Page 274 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Unit 12: Processes of Change

prestige, but more humble folk imitated them in course of time. The priests lacked the courage— Notes
except during the early years of British rule—to throw their powerful patrons out of the caste, and as
secularization spread among Brahmins, the priests had no alternative but to bow to the inevitable.
Meanwhile, the style of life of the priests themselves became Westernized to some extent. Many even
acquired a nodding acquaintance with English and were proud of displaying it.
Regrettably, there have been no studies of occupational changes among different generations of priestly
families. But evidence already available shows that in both Bangalore and Mysore cities
intergenerational occupational changes have been highest among Brahmins. Noel Gist, who studied
intercaste differences in Mysore and Bangalore cities in 1951-1952, has reported that intergenerational
occupational differences were highest among Brahmins as compared with other caste categories. In
Mysore city, for instance, 82.7 per cent of household heads had occupations different from those of
their fathers, and 76.8 percent of their own sons had departed from paternal occupations. For the
non-Brahmin group, the percentages of deviation were 55.7 and 49.4 respectively, while for the
Scheduled Castes they were 44.8 and 56.8 Gist’s sample does not distinguish between priestly and
lay Brahmins, but there is no reason to assume that the former were exempt from processes which
affected the latter. From my own experience, I can recall many of my contemporaries in Mysore who
came from priestly and orthodox families, but who chose secular careers.
In a word, then, the gradual erosion of priestly authority and prestige, and the secularization of
priests, have brought about a situation in which priests lack the confidence to take any initiative in
religious or social reform. They do not have the intellectual equipment or the social position to
undertake a reinterpretation of Hinduism that would suit modern circumstances. Since the beginning
of the nineteenth century, such reinterpretation has come from the Westernized Hindu elite. The fact
that this elite has been anti-ritualistic, as well as inclined to frown upon popular sacrifices, beliefs
and practices, has stripped Hinduism of a great deal of its content.
The situation depicted above highlights the fact that, unlike the Biblical religions, Hinduism is without
a universal organization and a hierarchy of officials whose function it is to interpret it in the context
of changing circumstances. While it is true that some Hindu sects—such as the Smarthas, Sri
Vaishnavas and Madhvas, the Lingayats and several others—have elaborate organizations headed
by pontiffs, these pontiffs have authority only within their sects or divisions within sects, and not for
Hinduism as a whole.
Another characteristic of Hinduism has been its extraordinary reliance on, if not inseparability from,
the social structure. The three main elements of the social structure are caste, village community and
family system. In Hindu India the political head, the king, was also the head of the social system,
including caste. The relation of Hinduism to the state changed with the Muslim conquest of large
parts of India. Some Muslim rulers were tolerant of Hinduism, while others who were not sought to
convert infidels to the true faith and imposed jiziya or poll tax on non-Muslims. The British in their
turn observed, on the whole, a policy of neutrality toward all religions, though the Church of England
in India was supported from Indian revenues, and European missionaries enjoyed a favoured position
thanks to the religious, cultural and racial links between them and the British rulers. It was only in
the “native states” ruled by Hindu princes—such as Nepal, Travancore, Cochin, Mysore, Baroda,
Jaipur and Kashmir—that royalty discharged some of the functions traditionally expected of it with
regard to caste and appointment of monastic heads. The Hindu kingdom of Nepal was, and is, far
more traditional in character than Hindu kingdoms elsewhere in the subcontinent, and today Nepal
is the only Hindu kingdom in the world: “Until recently, the penal code of Nepal was based on the
Shastras, and social, religious and criminal offences were dealt with by identical procedures. Brahmins
were immune from capital punishment, and the crime of killing a cow could bring the death penalty.”
If we are to understand future trends, the absence of a central organization for Hinduism, as well as
lack of support from the political authority for maintenance of Hindu religion and social structure,
must be viewed along with the radical changes occurring in the three institutions of caste, village
community and family system. I have already dealt with the changes occurring in caste and shall not
repeat them here. I shall merely point out that as a result of increased secularization and mobility and
the spread of an equalitarian ideology, the caste system is no longer perpetuating values traditionally
considered to be an essential part of Hinduism.

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