M. N. Srinivas

A Note on Sanskritization and Westernization

The concept of “Sanskritization” was found useful by me in the analysis of the social and religious life of the Coorgs of South India. A few other anthropologists who are making studies of tribal and village communities in various parts of India seem to find the concept helpful in the analysis of their material, and this fact induces me to attempt a re-examination of it here.

Some reflections on the nature of caste hierarchy

My distinguished predecessors have all paid deserved homage to the erudition, ideas and influence of Sir James Frazer, one of the founders of social anthropology.’ While nothing really new can be said by way of tribute, in deciding to speak on a major institution of an ancient and living culture I am only following, in a very humble way, the Frazerian tradition of including in the scope of the discipline not only primitive societies but the great civilisations as well.

India's Cultural Values and Economic Development: A Discussion

In a recent article, 1 Professor Milton Singer advanced an interesting interpretation of traditional Indian cultural values and their power to supply a positive ethic for the new India. Concern with this topic arises naturally enough, not only from the great need of improving the standard of living in India, but also from the importance of the successful accomplishment of the reforms now under way. Is there a tradition of values to which these reforms can appeal for strength to carry them through? Or, on the contrary, are there values in the Indian conception of life which are likely to hinder or even defeat such efforts ? Both Asians and Westerners alike have recognized that the answers to these questions are important in estimating the future of the modernization of India.

Culture and human fertility in India.

Examines the social and cultural underpinnings of human fertility in rural India through sociological studies of village communities published in secondary sources. It is stated that a severe limitiation of the present study is the fact that the village studies were initially conducted with a totally different purpose in view. Such studies have not dealt seriously with fertility behavior and the demographic research has failed to place fertility behavior in its proper social and cultural context. Social behavior is broken down into the domestic sphere which includes within it the ritual and religious spheres; the economic spheres; and the political sphere. The focus is on those factors which can be shown to influence fertility behavior rather than on social institutions such as kinship and marriage postpartum taboos childraising practices and socially sanctioned abstinence all of whose effect on fertility is merely incidental. Many questions are raised as a result of this review. A major issue is whether or not people consciously assess the number of children they might desire. Related to this is the question of which factors enter into the calculation which determines the optimum number of children. Finally there is the question of how people go about achieving this norm. Implications for research and policy regarding family planning programs in Indian villages are discussed.

Village India: Studies in the Little Community.

By reading, you can know the knowledge and things more, not only about what you get from people to people. Book will be more trusted. As this village india studies in the little community, it will really give you the good idea to be successful. It is not only for you to be success in certain life you can be successful in everything. The success can be started by knowing the basic knowledge and do actions.

The remembered village: reply to criticisms

logy has been devoted to the discussion of an anthropologist’s work. I am sensible of the honour done to me by the editor in having my work discussed, and my contributions to sociology, such as they are, assessed by colleagues from various parts of the world, and belonging to different age-groups. Understandably, praise and blame are mixed in each contribution though some are more critical than the others. Thus Mandelbaum, Epstein, Nakane and Lynch are very generous in their evaluation of The remembered village (henceforward referred to as RV) as well as my work as a whole, while the essays of Beals, Mayer and Joshi are a mixture of praise and blame in more or less equal measure. Pocock and Jain are generally very critical though Pocock is perhaps more than fair in his assessment of my contribution to Indian sociology as a whole. Gupta and Parvathamma are almost totally negative in th eir evaluation. Madan sticks to his role as master of ceremonies, and avoids trying to be a critic, though