Introduction
Westernisation had its impact on almost institutions. It reduced caste rigidities, promoted the disintegration of joint family, disintegrated cottage industries, promoted variety in cultivation, introduced new measures in hand management, induced a number of reform movements and promoted democratic values and ideals, national consciousness, social justice, and uniform of India. To be precise, emphasis on humanitarianism and rationalism is a part of westernisation which led to a series of instiutional and reforms in India. Srinivas expressed the view that westernisation does not related the process of sanskritization both go simultaneously. Interestingly increase in westernisation accelerates the process of sanskritization.
Impact of Westernisation on sanskritization
According to Srinivas westernisation influenced Brahmanism itself. One finds that a Brahmin will marry his girl before puberty and if he failed to find a boy before that age, it was believed that he has committed a sin. But today under the influence of Westernisation he will not marry his girl before the age of 18. Widow remarriage, which was not thought of earlier is now becoming common and today a Brahmin even thinks it absurd to shave the head of a widow. Monogamy is still considered most suitable.
Srinivas points out that the expanding means of communications like postal facilities, railways, newspapers and periodicals, etc., which are the result of the western technology given fillip to pilgrimages, religious propaganda, and caste and communal congregations.
Srinivas says, “Sanskritization means not only the adoption of new customs and habits, but exposure to new ideals and values which have found frequent expression in the vast body of Sanskrit literature, sacred as well as secular.” To quote him again, “the development of communications carried Sanskritization to areas previously inaccessible and spread of literary carried it to groups very low in the caste hierarchy. The introduction by the British of western political institutions like parliamentary democracy has contributed to the increased Sanskritization of the country.” Thus Westernisation has considerably helped in the spread of Sanskritization. But in many ways Westernisation has come in conflict with Sanskritization as well. It was under the impact of Westernisation that the Brahmins adopted the diet and dress of the westerners. They began to get English education. The Brahmin caste, which was the superior most one is now in a dilemma. The British found that the village castes and traders were near to them in food habits or more adaptable to their ways of living and thus went nearer to them than the Brahmins. Thus in the eyes of rulers those engaged in trade were more important than the orthodox Brahmins. Gradually some of the Brahmins began to accept British type and kind of diet was nowhere to be seen even many Brahmins discarded sacred thread. For health reasons many Brahmins do not hesitate to take raw eggs and such medicines, which they know have been made from various organs of animals. Cigarettes and liquor are now used in some cases. The Brahmins have also given up their old occupation and instead they have taken up new ones. They now go beyond the seas to serve.
Previously they were opposed to taking to medical profession as that meant touching the bodies of scheduled castes and also dead and impure bodies. Now we find Brahmins who have taken the medical professions. But whereas the Brahmins have taken to Westernisation, non-Brahmin castes are still taking to Brahminic customs, traditions, rituals etc. Thus Westernisation has its effects and impact on Sanskritization. But there is something strange in the phenomenon, namely the role of untouchables The untouchables have been occupied by other three castes. In spite of the fact that the tribals and others have been accepted in the fold of Hindu society, the untouchables have socially not been accepted and they have been kept out. It may be concluded with the words of Prof. M.N. Srinivas when he says that, “the consequences of existence of the occasionally conflicting, pressure of Sanskritization and Westernisation provide an interesting field of systematic sociological analysis.”