C onclusion This chapter has sought to show the distinct ways that social change has taken place in India. The colonial experience had lasting consequences. Many of these were unintended and paradoxical. Western ideas of modernity shaped the imagination of Indian nationalists.
It also prompted a fresh look at traditional texts by some. It also led to a rejection of these by others. Western cultural forms found their place in spheres ranging from how families lived to what codes of conduct should men, women and children have to follow as artistic expressions. The ideas of equality and democracy made a huge impact as evident in both the reform movements and the nationalist movement.
This led not just to adoption of western ideas, but also an active questioning and reinterpretation of tradition. Everyone recognises that the traditional social system in India was organised around caste structures and caste identities. In dealing with the relationship between caste and politics, however the doctrinaire moderniser suffers from a serious xenophobia. He begins with the questions: is caste disappearing?
Now, surely no social system disappears like that. A more useful point of departure would be: what form is caste taking under the impact of modern politics, and what form is politics taking in a caste-oriented society ? Those in India who complain of ‘casteism in politics’ are really looking for a sort of politics, which has no basis in society. …Politics is a competitive enterprise, its purpose is the acquisition of power for the realisation of certain goals, and its process is one of identifying and manipulating existing and emerging allegiances in order to mobilise and consolidate positions.
The important thing is organisation and articulation of support, and where politics is mass-based, the point is to articulate support through the organisations in which the masses are to be found. It follows that where the caste structure provides one of the principal organisational clusters along which the bulk of the population is found to live, politics must strive to organise through such a structure . Politicians mobilise caste groupings and identities in order to organise their power. …Where there are other types of groups and other bases of association, politicians approach them as well.
And as they everywhere change the form of such organisations, they change the form of caste as well . (Kothari : – )