cultural continuity.
Among the factors of change in Indian society discussed in this section, independence from British
rule, democratization, adult franchise, constitution as a vehicle of change (state sponsored change),
industrialization and urbanization, modern education and increase in education, legislative and
administrative means may be the most important factors of change. At the grassroots level,
industrialization and market economy has led to breakdown of Jajmani system. Urbanization has
contributed to the increased occupational mobility and disorganization of joint family at least
structurally, new system of stratification based on achievement rather than ascription has emerged.
But, as pointed out elsewhere in this section, these changes have not taken place through wholesale
replacement of traditional structures. But the craving for retaining and strengthening the traditional
social institutions such as caste and religion along with modernization pose a threat of breakdown
or ‘cultural lag’ to the process of modernization. The increasing level of communalism and casteism
along with violence, use of modern technology like television to promote religious animosity and
growth of separatism may be cited as examples. The active participation of the affluent urban
middle class in looting spree and in the communal violence in the Gujarat’s recent holocaust speak
volumes of communalisation of this modern urban middle class. Increased ritualism, religiosity
and religious consciousness and an upbeat economy, democracy and declining levels of tolerance
of dissent, an open polity with atrocities on the weaker sections, high spiritualism with increasing
vulgarisation of values are alarming to the students of contemporary Indian society. As S.C. Dube
(1990) remarks, contemporary Indian society is undergoing a trauma of change and is confronting
a series of dilemmas and paradoxes. While some aspects of tradition will survive because of their
vitality and usefulness, many of the scaly prejudices of the past will have to be eradicated and
structures of exploitation and tyranny demolished. The road ahead is long, the process may be
painful, but every citizen of India has a stake in the future.

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