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Tradition & Modernity

This document discusses the concepts of tradition and modernity in Indian culture. It defines tradition as beliefs, customs, and values passed down from ancestors, which provide a sense of history and belonging. Modernity refers to rationalization and technological, institutional, and behavioral changes that seek to modify traditions for better efficiency and living standards. India experiences an interplay of tradition and modernity, retaining some traditions while adopting aspects of modernity. While some traditions upheld oppression, modernity has increased awareness of rights and freedoms, creating tensions as India balances its cultural heritage and development.

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164 views

Tradition & Modernity

This document discusses the concepts of tradition and modernity in Indian culture. It defines tradition as beliefs, customs, and values passed down from ancestors, which provide a sense of history and belonging. Modernity refers to rationalization and technological, institutional, and behavioral changes that seek to modify traditions for better efficiency and living standards. India experiences an interplay of tradition and modernity, retaining some traditions while adopting aspects of modernity. While some traditions upheld oppression, modernity has increased awareness of rights and freedoms, creating tensions as India balances its cultural heritage and development.

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Vikas
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Single page handout FIRST SEM. M.A. Phil.

Satya Nilayam.

Indian Religions & Cultures


Unit 1: Cultural Dimensions of India
06. Tradition and Modernity
20 Sep 2021

Tradition:
§ What we have received from our ancestors as beliefs, customs, attributes
§ It offers a sense of comfort and belonging. It reinforces values
§ It fills us with a sense of history- of our roots, and of our cultural heritage (both tangible and intangible)
o Tangible cultural heritage- buildings, monuments, landscapes, literature, art, and artefacts
o Intangible cultural heritage – oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals,
festivities, knowledge and practices concerning nature, language, etc.
Modernity
§ Modernity refers to a time period (1500 to the present) (modernism is a social and cultural movement
that spanned between 1890 and 1939)
§ Max Weber understood modernity as rationalization.
§ A fundamental change in standard of living, in worldviews, etc
§ It is often a replacement of some past practice (and thus abandons a tradition)
§ Four types of modernization: technological, institutional, valuational, and behavioral
§ Modernization seeks to modify traditions and claims better efficiency, better reason, and making life
better for all.
§ The downside of modernity:
o it deracinates (uprooting someone from their natural geographical, social, or cultural
environment) the person, intoxicates the person with ideas of relativism, and gets them into
the trap of capitalism.
o It also has made the gap between the rich and the poor wider.
o The lure of privatization has seduced the govt and today it has further complicated our culture.
o It mystifies economics as the only goal, consumerism as the only way, and success and
achievement as the ultimate desirable values. Happiness is equated with money.
o Impersonal approaches – you don’t know for whom you are working for!!
o We have now ‘created’ risks by our own science and technology, in addition to the natural
risks we have to face (earthquakes, cyclones, floods, etc.)

Interplay of tradition and modernity:


§ We have neither a pure tradition or a pure modernity. A mixture of both is what India has today, and
there is a tension between both.
§ Debates over what traditions we need to uphold and what modernity we need to be away from have
always engaged intellectual discourses.

Tradition we hate but still have


§ Caste based Hierarchical rigid structures, Notion of purity and impurity
§ Sanskritization, parochial attitudes, justification for oppression from materials taken from scriptural
texts such as Vedas, Puranas, Upanishads, epics, folklore, etc.,
§ Women held to be custodians of tradition; dominance continues.
§ The abuse of tradition by vested interests

Emancipation because of modernity:


§ Increased awareness of human rights, personal freedom, caste dominance, and other kinds of
oppression. Conflicts and protests over inequality are signs of modernity. The unwillingness to remain
silent is a good sign.
§ Demystification of hierarchy and divisions (including gender divisions), demythicization of national
identity

India facts:
§ Community, food-clothing-shelter, indigenous health care, Indigenous science, the doctrine of karma

Robin Seelan SJ

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