SOME ASPECTS OF TRANSITION OF A
“TRADITIONAL”
SOCIETY 1
This
paper is confined to Indian, more specifically Hindu, society. It tries to
assess the process of change going on in this society from the point of view of
new needs and old values, but makes no claim to completeness either of analysis
or treatment.
Let us start from the point that the signs of change
are indeed there. With the energies liberated by independence, with the
conception of planning translated into five-year plans, with help received from
abroad after the war and fortunes made at home during it, governments,
businessmen and industrialists alike set to build an impressive structure of
industrial production for the country. In agriculture some progress was made,
but largely by engineers who started building woks of irrigation. There had
been Indian industrialists of vision like Jamshedji
rata, a pioneer in steel and electricity. After independence, a number of hydro-electric and thermal projects were planned, and today
the power generated is two and half times what it was in 1951. Electric grids
span the country, and the demand outruns the supply. Steel will soon be
produced in large quantities at the different steel mills in the establishment
of which
Nor
is the progress merely quantitative. Industries have shown that they can adapt
themselves to new technical and managerial techniques at all
levels. Skilled workers in factories and workshops have surprised competent
observers by the degree of craftsmanship which they have acquired within a
short period in lines with which they were unfamiliar only a few years ago. Nor
does this apply to the bigger industrial units
only–textile, engineering or chemical–but to numerous medium and small concerns
which are rapidly being set up all over the country. One may visit any
exhibition of small industries in any part of
And
yet in a sense the change is not there. The old ways persist, and there
is considerable maladjustment, perhaps best illustrated by comparison between
the urban and rural sectors. In the half a million villages of
It
is no part of my task to explain, justify or condemn caste. While its
persistence, rigidity and ubiquity make the institution peculiar to India,
comparable divisions of society are of course not unknown in other countries,
especially of the east. The divisions are hereditary, often specialise
in some one occupation, and rarely marry outside the group. What distinguishes
According to one estimate there are (or at one stage were)
some, 3,000 sub-castes in
But
is there any underlying principle which broadly integrates the innumerable
sub-groups and the four compendious main groups together? There can be no
simple answer. Indeed there must be many answers. But, in illustration of one
of these, I will cite the legend of Kanyaka Parameshwari or the “Girl Goddess”. She is the presiding
deity of Komatis, that is the Vaishyas (merchants)
of Andhra Pradesh. The young girl, so runs the legend, was intensely religious,
treated Brahmins with reverence and every one with consideration. She was
remarkable in many ways, not least for beauty. The neighbouring
king, a Kshatriya called Vishnuvardhana,
wanted to marry her and was prepared to gain his wish by force. She said that
she would immolate herself than break the integrity of caste. Among the leaders
of the
To
complete the picture, one might consider the two begging sub-castes of “Viramushtis” and “Mailaris” who
live in the same part of the country. Much lower in the social hierarchy, they
are nevertheless attached by tradition in a very special manner to the Komatis. Legend has it that these two sub-castes are descended
from the messengers whom Kanyaka Parameshwari
sent to protest to the neighbouring Kshatriya ruler. The most interesting fact, however, is
that, at stated seasons of the year, coinciding with different festivals in honour of the goddess, people of these begging castes visit
the houses of Komatis in different parts of the
State, carry images of the Goddess from house to house and sing traditional
songs in her praise. Their hereditary function, in other words, is to keep the
memory of the Goddess and, therefore, the essence of the tradition, alive in
such a manner that not only the educated men of the community, but also the
illiterate, the women and the children are periodically reminded of the
religious and traditional background.
All
this adds up to merely one small instance of a kind which can be multiplied a
thousand-fold for different communities in different parts of
What are the
traditional values which may be regarded as generally or specifically Hindu?
Any attempt to set them out briefly must of course involve a large amount of
over-simplification. It would also raise the question whether the values are
shared by a large number of people, illiterate and educated, rural and urban.
It is very necessary to make one clarification at this stage. The values of the
religion and philosophy of the Hindus are far from being confined to a small
coterie, priestly, learned or other. Mass communication, which I have tried to
illustrate by a few examples, has operated through the centuries a throughout
the country. Indeed, the illiterate farmer in the village and the uneducated
grandmother in the family often knows more about the
saints and their deeds, the philosophers and their concepts, than the educated
town-dweller or westernised businessman. Few who know
The
emphasis is first of all on individual liberation (mukti).
Man is part of the same process as brought forth the universe. Being part of
the process he shares in some measure the nature of the creative force behind
creation, just as, being part of the result of the process, he partakes of the
nature of manifested creation. Far from being a stranger in a world he has not
made, he is himself the maker, himself the world. His religion teaches him that
progress involves not only a direction but a starting point. His starting point
is himself. He is what he is today because of his past. But he is infinitely
perfectible and perfection consists in that full development of his spiritual
faculties which will make him in some ineffable way once more a part of the
creative force of the universe. This is mukti which
is both his goal and his destiny.
Since
the starting point is himself his religion depends on
himself. The approach to progress must be pragmatic. If he is emotional, it
will be the way of bhakti; if intellectual, the way
of jnana; and if given to works, the way of karma.
There is no need to go out and seek a formula of salvation; the sect or
religion in which he is born is good enough; all that is necessary is that he practise his particular religion
to the utmost.
Since
all men will ultimately be liberated, all men are potentially equal. If they start
now at different points and have different handicaps, that
is the result of the past. It is the past that has determined their caste,
their status and their individual equipment, spiritual, moral and intellectual.
One must be practical and build upon this the best way one can. Sometimes the
developed spirit breaks through all these, and a saint manifests himself
whatever the caste or the station. But that does not nullify either the fact or
the value of the hierarchy of caste.
Dharma,
or “duty” as it is loosely translated, has relation both to where one stands in
the universe and to the direction in which one has to proceed. It takes into
account the total environment of caste, parentage, inner qualities and so on.
But it is, nevertheless, in the final analysis, intensely individual. Granted
the reality of a spiritual goal, what should one do in a given situation so as
to proceed towards and not away from the goal? The milieu and the moment are no
less internal than external to man. These being given, what he ought to constitutes the dharma of the man.
The
values which the Hindu must most prize are partly those which go with his
station in life, such as courage if a Kshatriya, usterity if a Brahmin, and so on. There are others which
are universal. Among the most important of these are tolerance, detachment and
loving-kindness. Since men are situated differently and are bound to progress
differently there must be tolerance for all. One has to act, but the results of
action are not important. One must be detached in one’s attitude towards
results. Since all men are united in origin and united in destination, one must
have an attitude of “equal-mindedness” (samabuddhi)
towards all. This applies not only to human beings but to all living things and
indeed to all created things.
Some
of the implications of these attitudes, however noble or praiseworthy in
themselves, are not difficult to see. The tolerance can become mere passivity;
the detachment, indifference; and the loving-kindness, sentimentality. Most
important of all, the emphasis on individual development and liberation,
coupled with the small group within which social loyalties are exercised, may
result in the lack of a social purpose and a social philosophy, as
distinguished from the merely religious and ethical. It would seem that at
different stages in
We
have here then the picture of a society hierarchical in structure. Each part of
the structure is fitted into the whole with what would seem an underlying purpose
basically connected with the objectives and values of Hindu religion. The
sanctions which preserve the structure and its individual parts are primarily
social and religious. It is this structure that has now to be geared to
socio-economic values It is the instead of purely religious ones. It is to be
actuated by new objectives, hitherto foreign to it, such as individual liberty,
economic welfare and social justice. There is no use slurring over the fact
that these are indeed new values and objectives for which the historical
development of the structure had not prepared it. At the same time, on the
credit side, it has to be recognised that the
philosophical concepts of the tradition are in no sense and at no point
antagonistic to these values. Indeed, on their own plane they may be said to be
complementary to the new socio-economic objectives of plenitude and equality.
Another
point may be mentioned. Hindu philosophy and religion are uniquely consistent
with the most modern trends in science. The Hindu need have no dichotomy of
mind, one of blind faith and the other of rational thought. He is brought up to
believe that the material and the spiritual grow out of one another and that he
himself partakes of nature of both. There is no specific formula which he is
asked to adopt as part of his belief. There is spiritual reality around him
even as there is physical reality. It is up to him to understand the laws of
both, and, in conformity with those laws, strive for self-fulfilment. Since the moral laws of development and the
physical laws of process are derived from the same reality, at no point of time
can there be an irreconcilable inconsistency between the two. Nor, in a
universe so integrated, can one, in being true to oneself, run the danger of
being false to some one else.
But,
even if one has Succeeded in discovering the moral or spiritual laws of
individual development (as in the principles of yoga), what about the
corresponding laws which govern society? Individual dharma may be all right,
but in a world of social groups may it not prove to be as notional as a point
in three-dimensional geometry? Is there no need in the modern world to pursue
the complementary line of enquiry and discipline which concerns social dharma
and institutional dharma as distinguished from individual dharma? And if the
spiritual world is worthy of study because the physical world is implicit in
it, is not the physical world as worthy of study because the spiritual world is
implicit in it? Briefly, the Hindu has yet to realise that the values of his
philosophy are in tune with only a part of the infinite; and that the parts to
which it is yet to be attuned are precisely the ones which the modern mind has
most explored, and to which modern development is most beholden, namely, the
relationship between man and the universe which has given rise to the physical
sciences, and the relationship between man and men which has given rise to the
social sciences.
No
one can hope to discern the contours of the future without looking back at the
formations of the past. In
Hari ko
bhaje to Hari ka hoi”
(Let
no one ask a man’s caste or with eats. If a man is devoted to Hari he becomes Hari’s own.)
Kabir, the weaver, also of the North, whose
songs of the fifteenth century move men and women throughout
“I
have forgotten both caste and lineage.…..
I
have given up both the Pandits and the Mullahs……
From
neither have I received advantage…….
My
heart being pure, I have seen the Lord:
Kabir having searched and searched himself,
hath found God within him”
There
may also be cited Sankaradeva whose work for the
re-establishment of the worship of God and affection for all men had a
tremendous impact on Assam during the latter part of the 15th and the earlier
half of the 16th centuries. Vemana, the Telugu poet
of the South, whose poems have passed into proverbs, said in the 16th century:
“Food
or caste or place of birth
Cannot
alter human worth
Empty
is a caste-dispute.
All
the castes have but one root.” 4
Also in the 16th
century lived Eknath of Maharashtra whose practice of
the equality of men is remembered today not only through his songs but in the
many legends handed down about his life. Examples can be multiplied of this
philosophical and individual rejection of caste by seers and teachers
throughout the centuries. It will suffice to give on more quotation. This is
from Narayana Guru of Kerala who died in 1928 and whose teachings and following
today constitute one of the strongest ethical forces in that State!
“One
of kind, one of faith, and one in God is man:
Of
one womb, of one form, difference herein none.
The
community of man thus viewed to a single caste belongs.”
The
trend I have illustrated was not only indigenous but represented the reaction
to something, viz., caste, which was internal to the structure itself. It is
necessary to consider another set of reactions, namely, those which originated
in response to the impact of a strong foreign culture, the one which the
British brought with them to
Chronologically
the influence of the west was first felt in Bengal, for Calcutta was the
capital of India, and English education on a significant scale was earlier
organized there than elsewhere in the country. To start with, there was
complete absorption in the culture of the rulers. Educated Indians adopted and
imitated that culture in all its aspects: spiritual, literary and so forth.
This soon gave way to a positive reaction against the foreign culture. The
first awakening that took place was in what one might describe as the spiritual
layer of the country’s consciousness. Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Devendranath
Tagore and others exemplified this earliest phase of spiritual awakening of
Meanwhile
the second phase of the reaction had already begun. Indians were no longer
content to imitate the literary forms of
The
third phase was social. Social reform became the slogan of the day. Questions
such as caste, untouchability, re-marriage of widows, pre-puberty marriage of
girls, and so forth assumed great importance. Educated Indians began to say
that they should first reform their own society before entertaining political
aspirations for responsible government. “Should social reform or political
reform come first?”–was a favourite topic for debate
in schools and colleges, and the answer usually was “social reform”.
The
fourth phase of the reaction was definitely political. Tilak, Gandhi and those
who followed were typical of this phase. Without independence, it was asserted,
nothing could be achieved, not even social reform. Indians must be their own
masters, and from the self-respect thus created everything else would follow.
Yet, here again, as particularly under Gandhi, the political struggle took a
uniquely indigenous form: that is to say, a shape that was deliberately moulded after the thoughts and aspirations of Hindus in
particular and of Indians generally. Intolerance for the foreign rule was to be
combined with tolerance for the foreigner. There was to be neither hatred nor
anger against him. Gandhi also insisted on ahimsa and non-violence,
though this was perhaps a Buddhist or Jain idea rather than a specifically
Hindu one. The Gita teaches the pursuit of duty without desire for the fruits
of action. And in the Hindu context this pursuit might well be violent as in
the instance of Arjuna himself. It was Jainism and Buddhism that emphasised non-violence as an absolute virtue. Thereafter
the ideal did get interwoven, though the strands still show here and there,
into the texture of Hindu thought and belief. Thus it was that Gandhi, deriving
inspiration from his own culture, and support from Christianity and Tolstoy,
put ahimsa in the forefront of his political struggle.
The
fifth phase commenced some years ago. From the spiritual, the literary, the
social and the political, the stage now reached may be described as the
awakening of the economic consciousness of the country. War,
This
last phase of all, the phase of economic development and equalitarianism, is
also the most difficult. It poses issues which
The
question may now be put: how are these three lacks being met, viz. lack of
education, lack of incentive and lack of resources, all of which stand directly
in the way of increased production? On the answer to this question more than on
anything else will depend the effectiveness of
(1)
the weak and the underprivileged are being
helped;
(2)
bridges are being built across the old
divisions of caste and sub-caste; and
(3)
traditional
values such as tolerence, non-injury and reverence
for the other-worldly are not losing their importance.
The
problem is by no means simple. For one thing, it is not posed in the manner
stated above by many of those who are most concerned with its different
aspects, namely, the politician and the legislator, the planner and the
administrator, the educationist and the social worker. Neverthless,
one can observe trends and, however faint these may be for the moment, one can
try and pick up from among them such as seem significant for the future. One
may start with almost any of the aspects mentioned above. Caste, for example,
evokes different responses from different sets of people. There are those who
in effect exploit caste to gain temporary ends. Others ignore it or pretend it
does not exist. Still others believe it will vanish under impact of economic
forces. Lastly, there are those who realise both the strength and ubiquity of
caste divisions and seek to establish newer loyalties across, instead of along,
them.
An
obvious example of exploitation of the existing divisions is what happens
during elections. The candidate may not always have willed it to be so, but it
is common knowledge that in most elections the voting tends to take place along
the lines of caste. In other words, caste, as one of the strongest existing
loyalties, is something which no electioneering agent is likely to lose sight
of.
There
are those who ignore caste or believe that it will succumb to economic forces.
They minimise the problem. It is true that the forces
of economic development, including urbanisation, are on
the whole hostile to caste. Broken up into individual elements, the loyalties
of caste, we have seen, are principally sectarian, territorial and
occupational. The hold of sectarian religion is getting less in the towns, but
not necessarily nor on any appreciable scale in the villages. Territorial
loyalty counts for less in the villages and much less in the towns than in the
past. But there is a vicious circle. Caste restricts the mobility of the
society; lack of mobility keeps people at home in their occupations;
and those who remain at home tend to have a stronger territorial loyalty
than others. The same remarks apply to occupational loyalty. In all these
respects, therefore, the old loyalties of caste and sub-caste are only slowly
weakening and it is by no means clear that they will disappear with the mere
efflux of time and economic change.
Those
who ignore caste instead of recognizing it and dealing with it are doing a
disservice. This applies to those who believe not only that the village can in
due course be made into a homogeneous entity but that it is one here and now.
They read into the village community a social cohesion and a
common purpose which ought to be created, but which quite often are not
there today. The fallacy involved in this attitude is dangerous because it may
lead the administration to impose schemes of welfare on the village in the
expectation that its leadership has the same interests at heart as the small
farmer, the landless labourer and the Harijan. Where
this is not the case, a well-meaning scheme may lead to greater exploitation
along the lines of caste by those who are more powerful in the village. The
result will be an accentuation, not a reconciling of differences.
There is no alternative
but to make positive, purposeful persistent efforts to build bridges; to create
new loyalties or invoke traditional loyalties which transcend these divisions.
Such efforts are in fact being made; many of them are humble and obscure; some
are well known, while still others have to be brought to light from between the
covers of official records and publications. A few of them may be cited. The
illustrations are also concerned with the three lacks I have mentioned before,
viz., education, incentive to produce and resources for production.
In regard to education, I
will confine my illustration to one of many pioneers in different parts of
Incentive
for production explains much of the agrarian legislation which, after
Another
development, and one directly in keeping with
My next
illustration is in fact taken from Government. It concerns the policy of State
partnership in co-operatives for the purpose of meeting the last of the
requirements I have mentioned, namely, resources or capital. Lacking these, the
village co-operative society, whether credit or marketing, is powerless against
the competition of landlord, moneylender and trader. Yet it must be rendered
strong in order that the small producer’s interests are looked after and
production as an aim is promoted. Lacking initial momentum the weak society
falls back to ground; there has to be a force which will help it to get into
orbit after breaking through a whole field of gravitation. In
One
other aspect remains to be noticed. Built on the basis of State partnership
there is a large number of producers’ co-operatives today–such as sugar
factories owned by the canegrowers or lift irrigation
societies run by the riparian farmers–which are infusing a new type of loyalty,
the loyalty of production, across the older stratification of caste. The
producers are of many castes; but they combine in order to increase their
production, or to process their produce for the market; they have no problem,
as in a credit society, of apportioning scarce resources (often along the lines
of caste or other extraneous loyalties); their status is purely that of
producers; it is as producers that they put forth a common effort, and it is as
producers that they derive a common benefit. This again is a
very significant way in which the newer co-operatives, with assistance from the
State, are helping to build bridges across the old divisions, and are
doing so in the very context of modernising the
methods of production, processing and preparation for the market.
How
can
The means [of achieving economic good], to be significant
for
1 This is the abridged
version of a paper discussed at the General Conference of the Congress
for Cultural Freedom,
2 The General Report of
the All-India Rural Credit Survey Committee (published by the Reserve Bank of
3 The General Report,
P. 373
4 Gover’s
translation: “South Indian Folk Songs”
5 Bhaurao
Patil: See his biography by Dr. A. V. Mathew: “Karmaveer Bhaurao Patil”, Rayat Shikshan
Sanstha, Satara, 1957.
6 The General Report,
pp.529-30