Social Changes in India

The way in which human interactions, relationships, behavior patterns, and cultural
norms change over time is called social change. Social change includes all types of
change in society like political thinking or system, economical, all types of development,
revolutions, etc. But, today we will specifically talk about Sanskritisation.

Sanskritization is a process of cultural change towards twice-born castes. Sanskritization

is a process in which the lower castes adopt the cultural patterns of the higher castes, to
raise their status in the caste hierarchical order. This term was made popular by Indian
sociologist M. N. Srinivas in the 1950s. Sanskritization is a particular form of social
change found in India. It refers to a process wherein a low caste, tribe or other groups
collectively change their customs, rituals, ideology and way of life in the direction of
some upper dominant caste to acquire higher status in the society. Industrialization,
occupational mobility, developed communication, spread of literacy, and western
technology were the main factors to make it happen.

CHARECTERISTICS

 Sanskritization is a process of imitation in Indian society, the social status of an

individual is fixed on the basis of caste hierarchy.
 It was purely following or can be seen as copying other rituals, norms, beliefs to
improve their status in the society.
 It helped in socio‐economic and cultural value transmission in several groups of
the society.
 Sanskritization is helpful in the social mobility of lower caste.
 It was not necessary for lower caste people to follow only Brahmins, but they also
followed locally developed and famous castes like Kshatriyas and Vaishyas.
 The concept of Sanskritization has also given rise to De‐sanskritization.
 Sanskritization process is not only confined to the caste people of Hindu society,
but it is also found among the tribal society.
 It is not the upward mobility achieved by an individual rather it is a collective
phenomenon where the whole caste gets higher status.

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I want to quote few lines of A P Barnabas which he wrote in his THE ECONOMIC
WEEKLY article dated 15th of April 1961

“As both the processes of sanskritisation and westernization are going on at the same
time, there is a conflicting, or more correctly, a confusing situation.

On the one hand, there are the lower castes trying to take on the traditional values and
customs of the upper castes, to raise their status. On the other hand, the upper castes
are discarding some of these customs.

At the same time, there is an element of "conflict" between westernization and

Sanskritisation. Most of the castes are faced with a dilemma of making a choice”

Now we know what sanskritisation is, what its characteristics are. Now let us see how
the cast in India has evolved over a period of time.

Behmai massacre (1981)

Phoolan Devi (1963 – 2001) was an Indian dacoit (bandit), who later became politician.
Born into a traditional Mallaah (boatman class) family, she was kidnapped by a gang of
dacoits. The Gujjar leader of the gang tried to rape her, but she was protected by the
deputy leader Vikram, who belonged to her caste. Later, an upper-caste Thakur friend of
Vikram killed him, abducted Phoolan, and locked her up in the Behmai village. Phoolan
was raped in the village by Thakur men, until she managed to escape after three
weeks.[6]

Phoolan then formed a gang of Mallahs of her own, which carried out a series of violent
robberies in north and central India, in search for Revenge. Seventeen months after her
escape from Behmai, Phoolan returned to the village, to take her revenge. On 14
February 1981, her gang massacred 22 Thakur men in the village, only two of which
were supposedly involved in her kidnapping or rape. Phoolan Devi later surrendered
and served eleven years in prison, after which she became a politician. During her
election campaign, she was criticized by the women widowed in the Behmai massacre.
Kshatriya Swabhiman Andolan Samanvay Committee (KSASC),
a Kshatriya organization, held a statewide campaign to protest against her. She was
elected a Member of Parliament twice and fought for Dalit & Indigenous Rights.

On July 25, 2001, Phoolan Devi was shot dead by unknown assassins. Later, a man
named Sher Singh Rana confessed to the murder, saying he was avenging the deaths of
22 Kshatriyas at Behmai. Although the police were skeptical of his claims, he was
arrested. Rana escaped from Tihar Jail in 2004. In 2006, KSASC decided to honor Rana
for "upholding the dignity of the Thakur community" and "drying the tears of the
widows of Behmai."[7]

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Bihar

Bara massacre (1992)

On the midnight of 12–13 February 1992, the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCC),
now the Communist Party of India (Maoist), brutally killed 35 members of
the Bhumihar caste at Bara Village near Gaya District of Bihar. The MCC's armed group
brought the 35 men of Bara village to the bank of a nearby canal, tied their hands and
slit their throats.As many as 36 people were accused of the crime, but charges were
framed against only 13. The police failed to arrest the others, who had defied their
summons.

Bathani Tola massacre (1996)

21 Dalits were killed by the Ranvir Sena in Bathani Tola, Bhojpur in Bihar on 11 July
1996. Among the dead were 11 women, six children and three infants. Ranvir Sena mob
killed women and children in particular with the intention of deterring any future
resistance which they foresaw.

Six members of Naimuddin Ansari's family were slaughtered by Ranvir Sena according
to a witness statement. The FIR was lodged against 33 persons the day after the
massacre. Niammuddin was a bangle-seller at the time of the carnage, whose 3 month
old daughter was killed. Widespread claims suggest they were killed by Ranvir Sena
aggressors. Naimuddin's 7 year son Saddam was attacked and his face was mutilated by
sword lacerations.

On 17 April 2012, the Patna High Court acquitted 23 men convicted of the murders.
A Division bench of judges Navneeti Prasad Singh and Ashwani Kumar Singh cited
"defective evidence" to acquit all of them. The next day, the Bihar State SC/ST Welfare
Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi stated that the NDA-led Government (under Nitish Kumar)
had decided to move to Supreme court challenging the Patna HC Order.

A Ranvir Sena sympathizer, who spoke to the Hindu correspondent Shoumojit Banerjee,
justified the reactionary mobilisation of the upper castes against those Naxals. "The land
is ours. The crops belong to us. The labourers did not want to work, and also hampered
our efforts by burning our machines and imposing economic blockades. So, they had it
coming."

Following the Bathani Tola carnage, there were several retaliatory naxal attacks killing
at least 500 upper caste civilians as well as attacks on Dalits and Labourers organized
by the Ranvir Sena in Laxmanpur Bathe and Sankarbigha in which 81 Dalits were killed.

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The Counsel for the witness, Anand Vatsyayan, expressed being shocked at the High
Court verdict and reportedly said that "sufficient evidence were at hand to uphold the
judgement passed by the Ara sessions court. The Supreme Court guidelines in the event
of a massacre are quite clear. The eyewitnesses need not remember all the names.
Moreover, of the six prime witnesses questioned in this case, all had conclusively
pointed fingers at the persons convicted by the lower court.

Laxmanpur Bathe massacre

On 1 December 1997, Ranvir Sena gunned down 58 Dalits at Laxmanpur

Bathe, Jehanabad, in retaliation for the Bara massacre in Gaya where 37 upper castes
were killed. In particular, a specific Bhumihar community was targeted in retaliation for
their opposition towards handing out their land for land reform. Charges were framed in
the Laxmanpur-Bathe case on 23 December 2008 against 46 Ranvir Sena members for
killing Dalits, including 27 women and 10 children men. On 7 April 2010, the trial court
at Patna convicted all 26 accused. 16 were sentenced to death and the other 10 were each
give life imprisonment and fines of Rs. 50,000. Around 91 of 152 witnesses in the case
had deposed before the court. On 9 October 2013, the Patna High Court suspended the
conviction of all 26 accused, saying the prosecution had produced no evidence to
guarantee any punishment at all.

As we see from above cases that even after so many years of abolition of untouchability
in 1950. By the Indian government there is so cruelty and hate-rate between the people
due to the caste. Even, now people don’t want to change themselves. The above cases
were the most famous which make the headline so; we can’t even imagine what they face
in day to day life. This shows that there is still a long way ahead of us to go to completely
abolish the caste discrimination.

Impact

 The feeling of inferior complexity compels the lower castes to raise their social
status. They adopted the process of Sanskritisation to raise their social position.

 It helps in the process of cultural transmission.

 It occurs among those castes that enjoy economic and political powers but have
not achieved high ritual ranking. There is a gap between their politico-economic
position and ritual position in the society.

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  In some cases it is observed that economic betterment helps in acquiring political
power and combined economic and political power lead to the process of
Sanskritisation.

 It leads to education, leadership, wealth, power in politics etc.

DRAW-BACKS

 Unit of mobility in the process of Sanskritisation must be a group. The upward

mobility of an individual or a family is not considered as Sanskritisation.

 In this process emphasis is given to vertical mobility and not to the horizontal
mobility.

 It refers to cultural change or positional change but not structural change.

 The group has to wait for indefinite period to achieve the position in this process.

 The process depends on the structure of the social system. It will be easier if the
society is flexible, open, and free.

 In the historical context Sanskritisation has been a process of social mobility

throughout the history of Indian society.

 It explains only socio-cultural mobility and that to in a very limited way.

 It is also not clear about the fact that when a caste moves up what happens to the
vacant place.

 Whether the sanskritised group adopts the occupation of the new place or follows
the same traditional occupation.

 This is a process in which the lower caste people follow the customs, traditions
and practices of high caste people. But all these elements of high caste people are
in diluted condition, due to various forces like modernization, westernization,
education etc. So, there is confusion in imitating these elements.

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  Now-a-days the process of desanskritization has also been started.

 Dominant caste may not allow the lower caste groups to reach at their place.

 It is a cultural change leaving little scope to raise the social status.

However, the process of Sanskritisation is very helpful in explaining the complex pattern
of Indian culture.

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