BRITISH rule brought with it a process of secularization of Indian social life and culture, a tendency
that gradually became stronger with the development of communications, growth of towns and
cities, increased spatial mobility, and the spread of education. The two World Wars, and Mahatma
Gandhi’s civil disobedience campaigns, both of which socially and politically mobilized the masses,
also contributed to increased secularization. And with Independence there began a deepening as
well as a broadening of the secularization process as witnessed in such measures as the declaration of
India as a secular state, the Constitutional recognition of the equality of all citizens before the law, the
introduction of universal adult suffrage, and the undertaking of a program of planned development.
We have seen earlier that Sanskritization is also spreading, and it may seem paradoxical that both it
and secularization are simultaneously gaining ground in modern India. Of the two, secularization is
the more general process, affecting all Indians, while Sanskritization affects only Hindus and tribal
groups. Broadly, it would be true to say that secularization is more marked among the urban and
educated groups, and Sanskritization among the lower Hindu castes and tribes. It is necessary,
however, to reiterate that one of the results of a century of Westernization—secularization is subsumed
under Westernization—is a reinterpreted Hinduism in which Sanskritic elements are predominant.
The term “secularization” implies that what was previously regarded as religious is now ceasing to
be such, and it also implies a process of differentiation which results in the various aspects of society,
economic, political, legal and moral, becoming increasingly discrete in relation to each other. The
distinction between Church and State, and the Indian concept of a secular state, both assume the
existence of such differentiation.
Another essential element in secularization is rationalism, a “comprehensive expression applied to
various theoretical and practical tendencies which aim to interpret the universe purely in terms of
thought, or which aim to regulate individual and social life in accordance with the principles of
reason and to eliminate as far as possible or to relegate to the background everything irrational.”
Rationalism involves, among other things, the replacement of traditional beliefs and ideas by modern
knowledge.
It would probably be safe to assume that Hindus were more affected by the secularization process
than any other religious group in India as, first, the concepts of pollution and purity which are central
as well as pervasive in Hinduism were greatly weakened as a result of the operation of a variety of
factors already mentioned. Moreover, the fact that Hinduism lacks a central and nation-wide
organization with a single head, and that it is largely dependent for its perpetuation on such social
institutions as caste, joint family and village community—institutions which are changing in important
respects—renders it peculiarly vulnerable to the forces of secularization. Different sections among
Hindus are affected in different degrees by it, and generally speaking, the new elite are probably much more affected by it than everyone else. In my discussion of secularization I shall be referring
principally to the new elite in Mysore, though it is probable that my remarks also apply with some
variations to the elite in other parts of the country. I shall consider first the effects of secularization on
ideas regarding pollution and purity, then the changes in the lives and position of priestly Brahmins
and finally, the implications for Hinduism of changes in caste, village community and joint family.
No student of Hindu religious behaviour can afford to ignore the concepts of pollution and purity.
Terms exist for pollution and purity in every Indian language, and each of these terms has a certain
amount of semantic stretch enabling it to move from one meaning to another as the context requires.
Thus pollution may refer to uncleanliness, defilement, impurity short of defilement and indirectly
even to sinfulness, while purity refers to cleanliness, spiritual merit and indirectly to holiness.
The structural distance between various castes is defined in terms of pollution and purity. A higher
caste is always “pure” in relation to a lower caste, and in order to retain its higher status it should
abstain from certain forms of contact with the lower. It may not ordinarily eat food cooked by them,
or marry or have sex relations with them. Where one of the castes is very high and the other very low,
there is a ban on touching or even getting very close to one another. A breach of rules renders the
higher caste member impure, and purity can only be restored by the performance of a purification
rite and, frequently, also by undergoing such punishment as the caste council decides upon. Sometimes,
however, the offence is so serious—as, for instance, when a Brahmin or other high-caste woman has
sex relations with an Untouchable man—that the former is permanently excommunicated from her
caste. The concepts of pollution and purity are important not only in a static but also in a dynamic
context: traditionally, when a caste group or its section wanted to move up it would Sanskritize its
style of life and stop accepting cooked food from those castes with which it had previously interdined.
Corresponding to the caste hierarchy are hierarchies in food, occupation and styles of life. The highest
castes are vegetarians as well as teetotalers, while the lowest eat meat (including domestic pork and
beef) and consume indigenous liquor. Consumption of the meat of such a village scavenger as the pig
pollutes the eaters, while the ban on beef comes from the high place given to the cow in the sacred
texts of Hinduism. Among occupations, those involving manual work are rated lower than those
which do not. Manual occupations may involve the handling of dirty or polluting (for example,
human waste matter) objects, or engaging in butchery which is regarded as sinful. At the lowest level
of the caste system are occupations that are sinful or polluting or both.
Not only caste but also kinship is bound up with pollution ideas. Thus, birth as well as death results
in pollution for specific periods for members of the kinship group, death pollution being more rigorous
than birth pollution. Within the kinship group, the mourning period is longer for the closest relatives,
such as widow, widower and sons, and the taboos are also more elaborate. The onset of puberty for
a girl was traditionally marked by confining her to a room for several days, at the end of which time
there was a purificatory bath and ritual. A woman was considered polluting during her monthly
periods. Traditionally, women kept away from all activity and contact with other members of the
household for three days during their periods. All bodily waste matter, with the exception of sweat,
was regarded not only as dirty but as polluting. This is one of the reasons why a bath was a condition
precedent to prayer; and while praying or performing ritual, the subject had to exercise sphincter
and bladder control. Restraint on sex was also imposed on religious occasions, including pilgrimages
to such shrines as the Madeshwara temple in Kollegal taluk in Mysore district and the famous temple
to Shasta in southern Kerala.
The daily routine was also permeated with ideas of pollution and purity. A person’s normal condition
was one of mild impurity, and he exchanged this for short periods of purity or serious impurity. He
had to be ritually pure not only while praying but also while eating (see in this connection pp. 53-54).
In order to be pure, he had to have a bath, change into ritually pure clothes, and avoid contact even
with other members of his family who were not in a similar condition. During certain festivals and
the shrdddha (annual ceremony for dead father or mother) the subject had to abstain from even a
drink of water till the ritual was over.
Traditionally, a man did not shave himself. He was shaved by a member of the barber caste, and the
barber’s touch as well as shaved hair were both polluting. After he was shaved, he was not allowed
to touch the bathroom vessels, but someone poured water over him while he sat on the bathroom
floor. Only when he had been thoroughly drenched, and had gargled his mouth with water, was he
allowed to touch the vessels. The place where the tonsure had been performed was purified with
cowdung. There was some resistance initially to the use of the safety razor among the high castes, as
its use involved pollution. The institution of the daily shave also violated the ban on shaving on
certain days of the week, and other inauspicious days. The safety razor enabled a man to shave when
and where he liked. I remember that once during my field work in Rampura I shaved after I had had
my morning bath and the Peasant headman mildly reproved me for it. (His granddaughter, then
about ten, was critical of my indifference to pollution.) In his own house, the safety razor had been
tabooed, and when his graduate son came on an occasional visit from Mysore, he was allowed to use
the razor only in an adjoining building used for guests.
Women, especially widows, and elderly men are generally more particular about observing the rules
of pollution than others. The upper castes are more particular than the lower Brahmins are the most
particular among the former, and among Brahmins priests out do the laity. Indeed, Brahminical
preoccupation with purity-pollution ideas and ritualism is the subject of much joking if not criticism.
Traditional Brahminical life requires not only leisure but also an absence of spatial mobility. Travel
subjects orthodox Brahmins to great hardship and privation.
Just as notions of uncleanliness and even sinfulness lie close to pollution, so do cleanliness, spiritual
merit and holiness lie close to purity. While all baths purify the bather, bathing in a sacred river
cleanses him, in addition, of sin (papa), and earns him punya or spiritual merit. A daily bath in a
sacred river (punya snana), worshipping in a temple, listening to the narration of religious stories
(harikathd kalakshepa), singing devotional songs in company with other devotees (bhajan), keeping the
company of religious persons (satsanga), frequent fasting (upavasa), prayer and meditation (prarthana,
dhyana)—these constitute the essence of a religious life as distinguished from a life devoted to secular
concerns.
The notion of pollution and purity has both weakened and become less pervasive in the last few
decades as a result of the forces already mentioned. It may be noted here that the popularity of travel
and teashops is not confined to city folk but extends to villagers as well. When I began my field work
in Rampura in 1948 villagers were surprised to find me walking to neighbouring villages. Why did I
walk when there were buses? When I revisited the village in 1952 I found bus travel had greatly
increased in popularity, and the headman himself had invested money in buses.
Urban life sets up its own pressures, and a man’s daily routine, his place of residence, the times of his
meals, are influenced more by his job than by caste and religion. This is all the more true when the
city he lives in is a highly industrialized one such as Bangalore or Bhadravati, and not like Mysore,
which derived its importance from being the traditional capital of the state until November 1, 1956,
when it became part of a larger Kannada-speaking state. Even more influential is the fact that
immigrants from the villages to cities are freed to some extent from caste and kin pressures, and must
instead conform to the norms of work-mates and neighbourhood groups. I am not arguing that urban
living leads to a total abandonment of the traditional way of life; in fact, it is a commonplace of
observation that behaviour varies according to context, and people are not always worried by
inconsistencies in it. A Nayar informant told Kathleen Gough, “When I put on my shirt to go to the
office, I take off my caste, and when I come home and take off my shirt, I put on my caste.” On a longterm basis, however, such contextual variation usually paves the way for the eventual overall
secularization of behaviour. Thus, for instance, in Mysore in the early 1930s priestly (vaidika) Brahmins
did not patronize coffee shops, even coffee shops where the cooks were Brahmins. Elderly lay (loukika)
Brahmins also did not like to visit them; on those infrequent occasions when they did, they sat in an
inner room specially reserved for Brahmins and ate off leaves instead of pollution-carrying aluminium
and brass plates. Now very few coffee shops have rooms reserved for Brahmins—in fact, such
reservation would be against the law. The most popular coffee shops in the city have a cosmopolitan
clientele, and few customers bother about the caste of cooks and waiters. Even women occasionally
visit them, and there are “family” cubicles where they can eat in privacy.
The more educated customers show concern about cleanliness in coffee shops and not about caste.
Many of them prefer Western-style “coffee houses” as they appear to be cleaner, quieter and serve novel items. Often these “coffee houses” serve both vegetarian and non-vegetarian foods, and Brahmin
youths are found experimenting with omelettes and other forbidden foods.
As a result of the spread of education among all sections of the population, traditional ideas of purity
are giving way to the rules of hygiene. Purity and cleanliness are often at loggerheads; I have heard
many an educated Brahmin expressing his disgust at the dirt and unhygienic character of “pure”
clothes worn by the orthodox. Brahmin cooks are often found wearing or using for handling hot
vessels, dirty clothes which have been rinsed but not cleaned with soap or sterilized. The unsanitary
conditions prevailing in pilgrim centers is a frequent subject of conversation among educated Hindus,
who are more conscious of the drains flowing into the Ganges than of the river’s holiness. This is not,
however, the only tendency; educated Hindus are also found rationalizing traditional behaviour.
Purity, according to them, is nothing more than hygiene, and it was brought within the field of
religious behaviour only to make people more particular about it.
Any consideration of changed attitudes toward pollution must note the great popularity of education
among Brahmin women in Mysore. In the old days, women were extremely particular about pollution,
and the kitchen was the heart of the pollution system. The modern educated housewife, on the other
hand, is much less particular about pollution and more conscious of hygiene and nutrition. Many
observe rules of pollution only when they are living with their parents or in-laws. They become lax
about the rules when they form separate households; a punctilious observance of pollution rules is
not easy when there is only one adult woman in the house, unlike in a traditional joint family. Even
in the latter, pollution rules are observed more strictly when there are old women who are widows
and whose lives are centered in the kitchen and in the domestic altar (usually located in or near the
kitchen).
Another and a potent source of criticism of orthodox Hinduism’s obsession with pollution and ritualism
lay in the nineteenth century movement to reinterpret traditional religion. It was essentially a
puritanical movement in which an attempt was made to distinguish the “essence” of Hinduism from
its historical accretions. Ritualism and pollution rules were interpreted as extrinsic to true religion,
and as even wrong, while devotion and simplicity were of the essence. There was support for such a
view in the Bhagavad Gita and in the lives of the saints.
Process of Secularization
Another area which has been affected by the secularization process is life-cycle ritual. There has been
an abbreviation of the rituals performed at various life-cycle crises, while at the same time their
purely social aspects have assumed greater importance than before. Ceremonies such as name-giving
(namakarana), the first tonsure (chaula) and the annual ritual of changing the sacred thread (upakarma)
are beginning to be dropped. For girls, the attainment of puberty is no longer marked by the elaborate
ritual that characterized it a few decades ago. The shaving of a Brahmin widow’s head, as part of the
funeral rite for her dead husband, has also largely disappeared, and among the educated, widow
marriage is no longer strongly disapproved.
Rituals are not only omitted or abbreviated but are also telescoped with others, though this seems to
be rarer than the other two phenomena. Thus the wedding ritual may be combined with the donning
of the sacred thread at the beginning of the ceremony, and with the consummation ritual (garbhadana)
at the end. In fact, only funeral ritual and the annual shraddha continue to be performed with the same
strictness as before, though even here changes seem to have occurred with respect to the kin groups
participating in the ritual. The scattering of agnates over a wide area is one of the factors responsible
for this change.
The manner in which the wedding ritual has been abbreviated is interesting. Formerly, a full-blown
Brahmin wedding would last between five and seven days. Now, however, much of the non-Sanskritic
and folk ritual, traditionally the exclusive preserve of women, is being dropped. There is even an
increasing tendency to compress Sanskritic ritual into a few hours on a single day. The crucial religious
rituals such as kanyadana (gift of the virgin) and saptapadi (seven steps) are witnessed only by the
concerned kindred, while the main body of guests attends the secularly important wedding reception.
At the latter the bridal couple sit on a settee at the back of a hall, both in their best clothes, the groom
generally sporting a woollen suit, usually a gift from his father-in-law. The guests are introduced to the couple after which they sit for a while listening to the music and then depart, taking with them a
paper bag containing a coconut and a few betel leaves and areca nuts. The reception is a costly affair
as both the price of coconuts and the fees of musicians are high during the wedding season. But the
number of guests, their social importance, the professional standing of the musician hired for the
occasion, the number of cars parked on the street outside the wedding house, the lights and
decorations, and the presents received by the bridal couple are all indicators of the status and influence
of the two affinal groups in the local society. Invitations are extended to ministers and other prominent
politicians, to high officials and various local worthies to develop, strengthen and exhibit links with
these important people. The wedding reception is a recent institution—the word “reception” has
passed into Kannada—and its great popularity is one of the many pointers to the increased
secularization of Brahminical life and culture.
Another evidence of increased secularization is the enormous importance assumed by the institution
of dowry in the last few decades. Dowry is paid not only among Mysore and other South Indian
Brahmins, but also among a number of high-caste groups all over India. The huge sums demanded
as dowry prompted the Indian Parliament, in 1961, to pass the Dowry Prohibition Act (Act 28 of
1961). So far the Act has not had much success in combating the institution.
The interesting feature of dowry among Mysore Brahmins— and this is probably true of several
other groups as well—is that engineers, doctors and candidates successful in the prestigious Indian
Administrative Service seem to command much bigger payments than others.
The amount of time spent on daily ritual has been steadily decreasing for Brahmin men as well as for
women. Ingalls has stated, “The head of the family might spend five hours or more of the day in
ritual performances, in the samdhya or crepuscular ceremony, in the bathing, the offerings, the fire
ceremony, the Vedic recitations. The Brahmin’s wife or some other female members of his family
would devote an hour of the day to the worship of the household idols.” In order to be able to spend
five hours every day in performing ritual, a man had to have an independent source of income or
have priesthood as his occupation. Traditionally, Hindu kings at their coronation made gifts of land
and houses to pious Brahmins, as well as on other occasions such as birth, marriage and death in the
royal family. Such acts conferred religious merit on the royal house. However, as Brahmins in Mysore
became more urbanized and as Western education spread among them, they found it increasingly
difficult to lead a life devoted to ritual, prayer, fasting and the punctilious observance of pollution
rules. Milton Singer has recorded a similar process among Brahmins in Madras:
That is to say, they found in their new preoccupations less time for the cultivation
of Sanskrit learning and the performance of the scripturally prescribed ritual
observances, the two activities for which as Brahmins they have had an ancient
and professional responsibility. They have not, however, completely abandoned
these activities and to some extent they have developed compensatory activities
which have kept them from becoming completely de-Sanskritized and cut off from
traditional culture.
The sharp rise in the age of marriage of Brahmin girls enabled them to take advantage of opportunities
for higher education, and this resulted in a breach in the crucial locus of ritual and purity—the kitchen.
Traditionally, a young Brahmin girl worked in and around the kitchen with her mother until her
marriage was consummated and she joined her affines. All that was required of her was knowledge
of cooking and other domestic chores, the rituals that girls were expected to perform, knowledge of
caste and pollution rules, and respect for and obedience to her parents-in-law and husband and other
elders in the household. Education changed the outlook of girls and gave them new ideas and
aspirations. It certainly made them less particular about pollution rules and ritual, though as long as
they lived with their affines they could not completely ignore them.
Very few urban Brahmin parents would now deny that education is a necessity for girls, though they
would certainly differ as to how much education is desirable. Aileen Ross, who recently made a field
study of the urban family in Bangalore, sums up the position as follows:
On the whole this study shows that most young Hindu girls of the middle and
upper classes are still educated with a view to marriage rather than to careers However, a number of parents were anxious to have their daughters attend
universities. Perhaps one of the main reasons for this new trend is that, with the
change from child to adult marriage, the leisure time of girls must now be filled in
up to nineteen or even twenty-five years. And college is one way of “keeping them
busy” until marriage. Another reason mentioned by interviewees was that the
difficulty of finding suitable mates for daughters sometimes forces parents to
prolong their education further than they had first intended.
Many girls, then, enter careers apparently not because they want them, but because there is nothing
else to be done until their parents find them husbands. But it is a fact that a large number of women
are employed today in the cities as teachers, clerks, doctors, nurses, welfare workers, and from the
point of view of the traditional society, this is indeed revolutionary. It is only to be expected that
women’s education will bring about radical changes in domestic social life and culture. Ross concludes
from her study of educated women in Bangalore that “women of the household will gradually cease
to be the strong backbone of family tradition and caste customs.” This does not, however, mean that
there is a complete breakaway from tradition; while hours may not be spent in ritual, there is usually
a domestic altar where lamps are lit and prayers said. Freedom from pollution does not go so far that
educated Brahmin women eat in the homes of all other castes, let alone Harijans. While the endogamous
circle has widened and subcaste barriers are crossed—for example, a Mandya Sri Vaishnava Brahmin
may ignore all subdivisions among Sri Vaishnava Brahmins—marriages between Brahmins and other
castes such as Okkaligas or Lingayats are few and far between. While the Brahmin dietary may be
enlarged to include the traditionally banned eggs, meat-eating is still rare.
The religious beliefs and practices of educated Hindus are only now beginning to be studied. Apart
from the intrinsic importance of the subject, no study of the processes of Westernization can afford to
neglect changes in religion.
Secularization, even politicization, is an important tendency in urban religion, though not the only
one. For instance, the famous Dasara or Navaratri festival which was bound up with the royal family
of Mysore, and celebrated with great pomp and pageantry, has changed its character with the merger
of the former princely state into new and enlarged Mysore. The rise to power of the dominant Lingayat
caste in state politics, and increased regionalism, have both found expression in the festival
commemorating the birth of Basava, founder of the Lingayat sect, becoming more popular since the
early fifties. The festival lasts several days, and is celebrated in all the big towns and cities that have
Lingayat concentrations. Deepavali (festival of lights), Sankranti (harvest and cattle festival), Ugadi
(New Year) and Rama Navami (birthday of Rama) are common to most Hindu groups in the state,
while others such as Gokulashtami and Shivaratri (Night of Shiva) have a predominantly sectarian
character. The Rama Navami has become, throughout South India except Kerala, an important “cultural”
occasion, concerts of classical South Indian music being held in all cities during the nine days of the
festival period. The popularity of South Indian classical music has increased greatly in the last two or
three decades, and music lovers, whether religious or not, look forward eagerly to the Rama Navami.
The concerts are well attended, and open to all who can afford the price of admission. But while there
is no doubt that the festival has undergone some secularization, classical South Indian music is
essentially devotional, and the great composers whose songs are sung at the concerts were all very
devout men. As Singer has rightly observed, “There is no sharp dividing line between religion and
culture and the traditional culture media not only continue to survive in the city but have also been
incorporated in novel ways to an emerging popular and classical culture.”
In recent years, temples have shown considerable activity, and have organized harikathas (the narration
of religious stories by experts in the art) during Dasara, Rama Navami and other occasions. The harikathas
continue for several days, sometimes even for several weeks, and attract large audiences who spill
over from the temple yard to the roadside, listening to the story and song. Sound amplifiers are
regarded as essential at these narrations.
Pious individuals with a flair for entrepreneurial activity organize Vedic sacrifices (yajnya) which
involve a large investment of money, time and energy, and which go on for several days. The sacrifice
may, for example, be to end a drought or for the “welfare of mankind” (loka kalyana). Another popular
activity is to undertake to write the name of Rama or some other deity a billion times, and then celebrate the occasion with a big sacrifice. Hundreds of volunteers are enrolled for writing the name,
huge sums of money are collected, elaborate arrangements are made for the accommodation of devotees
who wish to witness the celebration, and attempts are made to involve important people including
ministers and members of the state legislatures in this activity. Local newspapers give much space to
describing the final phase of the celebration, the number of people who had gathered, the arrangements
made for their comfort, the ritual and, of course, the speeches.
Pilgrimages are very popular and enable large numbers to satisfy their religious aspirations as well
as to see the country tourist buses cater to both these needs, as they include shrines as well as objects
of tourist interest in each tour. The social and religious horizons of the people have widened
considerably; the peasants of Rampura village now regularly visit the famous Tirupati temple in
Andhra Pradesh, whereas before World War II they only visited shrines which were nearby. The
richer peasants in Rampura have visited the big pilgrimage centers in South India, such as
Rameshwaram, Madurai and Shrirangam. The urban-educated manage to visit at least once the great
pilgrimage centers of Banaras, Allahabad and Hardwar in the far north. A well-known South Indian
travel agency runs special pilgrim trains for their benefit.
Educated pilgrims are not indifferent to good accommodation, nor to food at the centers they visit.
They also do a certain amount of sightseeing and shopping on the side. Sometimes this is given as
evidence that the religious motive has become extremely weak, if not totally absent in modern
pilgrimages, and that these only provide a good excuse for travel and “patriotic sightseeing”. This
assumes among other things that the only motive in traditional pilgrimages was the religious one—
which, indeed, is questionable. For traditional pilgrimage centers were also shopping centers, and
orthodox women who returned from pilgrimages waxed eloquent about the sights they had seen, the
abundance or scarcity of vegetables and fruit, and the local price of milk and ghee.
The Brahmins of Mysore—like other Dravidian-speaking Brahmins in South India—are all traditionally
followers of one or another of the three well-known sects: Smarthas (pure Monists), Sri Vaishnavas
(qualified Monists) and Madhvas (Dualists). Each sect has a few monasteries (mathas, each presided
over by a head (mathadhipathi or swami), and traditionally the monastic head exercised control over
the conduct of his flock. Members had to be initiated into the sect by the monastic head, and when the
latter visited their town or village they showed the respect due him by performing the “pada puja”
(worshipping his feet and drinking the water used in the worship). The monastic head was the final
authority in all religious matters, including caste disputes, and a follower could appeal to him against
a decision of the caste council excommunicating or otherwise punishing him. This power of the
monastic head has fallen into disuse. Even the purificatory ritual (prayaschitta) which a returnee from
a trip abroad used to undergo has lapsed, owing to the popularity of foreign travel and the increased
secularization of Brahmins. But while the power of the monastic heads has eroded greatly, they still
command the respect and loyalty of their followers. In recent years contact between monastic heads
and the laity seems to have increased. The state governments passed land reform and other legislation
which hit the monasteries hard economically, and which have made inroads into their religious
autonomy; this has resulted in the monastic heads making greater efforts than before to cultivate
their followers. Many educated people now turn to heads of their sects for spiritual and other guidance.
New cults, built around saints, either alive or recently deceased, have come into existence in recent
years. Saibaba, a saint of modern India whose tomb is in Shirdi in Maharashtra, has a large following
in South India, and there are Saibaba prayer groups in several South Indian cities. Shirdi is a favourite
place for pilgrimage. The shrine of Ramana Maharishi at Tiruvannamalai in Madras state is also
visited, though his cult is not as popular as the Saibaba cult. Among the living gurus or teachers,
Swami Chinmayananda is very popular and his lectures attract large audiences. The Ramakrishna
Mission also provides a focus for the religious interests of many people. The rise of new cults and the
functions they fulfil are subjects that need to be studied systematically.
Singer has commented that “The effect of mass media … has not so much secularized the sacred
traditional culture as it has democratized it.” School textbooks contain incidents from the Hindu
epics and Puranas, the lives of regional saints, and extracts from old poets whose themes are almost
always religious or moral. Journals and books contain much religious matter, and the popular
children’s story magazine Chandamama exploits the inexhaustible mine of the epics, Bhagavata, the Puranas and others, for stories for children. The All-India Radio broadcasts devotional music every
morning and, occasionally, harikathas. It also marks the big festivals by special programs which again
draw on the traditional culture of the Hindus. The themes of many films are drawn from the epics,
although “social themes” and romantic stories are not unimportant. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
(Dravidian Progressive Federation) writers’ use of films to conduct propaganda against caste and
traditional religion is not without its effects. Tamil films are popular in Mysore, it being common for
them to run for several weeks in the big towns and cities. Occasionally the themes are drawn from
regional history and the lives of regional saints. But whatever the theme— mythological, historical or
social—every film is long, has songs and dances, and comic and romantic interludes. Democratization,
whether through films or the All-India Radio or in popular books and journals, brings about radical
changes in the content of traditional culture. The highbrow and the purist would call it vulgarization,
but what is interesting to note is that it involves an appeal on the one hand to particularistic loyalties
such as region, language, sect and caste, and on the other to the universal attraction of sex, dance and
song.
I discussed earlier how the orthodox elements in Hindu society were put continuously on the defensive
ever since the early years of the nineteenth century when European missionaries began attacking
Hinduism for its many ills and shortcomings. While the new Hindu elite deeply resented such attacks,
they were themselves sufficiently Westernized to be able to take a critical view of their religion. Thus
began a long era of reform of Hindu society and religion, and of reinterpretation of the latter. The
path of the reformers was far from smooth; in fact, they were martyrs to the cause of modernization
of Hindu and Indian society and culture. They and their families had to endure the criticism of
kinsfolk, castefolk and others whose opinions they were sensitive to. Some were even thrown out of
caste. As already noted, the revolutionary changes that have occurred in Hinduism in the last one
hundred fifty years—to which the reformers contributed so significantly—make it very difficult for
Hindus today to understand the difficulties faced by their forbears.
The orthodox elements among the Hindus, the foremost among them being priestly Brahmins (vaidikas),
steadily lost prestige in the face of growing secularization and Westernization of Hindu life and
culture. They were for a long time out of sympathy with, if not entirely critical of, the attempts to
reform Hindu religion and society. Those among the vaidikas who had a reputation for Sanskrit learning
continued to command the respect of the people, but with the institution of Sanskrit teaching in
modern schools and colleges they began to lose their valued monopoly over the language. Sanskrit
learning became open, in theory at least, to everyone irrespective of caste and religion. The development
of the disciplines of comparative philosophy, archaeology, numismatics and history provided a broad
chronological framework for Sanskrit literature, and freed it from much myth and legend. Those
Pandits who did not take note of these new developments began to be regarded as intellectual
anachronisms. And the last few decades have seen the rising prestige of technology, engineering,
medicine and the sciences generally, while the other subjects, the humanities in particular, have lost
much of their prestige. Students with the highest grades seek admission to courses in the prestigious
subjects. Initially, parents were motivated by the economic security and high income available to
doctors and engineers, but now prestige—the student’s as well as the family’s—seems to be equally
important.
The Brahmin priests fought a continuous rearguard action against secularization of the life of lay
(loukika) Brahmins. The Brahmins in Mysore state are among the most urbanized and educated of the
local Hindus. Thanks to their early and great lead in education, they secured a large share of the high
administrative posts, and dominated the professions. As their style of life gradually underwent change,
a conflict arose between them and the priests. Many wore Western clothes, they met people from
many castes and religions in the course of their work, and they did not perform the various daily
rituals as scrupulously as before. Many had their heads cropped, and this went against the Vedic rule
which required them to keep the shikha (a long tuft of hair at the top of the skull) just as the habit of
the daily shave violated certain other rules. These deviations—along with the tendency to drop the
painting of caste marks on the forehead, and to sit down to meals in secular clothes—drew the wrath
of the priests. Even more serious were violations of the rules regarding food and drink, and the
marrying of girls after they had attained puberty The people who did these things had power and prestige, but more humble folk imitated them in course of time. The priests lacked the courage—
except during the early years of British rule—to throw their powerful patrons out of the caste, and as
secularization spread among Brahmins, the priests had no alternative but to bow to the inevitable.
Meanwhile, the style of life of the priests themselves became Westernized to some extent. Many even
acquired a nodding acquaintance with English and were proud of displaying it.
Regrettably, there have been no studies of occupational changes among different generations of priestly
families. But evidence already available shows that in both Bangalore and Mysore cities
intergenerational occupational changes have been highest among Brahmins. Noel Gist, who studied
intercaste differences in Mysore and Bangalore cities in 1951-1952, has reported that intergenerational
occupational differences were highest among Brahmins as compared with other caste categories. In
Mysore city, for instance, 82.7 per cent of household heads had occupations different from those of
their fathers, and 76.8 percent of their own sons had departed from paternal occupations. For the
non-Brahmin group, the percentages of deviation were 55.7 and 49.4 respectively, while for the
Scheduled Castes they were 44.8 and 56.8 Gist’s sample does not distinguish between priestly and
lay Brahmins, but there is no reason to assume that the former were exempt from processes which
affected the latter. From my own experience, I can recall many of my contemporaries in Mysore who
came from priestly and orthodox families, but who chose secular careers.
In a word, then, the gradual erosion of priestly authority and prestige, and the secularization of
priests, have brought about a situation in which priests lack the confidence to take any initiative in
religious or social reform. They do not have the intellectual equipment or the social position to
undertake a reinterpretation of Hinduism that would suit modern circumstances. Since the beginning
of the nineteenth century, such reinterpretation has come from the Westernized Hindu elite. The fact
that this elite has been anti-ritualistic, as well as inclined to frown upon popular sacrifices, beliefs
and practices, has stripped Hinduism of a great deal of its content.
The situation depicted above highlights the fact that, unlike the Biblical religions, Hinduism is without
a universal organization and a hierarchy of officials whose function it is to interpret it in the context
of changing circumstances. While it is true that some Hindu sects—such as the Smarthas, Sri
Vaishnavas and Madhvas, the Lingayats and several others—have elaborate organizations headed
by pontiffs, these pontiffs have authority only within their sects or divisions within sects, and not for
Hinduism as a whole.
Another characteristic of Hinduism has been its extraordinary reliance on, if not inseparability from,
the social structure. The three main elements of the social structure are caste, village community and
family system. In Hindu India the political head, the king, was also the head of the social system,
including caste. The relation of Hinduism to the state changed with the Muslim conquest of large
parts of India. Some Muslim rulers were tolerant of Hinduism, while others who were not sought to
convert infidels to the true faith and imposed jiziya or poll tax on non-Muslims. The British in their
turn observed, on the whole, a policy of neutrality toward all religions, though the Church of England
in India was supported from Indian revenues, and European missionaries enjoyed a favoured position
thanks to the religious, cultural and racial links between them and the British rulers. It was only in
the “native states” ruled by Hindu princes—such as Nepal, Travancore, Cochin, Mysore, Baroda,
Jaipur and Kashmir—that royalty discharged some of the functions traditionally expected of it with
regard to caste and appointment of monastic heads. The Hindu kingdom of Nepal was, and is, far
more traditional in character than Hindu kingdoms elsewhere in the subcontinent, and today Nepal
is the only Hindu kingdom in the world: “Until recently, the penal code of Nepal was based on the
Shastras, and social, religious and criminal offences were dealt with by identical procedures. Brahmins
were immune from capital punishment, and the crime of killing a cow could bring the death penalty.”
If we are to understand future trends, the absence of a central organization for Hinduism, as well as
lack of support from the political authority for maintenance of Hindu religion and social structure,
must be viewed along with the radical changes occurring in the three institutions of caste, village
community and family system. I have already dealt with the changes occurring in caste and shall not
repeat them here. I shall merely point out that as a result of increased secularization and mobility and
the spread of an equalitarian ideology, the caste system is no longer perpetuating values traditionally
considered to be an essential part of Hinduism.
The changes that have occurred in the Indian village community have resulted in its more effective
integration with the wider economic, political, educational and religious systems. The vast
improvement in rural communications that has taken place in the last few decades, especially since
World War II, the introduction of universal adult franchise and self-government at various levels
from the national to the village, the abolition of Untouchability, the increased popularity of education
among rural folk, and the Community Development Program—all these are changing the aspirations
and attitudes of villagers. The desire for education and for a “decent life” is widespread and vast
numbers of people are no longer content to live as their ancestors lived. Villages in India today are
very far indeed from the harmonious and cooperative little republics that some imagine them to be;
it would be more accurate to describe them as arenas of conflict between high castes and Untouchables,
landlords and tenants, “conservatives” and “progressives” and finally, between rival factions.
Everywhere social life is freer than before, as pollution ideas have lost some of their force. Secularization
and politicization are on the increase and villagers ask for wells, roads, schools, hospitals and electricity.
It is easy, however, to exaggerate the increase in the secularization of village life. It is true that the
unit of endogamy has widened somewhat, but this is more true of the higher castes than of others.
The widening is, moreover, along traditional lines; a crude way describing the situation would be
that while barriers between sub-sub-subcastes or subcastes are beginning to break down, marriages
spanning wide structural or cultural gaps are rare. That is, Peasants are not marrying Shepherds or
Smiths or Potters, but different Peasant subcastes speaking the same language are coming together.
(However, alliances involving structural and cultural leaps occur occasionally among the new elite
in the big cities.) Inter-dining among castes is slightly more liberal than before, but only slightly. All
the “touchable” castes will unite against Harijans who want to exercise their constitutional right of
entering temples and drawing water from village wells.
The processes which have affected caste and the village community have also affected the family
system. This has happened at all levels and in every section of the society, but more particularly
among the Westernized elite, that is, the upper castes living in the larger towns and cities. The
traditional system of joint families assumed the existence of a sufficient quantity of arable land and a
lack of spatial mobility and diversity of occupations . The idea of selling land in the open market,
which became popular during British rule, also contributed to the mobility of people. The development
of communications, the growth of urbanization and industrialization, and the prestige of a regular
cash income from employment in an office, factory or the administration, dispersed kin groups from
their natal villages and towns. Yet it would be a gross oversimplification to suggest that the Indian
family system has changed or is changing from the joint to the nuclear type. The process is extremely
complicated, and there are not enough studies of changes in family patterns in different regions and
sections of the society. Enumeration of the size of households or even their kinship composition is
not enough, as an urban household may be perfectly nuclear in composition while kinship duties,
obligations and privileges overflow it in many important ways. Many an urban household is only
the “satellite” of a dominant kin group living in a village or town several hundred miles away. The
Indian family system, like caste, is resilient, and has shown great adaptability to modern forces. It is
still true, however, that significant changes have taken place in the family system of the Hindus, and
these processes are not clearly discernible among the new elite groups. It is among them that there is
great spatial mobility, and members who establish separate households in the large cities certainly
live in a cultural and social environment significantly different from that obtaining in a traditional
joint family in a small town or village. The urban household often lacks those elders who not only are
tradition-bound but also have knowledge of the complex rituals to be performed at festivals and
other occasions. Their mere presence exercises a moral influence in favour of tradition—as was vouched
for by my Andhra Brahmin Communist informant, who said that he changed into pure clothes at
meals “because of his grandmother”. The education of women has produced a situation in which
young girls do not have the time to learn rituals from their mothers or grandmothers, and the small
households in big cities frequently lack the old women who have the knowhow and the leisure. The
educated wife has less of the traditional culture to pass on to her children, even should she want to.
Still more significant is the fact that elite households have become articulators of the values of a
highly competitive educational and employment system. Getting children admitted to good schools, supervising their curricular and extracurricular activities, and worrying about their future careers
absorb the energies of parents.
These changes in family system occurring among the new elite groups are, however, somewhat
offset by other forces. In large cities such as Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta and Madras, voluntary associations
tend to be formed on the basis of language, sect and caste, and these make up in some ways for the
loss of a traditional social and cultural environment. In a city such as Delhi, for instance, practically
every linguistic group of India has voluntary cultural or other organizations which try to recreate for
the speakers of each language their home environment. Concerts are held, plays are staged, harikathas
are organized, regional festivals are celebrated, and regional politicians and other celebrities are
welcomed. There is also a certain amount of residential clustering on the basis of language, and this
is achieved even in housing projects built by the Government of India and which ostensibly do not
recognize regional claims in allotting flats and houses! A homesick South Indian or Bengali likes to
rent an apartment in an area where other South Indians or Bengalis live, and soon there come into
existence shops selling the spices, pickles, vegetables, household utensils and cloth he was used to in
his home area. The social network of an educated, white-collar South Indian or Bengali who is living
away from his linguistic area does include many people who speak a different language, but those
who speak his language will perhaps preponderate in it. To obtain a seat in a school or college or a
job for a relative or fellow townsman, he may have to approach a Hindi or Punjabi speaker, but he
does this usually through intermediaries who speak his own language.
Nevertheless, the traditional environment that is recreated in a big city differs significantly from the
environment that has been left behind. It is a freer, more cosmopolitan and streamlined version, and
it lacks the rich detail, complexities, rigidities, nuances and obligatoriness of the traditional
environment. Besides, it caters more to the parental generation of immigrants than to the offspring
generation. The latter do not think of their parents’ natal region as “home”, and many of them dislike
visiting it even for brief periods. Their participation in the local culture and institutions is far greater
than their parents. Occasionally, marriages cutting across the linguistic and caste barriers occur
between them and local folk.
The processes of secularization and politicization have also affected monasteries and monastic heads.
I have in mind not monastic or other organizations which came into existence during British rule (for
example, Ramakrishna Mission, Arya Samaj and Sanatan Dharma Samaj) but traditional and preBritish monasteries such as those of the Smarthas, Sri Vaishnavas, Madhvas and Lingayats. Gradually
the feeling has grown among educated Hindus that the wealth and prestige of these organizations
should be used for promoting education and the social welfare of the people; this is one of the reasons
why acts passed by state legislatures giving the government considerable powers over the
administration of temples and monasteries have not evoked more opposition. The Lingayats, a highly
organized sect, have shown much sensitivity to this new demand, and Lingayat monasteries operate
their own hostels, schools and colleges. Land legislation has everywhere abolished concession tenures
such as zamindari, jdgirdari, inam and jodi. Those who enjoyed such tenures have been paid
compensation and the land has been sold to former tenants and lessees. (Lands which were under
the “personal cultivation” of zamindars were exempt from such legislation and, as could be expected,
many of them took advantage of legal and even extralegal, loopholes to retrieve as much land as they
could.) In many states, land held by temples was also affected by this legislation:
In Orissa, the High Court upheld the compulsory acquisition by the state, with the
payment of compensation, of lands which had been dedicated to a Hindu deity
(Chintamoni v. State of Orissa, A.I.R., 1958, Orissa, p. 18). In Mysore, the Religious
and Charitable Inams Act of 1955 empowered the government to resume lands
which had been assigned by the maharaja to religious institutions; as compensation
the state now makes an annual payment to the institutions. A number of state
legislatures are presently in the process of fixing ceilings on land holdings. Uttar
Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Assam and West Bengal have agreed to exempt
temple lands from these ceilings. In some of the other states, especially in South
India where some of the wealthiest temples are found, a maximum has been fixed
for temple land holdings, although higher than that for individual landowners.
Those educated Hindus who did feel such legislation to be unfair criticized the government sharply
and monastic heads saw in them a valuable ally against an ever-encroaching state. The reduced
resources of monasteries caused some of the heads to turn to their followers for money. They began
to undertake tours to raise funds and cultivate the laity and these activities were reported in the
press, vernacular as well as English. The monastic heads not only continue to enjoy the esteem of the
people but are cultivated by many politicians and they in turn appreciate the usefulness of having
friends in political parties and legislatures. Studies of the changing role of monastic heads and other
religious figures in modern Indian life would be a valuable contribution to the literature on
secularization.
The process of secularization began with British rule and has become increasingly wider and deeper
with the passage of years. But it is neither the only process during this period nor has it been always
a pure and unmixed one. For instance, nationalism, a secular phenomenon, became enmeshed with
Hinduism at one stage. Hinduism has assumed a political form in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS) and the Jan Sangh. The move to abolish Untouchability owed as much to a realization of the
inhumanity of the institution as to an appreciation of the political loss that would result from the
conversion of Harijans to another religion. The term “communalism”, which is an Indian contribution
to the English language, testifies to this tendency of religion to become mixed up with politics.
Sanskritization is not only spreading to new sections and areas, it is also increasing among groups
which are considered to be already Sanskritized in their style of life. The spread of Sanskritization is
aided by mass media and by such secular processes as the increased popularity of education and
greater mobility, spatial as well as social. The idea of the equality of all men before the law, and the
abolition of Untouchability, are throwing open a culture which was the monopoly of small traditional
elites to the entire body of Hindus. The effects of some acts of legislation, such as the introduction of
prohibition of the consumption of alcoholic drinks in many states, and the banning of the sacrifice of
birds and animals in Hindu temples, are such as to make the government an unwitting but powerful
agent of Sanskritization.
The significant changes occurring in the triad of institutions–caste, family system and village
community—have resulted in Hinduism becoming, to some extent, “free floating”. But this again is
only a part of the story. New agencies have emerged to provide a structure for reinterpreted Hinduism.
These agencies are still somewhat fluid and emergent. They are, on the one hand, such new institutions
as the Ramakrishna Mission and Arya Samaj and, on the other, old sects and monasteries which are
trying to adjust themselves to the new circumstances, and in that process are undergoing change.
Other traditional institutions such as bhajans (groups of people who meet periodically for singing
hymns and worshipping a deity or saint), harikathas and the cults of saints are also contributing to the
evolution of a new structure. Milton Singer has described in detail how the Radhakrishna bhajans
function in Madras today, and he thinks that their popularity has increased in recent years. Bhajans
are an all-India phenomenon, and were developed as an institution by the saints who sought salvation
(moksha) through the pursuit of the bhakti mdrga or the path of devotion. Bhajans are popular in both
rural and urban areas and among all classes of Hindus. The relative freedom of bhajans from ritual,
their great aesthetic and emotional appeal and their ability to cut across caste distinctions, are some
of the reasons for their popularity with urban and educated Hindus.
Although bhajan groups are sometimes organized around the worship of a saint, the cult of saints is
not always associated with bhajans, and devotees may worship saints individually in the privacy of
their homes. An occasional pilgrimage to the saint’s ashram (hermitage) if he is alive, or to his tomb if
he is dead, is also customary. The cult of saints is an old institution which has continued to modern
times. Sects have occasionally emerged from such cults. Allegiance to a sect may be hereditary, entire
lineages and subcastes being thus marked off from others, or it may be purely voluntary as in the
case of modern saints. Where allegiance is voluntary it usually ignores caste, region and even religion.
Saibaba, for instance, is a Muslim saint worshipped by a large number of Hindus, many of whom are
educated. Pictures of the saint are kept and worshipped, and the writings by or about the saint are
read and discussed. Most Hindus are articulate about their religious observances and beliefs and
theological discussions are freely entered into by people who meet for the first time in trains, on
buses or in hotel lobbies.
Organizations which profess to propagate Indian culture and thought also propagate Hinduism. The
classical literature and thought of India are all Hindu, Buddhist and Jain, and books which popularize
classical thought cannot help spreading a body of ideas shared by these three faiths. It is difficult
indeed to draw a sharp line between the cultural and the religious in a country such as India, which
has a long and recorded history, and where religion has been pervasive. Indian music, painting,
sculpture and dance draw greatly on Hindu religion, iconography and mythology. An interesting
development in the twentieth century is the emergence of Indian dance and ballet divorced from the
traditional contexts of temple and festival, as purely aesthetic forms.
The government, too, is playing an important role in modernizing Hinduism through legislation and
other means. It is doing this in spite of the fact that the Constitution declares India to be a secular
state. I have already referred to the outlawing of Untouchability. Changes have also been introduced
in Hindu personal and family law: bigamy is punishable by law; divorce and inter-caste and widow
marriage are permitted; and widows and daughters have been given shares in ancestral immovable
property. The administration of Hindu temples and monasteries is being radically altered by legislation
undertaken by the states. The first of such attempts was embodied in the Madras Religious
Endowments Act of 1927, and under it the government appointed a Board of Commissioners headed
by a president to supervise the administration of Hindu endowments. This gave way in 1951 to the
Madras Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, under which was created a new department
of government headed by a Commissioner. “The task of supervising temples and mathas thus passed
from a regulatory commission to an executive department directly under a cabinet minister.” This
Act, which conferred great powers on the Commissioner, was challenged in the courts and the Supreme
Court declared some of its provisions invalid. A new act was passed in 1959 with a view to meeting
the objections of the court, and while it curtails some of the powers of the Commissioner vis-a-vis
mathas and denominational temples, “the whole system of control over temples belonging to the
general Hindu public, with vast powers vested in the Commissioner, has remained intact. As has
been mentioned, these temples constitute the great majority of the Hindu religious institutions.”
Other states such as Mysore, Bombay, Bihar and Orissa have also passed legislation, though not so
far-reaching as in Madras, controlling the administration of Hindu religious endowments. In 1960
the Government of India appointed a Hindu Religious Endowments Commission, under the
chairmanship of Sir C.R Ramaswamy Aiyer, to examine the administration of Hindu religious
endowments and suggest measures for its improvement. The Commission’s report, submitted in
1962, urged the speedy enactment of legislation providing for governmental supervision of temples
in states which did not already have such legislation, namely, Assam, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh
and Punjab, and the setting up of institutes to provide priests with instruction in Sanskrit, scriptures
and ritual, and of theological colleges for the study of religion along with the humanities. Moreover,
the Commission recommended that the Government of India give consideration to enacting uniform
legislation regulating endowments for all communities. (Bombay state already has such legislation
in the Bombay Public Trusts Acts of 1950.)
Legislation undertaken by several states, ostensibly to ensure that endowment funds are not misspent,
has resulted in establishment of government departments which determine how Hindu temples and
monasteries are to be run and how their money is spent.
Thus funds from the famous temple at Tirupathi (regulated by special legislation)
have been used to establish a university, schools, orphanages, hospitals, etc.
Throughout South India, Tirupathi has become the symbol and the model of the
new Hinduism which transforms the offerings of individualistic piety and devotion
to God into social institutions, dedicated to the service of man. Hinduism is being
infused with a modern outlook and a new sense of social responsibility. This is a
religious reformation of a fundamental nature. But as the agency of this reform is
to a large extent the state, it should not be surprising if devout Hindus object to the
liberties being taken with their religion.
Thus the state has become an important means of reinterpretation of Hinduism in the middle decades
of the twentieth century, and this in spite of India’s proclaimed policy of being a secular state. The
state, though most important, is not the only organization performing this function, as I have pointed out earlier. Political parties such as the Hindu Mahasabha and the Jan Sangh, and “cultural”
organizations such as the militant Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, become agencies for the
perpetuation and reinterpretation of Hinduism. In a word, Hinduism is becoming increasingly, though
very slowly, dissociated from its traditional social structure of caste, kinship and village community,
and is becoming associated with the state, political parties and organizations promoting Indian culture.
Traditional institutions such as monasteries and temples, cults of saints, bhajan groups, and pilgrimages
have shown resilience and adaptability to new circumstances. Mass media such as the films, radio,
books and newspapers are playing their part in carrying Hinduism to all sections of the Hindu
population, and in the very process of such popularization are reinterpreting the religion.