Introducing Indian Society

Answer : Village studies in Indian Sociology: Village studies in Indian Sociology: Rural sociology is of recent origin having its roots to USA in about 1890s. Later it spread to other countries also. Indian village community was one of the areas studied by British administrators and scholars. Some important works are Charles Metcalf’s ‘Minutes on the Village of Delhi’, H.S. Maine’s ‘Village Communities’ and Baden Powel’s ‘Land System of British India.’ The early phase spans from 1900 to 1950. The primary focus of this phase was the study of economy of villages. It accumulated extensive data on rural India and recommended administrative and legislative changes to resolve problems of Indian villages.

For example, Keating & Mann in Bombay, G. Slates in Madras. Writers like Metcalf and Baden Powel explained the question of village autonomy dominantly. Metcalf termed Indian villages as ‘miner republics’.

The Post 1950 phase began with the introduction of CWP village studies with emphasis on social and cultural aspects of village life and influence of cultural and functional approach. For example, S.C. Dube’s Indian Village & India’s Changing Villages and M.N. Srinivas’ India’s Villages. During 60s studies of single or double villages became popular, for example, Srinivas’ Rampura and Dube’s Shomispet.

During 70s the popularity of village studies continued but with major theoretical orientations towards Marxist perspective.

Yogendra Singh remarks, “Studies of agrarian and rural social structures draw heavily on data about social-history, legal systems, trade and commerce, their linkages with political economy, kinship system, polity and cultures”.

Even in later years a number of scholars have continued to devote them to study cultural pattern, institutional complexities as well as trends of change exhibited by Indian village communities. Dhanagare observes, “All these contributors have left behind a powerful and equally popular legacy of field work for collecting observational depth data. Although the focus may change, Indian villages will continue to occupy a central place in research concerns of sociologists and social anthropologists in future.

The limitations of village studies are:

1. It can be termed as non-representative nature in view of complexity and diversity of Indian society and the studies do not add to our knowledge about Indian villages.
2. Over-emphasis on unity and self sufficiency of villages ignore their links to wider social systems.
3. Influence of alien concepts and categories

Answer : Buddhism arose as a protest movement against the Brahminincal supremacy in Indian society. It had a wide range of impact on the structure and culture of India. First it jolted the power and authority exercised by the Brahmins on the polity and society of India. It also loosened the rigidity of varna system which it came to acquire at that time. Buddhism also caused structural differentiation of Indian society by introducing the foreigners into its fold and giving them jati status. In economic areas, Buddhism was coincidental with the increase of power and prestige of the business caste in India. Buddhism liberated them from the Brahminical control. This led them to contribute to trade and commerce which resulted in economic prosperity of India. At the religious and education level, Buddhism was instrumental in the emergence of new structures like monastic system.

At the cultural level, Buddhism’s impact was not less obvious. For the first time vernacular languages like Pali became the medium for religious knowledge and practices as against the use of Sanskrit.

Moreover, in the field of intellect, it contributed to rationalism. It taught people not to take things for granted but to argue and judge them on their merits. The idea of non-violence and sacerdotal status to cows in contemporary society can also be traced in Buddhism. Its impact is also salient on art, sculpture and architecture.

Thus, we find that the impact of Buddhism was thorough and far-reaching.

Answer : The impact of Islam was felt on Indian society mainly because of its humanistic concepts. These include fraternity of human beings, justices as the governing principle of social ethics, charity towards the 'have nots', rejection of priesthood, simplicity of dogma, monotheism and fulfillment of obligation towards humanity etc. According to prof. Yogendra Singh" Non-ritualism and abstract monotheism as preached by the sufi saint and philosopher was not only appealing to the Hindu masses but also tended to be in harmony with the forces of introversion and retreatism which had overtaken Hindu tradition after its loss of political power." Islam deeply influenced the Hindu ceremony, social habits, thought and ideals, language and literature, science and arts. In the field of medical science, the Muslim introduced in India the Greek method of treatment. This is known as the Unani system of medicine. In the field of music, the Shastriya sangeet, Ghazal, Lawani, Thumari, Quwwali, Dhun, Chatrong were the creation of the Muslim which the Hindu accepted with gratitude. In the field of architecture, the domes, turrets, arches and minars were initiated by the Muslims which were later adopted by the Hindus. The ceremonial Sehra, Maur and Kurta Payejama used by Hindus have been borrowed from the Islam. Urdu is the language in India which is created by both Hindu and Muslims. Some of the Urdu words which are frequently used in Hindi are Kaghaz (paper), Nouker, Chaprasi, Sipahi, Munim, Dehat etc.

Answer : It is only through the contact of the West that the process of modernisation has been initated into the Indian society. Prof. Yogendra Singh has termed the change resulting due to the contact with the West as "Heterogenetic" process of change. The Britishers brought tremendous change in the social, economic and political life of the men. The structural change in the infrastructure, democratic political system, modern Judiciary, industrialisation, modern education, English language etc. were truly appreciated by the educated class and society as a whole. Since these initiatives were considered rational and developing in the ideological sense, these were welcomed. But the chief motto of this change was to exploit the resources of India for their own sake. The Indians became conscious towards it. The Britishers also wanted to change the superstructure such as religion, value, customs etc. which were vividly opposed by the people. At that time most of the people were illiterate and poor. They had to accommodate with the Britishers. Raja Ram Mohan Rai welcomed the English education which was later on followed by the rest of the society. The abolition of sati and the passing of Widow Remarriage Act were really a praiseworthy steps.

Answer : The empirical approach refers to the approach which is solely based on the experience and observation of the members of society about the nature and growth of various social phenomena. It does not adopt any methodology, theory and formal means to know about the society. The traditions of the society, rituals, customs folkways etc. provide the sociologists the abundant knowledge about the society. Ghurye, Madan and Majumdar, Verrier Elwin, etc. adopted the empirical approach to study the tribes of India.

The first major source of empiricism is the Indian tradition which makes one aware of the rich culture and tradition of our society. Robert Redfield has distinguished between the Great tradition and Little tradition which Mackim Marriot has termed Universalization and Paroachialisation. The great tradition consists of the big cultural values, practices, rituals etc. which are the essential part of the whole society while the little tradition consists of the cultural feature found at the local level. In his study of "Tanjore" Village, Mackim Marriot assumed that whenever the cultural element of the Great tradition filter-down the little tradition the process is called "Paroachialisation", but whenever the element of little tradition become the part of the great tradition, it is called universalisation. The another study of tradition with the empirical approach has been done by prof. Yogendra Singh. He has studied the modernization of Indian tradition and culture and various impact such as Buddhism, Islam and Western on the Indian tradition and culture.

The customs, folkways, social values etc. have been the the sources of modern laws. The empiricists try to study the existing social reality with the help of these factors. For example, the change in the society may be interpreted in terms of the degree to which social life has changed and to what extent members of society make adaptation to it. The mythological stories, literature and others aspects of the culture consists of historical and didactic lession. All these thing are evaluated by the empirical thinkers while he studies the social reality.

One cannot easily ignore the importance of empirical approach in sociology because it is associated with the applied side and what is happening in the real social life. The structural and functional approach may have special importance for specific study of some part of social reality.

The history provide an insight to know the past and present social reality and on the basis of which the future is predicted. The historical literatures such as Veda, Ramayan, Mahabharat, Upnishad etc. are enriched with the socio-economic life of the contemporary men. Similarly, the coins, architecture, ancient monuments etc. consist obedient knowledge about the contemporary society. Thus, the historical knowledge has been one of the greatest sources of empiricist to know and predict the reality of the society. The historical method in sociology is used to know the individual reality and reality of the society as a whole. In the case of individual's anti-social behaviour, the case study is conducted in which his past life is evaluated. On the basis of evaluation, the due reasons of anti-social behaviour are sorted out. Similarly, change in the structure and function of family in the modern industrial capitalist society may not be properly understood until we study the family in historical perspective or the different period or point of time. This type of assignment is chiefly done by empiricist in sociology. Thus, history of the society is very instrumental and provide insight to empirical approach. Karl Marx applied the historical approach to study the class struggle in the society. He propounded that "The history of hitherto existing. Society is the history of class struggle" His studies of Primitive, Ancient, Asiatic and Modern industrial capitalist societies provided him clues to the prediction of communist society. Some of the social phenomena where statistics are concerned are difficult to study with the empirical approach because it requires relatively more exact and perfect measurement.