IASSI Quarterly: Contributions to Indian Social Science, Vol. 40, No.

1, 2021

Revisiting Sankritisation in Contemporary India

Aditya Mohanty*

M.N Srinivas’ concept of Sanskritisation helped us understand that the emulation of ritual
practices of people in the upper strata of the Hindu social order by those in the lower order
is a critical route of social mobility in everyday life. It is in this context that the present
article, delineates as to how Srinivas’s concept of ‘sanskritisation’ seen as a ‘Chronotope’
(or layered-process; used in the Bakhtian sense) helps us to (a) bring the debate out of
the Brahmanical mould and hence entrench it into non-brahmanical hierarchies and
(b) examine the change in community-interaction from being a mere emulation of
established orders to that of setting up of alternatives. In other words, this paper tries
to prod on the question as to why in recent years are caste communities articulating an
independent cultural identity.

Keywords: 
Caste, Identity, Sankritisation, Change

I. INTRODUCTION
Srinivas’ classic engagement with the Indian ‘field’ reality did emerge as a compelling
analysis of social change in India for decades together. However, some later
developments seem to have put its salience into question. But the present paper
contends that the term ‘sanskritisation’ still serves as a heuristic device for making
sense of processes of change in contemporary India. In fact, though social change in
India has been a subject of study and reflection for centuries together, the intricacies
of these changes has shifted various strands and hence diverse modes of engagement.
The charted territory seems to have hence offered variegated spaces of intervention
viz., from theology through political economy to social-anthropological accounts. It is
in this context that the present paper argues that sanskritisation as a tool of analysing
social change in India still continues to hold considerable currency, if we pitch it
through the lenses of Bakhtin’s concept of ‘chronotope’ discussed in his work The
Dialogic Imagination (1981).
To begin with, it would be pertinent to mention that the concept of Sanskritisation
was nascently formulated by MN Srinivas in his widely-acclaimed work Religion
and Society among the Coorgs of South India (1952). In fact, as many of us would know,
it was a revision of his Doctoral thesis at Oxford on The Social function of religion in

* Assistant Professor (Development Studies), Central University of South Bihar, Gaya. Email:
mail.adityamohanty@gmail.com
182  IASSI Quarterly: Contributions to Indian Social Science

a South Indian Community (1947) that had applied Radcliffe Brown’s structural-
functional framework. The credit however goes to Srinivas for the ways in which he
contextualized the vast and complex intricacies of Hinduism to its immediate, local
and functional practice in Coorg. In fact, Beteille (2006:190-91) rightly mentions that
the former’s work was a revelation in itself for the shift of focus that it provided from
a ‘book-view’ to a ‘field-view’. It was thus the transition from being a theologist to
that of being a sociologist in the true sense of the term. Though initially, he defined
the process as ‘brahminisation’, he did re-coin it as ‘sanskritisation’ consequent to his
thesis of the dominant caste, that did make much headway in his later work (Srinivas:
1959). Sanskritisation hereby, defined Srinivas (1952) is a ‘…process by which a low
hindu caste or tribal or other group changes its customs, ritual, ideology and way of
life in the direction of a twice-born caste.’
On this pretext, it would not be out of place to mention that Srinivas (1952) did
trace the genealogy of the notion of ritual-purity even in the folklore of the Amma
Coorgs. In fact, although the Coorgs are a special case of a distinct community that had
two principles of structure orienting them i.e., the family-based patrilineal Okkas and
the village-based Nads, the Amma Coorgs were the reference group because it was
believed that they were benign off-springs of the marriage between a Coorg man and
Brahmin woman of Wynad. The Coorgs in general were an assertive and dominant
landowning population with a military tradition. They were neither vegetarian nor
teetotal, and they did not oppose widow remarriage. But it was the Amma Coorgs that
in 1843 unfurled the programme of brahmanical emulation when the first donning of
the sacred thread had occurred and full brahmanical sraddhas had subsequently been
observed (Ibid: 34-35). Unfortunately, Dumont’s Homo Hierachicus (1980 [1966]) did
take into account such signs of social mobility but just couldn’t divest itself of the Levi-
Straussian epistemological strait-jacketing of categories like hierarchy/holism, purity/
pollution, so on and so forth. For many, therefore the Srinivasian formulation came
as a thunderous jolt to the hierarchical, crystallized societal structures of caste-based
behaviouralism, that the indologists had so erroneously popularised by then. In fact,
of late the multiple layers in the Indian social spectrum have exhausted themselves in
a magnanimous manner. The predominant template of communitarian praxis in India
seems to have traversed through three key categories of sociological index viz., caste/
religion, nation and class.
It is this transitory nature of the layers of social reality that sanskritisation tends
to accommodate, that Bakhtin’s idea of ‘chronotope’ succeeds in capitulating in the
best possible manner. For Bakhtin (1981: 184), a chronotope (literally time-space) refers
to “… the intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships …. (they) are
fused into one carefully thought-out, concrete whole. Time, as it were, thickens, takes
 Revisiting Sankritisation in Contemporary India 183

on flesh … likewise, space becomes charged and responsive to the movements of time,
plot and history.” Much in the same vein, a major development in this direction was
made by the contributions of scholars like Raheja (1988) and Dirks (2001). Incidentally,
their contributions are crucial to the ways in which sanskritisation as a model of
reference group behavior has chronotopically transvalued itself in two ways: (a) in
bringing the debate out of the brahmanical mould and hence, entrench it into non-
brahmanical hierarchies and (b) in changing community-interaction from being a mere
emulation of established orders to that of the setting up of alternatives. These critiques
originate in the writings of scholars like Dirks (2001) who bring to the fore the role
played by the orientalist bias in colonial writings that reinforced the public perception
about the Brahmanical tyranny of the caste system. For instance, scholars like Partha
Chatterjee (1996) further argue that such efforts were also debilitating in the sense that
it belittles whatever little efforts were made by subordinate or non-Brahmin Castes
to pitch an alternative, counter sub-culture. Raheja (1998), for instance, interestingly
sees the ways in which the ordering principle of Indian social structure seems to have
moved from ‘hierarchy’ to ‘centrality’. She recounts that the Gujars, a newly emerging
dominant caste had inversed the ritual dominance of the Brahmins by resorting to
the act of gift-giving. Their centrality in the caste structure was used to the hilt by the
ways in which they engaged Brahmins and ex-untouchables in their ritual ceremonies.
It was a boomerang effect whereby the Gujars gave away their sins by way of gifts
and prestations, for the sanskritic/hindu principle reiterated that material wealth
and spiritual wealth moved in opposite directions. The ‘poison’ of the gift thus was
deemed to settle scores.

II. SANSKRITISATION AS EMULATION

This facet of Sanskritisation can be well subsumed under its initial version given by
Srinivas. But to add on to the conventional understanding of Sanskritisation one needs
to append to it two major components: the notion of ‘spread’ (Srinivas, 1952) and
the idea of ‘tribal absorption’ (Bose, 1975). By ‘spread’ what Srinivas meant was the
plasticity of the ‘Great’ Hindu tradition to accommodate numerous ‘little traditions’.
He perceived three dichotomous strands of the same in what he called as (a) local
Hinduism (b) peninsular Hinduism and (c) Regional Hinduism. For example, a pan-
Indian Hinduism could very well accommodate the local variants of say Devi worship
and Naturism. The Spread thus for him via Sanskritisation is two-fold: (a) Vertical
Spread, i.e., across linguistically homogeneous areas and (b) Horizontal Spread, i.e.,
across caste categories. In this sense, within Hinduism one can pass from the crudest
worship of sticks and stones to the most profound speculation about the nature
and significance of the universe. Individual freedom could of course be asserted by
renouncing society and adopting the way of the sanyasi. But even here, sanyasis in
184  IASSI Quarterly: Contributions to Indian Social Science

course of time became organised into groups of various kinds. Hence, it opens up two-
fold avenues of sanskritisation: ‘group sanskritisation’ and ‘individual sanskritisation’.
Adding on to this perspective Bose (1975) notes that the processes of tribal absorption
into the Hindu fold were but well-aided by such potentials of sanskritisation. He found
that the population pressure in tribal areas had crossed the critical point affecting
the land-man ratio on which the tribal productive system rests. Hence, it was due to
population pressure and the ‘attraction’ of the economically better-off Hindus that the
Juangs, Oraons and other tribes were found ‘gradually abandoning their independence
and moving towards Brahmanical society’. However, if the ‘subjugated tribes’ did not
rise in revolt against these deprivations, it was essentially due to a minimum security
that they enjoyed in the economic sphere and the freedom that they were allowed
in the cultural sphere within the Hindu social organisation. Sanskritisation ensured
that there were enough avenues for accommodation without assimilation. Though we
do need to keep in mind the criticisms of scholars like Staal (1963). He questions the
sanskritic idiom of Hindu civilization in accounts of Sanskritisation, especially with
reference to the interstitial spaces between Sanskritic and Dravidian cultures.

III. SANSKRITISATION AS DEFIANCE

The onset of independence in 1947 and the subsequent post-colonial mooring of
Nehruvian socialism did spur changes which culminated in events like Mandalisation
in subsequent years. The forces of westernisation/ modernisation in this context can
be seen as a potent agent in bringing Indian society at a luminal juncture whereby
westernised elites stood in stark contrast to their erstwhile classical teetotaller
counterparts. This was the first ‘chronotopic’ turn of the processes of sanskritisation.
The contradiction is aptly put by Srinivas (1956:487) as follows “The British who
ate beef and pork and drank liquor, possessed political and economic power, a new
technology, scientific knowledge and a great literature. Hence the westernized upper
castes began acquiring customs and habits which were not dissimilar from those
they had looked down upon.” Subsequently then, as a matter of trickle-down effect,
these processes were more amplified in Indian social life. For example, Karnath (2004)
vividly describes the ways in which the lower castes in Karnataka replicated the ways
of higher castes. He provides ethnographic evidences to show as to how numerous
untouchable castes make subtle attempts to assert themselves. For example, he
discusses the case of the Madigas who did not give in to the resistance of Upper Caste
Hindus to stop their traditional practice of buffalo sacrifice. It is interesting to remark
here that for Karnath (2004: 157) “…this is not a replication resulting from exclusion
from the dominant order or consensus with it, but a reaffirmation of a distinct cultural
identity…”
 Revisiting Sankritisation in Contemporary India 185

Providing a critical twist to such a perspective comes Tiwari (2016), who

persuasively documents the efforts made by numerous Arya Samaji activists of the
middle and lower castes to document the histories of lower castes. This was seen as a
critical gesture in terms of creating a niche for the lower castes within the entrenched
Brahmanical hegemony of the day. Thus, while on the one hand, numerous works
were also simultaneously published by Sanatanis who tried to restrict the entry of
backward classes into the hallowed ranks of Brahmins and Kshatriyas, those written
by Arya Samajis gave space to the lower and backward classes to claim Brahmin or
Kshatriya status, thereby instituting a counter-narrative. Such efforts were salient in
the sense that not only were the lower castes by doing so preserving their self-identity
and essence but were also making efforts to bring out the essence of Dalit-Bahujan
community as an important sub-culture in Indian social life. It must be reiterated
here that such efforts however necessitated that this new-found double identity of the
Dalits required them to use in their writings such metaphors, symbols and allegories
that were subversive to the sanskritic model of caste history writing. For example, the
narratives in the gaurav gathas mostly divested off from Brahminical symbols; albeit
with minor traces of sanskritisation.

IV. SANSKRITISATION AS AMBIVALENCE

With the onset of LPG (or liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation), Indian
society is witnessing a peculiar development. Following Savaala (2001) one can find
that with the dawn of a modern age and the subsequent rise of a ‘new bourgeoisie’,
what has been ensured is the economic mobility of some members of erstwhile
lower castes on the class ladder. Hence, this ambiguous category of middle class/
lower caste individuals tend to copy some Hindu high caste rituals in order to attract
social/cultural capital (used in the Bourdieuan sense). The case cited herein is the
ways in which Sri Narayana Vrata is so zealously performed amongst the Malas in
Hyderabad city. Much in the same vein, scholars like Appadurai (1997) visualise
the ways in which members of the diaspora desperately strive to cling back to their
roots. The use of technoscapes and ethnoscapes in this regard is quite appreciable to
take note of. Their long-distance nationalism is in fact an inverted ‘sanskritisation’
whereby nostalgia and desire tend to interwine itself and gets manifested in forms
like Religious associations, Godmen syndrome, performance of Diwali and Dussehra
amongst say the PIOs (Persons of Indian Origin) in Mauritius etc. This new avatar of
civil society acts as a potent agency that invariably succeeds in utilising the metaphor
of emulation to signify a difference (used in the Derridean sense). An interesting case
in point is the Swaminarayan Sect that recently built the monumental Akshardham
temple in Delhi. This Sect-Movement, notes Brosius (2013) is a glaring example of
how the cultural politics of ethnic diaspora(s) are invoked by (a) the performative
186  IASSI Quarterly: Contributions to Indian Social Science

staging of surrealist rituals and (b) the architectural semiotics of Hindu nationalism.
Interestingly enough then one is forced to think hereby that though ‘transnationalism’
is not a novel process, it cannot be denied that it’s neo-religious networking variant
does open to scrutiny numerous dichotomies as ‘global-local’, ‘religious-profane’
etc. On deeper introspection, one is compelled to think as to if at all transnational
networks are necessarily embedded within the boundaries of the modern, nation-
states, then how do they invoke primordialism? How tactfully have the New Media
technologies been put to use to ‘fetishise’ global Hinduism? Are there any tensions
and conflicts in (re)presenting and (re)negotiating ‘systemic’ religiosities on one hand
and ‘individuated’ identities on the other? The answers to these host of questions can
very well be analysed if at all we tend to further upgrade the existing sociological take
on transnational religious movements by inflecting upon the ‘simulacrist’ (creating
hyper-real effect) dimension. For example, if differential mobilisation and politics now
dominate power calculations in India, this should not be taken to mean that these
were impervious to politics in the past. What has happened instead is that primordial
identities today have a different context in which they can express their identity-
driven politics. As the context has undergone major modifications (such as through
urbanisation, adult franchise, etc.), identities are expressing themselves differently
from the ways they did before. Such an ethnicisation syndrome and its attendant
political empowerment has engendered a metamorphosis of sanskritisation from
being merely a socio-cultural exercise to that of being a political discourse as well.

V. IN CONCLUSION
Thus, what emerges from the above account is that the mainstream anthropological/
sociological discourse on sanskritisation usually conceives it as a unified system
that worked in more or less similar ways every time and everywhere in India. It has
invariably tended to emphasize the underlying cultural/ideological consensus across
castes on its governing normative order. What we should hence acknowledge is that
contemporary transparencies have brought to light aspects of Sanskritisation that
were previously darkened by imperfect lenses. The new avtaars of Sanskritisation as
discussed above has helped us to see, what Gupta (2004) calls as new ‘certitudes’ of
Caste. To quote Gupta (2004: xix-xx) “… Castes cannot change intrinsically as long
as they are fundamentally founded on identities that draw their sustenance from a
rhetoric of natural differences that are imbued with notions of purity and impurity:
as the saying goes, the more things change the more they are the same…”. Only
then can we make sense of the transformations brought about in the adaptability of
Sanskritisation in to accommodate with changes of the system rather than only changes
in the system. One ought to therefore take into account the fact that the chronotopic
evolution of the concept of sanskritisation is a part of the general theory of social
 Revisiting Sankritisation in Contemporary India 187

emulation, social mobility and reference group behavior. Thus, the paper contends
that the caste-class labyrinth in India today maps the ‘chronotopic’ development of a
multifarious phenomenon like Caste. Only the recurrence of such a neo-Sanskritisation
could absorb within its gamut dialectically-linked socio-political processes that tend
to address larger questions of nation-building and communitarian praxis.

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