Write short notes on:

• Rites and secularisation

• Caste and secularisation

• Gender and sanskritisation

• Rites and secularisation –

i) Rites means the rituals related to a particular caste or religion.

ii) Secularisation is a set of modern ideas.

iii) Modernisation and secularisation are linked with each other.

iv) Our society is a mixture of tradition and modernity though these terms have fixed entities.

v) We claim to be modern and secular but still the religious beliefs continue to dominate our lives.

vi) In the modern west secularisation is a process of decline in religious influence. The theorists of modernization assume that the modern societies are becoming secular, but this is not an absolute fact for Indian society.

vii) Rituals have secular dimensions as distinct from secular goals.

viii) Considerable part of virtual in India has direct reference to the pursuit of secular ends.

• Caste and secularisation –

i) In traditional India, caste system operated within a religious framework. The belief system of purity and pollution among caste system was very common in practice.

ii) Indian society has seen the formation of caste associations and caste based political parties which press their demand upon the State. This change role of caste is described as secularisation of caste.

iii) The traditional social system of India was organised around the caste structure and caste identities and in establishing relationship between caste and politics the doctrine of modernization fails.

iv) The politicians mobilise caste groupings and identities in such manner that they could organise their power.

v) In name of secularization the caste system is used by politicians to gain power.

• Gender and sanskritisation – Sanskritisation offered different rules for men and women.

i) It supports that women should lead traditional life style whereas men can be modernised and westernised.

ii) The education system for men and women vary. Girls were not allowed to go for convent schools.

iii) During ancient period the women were not allowed to go for higher education like people of lower caste.

iv) Sanskritisation prefers that the women should play the role of wife, mother, sister, daughter with a great honour and should stay at home.

v) They should marry with the consent of parents and family.

vi) Different type of dressing style and food habits is preferred for women than men.