STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONAL APPROACH
- A school of thought according to which each of the institutions, relationships, roles and norms that together constitute a society serve a purpose and each is indispensable for the continued existence of the others and of society as a whole.
- Society is seen as an integrated organic entity. Everything within the system is necessarily functional for the whole.
- It is brought into sociology by borrowing concepts from biological sciences. In biology structure: organism meaning a relatively stable arrangement of relationship between different cells
- Function: consequences of the activity of various organs in the life process of organism.
- Evans Pritchard described social structure in terms of persistent social groups and Radcliffe Brown indicates that social structure is based on relation of person to person.
- stresses the elelment of harmony and consistency not conflicts and contradictions.
- society is relativley persisting configuration of elements and consensus among different parts of social system. It treats changes as a slow cumulative process of adjustment to a new situation.
Srinivas completed a small fieldwork for his dissertation on Marriage and Family in the Kannada
caste in Mysore, which was supervised by Prof G.S. Ghurye. This book was later published as
Marriage and Family in Mysore, which
was well-received. In 1940, he received
a grant to research the South Indian Coorgs. In 1944, Srinivas turned in a
two-volume, 900-page dissertation titled The
Coorgs: A Socio-Ethnic Study. Raymond
Firth, a famous anthropologist who served as the external reviewer for this
extensive paper, praised it for its rich material and precise citations. In
1945, after receiving his PhD, Srinivas traveled to Oxford to begin his D. Phil
under the guidance of renowned social anthropologist A. R. Radcliffe Brown.
Srinivas joined Baroda
University in 1951 and established the department of sociology there. He
afterwards moved to the Delhi School of Economics at Delhi University
eight years later, in 1959. He famously advocated on the Field view of society
as opposed to the Book view. He asserts that we may learn about religion,
caste, varna, family, and the geographical framework of a society from the textual
perspective of the sacred writings.
Between 1966 to 1969,
Prof. Srinivas served as the Indian Sociological Society's president. He played
a key role in restructuring the Sociological Bulletin. The Rivers Memorial
Medal (1955), the S C Roy Memorial Medal (1958), and the Honorary Fellow of the
Royal Anthropological Society of Great Britain and Ireland (since 1964) are
only a few of the honors he has won. In acknowledgment of his outstanding
accomplishments, he also earned the Dadabhai Naoroji Memorial Prize for social
sciences other than economics in 1971 and the Padma Bhushan, the third-highest
honor bestowed by the Government of India, in 1977.
Srinivas claimed that
the village still had the traditional elements of Indian culture and saw it as
a microcosm of Indian society and
civilisation. He explains how the decision to choose the village was taken
primarily on sentimental grounds in chapter one of The Remembered Village, "How it all began" (Srinivas,
1988:6). The book provides a thorough overview of the south Karnataka village of
Rampura, addressing a number of topics including village life, social
structure, economy, culture, and social development. It also covers his
fieldwork experience.
Books and other publications by Prof M N Srinivas
Books
·
Marriage
and Family in Mysore, New Book Company (1942)
·
Religion
and Society among the Coorgs of South India, Oxford Clarendon Press (1952)
·
India’s
Villages, Asia Publishing House
(1955)
·
Caste in Modern India
and Other Essays, Asia Publishing House (1962)
·
India:
Social Structure (1969)
·
The
Remembered Village, Oxford University
Press (1976)
·
The
Dominant Caste and Other Essays (1987)
· Social Change in Modern India, University of California Press (1966)
m DOMINANT CASTE
According to Srinivas, the 'field perspective' led to the concept of the ruling caste in The Remembered village. The 'field view' in studies of Indian society has gained more respect because to this study. The Remembered village (1976) is an outstanding work of M.N. Srinivas which explained the Rampura village in Mysore. He identified caste in village community. Caste is an Indian phenomena and it provides guidelines for behaviour and living.
Dominant caste is another term referred in his study of Remembered Village. He defined dominant caste on the basis of six attributes that are
1 Sizable amount of arable land
2 Numeric strength
3 High place in socio-cultural hierarchy
4 Western education
5 Jobs in administration
6 Urban sources of income
Of the above mentioned attributes the above three are most important in determining dominant status of a caste (1)Numeric strength (2) economic power through ownership of land (3) political power. Accordingly a dominant caste is any caste which has all the three mentioned attributes in a village and hence the ritual ranking of a caste no longer remains the major basis of its position in the social hierarchy. M.N. Srinivas studied Rampura village in Mysore where peasants were dominant caste even though they had low ranking in ritual hierarchy. The numeric strength was high, owned land and had political influence on the village affairs.
Srinivas claims that a caste is 'dominant'
if it outnumbers the other castes numerically, has greater political and
economic authority, and owns more land. Four things affect which caste is the
dominant one:
1 Its numeric strength,
2 Its control over
resources like land,
3 Its access to
political influence,
4 Its socio-religious
status.
In addition to this,
western education, administrative work, and urban income sources all play a
considerable role in the status and authority of a certain caste group in the
village. When Srinivas initially introduced the idea of the dominant caste, Political
scientists, journalists, and politicians have all used the dominant caste
notion that Srinivas first introduced and defined widely. This
includes anthropologists, sociologists, and political scientists.
SANSKRITIZATION
Prof. M.N. Srinivas
used the word sanskritization in his book Religion and Society Among the Coorgs
of India. This book is a study of the Coorgs, a caste-like group of people in
India who live in the Coorg region on the south west coast. The Coorgs are
divided into two groups, one of which is "highly Brahmanized in customs
and rituals." According to Srinivas, these Coorgs represent a tendency
that has always existed in the caste framework. A small group of individuals
expatriate from the larger whole of which they are a part. Sanskritize their
customs and rituals, and they may hope to elevate their status than their
parent body in a few decades.
Sanskritization is
defined by Srinivas as follows “ The caste system is far from a rigid system in
which the position of each component caste is fixed for all time. Movement has
always been possible and especially so in the middle regions of hierarchy. A
low caste was able, in a generation or two to rise to higer positon in the
hierarchy by adopting vegetarianism and teetotalism ami by sanskritizing its
ritual ami pantheon. In short it look over as far as possible the customs,
rites and beliefs of the Brahmins and the adoption fo the Brahmanic way of life
by a low caste seems to have been frequent through theoretically forbidden.
This process has been called Sanskritization in this book.” (Religion and
Society Among the Coorgs of India)
Sanskritization must be
associated with Sanskrit, the classical and sacred language of Hindus.
M.N Srinivas coined the
word "Brahmanization" since the lower castes follow the Brahmans, but
subsequently discovered that the lower castes also follow other castes like as
Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and so on. Srinivas dropped the use of term because
of the following reasons:
1. Brahmanization is a
subset of the larger sanskritization process.
2. Another reason is
that the term Brahmanization
connotes Vedic traditions, yet not all components of saskritization are Vedic.
3. Brahmanization is limited to Vedic culture/tradition,
and many Hindus are not associated with Vedic tradition.
4. The term
Hinduization was also proposed, although it essentially implies conversion.
5. In response to the
recommendation that accculturation be employed M.N. Srinivas declined because
acculturation takes a certain shape in Hindu society. Generalizations
concerning acculturation over the world are premature.
THE PROCESS
v Caste
is the structural foundation of Hindu society, and understanding
Sanskritization without reference to the structural context in which it happens
is impossible.
v Castes
at the top of the system are more sanskritized than castes in the lower and
intermediate levels, and this has contributed to the sanskritization of lower
castes and outlying tribes.
v The
lower castes appear to have always attempted to adopt the higher castes'
customs and ways of life. The theoretical presence of a prohibition on them
adopting Brahmanical rituals and ceremonies proved ineffective.
v Because
this process was shared by all castes save the highest, it meant that Brahmanic
rituals and ways of life proliferated among Hindus.
v However,
the immediate group that the lower castes imitated was the locally
dominating group.
Ø Among
the customs taken over by lower castes are : CLOTHING
JEWELLERY
COOKING
VEGETARIANISM
TEETOTALISM
and at all times the
changing the name of the CASTE
Ø The
Brahmins not only adopt the Brahminical rites and customs but also the
institutions. Srinivas corroborates this by referring to marriage, position of
women, and kinship. Among Hindus there is
v
preference for
virginity in brides
v chastity
in wives and This is especially marked the
highest castes
v continence
in widows
Ø The
lower have not very rigid in their Sex code, but as the castes rise in the
hierarchy, it becomes more and more Sanskritized and in Sex and Marriage, the
code of Brahmins is taken over. Widow remarriage and divorce are restricted.
Ø Srinivas
himself says, “Sanskritization results in harshness towards women.”
Sanskritization also means the adoption of new ideas and values which have been expounded in the Sanskritic literature such as Karma, Dharma, Papa, Punya, Mokha etc. These were essentially related to Vedas and the discussion confined mostly to Brahmins.
HELPS AND HINDRANCES
v It
takes decades and decades for a caste to rise in rank, which indicates the
slowness of the process, and delay indicates opposition.
v The
most significant impediment to the process is the animosity of other castes
toward any caste that attempts to improve its position. Political and economic
forces are frequently employed. Physical force is sometimes used to keep lower
castes from adopting higher caste customs and rituals.
v According
to B.S. Cohn, Thakurs utilized political and economic pressure, as well as
physical violence, to keep the Chamars in control.
v Westernization
additionally hampers the Sanskritization process.
v The
trend of Sanskritization appears to have intensified recently.
v According
to Srinivas, two legal fictions supported the Sanskritization process. The
prohibition does not apply to the ceremony itself, but rather to the recital of
Vedic magic chants. The lower castes got around this by using Sanskrit verses from the Post-Vedic period. The second legal fiction was the
substitute itself.
v The
second component is Western technology, which includes railways, press, radio,
internal combustion engines, and airplanes. Because of this, communication is
simpler and ideas propagate more rapidly.
v Parliamentary
democracy also played a role. Some upper caste norms, like as prohibition and
monogamy, were included into the constitution.
v The
stratification of the Hindu society into castes has in a sense helped
Sanskritization because in any hierarchal system, there is a tendency to
imitate the customs, habits, manners of the top groups.
EXAMPLES:
ü Cohn
studied a village in U.P (Madhopur)
ü Domestic
ceremonies of the Chamars have been modelled increasingly upto leaders and
devotees of the Siva Narayan sect.
ü The
Sacrifice of a pig which began the Chamar wedding ceremony has now been given
up and replaced by the cutting of a nutmeg.
ü Dowry
is beginning to replace bride price
ü A
Brahmin conducts the wedding ceremony which previously was not done by them.
ü Changes
have been made in the death rituals.
ü Pilgrimage
is emphasized
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