M.N. Srinivas considers village as the microcosm of Indian society and civilization. It is the village, which retains the traditional components of India’s tradition. Srinivas (1916-1999) occupies an eminent place among the first-generation sociologists of India.
He belongs to the galaxy of sociologists such as G, S. Ghurye, R.K. Mukherjee, N.K. Bose and D.P. Mukerji. He conducted fieldwork among the Coorgs and came out with his publication. Religion and Society among the Coorgs of South India (1952). Dumont and Pocock consider the book as a classic in India’s sociology. It is in this work that Srinivas provides a basic structure of India’s traditions. T.N. Madan hails the publication in these words:
The strength of the Coorg lies in its being firmly grounded in a clearly defined theoretical framework which happened to be essentially the one developed by Radcliffe-Brown who suggested the theme of the dissertation to Srinivas. Religion and society is a very lucid exposition of the complex interrelationship between ritual and social order in Coorg society. It also deals at length and insightfully with crucial notions of purity and pollution as also with the process of incorporation of non-Hindu communities and cults in the Hindu social order and way of life.
In Religion and Society, Srinivas was concerned with the spread of Hinduism. He talked about ‘Sanskritic’ Hinduism and its values. Related to this was the notion of ‘Sanskritization’ which Srinivas employed “to describe the hoary process of the penetration of Sanskritic values into the remotest parts of India. Imitation of the way of life of the topmost, twice-born castes was said to be the principle mechanism by which lower castes sought to raise their own social status”.
Curiously, Srinivas did not take up for consideration the phenomenon of the persistence of the masses of Hindus of low or no status within the caste system. For him, the most significant aspect of the history of the Coorgs, worthy of being recorded and discussed, was the history of this incorporation into the Hindu social order.
Srinivas thinks that the only meaningful social change is that which takes place among the weaker sections for attaining higher status by imitating values of twice-born. And those of the lower castes and tribal groups who fail in this race of imitation are doomed to remain backward.
Srinivas spells the doom as below:
Splinter groups like Amma Coorgs are decades, if not centuries, in advance of their parent groups; the former have solved this problem by sanskritizing their customs entirely while the latter are more conservative. What Srinivas spells out about the imitating lower castes seems to be the announcement of a new age. If we attempt to identify traditions of Indian society, according to Srinivas, these are found among the high castes – the twice-born. In other words, the traditions, rituals and beliefs which are held and shared by the Brahmins, the Baniyas and the Rajputs constitute Indian traditions.
And, the beliefs of the lower sections of society, the untouchables and the tribals do not have any status as tradition. For him, Indian traditions are high-caste Hindu traditions, lower caste traditions are no Indian traditions. Obviously, Srinivas anchors tradition into sanskritization. Srinivas was actually interested in caste.
He considered it to be the ‘structural basis’ of Hinduism. He was not fascinated by Hinduism in its holistic form. He looked for it in the caste system. Thus, his thesis of Indian traditions runs something like this: “Indian traditions are Hindu traditions, and Hindu traditions are found in caste system. Holistic Hinduism is beyond his scope of discourse.”
Besides caste, Srinivas looks for yet another source or manifestation of tradition. He found it in the notion of ‘dominant caste’. He first proposed it in his early papers on the village Rampura. The concept has been discussed and applied to a great deal of work on social and political organization in India.
Srinivas was criticized for this concept with the charge that it was smuggled from the notion of ‘dominance’ which emerged from African sociology. Repudiating the critique Srinivas asserted that the idea of dominant caste given by him had its origin in the fieldwork of Coorgs of South India.
His fieldwork had impressed upon him that communities, such as the Coorgs and the Okkaligas, wielded considerable power at the local level and shared such social attributes as numerical preponderance, economic strength and clean ritual status.
He further noted that the dominant caste could be a local source of sanskritization, or a barrier to its spread. Sanskritization and dominant caste are therefore representating of Indian tradition. And, in this conceptual framework, the traditions of the lower castes and Dalits have no place, nowhere in village India; the subaltern groups occupy the status of dominant caste.
Besides religion and caste, the third tradition component of Srinivas study is village. Srinivas got the seed idea of studying India’s villages from his mentor Radcliffe-Brown in 1945-46. When settled in India after his return from Oxford, he conducted the study of Rampur – a Mysore village – which gave him the concept of dominant caste. The study has been contained in the Remembered Village (1976). It is here only that Srinivas takes some time to discuss social and economic changes which have taken place in Rampura. He informs:
Technological change occupied a prominent place in the life of the people of Rampura soon after independence. Technological change, of course, went hand in hand with economic, political and cultural changes.
Here, in this part of the article, we are concerned about the meaning and definition of tradition in Indian context. The life mission of Srinivas has been to understand Indian society. And, for him, Indian society is essentially a caste society. He has studied religion, family, caste and village in India. He was a functionalist and was influenced by Radcliffe-Brown, Robert Redfield and partly Evans-Pritchard.
These anthropologists were functionalists of high stature. Ideologically, they believed in status quo: let the Dalits survive as Dalits and let the high castes enjoy their hegemony over subaltern. Srinivas’ search for the identity of traditions makes him infer that the Indian traditions are found in caste, village and religion. For him, it appears that Indian social structure is on par with the advocates of Hindutva say, the cultural nationalism.
Srinivas though talks about economic and technological development, all through his works he pleads for change in caste, religion and family. Even in the study of these areas he sidetracks lower segments of society. They are like ‘untouchables’ for him. Srinivas has extensively talked about the social evils of caste society; he pleads for change in caste system and discusses westernization and modernization as viable paradigms of changes.
But his perspective of change is Brahmanical Hinduism or traditionalism. In his zeal for promoting sanskritization, he has marginalized and alienated religious minorities. For him, Indian traditions are those, which are manifested in caste and village. His traditions are Hinduized traditions, and in no sense secular ones.
Srinivas in a straightforward way rejects secularism and stands in favour of Hindu traditions. In his critique of Indian secularism which appeared in a short article in the Times of India in 1993, he finds secularism wanting because he believes that India needs a new philosophy to solve the cultural and spiritual crisis facing the country and that philosophy cannot be secular humanism.
It has to be firmly rooted in God as creator and protector. Srinivas’ construction of sanskritization and dominant caste put him closer to Hindutva ideology of cultural nationalism. At this stage of our discussion on India’s traditions it can be said that any tradition emanating from caste system cannot be nation’s tradition as the constitution has rejected caste.
Main Article : SOCIOLOGICAL DEBATE ON TRADITION AND MODERNITY IN INDIAN SOCIETY
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