M odernisation and S ecularisation The term modernisation has a long history. From the th and more so the th century, the term began to be associated with positive and desirable values. People and societies wanted to be modern. In the early years, modernisation referred to improvement in technology and production processes.
Increasingly, however, the term had a wider usage. It referred to the path of development that much of west Europe or North America has taken. And suggested that other societies both have to and ought to follow the same path of development. In India the beginnings of capitalism, as we saw in Chapter , took place within the colonial context.
The story of our modernisation and secularisation is, therefore, quite distinct from their growth in the west. This is evident when we discussed westernisation and the efforts of the th century social movements earlier in this chapter. Here we look into the two processes of modernisation and secularisation together for they are linked. They are both part of a set of modern ideas.
Sociologists have tried to define what exactly constitutes the modernisation process. ‘[M]odernity’ assumes that local ties and parochial perspectives give way to universal commitments and cosmopolitan attitudes; that the truths of utility, calculation, and science take precedence over those of the emotions, the sacred, and the non-rational; that the individual rather than the group be the primary unit of society and politics; that the associations in which men live and work be based on choice not birth; that mastery rather than fatalism orient their attitude toward the material and human environment; that identity be chosen and achieved, not ascribed and affirmed; that work be separated from family, residence, and community in bureaucratic organisation…. (Rudolph and Rudolph, ) My grandfather, like most Nagas who had come into close contact with Europeans, was convinced that education was the only way to get ahead in life. He aspired for his children the kind of life he had seen being lived by the British administration and missionaries.
He sent my mother away to school first in neighbouring Assam, then as far away as Shimla. My mother was encouraged by one of the more educated men in her village who told her that with an education in these new times, she could even become like the Indian lady who spoke before the world- Vijaylakshmi Pandit, sister of Nehru, who represented India at the UN. My father by dint of his own intelligence and hard work, put himself through the local mission school and college in Shillong. All Nagas of my parents’ generation who were able to, chose to get educated in English.
For them it was more than a gateway to upward mobility. In a region where tribes that live no more than kms apart speak completely different languages, it was a medium through which they could communicate amongst themselves and with the world. They became the voice of their people and made English the official state language. (Ao : )