Indian civilisation has always been based on the principle of holism, hierarchy, continuity, and transcendence and its character has influenced from orthogenetic changes and changes in its Great Tradition and Little Tradition but form of the institutions remained unchanged as the endogenous changes were confined only to ‘Sanskritisation' .The real change came from the contact of western civilisation in 17th century, which began through the process of colonization. The earlier encounter with Islam only reinforced the tradition as Islam was a traditional religion and a synthesis of Islamic tradition and Hindu tradition took place which even had the effect in the Persia. The Islam of Indian subcontinent also adopted the features of hierarchy as the most of the Muslims were Hindu convert. In political structure also the feudal system was common to both the religions. Despite having differences in ideologies a syncretic relationship between both the religions was apparent in Indian subcontinent. Social change and modernism are two different things especially while evaluating traditional societies. Social change can be continuous without having the modern or pre- modern type of evolution. In Indian social system applying western evolutionary perspective to study the ‘change' will be injustice to the very pattern of Indian society. Indian social system was undergoing changes without inculcating any modern notion of change which can be studied from qualitatively distinctive evolutionary differentiation.
Various methodologies have been used to study Indian society as M. N. Srinivas gave ‘Sanskritisation' and ‘Westernization' to study the social change in India but Yogendra Singh finds it problematic as the sociology of Srinivas glorifies the idea of continuity and change but never talks about absolute change. Further, he founds the absence of consensus in the historical context of Sanskritisation as the role of dominant caste is more important to legitimize the mobility. In India, plurality of the little tradition was preserved through caste structure and its local cultural expressions of lower castes. As Redfield and Singer finds that these Little Traditions comprises the cultural beliefs and practices held by folk, through oral tradition and ‘' localized adaptations of cultural values and roles of the great traditions. Various religious groups and the groups within the sub-structure of these groups formed plural traditions and micro-structures as kinship and social ties hardly ever extended beyond the borders of 200 km. So the changes from within in the internal structure that is Sanskritisation and from outside that is Islamization were active in the Hindu Little Tradition.
The frustration of low caste Hindu and repression by Islamic ruler in India accelerated the process of Islamization in India. Yogendra Singh puts that "Islamization also led to some structural changes through continual differentiation and segmentation of new castes who got converted to Islam." The sub-culture and social practices among these converts clearly shows the reminiscence of traditional Hindu system, which led to formation of little tradition of Islam. Further Islamization developed structural similarities with Sanskritisation as a caste of pseudo-Ashrafs emerged. Similarly, here dominant castes did not recognize or oppose the mobility.
With the establishments of British Rule, the socio-cultural institutions got politicized and the policy of Colonialist further fragmented society. Reformist movement especially in Hinduism came into prominence and some of which led to communalisation of "ideo-centric character" of Indian society. Arya samaj movement led to communalisation in Northern India an Aligadh movement led to formation of Deobandi Movement. Purification in the great tradition of Islam came into prominence as the Tabligh Movement in response to the Shuddhi Movement of Arya Samaj.
European rational thought provided inception for Bengal Renaissance and assimilation of western cultural norms and western mode of learning emerged and traditional rituals of superstition and practices were seen as the irrational behaviour in the name of the religion. Modernisation of great tradition started with new form of education, a universalistic legal system, urbanization and industrialization, spread of new means of transportation and communication and social reforms. These were accompanied by emergence of new political elites and feeling of nationalism among masses, new industrial class and trade unions organized on western form of modernity. These changes were homogenous throughout the country and it led to articulation of nationalist expression in the country "which itself was a major step in the growth of modernization". But, this growth was not incorporated in the micro-structures of Indian society as it was segmented and fragmented because some of the Britishers found the rigidness of structure good for the survival of colonial class in the country.
Later Islamic nationalism came into prominence and communal electorate system was introduced and caste and ethnic factors were incorporated in the recruitment of Army and Bureaucracy which paved a different path for the modernisation process in the post-colonial period in India and it increased the contingency of the traditional institutions and symbolism to the Indian process of modernization. Indian freedom was led by a Mahatma Gandhi who always kept one foot in the traditional structure of Indian society and his emergence during the peak of the westernization process in India signifies an orthogenetic response of Indian tradition to the new challenges of social change. After partition of India the segmental and fragmented modernisation process was abolished and a universal modernization process was established. However Singh's this view is highly debated after seeing the responses to modernisation process of Indian government but discontinuity between micro structure and macro structure and great tradition and little tradition in modernisation was abolished. Universal adult suffrage, decentralization of power, reservation policies for the depressed classes etc. radically changed the caste role and developed new functional adaptation and activated aspirations unleashed by the democratization processes in the polity and the power structure. Caste developed now an associational character in the "structural networks of the modernization processes". Traditions of past and present has generated inter-structure tensions and conflict in the process of modernization and the future process of modernization will depend upon the acceptance of new structures and how it is resolved.
Yogendra Singh sees the process of social change through two perspectives- i) structural, and ii) evolutionary. Structural changes are seen through the variables of social mobility, technological modernity and secular institutions, changes in norms and value systems etc and modernisation is seen through the flow of these values and their impact decides the nature and extent of the transformation. However, an evolutionary perspective is based on theoretical assumptions and these theoretical perspectives can be either structural-functional or dialectical. Dialectical approach sees the ‘breakdown' of old institution as the pre-requisite criteria for the change and change in psycho-neurological factors are not appreciated in this method. Structural-functional approach treats evolution as continuous process from the sub-human to human and beyond this. As Talcott Parsons writes that "Modernisation follows a ‘evolutionary universal'". They believe in the homeostasis of social agencies and revolution as the breakdown of this balance. Buck and Jackson see the presence of this evolution in most of the Asian countries. However many universal ideals of Parsons Theory can be doubted as Gunner Myrdal contradicts the democratic political institution of parsonian universalism. Eisenstadt founds that in India it was not provided by any breakdown of social institution because here, social and political institutions were independent of each other. Louis Dumont finds the relative autonomy between dominant tradition and absolute values. In the pre-colonial era, the micro institutions of India like caste systems, family, village, community have retained the traditional structures. However, modernization brought homogeneity in elite structures but the ‘Trickle down' effect is not visible because social base for recruitment of these elites were limited. After reforms, these bases widened and the elite culture got prominence in urban centres.
So, taking elements from different theoretical understandings and practical experiences, the change in Indian society is Sui generis and these changes cannot be studied from any one perspective due to presence of heterogeneity of culture and differential effects of modernity on different societies.
The concept of modernity cannot be understood in isolation to tradition. So, it is necessary to see how the modern values are being assimilated into the traditional norms and develops a composite norm, which provides the continuity to the process of social change. So the Historicity of modernisation should be seen in Indian sense as Marriot calls it "Indianisation of modernity". Modernity and traditions are found together in one basket where traditional role structures are giving way to the modern norms and traditional norms are also keeping its own significance.
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