What is cultural change?
Culture is the shared way of life of a group: its beliefs, customs, values, food, dress and language. Cultural change is a change in these. In India, colonial rule and the national movement brought big cultural changes, first through social reform movements, and then through processes sociologists call Sanskritisation, Westernisation, modernisation and secularisation.
Social reform movements in the 19th and early 20th century
Reformers challenged social practices that hurt women and lower castes:
- Raja Rammohun Roy (Brahmo Samaj) campaigned against sati; it was banned in 1829.
- Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar worked for widow remarriage; a law allowed it in 1856.
- Jyotiba and Savitribai Phule opened schools for girls and lower castes and founded the Satyashodhak Samaj (1873) against caste inequality.
- Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan promoted modern education for Muslims (Aligarh, 1875).
- Pandita Ramabai, Sri Narayana Guru and many others worked for women and against caste rules.
How was this reform new?
Sociologist Satish Saberwal points to three sides of the modern setting:
- Modes of communication: printing press, newspapers, railways, so ideas travelled fast.
- Forms of organisation: new associations (Samajs, Sabhas) instead of only caste or village groups.
- Nature of ideas: liberal ideas like freedom and equality, joined with new readings of old religious texts to show that customs like sati were not required by them.
Reformers disagreed among themselves, and debates were lively. Reform was both modern and rooted in Indian traditions.
Sanskritisation
The term was given by sociologist M. N. Srinivas. Sanskritisation is the process by which a caste lower in the ranking adopts the customs, rituals, beliefs and way of life of a higher caste (often a 'twice-born' caste) to claim a higher place.
- Examples: giving up meat and alcohol, wearing the sacred thread, adopting higher-caste rituals and names.
- Result: positional change (the group moves up) but no structural change (the ladder stays).
- Criticisms: it accepts that higher-caste ways are better, so it supports inequality; it has spread practices like dowry and restrictions on women to more groups; the upward mobility is often more claimed than accepted.
- De-Sanskritisation: Dalit and backward-caste movements have instead rejected caste ranking and taken pride in their own culture.
Westernisation
Srinivas defined Westernisation as changes in Indian society and culture resulting from about 150 years of British rule. It works at many levels:
- Lifestyle: dress, food, eating at tables, the English language, new art forms.
- Ideas and values: humanism, equality, rights, democracy, science.
- Who took it first: mostly upper castes and the new middle class, through English education.
Westernisation and Sanskritisation can happen together: a family may give up meat (Sanskritisation) and also send its children to English-medium schools (Westernisation).
Modernisation
Modernisation once meant simply 'progress' in technology and industry. In sociology it means a shift in how people think and live:
- from local, narrow loyalties to universal rules (one law for all);
- from birth deciding your work to merit and choice;
- from fate and custom to reason and science;
- from personal ties to impersonal offices, markets and elections.
In India modernity did not simply replace tradition. Old and new often mix: a software engineer may consult an astrologer; caste associations use elections and the internet.
Secularisation
In Western sociology, secularisation means the declining influence of religion on public life: laws, schools, science and work are no longer run by religious rules. In India the word 'secular' also means that the state treats all religions with equal respect and does not favour one.
But Indian experience is mixed. Many rituals have become grander, festivals are big public events, and religion and caste are used in politics. Some rituals have also turned secular in purpose: a wedding becomes a chance to show status or build networks. So secularisation in India is uneven.
Comparing the four processes
- Sanskritisation: model is a higher Indian caste; direction is upward in caste ranking.
- Westernisation: model is the West; change in lifestyle and ideas.
- Modernisation: not tied to any one culture; change towards reason, choice and universal rules.
- Secularisation: change in the place of religion in public life.
Exam corner: this unit carries about 5 marks. Expect: define Sanskritisation with a criticism; how 19th-century reform was modern; distinguish Westernisation from modernisation; the Indian meaning of secularism.
Key formulas and definitions
- Cultural change: change in beliefs, customs and values of a group.
- Social reform: organised effort to end harmful practices (sati, child marriage, untouchability).
- Saberwal's three sides of reform: modes of communication, forms of organisation, nature of ideas.
- Sanskritisation (M. N. Srinivas): lower caste adopts higher-caste customs to rise.
- Positional change, not structural change.
- Westernisation: change due to Western (British) contact; lifestyle and ideas.
- Modernisation: move to reason, science, merit and universal rules.
- Secularisation: religion's control over public life declines; Indian state = equal respect to all religions.
Worked examples
1. A caste group in a village stops eating meat, starts wearing the sacred thread and asks to be called by a higher-caste title. Which process is this, and does it end caste inequality?
This is Sanskritisation. It may raise the group's position, but it does not end the caste ladder; it accepts that higher-caste customs are superior. So it is a positional, not structural, change.
2. How was the 19th-century reform movement 'modern' even though reformers quoted old texts?
It used modern means: printing presses and newspapers to spread ideas, new associations like Samajs to organise, and liberal ideas of equality and freedom. Quoting old texts was a way to show that practices like sati had no real religious basis. So both the tools and many ideas were modern.
3. Priya's family eats with spoons at a dining table and speaks English at home, but her grandmother still follows all the old caste rules about food. Name the processes.
Eating at a table and speaking English show Westernisation in lifestyle. The grandmother's rules show that tradition continues. This mix is common in India: modern and traditional ways live side by side.
4. Distinguish Westernisation from modernisation.
Westernisation has a specific source: contact with the West, seen in dress, food, language and some ideas. Modernisation has no single culture as a model; it is a change towards reason, science, merit and universal rules, which can happen through Indian or Western paths.
Common mistakes
- Thinking Sanskritisation removes caste. It only moves a group up; the ladder stays.
- Treating Westernisation and modernisation as the same. One copies the West; the other is about reason and universal rules.
- Saying reformers rejected all tradition. Many used new readings of old texts to support reform.
- Assuming secularisation means religion disappears in India. Rituals and festivals have often grown; religion's control over public life declines unevenly.