Concept of Sanskritisation — 2020 Paper II

Approach

• Demand of Question: Explain Sanskritisation as a process of social and cultural mobility within the Indian caste system.
• Structuring the Response: Define Srinivas’s concept, explain its mechanism and examples, and briefly assess its significance and limitations.

Model Answer

Introduction

M.N. Srinivas developed the concept of Sanskritisation while studying the Coorgs and later elaborated it in Religion and Society among the Coorgs of South India (1952). It refers to the process by which a lower caste, tribal or other group adopts the customs, rituals and lifestyle of a socially higher caste to claim improved status.

Major features

A Sanskritising group may adopt:

• vegetarianism;
• teetotalism;
• worship of Sanskritic deities;
• performance of higher-caste rituals;
• avoidance of occupations considered ritually degrading;
• claims to higher genealogical or caste status.

Thus:

Cultural emulation → Status claim → Social mobility

Nature of the process

Srinivas later clarified that the reference group need not always be Brahmins. A locally dominant caste may provide the model for emulation.

Sanskritisation therefore represents positional mobility within caste hierarchy rather than destruction of the hierarchy itself.

Significance

The concept showed that caste was not completely static and that groups could collectively negotiate status.

Limitations

• It overemphasizes ritual mobility.
• It does not adequately explain economic and political mobility.
• It may understate resistance and Dalit/tribal identity assertion.
• Mobility of one group does not necessarily alter the structural hierarchy.

Conclusion

Sanskritisation remains important for understanding cultural mobility and status competition, though contemporary caste change also involves education, politics, markets and identity movements.