GS Notes

1.4 - Society Notes 02

17 min read

Elaborate Notes

Difference between Westernization and Modernization

  • Conceptual Distinction:

    • Westernization: As a concept, it was prominently used by Indian sociologist M.N. Srinivas in his work “Social Change in Modern India” (1966). He defined it as “the changes brought about in Indian society and culture as a result of over 150 years of British rule, and the term subsumes changes occurring at different levels… technology, institutions, ideology and values.” It is often perceived as a specific, cultural imitation of Western societies (particularly Britain during the colonial era and the USA post-independence), focusing on adopting external cultural traits. This process is often uncritical and piecemeal.
    • Modernization: This is a broader, more universal concept. Sociologist Daniel Lerner, in “The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East” (1958), described modernization as a process of social change whereby less developed societies acquire characteristics common to more developed societies. It involves a fundamental, structural transformation encompassing social, political, economic, and psychological spheres. It is characterized by the application of technology, rationality, scientific temper, secularism, and universalistic values. It aims for a progressive, holistic societal transformation.

  • Nature of Change:

    • Westernization often affects the peripheral or super-structural aspects of a culture. This includes adopting Western attire (e.g., trousers, skirts), culinary habits (e.g., fast food), music genres (e.g., pop, rock), and social etiquettes. It is largely a change in lifestyle and consumption patterns.
    • Modernization implies change at a deeper, fundamental level. It involves transformations in the infrastructure of a society, such as industrialization, urbanization, development of modern communication networks, and the adoption of advanced technology in agriculture and industry. It also entails institutional changes like the establishment of democracy, bureaucracy, and a modern legal-rational system.

  • Scope and Impact:

    • Westernization in the Indian context was initially an elite phenomenon. It was primarily the upper and middle classes, who had direct contact with the British administration and Western education, that adopted these traits. Its percolation to the lower strata of society has been slow and often superficial.
    • Modernization is a mass-oriented process. The effects of a new dam, a railway line, a vaccination program, or a digital payment system (UPI) penetrate all levels of society, from urban elites to rural villagers. Its impact is more pervasive and structurally transformative.

  • Desirability and Values:

    • Westernization is value-neutral and a matter of personal choice; it is not inherently negative or positive. However, it becomes problematic when it is mistaken for modernization, leading to a situation where superficial cultural imitation is prioritized over substantive institutional and value-based change. This can lead to cultural alienation and a loss of indigenous identity without the accompanying benefits of rational development.
    • Modernization is generally considered desirable as it is associated with progress, rationality, efficiency, and an improvement in the quality of life. Sociologist Yogendra Singh in “Modernization of Indian Tradition” (1973) argues that modernization is not antithetical to tradition. It is only opposed to regressive traditional practices (like Sati, untouchability) that hinder progress and violate human rights. A modernized society can retain its cultural core while embracing scientific and rational principles, allowing for a healthy co-existence of tradition and modernity.

Family

  • Concept:

    • The family is a fundamental and universal social institution. A widely accepted definition by sociologists MacIver and Page in “Society: An Introductory Analysis” (1949) defines family as “a group defined by a sex relationship sufficiently precise and enduring to provide for the procreation and upbringing of children.” The summary’s definition extends this to include ties of blood, marriage, or adoption. Key characteristics that define a family as a social group are:
      1. Common Residence: Members typically share a common household.
      2. Economic Cooperation: Members pool resources and share a common economic unit for consumption and production.
      3. Reproduction and Sexual Gratification: It provides a socially sanctioned platform for sexual relations and procreation.
      4. Socialization: It is the primary agent for the upbringing and socialization of children.

  • Types of Family (Based on various criteria):

    • Based on Marriage:

      • Monogamy: A marriage involving one man and one woman.
        • Straight/Strict Monogamy: An individual has only one spouse their entire life.
        • Serial Monogamy: An individual has a series of partners, but only one at a time (common in Western societies due to high rates of divorce and remarriage).
      • Polygamy: A marriage involving more than one spouse simultaneously.
        • Polygyny: One man married to multiple women. Historical and anthropological evidence shows its practice among the Naga, Juang, and Lushai tribes in India, and it is permitted under Islamic personal law.
        • Polyandry: One woman married to multiple men. It is much rarer. In India, it has been traditionally practiced by the Khasa tribe of Jaunsar-Bawar region in Uttarakhand, and the Toda and Kota tribes of the Nilgiri Hills. A 2013 study by Punjab University noted a rise in fraternal polyandry in some parts of Punjab and Haryana, linking it to poverty, the need to prevent fragmentation of small landholdings, and a severely skewed sex ratio.
      • NFHS-5 (2019-21) Data on Polygyny: The survey revealed that the practice of polygyny has been decreasing across all religious groups in India. The prevalence is: 2.1% among Christians, 1.9% among Muslims, 1.3% among Hindus, and 1.6% among other religious groups. The highest incidences are observed among tribal communities, particularly in the North-Eastern states.
      • Sologamy: This is a recent, symbolic, and non-legally recognized form of marriage where an individual marries themselves. The case of Kshama Bindu from Gujarat in 2022 brought this concept to public attention in India. Sociologically, it can be interpreted as an ultimate expression of individualism, self-love, and independence in a post-modern context. It reflects a trend where educated, economically independent women no longer see marriage to another person as essential for social status or survival. However, critics view it as a narcissistic act that undermines the social and procreative functions of the institution of marriage.

    • Based on Residence:

      • Patrilocal: The married couple resides with or near the husband’s parents. This is the most common form in India.
      • Matrilocal: The married couple resides with or near the wife’s parents. This is practiced among matrilineal tribes like the Khasi and Garo of Meghalaya.
      • Neolocal: The married couple establishes a new residence independent of both their parents. This is becoming increasingly common in urban India, driven by factors of globalization, migration for employment, and a desire for individual privacy.

    • Based on Ancestry/Descent:

      • Patrilineal: Descent and inheritance are traced through the male line (from father to son). This is the dominant system in India. Patrilineality, combined with patrilocality, is a primary driver of the preference for a male child, often termed “son-meta preference” by scholars like Leela Dube. The fear is that a daughter, who marries and moves to her husband’s home (patrilocality), would take her share of the property with her, leading to fragmentation of family assets, particularly land.
      • Matrilineal: Descent and inheritance are traced through the female line. This is found among the Khasi, Garo, and Jaintia tribes of Meghalaya.

    • Based on Composition:

      • Nuclear Family: Typically consists of two generations: parents and their unmarried children, living in a single household. Marital ties (husband-wife relationship) are central.
      • Joint/Extended Family: Typically consists of three or more generations living together. This includes grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, and their children. Blood relations (consanguineal ties) are often considered more important than marital (affinal) ties.

  • Features of the Traditional Indian Joint Family:

    • Patrilocal Residence & Patrilineal Descent: As discussed, this forms the structural basis.
    • Common Residence & Kitchen: Members live under one roof and share food cooked in a common hearth, symbolizing unity.
    • Common Property: Traditionally, the family holds property in common, with the head of the family (Karta) managing it on behalf of all members.
    • Centralized Authority: Power is vested in the eldest male member, the Karta, who makes all major decisions.
    • Primacy of Blood Relations: The bond between parents and children, or between brothers, often takes precedence over the spousal relationship.
    • Hierarchy based on Age and Sex: Elders command respect and authority over the young, and men typically hold a higher status and more power than women.

Functions and Dysfunctions of the Joint Family

  • Functions:

    • Agency of Primary Socialization: The family is the first and most influential agent of socialization, teaching a child the norms, values, and culture of society. A stable joint family environment can provide a strong moral compass. Its breakdown is sometimes linked to rising juvenile delinquency, anomie, and mental health issues, as described by scholars like Émile Durkheim in his study on suicide, where social integration (provided by family) acts as a protective factor.
    • Agency of Social Control: Through the constant supervision of elders and community pressure, the joint family exercises informal social control over its members, discouraging deviant behavior. The rise in crimes against children and neglect is often attributed to the decline of this supervisory role in nuclear families where both parents may be working.
    • Agency of Social Insurance: The joint family functions as a traditional welfare system based on the principle, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” It provides support to the elderly, unemployed, sick, and disabled members, reducing their vulnerability. The disintegration of the joint family due to globalization-induced migration has increased the vulnerability of the elderly left behind in villages.
    • Economic Cooperation: It prevents the fragmentation of agricultural land and other assets. By pooling labor and resources, it creates an economy of scale, securing members against economic shocks.
    • Emotional and Psychological Support: It provides a strong sense of belonging and an ‘in-group’ identity, offering emotional security and a buffer against life’s stresses.

  • Dysfunctions:

    • Lack of Privacy: The collective nature of living can suppress individuality and offer little personal space or privacy for individuals, especially young couples.
    • Suppression of Women’s Status: The patriarchal and hierarchical structure often relegates women to subordinate roles, confined to domestic chores and with limited decision-making power. The sexual division of labor is rigid, limiting opportunities for women’s upward mobility.
    • Hindrance to Individual Initiative (Self-Alienation): The emphasis on reciprocal obligations and conformity to the authority of the Karta can stifle individual creativity, ambition, and enterprise. Members may act based on the expectations of others rather than their own “original self,” leading to a form of self-alienation.
    • Promotion of Parochialism (Ghettoization): The strong in-group feeling (‘Us’) can lead to a closed mindset and suspicion towards outsiders (‘Them’). This can result in Ghettoization, where families from the same community cluster in specific geographical areas, potentially hindering broader social and cultural integration.
    • Ideological Conditioning Device: From a critical/Marxist perspective, the joint family can be seen as an ideological apparatus. It socializes children to unquestioningly obey authority, creating a submissive personality that is conducive to exploitation in a capitalist system, thus ensuring the “reproduction of social labor.”
    • Arena of Conflict: In contemporary times, the joint family is a site of conflict. Its traditional values of collectivism, cooperation, and delayed gratification clash with modern societal values of individualism, competition, and consumerism, leading to interpersonal tensions.

Life-Cycle of the Joint Family: Disintegration and Reinforcement

  • Factors Leading to Disintegration:

    • Migration (Push and Pull Factors):
      • Push Factors: Agricultural distress, lack of rural employment, population pressure on land, lack of modern infrastructure (health, education), and social prejudices drive people away from villages.
      • Pull Factors: Industrialization and urbanization create job opportunities in cities. Better standards of living, robust infrastructure, and the promise of anonymity and freedom attract rural populations.
    • Land Ceiling Laws: Post-independence Land Ceiling Acts, which limited the amount of land a single entity could own, led many joint families to resort to “notional” or “theoretical” partitions on paper to retain their land. Over time, these legal fictions sowed the seeds of discord and often translated into actual partitions.
    • Westernization and Modern Values: The spread of Western education and values like individualism, rationalism, and egalitarianism has challenged the traditional hierarchical and collectivistic ethos of the joint family. The idea that friendship can be more important than kinship is a modern concept that undermines traditional family obligations.
    • Rise of Alternatives: The increasing social acceptance of alternatives to traditional marriage, such as live-in relationships, further weakens the compulsory nature of the family structure.
    • Women’s Empowerment: As argued by scholars like Milton Singer, as women become more educated and economically independent, they become more aware of their rights and begin to assert their individuality. This assertion often comes into direct conflict with the patriarchal and subordinate roles assigned to them in a traditional joint family.
    • Legislative and Economic Changes: Laws providing property rights to women (e.g., The Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005) and social security measures like minimum wage laws have reduced the absolute financial dependence of individuals on the family patriarch.
    • Rational Education System: Modern education encourages critical thinking and questioning of authority, leading younger generations to challenge the regressive aspects and rigid hierarchy of the traditional joint family.

  • Factors Leading to Reinforcement/Adaptation:

    • Economic Compulsions in Urban Areas: Chain migration (where one family member migrates and then helps others to follow) often recreates a joint living arrangement in cities. The high cost of living, especially for housing in metropolitan areas, makes separate living unaffordable and reinforces joint households as a pragmatic economic strategy.
    • Child-Rearing Support: In dual-career families, where both husband and wife are working, the presence of grandparents in a joint family setup provides crucial and reliable support for child-rearing.
    • Functional Jointness despite Structural Fission: Sociologists like I.P. Desai and A.M. Shah argued that the Indian family system is not disintegrating but rather transforming. They introduced a distinction between the ‘household’ (defined by a common residence and kitchen) and the ‘family’ (defined by kinship ties and obligations). They concluded that while the joint household may be breaking down into nuclear units due to migration, the joint family persists functionally. Family members, though living separately, maintain strong bonds, fulfill financial and ritual obligations, and come together for festivals and life-cycle ceremonies. This is termed “functional jointness.”
    • New Nature of Work: The rise of work-from-home (WFH) and gig economy models, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has allowed many professionals to move back to their hometowns and live with their extended families, thereby reinforcing the joint household structure.
    • Support for Family Enterprise: Industrialization itself can strengthen the joint family when it is organized as a family-run business, providing a common economic base to sustain a large household.
    • Nativism and Cultural Revival: In response to the perceived cultural onslaught of globalization, there is sometimes a conscious effort to revive and hold on to traditional institutions like the joint family as a marker of cultural identity and a source of stability.

Prelims Pointers

  • Westernization: Concept popularised by M.N. Srinivas. Refers to changes in India from over 150 years of British rule.
  • Modernization: Concept explained by Daniel Lerner. Involves rational, secular, and scientific transformations.
  • Polygyny: One man, multiple wives. Examples: Naga, Juang, Lushai tribes.
  • Polyandry: One woman, multiple husbands. Examples: Khasa tribe (Uttarakhand), Toda and Kota tribes (Nilgiris).
  • NFHS-5 Data on Polygyny: Highest among tribals in NE States. Prevalence: Christians (2.1%), Muslims (1.9%), Hindus (1.3%), Others (1.6%).
  • Sologamy: Marriage by a person to themselves. Example: Kshama Bindu in India.
  • Matrilocal Residence: Couple lives with the wife’s family. Examples: Khasi and Garo tribes of Meghalaya.
  • Matrilineal Descent: Lineage traced through the mother. Examples: Khasi, Garo, and Jaintia tribes of Meghalaya.
  • Patrilocality/Patrilineality: Main reasons for ‘son-meta preference’ in India.
  • Joint Family vs. Nuclear Family: A key difference is the number of generations (minimum three vs. maximum two) and the primacy of blood relations over marital relations in a joint family.
  • Karta: The eldest male member and head of a traditional Hindu Joint Family.
  • Scholars on Family Change: I.P. Desai and A.M. Shah argued for “functional jointness” despite “structural fission.”
  • Household vs. Family: A household is a residential and domestic unit (common residence/kitchen); a family is a kinship group. Sociologists argue the joint household is declining, not the joint family itself.

Mains Insights

Westernization, Modernization, and the Indian Dilemma

  • Cause-Effect: British colonialism was the primary vehicle for introducing both Westernization and Modernization to India. While Westernization brought superficial lifestyle changes, it also acted as a channel for modern ideas like liberalism, democracy, and rationalism through the English education system.
  • Historiographical Debate: Is Westernization a necessary precursor to Modernization?
    • M.N. Srinivas’s View: For India, the path to modernity was largely through the process of Westernization. The Indian elite adopted Western institutional models and values, which then percolated through society.
    • Yogendra Singh’s Critique: This view is too narrow. Modernization is a universal process of adopting rational and scientific values. Westernization is merely its cultural variant. It’s possible to be modern without being Westernized. Japan is a classic example. India’s challenge is to achieve “modernization of tradition” without “displacement of tradition,” integrating modern values while retaining its cultural identity.
  • Contemporary Relevance (GS Paper I): This debate is central to understanding contemporary Indian society’s struggles with cultural identity, the “Anglosphere” elite vs. vernacular India, and the politics of tradition vs. modernity.

The Indian Family: An Arena of Continuity and Change

  • Analytical Perspective: The narrative of a simple “disintegration” of the joint family is outdated. A more nuanced perspective is that of transformation and adaptation. The family is dynamically responding to external pressures like globalization, urbanization, and legislative changes.
  • Key Insight: The concept of “functional jointness amidst structural fission” is crucial for Mains answers. While nuclear households are now the norm (structurally), the underlying values and obligations of the joint family (functionally) persist. This explains why families still come together for rituals, provide financial support across households, and play a key role in marriage alliances.
  • Implications (GS Paper I & II): This transformation has significant policy implications. Social security policies for the elderly must account for the weakening of the family as a traditional safety net. Childcare policies need to address the needs of dual-career nuclear families who lack the traditional support of a joint family.

The Joint Family: A Site of Power, Conflict, and Gender Inequality

  • Critical Analysis (GS Paper I & II): Beyond its functions, the joint family must be analyzed as a site of power imbalances. Its patriarchal structure, based on age and gender hierarchy, has historically been a primary institution for perpetuating gender inequality.
  • Cause-Effect Chain: Patrilineal descent → Son preference → Skewed sex ratio & neglect of daughters → Patrilocal residence → Subordinate status of daughter-in-law (as an outsider) → Rigid sexual division of labour → Limited economic and personal autonomy for women.
  • Current Conflicts: The modern, educated, and aspirational woman’s values often clash with the traditional expectations of the joint family, making it an “arena of conflict and contradiction.” This tension is a major driver of family disputes and change.

Implications of Skewed Sex Ratio on Society

  • Social Consequences:
    1. Marriage Squeeze: A surplus of men leads to difficulty in finding brides, causing delayed marriages or forced bachelorhood.
    2. Increased Crime Against Women: Scarcity can lead to a rise in trafficking of women, sexual violence, and bride purchasing.
    3. Distortion of Social Norms: It can lead to the emergence or reinforcement of practices like fraternal polyandry in certain pockets, as seen in studies from Punjab and Haryana.
  • Economic Consequences: A lower female population can impact the gender balance in the workforce and alter consumption patterns. It may also lead to increased migration of men for work and marriage.
  • Ethical/Psychological Consequences (GS Paper IV): The underlying cause—son preference—reflects a deep-seated ethical failure and a lack of compassion and respect for women as equals. It creates immense psychological pressure on women to produce male heirs. Addressing this requires a fundamental shift in societal values, not just legal enforcement.

Graph View