W e saw in the last chapter how colonialism brought in changes that altered the structure of Indian society. Industrialisation and urbanisation transformed the lives of people. Factories replaced fields as places of work for some. Cities replaced villages as places to live for many.
Living and working arrangements or structures changed. Changes also took place in culture, ways of life, norms, values, fashions and even body language. Sociologists understand social structure as a ‘continuing arrangement of persons in relationships defined or controlled by institutions’ and ‘culture’ as ‘socially established norms or patterns of behaviour’. You have already studied about the structural changes that colonialism brought about in Chapter .
You will observe how important those structural changes are for understanding the cultural changes that this chapter seeks to understand. This chapter looks at two related developments, both a complex product of the impact of colonial rule. The first deals with the deliberate and conscious efforts made by the th century social reformers and early th century nationalists to bring in changes in social practices that discriminated against women and ‘lower’ castes. The second with the less deliberate yet decisive changes in cultural practices that can broadly be understood as the four processes of sanskritisation, modernisation, secularisation and westernisation.
Sanskritisation pre-dates the coming of colonial rule. The other three processes can be understood better as complex responses of the people of India to the changes that colonialism brought about.