SC TR

Concepts and Theories of Social Change By Yogendra Singh
Presented By : Prof. Alok Kumar

Head
Department of Sociology
Chaudhary Charan Singh University
Introduction
Social change is the change in established patterns of
social relations, or change in social values, or change
in structures and subsystems operating in society.
Yogendra Singh in his report deals with theories and
concepts of social change rather than with the
substantial aspects.
He traces the development of concepts and theories
since the 19th century when the British and Indian
scholars were concerned with the origin and
development of the caste system.
Types of Approach
Gradually, these concepts and formulations got
differentiated and a variety of approaches emerged.
In the present report, these approaches can be
classified into the following types :
 Evolutionary Approach
 Cultural Approach
 Structural Approach
 Dialectical Historical Approach
Evolutionary Approach
In the evolutionary approach, gradual development is

studied from simple to complex, through a long series
of small changes. Each change results in a minor
modification of the system, but the cumulative effect
of many changes over a long period is the emergence
of new complex forms.
The evolutionary approaches analyze the stages
through which the institutions like caste, family,
marriage and kinship and village community moved in
India.
Studies with this approach have focused on village community,
caste system, and family as follows:
Scholars like NK Dutt (1931), Ghurye (1945) have focused
on the origin of caste and its racial composition with emphasis
on the factors which contributed to the emergence of caste.
Similarly, Henry S Maine(1890), Baden Powell (1908) in
their studies of villages and land systems tried either to find
out the historical stage of growth or their comparative
evolutionary sequence and succession of forms.
BN Seal and RK Mukherjee(1967) disapproved of the
assumption given by western scholars that social institutions
in India were at a lower level of evolution than in the west.
Cultural Approach
In the cultural approach, change is studied by

analyzing the changing cultural elements of society.
Within this approach, MN Srinivas studied change
through Sanskritization and westernization processes.
Robert Redfield through a change in Little and Great
traditions, and
McKim Marriot through the process of
Parochialisation and Universalisation.
Sanskritization and Westernization processes
Sanskritization
According to MN Srinivas(1973), Sanskritization refers to the process
of adopting customs, rituals, ideology, and way of life of higher castes
by the lower castes with a view to raise their position in the caste
hierarchy. It is the process of cultural mobility in the traditional social
structure. The higher castes are not always Brahmins, they could be
Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, and so on in various regions of the country.
Yogendra Singh, in the present report, comments on the concept of
Sanskritisation as having two connotations :
1. Historical Context: In this, Sanskritisation is seen as a process of
social mobility throughout the history of Indian society.
2. Contextual Context: In this perspective, Sanskritisation is a process
of change in a relative sense.
Sanskritization and Westernization processes
Westernization
MN Srinivas(1973) defines that Westernization is adopting the
ideals, values (like rationalism, humanism), institutions, and
technology of the western society by the non-western society.
Simply, it refers to changes brought out as a consequence of contact
with western culture.
Srinivas refers to three levels of westernization :
1) Primary: The Primary level refers to those people who came
directly into contact with the British.
2) Secondary: The Secondary level includes those who were directly
benefited from the people who were at the primary level.
3) Tertiary: These are the people who were remotely benefited by
the process of westernization.
Little and Great traditions
Following Robert Redfield (1955) who analyzed the

social change in the Mexican communities with the
help of the concepts of Little and Great traditions,
McKim Mariott (1955) and Milton Singer (1959)
studied social change in India with this conceptual
framework.
Little traditions are indigenous customs, deities, and
rites found at the folks or peasants level. They persist
at the level of the village community and their growth
is internal.
Great traditions are those traditions that grow because
of outside contacts and are found at the elite level.
Parochialisation and Universalisation
The process of moving elements of Little tradition

(customs, rites, etc) upward to the level of Great
tradition is called ‘universalization’ by McKim
Marriott.
The process of moving of elements of Great tradition
downward to become part of the Little tradition is
called ‘parochialization’.
Thus, these concepts (of universalization and
parochialization) also describe the processes of
cultural change.
Structural Approach
This approach analyzes the change in the network of social

relationships and social structures (like castes, kinship, factory,
administrative structures, etc ). These social relationships and
structures are compared intra-culturally as well as cross-culturally.
According to Yogendra Singh (1977), a structural analysis of change
consists of demonstrating the qualitative nature of new adaptations in
the patterned relationships. To explain further he cites an example
where when the spouse is selected by a child himself and not by his
parents, the nature of quality of conjugal relations is bound to be
different.
For Yogendra Singh, Family is today functionally joint to a large
extent, but structurally it is nuclear. Further, caste is becoming
increasingly an interest group of the articulate few from among the
members of a caste.
Dialectical Historical Approach
The main architects of this approach are Karl Marx and Friedrich
Engels.
According to Yogendra Singh(1973), Marx mentioned five stages in
social differentiation :
1. The tribal community with undivided land and agriculture in
common
2. The disintegration of the tribal community and its transformation
into family communities with the loosening of common property
3. Shares fixed by inheritance rights or the degree of kinship, thus
creating inequality.
4. Transformation of inequality based on kinship into inequality based
on possession as expressed bu actual cultivation
5. A system of periodic distribution of communal lands
DP Mukerji (1958) applied the Marxist approach to
study social change in India found that in the emergence
of new class structures(in the form of the middle class),
the role of the Indian Tradition was immense.
On similar lines, RK Mukherjee, in his book “Rise
and Fall of East India Company” applies the
Dialectical-Historical approach for the study of change.
AR Desai (1966) in his book “Social background of
Indian Nationalism” finds that class-based inequalities
and contradictions determine the nature of social change
and development.
Conclusions and Suggestions
Yogendra Singh concludes that while some

conceptual schemes have been evolved to analyze the
social change in India, no theories have yet emerged.
Most of the studies have been done based on a cultural
approach ignoring the structural and dialectical-
historical approach.
He suggests that it was the need of the hour that the
study of social change must be done from a systematic
and dialectical-historical frame of reference instead of
continuum models.
References
Singh,Yogendra
1974 : “ Concepts and Theories of social change “, A
survey of Research in sociology and social
anthropology,
Vol.1, Popular Prakasan,Bombay ,pp:383 - 425

SC TR

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

SC TR

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

SC TR

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Concepts and Theories of Social Change By Yogendra Singh

Presented By : Prof. Alok Kumar

In the evolutionary approach, gradual development is

In the cultural approach, change is studied by

Following Robert Redfield (1955) who analyzed the

The process of moving elements of Little tradition

This approach analyzes the change in the network of social

Yogendra Singh concludes that while some

You might also like