{"id":12972,"date":"2022-02-14T12:46:53","date_gmt":"2022-02-14T07:16:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/?p=12972"},"modified":"2022-02-14T12:46:53","modified_gmt":"2022-02-14T07:16:53","slug":"indian-traditions-modernization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/indian-traditions-modernization\/","title":{"rendered":"Indian Traditions: Modernization"},"content":{"rendered":"

UPSC-Civil Services Exam-IAS<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

Sociology For IAS \u201cAPPLIED SOCIOLOGY TOPICS\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

Social Change and its Impact on Modernization<\/strong><\/p>\n

The essays in the book aim to explore the idea of modernization from a \u2018systematic sociological perspective\u2019. Singh\u2019s imagination of modernization in the Indian context is rooted in the twin phenomena of\u00a0\u2018social structure\u2019\u00a0and \u2018tradition\u2019. Following a critique of erstwhile sociological interpretations of Indian modernization as being simply blinded by nationalist agenda, he proposes the study of modernization from a socio-historiographical point of view.<\/p>\n

For ease of understanding, Singh further divides both social structure and tradition into \u2018macro-structures\u2019 and \u2018micro-structures\u2019 and \u2018little traditions\u2019 and \u2018great traditions\u2019, respectively. This enables readers to engage with the complex historiography of Indian society more holistically and comprehensively. Moreover, this paradigm of understanding social structures and traditions highlights several aspects of social change that seeks to move beyond simply descriptive interpretations and replaces them with series of critical analyses<\/p>\n

Inducing his ideas from the works of sociologists like\u00a0Louis Dumont and\u00a0Talcott Parsons\u00a0as well as several other early thinkers of Indian sociology like G.S Ghurye,\u00a0M.N Srinivas, D.P Mukherjee, Singh offers a mostly structural-functionalist and positivist depiction of Indian modernization.<\/p>\n

An Analysis of Yogendra Singh\u2019s \u2018Modernization\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

To explain modernization in the Indian context, Singh employs a method of looking at \u2018internal\u2019 and \u2018external\u2019 developments in the socio-cultural and political history of the Indian subcontinent. Within both social structures as well as tradition, he believes that modernization occurs through a series of \u2018orthogenetic\u2019 or the \u2018internal\u2019 socio-cultural transitions as well as \u2018heterogenetic\u2019 or the \u2018external\u2019 transitions. Accordingly, Singh believes that for understanding Indian modernization, it is necessary to study the cultural synthesis of both the orthogenetic as well as heterogenetic forms of social change and their respective impacts on Indian society.<\/p>\n

Singh uses an integrative approach by critically reviewing and incorporating previously studied dichotomies such as \u2018Sanskritization\u2019 vs \u2018Islamization\u2019, \u2018Sanskritization\u2019 vs \u2018Westernization\u2019, \u2018Great\u2019 and \u2018Little\u2019 traditions as well as \u2018universalization\u2019 vs \u2018parochialization\u2019 to study the nature of social change in Indian society. However, he believes that it is inadequate to study concepts like Sanskritization and Westernization only in the context of social change and wishes for them to be examined even in the context of \u2018tradition\u2019.<\/p>\n

When looking at tradition from the point of view of these dichotomies, Singh observes that in Indian society, where Hinduism and Islam were the primary driving forces of community life, at least from a socio-cultural, if not necessarily a political point of view, the traditions in both religious communities had been undergoing significant orthogenetic changes, that essentially marked the onset of what most philosophers would call \u2018modernization\u2019. Singh argues that some of these driving forces of socio-cultural life within Hinduism and Islam, at least in the traditional sense, tend to follow a trajectory of cultural rigidity, holism, hierarchy and transcendence. By understanding the nature of social change in both the above-mentioned socio-religious entities, it can be observed that over time, they have morphed into a way of life marked with greater egalitarianism and cultural flexibility.<\/span><\/div>\n
\n

Interpretation of the External vs Internal Factors of Changes in Indian Society<\/strong><\/h3>\n

As explained previously, in the book Singh has named the external and internal factors of change in Indian society as \u2018heterogenetic\u2019 and \u2018orthogenetic\u2019 changes, respectively. In the designated chapter titled \u2018Orthogenetic Changes in Cultural Traditions and Modernization\u2019, the author has tried to explore the Cultural renaissance that Indian society underwent with the onset of the spread of Jainism and Buddhism.<\/p>\n

Here, he notes that the exchange of cultural ideas between these two religions and Hinduism itself brought about a dynamic change within the socio-cultural fabric of Indian society, especially in terms of\u00a0the caste system\u00a0and the\u00a0varna<\/em>\u00a0system. While talking about both Hinduism and Islam, Singh has explained the difference between \u2018great\u2019 and \u2018little\u2019 traditions in both cultures. Here, they signify the difference between core concepts like socio-cultural interactions between people, the rules of social order, etc which are strongly intrinsic to the respective religions and the difference between the adaptive changes in family, marriage and kinship structures that both religions underwent, especially when they came in contact with one another during the period of \u2018Islamization\u2019.<\/p>\n

Singh has strongly tried to differentiate between religions of Indian or \u2018Dharmic\u2019 origin and religions that originated outside the Indian subcontinent (such as Islam, Judaism and Christianity). The purpose of this has been to trace the contrasts in the way that each religion has impacted the socio-cultural changes in Indian society. Interestingly, Singh argues that while values of modernity (the state of having \u2018modern\u2019 ideas, rooted in scientific thought and rationalism) have been brought about by introducing egalitarianism and greater socio-cultural flexibility, this scientific thought and social egalitarianism do not need to be interdependent on one another for a society to be known as \u2018modern\u2019.<\/p>\n

To further explain this point, Singh (1973) says \u201cIt is otherwise possible that a successful scientist may be a failure as a\u00a0modern\u00a0<\/em>human and a most affluent or technologically advanced society may also be the one which is the most tyrannical.\u201d Naturally, this acts as a disclaimer to note that the idea of modernization itself, is a very value-added concept and Singh seeks to warn us, despite a very positivist approach to the idea of modernization that it cannot be looked at from a neutral stance.<\/p>\n

Finally, the book also explores changing trends in social institutions of family, village, and caste, that is, changes in the micro and macro structures. Especially in terms of family and caste, these changes are marked with increased mobility in the ascribed and acquired the status of individuals, many of which have been facilitated by rules of marriage and\u00a0kinship\u00a0among various communities.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPSC-Civil Services Exam-IAS Sociology For IAS \u201cAPPLIED SOCIOLOGY TOPICS\u201d Social Change and its Impact on Modernization The essays in the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12913,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1062,1033,114,1030,1029,1028,1032,1026,1034,1027,1031],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-applied-sociology-topics","category-best-optional-sociology","category-sociology-optional","category-sociology-civils","category-sociology-ias","category-sociology-mains","category-sociology-mains-ias","category-sociology-optional-sociology-optional","category-sociology-scoring-optional","category-sociology-upsc","category-sociology-upsc-mains"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12972"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12973,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12972\/revisions\/12973"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}