Social Changes in India: Its Meaning and Factors

Meaning and Definition of Social Changes:

When Oliver Goldsmith becomes rueful over the changing face of the Deserted Village, or even when Rabindranath Tagore laments the obliteration of the times of Kalidasa, each is reflecting his views on social change. Social change, however, would not mean that the mere face of the peaceful village has changed or that the cultural qualities inherent in human behaviour in bygone times no longer live in modern people’s attitudes; it means a lot more than that and yet it is manifested in all those scenes and their subjective appreciation.

Earlier on in this century, many people in Latin America and the West Indies thought that Indian planes carried passengers who had mere mats to sit on, that the average person in India wore a loincloth like the Mahatma did and that he carried a goat for company at all times. Not that these ideas reflected the undiluted truth, but, whatever matter might have contributed to such thinking’s, the Indian scene is different now and the very measure of the difference accounts for the degree of change that has affected our society.

However, society is subject to change and the social structure changes in the sense that it acquires growth, maturity and even decay for the purpose of acquir­ing a ‘new birth’ in the Shelleyan sense of the term. Variations of conditions and modifications of norms, values and standards affect the social structure, which responds to the changes much in the same way as changes in nature and natural conditions affect any living organism.

Social change can be witnessed in conditions under which man lives, and the stride from the jungle to the metropolis is very much a part of this process. Changes take place in beliefs and views of men; and while man consciously notices how technological innovations have changed his culture and personality, he unwillingly takes part in the changing process of geographical and biological conditions.

The interesting feature about any type of social change is that while the process is in operation, changes are not felt as clearly as when it is viewed upon as a past event. There is a kind of a historical approach in the study of social change, for the change itself is a measure of comparison between conditions obtainable under different defined sets of circumstances.

When the bastions of feudalism collapsed before the advancing might of science, few realized that the ‘good old days’ had gone forever. Even today, society is in its changing process; and the contemporaries to the present age are ill-suited as judges of the directional qualities of such a process.

When our times are over, posterity would have a better view of the manner in which we had changed from our predecessors and to what extent we had shaped the social structure for them. As McIver and Page point out, social change is better understood when it is looked upon as a changing process continually in action, and not merely as one isolated phenomenon of change compartmentally measuring the difference between one structure and another finally and completely.

In this regard, the same authors hold that this very process of change establishes society as a ‘time-sequence’; to them, society is ‘a process, not a product’. In other words, a product ends up by being so and the factor that caused it loses their significance. A social process is continuity, and whatever product it generates, that co-exists with the very process itself; as soon as the process is stopped, the product disappears.

The laws of inheritance are a product of the social processes connected with ideas relating to succession; if thoughts about the distribution of a man’s property after his death are no longer entertained, both the concepts of succession as the process and the laws of inheritance as the product will disappear together.

Sociologists differ in the connotation they apply to the term ‘social charge’. Some would emphasize the change in the very structure of society itself, while others take into consideration ‘partial’ and ‘total’ changes in a given social system. When condition relating to women’s education change in any society, there takes place a partial change in its system; and when feudal conditions are demolished in favour of Napoleon’s doctrine of ‘La carrier ouverte aux talents’ the change in the social system is total.

However, some other writers maintain that human society characterized by its permanence and lasting character, while any change is merely ephemeral in nature. No change can then be regarded total, for the very structure of society is based ultimately on man’s instinctive desire for self-preservation and self- expression and these fundamental conditions about society are unalterable. Again, some other writers seek to differentiate between changes that are ‘basic’ and other that are ‘incidental’.

McLung Lee writes in his New Outline of the Principles of Sociology that no social change can be regarded as a fundamental alteration of social conditions. He would rather maintain that the process of social change merely alter the social associations and institutions in the social system and their structure and functions. The very conditions on which social living is based are never altered.

Ginsberg writes in his Studies in Sociology that the structure of a society changes in at much as its size and patterns get rearranged and rebalanced when social changes affect it at any given stage of its development. Individual attitudes, according to Ginsberg, towards institutions and associations change from time to time; and, in fact, this view tallies with Kingsley Davis’ idea that changing society would mean changing man.

However, the sum total of all these different views would be that social change as a process affects human society historically and all fundamental principles relating to human relations, be it economic, political, religious or cultural, change at different points of time and thereby alter the structure and functions of society.

When McIver and Page describe society as a process, the idea inherent in such description is that society is an ‘ever-changing phenomenon’. Just as changes occur in human life, different phases of development characterize the march of a society. In very simple terms it can be stated that social life was never the same a thousand year ago as it is now; the changes in it pervade all different types of activities, including mere ways of behaviour and the functions of political, economic and cultural institutions.

Changes pervade external as well as internal characteristics of social life. What characterizes social change is the ‘dynamism’ in society, the very attitude of not clinging to patterns of behaviour that are age-old. Some writers observe that social changes occur at a pace that is faster than that of geographical changes. These changes are particularly noticeable in a society after the ravages of war or civil disturbances on a large scale, or after natural calamities.

China after the Revolution is a society that is markedly different from the one that existed before Mao-Tse-Tung took over; and the world as a whole has changed in radical terms after the Second World War. Yet it may be remembered while we assess dynamism in a society that there are certain basic statics about every society that keep the fundamentals unaltered so that any particular society can well be differentiated another.

Even as we reiterate our views that every society is a changing process, it would be worthwhile considering the deficiency of sociology as a science in its ability to make predictions as to changes that may engulf a society at any given point of time.

True it is that society changes and that it is an ever-changing phenomenon, but no sociologist has yet found out any method of correctly forecasting the nature and the direction of such change and the different periods at which altering forces would be set in operation.

The factors relating to social change are many, and there is a general agreement among different writers that these include the geographical, the biological, the cultural and the technological factors while the psychological element in each cannot be left out of consideration. The very multiplicity of these factors renders scientific study difficult, particularly because some of these factors are of temporary significance and their inter-relation further weaves a complex pattern in society.

It may be easier to study the impact of any isolated phenomenon as when we consider the effect of emancipation of women and the throwing open of all social opportunities and avenues to them. One may even foretell that soaring prices and acute food shortages will tend to raise the crime figures in any given society or that severe heat or cold in different conditions will take a heavy toll of lives, but none can precisely predict whether twenty years hence moral considerations will become rigid or permissiveness will be a well-accepted standard.

Whatever the demands of change in a society be, the sociologists will not make his assessments in terms of any normative standards; and the variety of changes that can take place in human social affairs makes a study of the subject highly interesting. One cannot, therefore maintain that every change will raise the levels of social attainments or that the altering forces will have any degree of permanence; some changes may, therefore, be conducive to the common good while others may bring along with them conditions of devastation.

The patterns of change may also weave different pictures on the social fabric. McIver and Page maintain that in technological matters, the change caused by any invention is very rapid in its initial stages, stabilizing in later stages before accelerating the rate of change in ultimate conditions.

In respect of matters relating to economy, the changes mark advances and corresponding reversals, while fluctuations between ‘high’ and ‘low’ points characterize changes in cultural matters in a cyclical movement as shown in the following figure.

According to some writers, social changes may be caused as a result of differences in standards of relationships between persons in society, or they may be brought about in a planned manner according to a general scheme of change Such general scheme of change may be ‘unilinary’, ‘pendular’ or ‘evolutionary’ in character.

The unilinary scheme stands for the progress of society with a fixed aim and a definite purpose, and the movement of society is being guided in a forward direction by either the forces of nature or some supernatural power which may be described as the destiny or the divine. According to this view, whatever changes one may notice in any society may well be regarded as merely incidental.

The pendular scheme envisages a pattern of change in which no particularly fixed direction is followed by the process of such change; a movement forward with a swinging back of the pendulum causing obstruction to progress is the distinct characteristic of the scheme. The evolutionary scheme of change considers the different phases in social growth as different stages in its evolutionary development. Just as living organisms develop from the amoeba to various complex forms of life, society too expands and develops from a unified system into a variety and diversity of activities and functions.

Thus, as society branches out in a greater division of labour and a mere elaborate system of functional relationships, an increase is noticed in the types of social associations and institutions and the bases of social communications become more refined and cultured. Ginsberg states in his Studies in Sociology that evolutionary stages mark the advance of society. Even Emile Durkheim maintains that the very feature of social division of labour marks an evolutionary form of development in social conditions.

Whichever scheme of social change may carry conviction certain ideas about such change need a clarification. We have already seen that social change is a process, but such a process, be it evolutionary or otherwise, can not necessarily be termed either as a development or as progress. Development is an evolutionary term, signifying growth and accumulation of any given structure.

In the process of the development there may be adaptation and accommodation to circumstances; and if development takes place in the course of evolution, the very social structure changes along with its growth just as matter branches out into genera and species, and species undergo differentiation in the course of evolutionary growth. Progress, on the other hand, is difficult to define as a concept.

The term itself is associated with standards, and these standards may be scientific or ethical in nature. Ethical values that apply in any given society are a product of indoctrination and as such when ethical standards are referred to in measuring social progress, the subjective element persists and scientific analysis may be hindered.

Yet ethical standards will have their influence upon scientific valuations and the word progress will have its natural connections with normative concepts. Standards for measuring progress in society will be particularly difficult to define. Matthew Arnold writes in his essay On the Modem Element in Literature that Athens in the times of Thucydides could culturally be regarded to be as modern as Victorian England, while Elizabethan England with its tawdry embellish­ments date far backward in terms of progress.

This very assertion made by Arnold can go to a considerable length to show that evolutionary development and progress are not the one and the same thing. Some writers regard progress as liberation from the bonds of tradition while others see in it a scientific connotation. Progress as a scientific concept accommodates changes in the social structure itself that modify, excite and harmonize human functions.

The difficulty that one experience in applying scientific constructions to the term progress arises when one finds that several factors combine in determining the nature of progress and, not all of these are objective in nature.

Thus, there can be the concept of ‘material’ progress like progress in economic matters, and ‘cultural’ progress as one finds in the advance made by social associations and institutions. Our desires and defined tendencies can colour our judgment, for one may easily give in to the evaluations made in terms of material comfort and luxury.

A city with specialized services offered to its inhabitants will then be regarded as a progress in the process of development, while the village will be taken as a piece of retardation in the course of social growth. Surely, the sociologist cannot accept this simplified differentiation between progress and regress. The ‘subjective’ element tends to remain in our analysis of-progress for the reason that our values colour our analysis of society.

If the sociologist brings in his own values in determining progress, such values may lack the quality of the universal and his observations may also suffer from angular defects. McIver and Page maintain that the study of society should be ‘value-free’ in the sense that one’s personal judgment must not be allowed to take stock of any situation, although human values in general must necessarily be the subject of a scientific study of social systems.

The authors feel that sociology can remain value-free in the sense that ‘in dealing with value facts, the sociologist should never suffer his own valuations to intrude into, or affect his presentations of, the valuations which are registered in the facts themselves’. McIver and Page further state that while no science can accept any particular theory as to final values, the study of every science enters the area of value-judgments in two ways.

First, the accuracy of any observation can be tested with the help of value-judgments; and, secondly, with the help of reasoning’s from statements of facts, the validity of conclusions made from the study as to what is good or what is bad may be tested. Yet, one must remember that no scientific study is concerned with the establishment of values; science studies facts ‘as they are’ and not ‘as they ought to be’.

Social institutions operating in different social systems have their own values that will be necessarily institutional in character, as institutions of marriage or inheritance will have varying degrees of sanctity or utility in various social systems; but the sociologist will not value these in the sense that he is not required to make an appreciation of them, for such appreciation will always be fraught with the danger of introducing bias in reasonsings. He will merely state the facts and analyse them.

The Factors of Social Change:

Several factors operate together in bringing about social change and we have already noted that these include the physical or environmental, the biological, the cultural and the technological factors as also the psychological one.

It may be worth-while considering the importance of each of these factors and explaining their influence upon society:

(1) The Physical Factor:

Man’s environment is not merely the geographical one; it comprehends the economic, the political and the cultural surroundings of man so that all human beings live in what may be described as a total environment. However, the geographical surroundings have a special significance for him, since physical conditions directly affect his life and the changes that are effected in it.

Climatic conditions and geological attributes of land certainly influence human habitation, and along with these factors other natural conditions shape man’s life, the materials that he uses for his buildings, the matter that becomes his food, means of transportation, methods of cultivation and the use of animals and animal power for domestic and agricultural purposes.

In the process of cultural development of any society, all these physical factors have their importance in as much as people living in any geographical area become ecologically habituated to the local physical conditions. These conditions do not change radically in order to annihilate the local culture but, at the same time, they do not remain the same. Man has always tried to change the physical surroundings in which he lives, with the help of his cultural attainments.

He covered himself from the predatory forces of nature in the initial stages of his development; in the later stages, he has learnt to change courses of rivers, soil qualities, the very topography of land and other physical conditions whenever they perplex him with adverse conditions.

Forests are cleared for human habitation while at the same time deserts and areas with inclement attributes are made habitable and productive. Some writers point out that whatever is ‘natural’ in geographic conditions has been modified by the ‘cultural features of human civilization, and the natural landscape has given way to the cultural landscape not only in urban concentrations but in rural areas too.

Thus, the cultural landscape manifests itself in canals, man-made lakes, irrigation devices, highways and railroads. Several hundreds of years are taken in the change of a natural landscape while the cultural landscape changes speedily, particularly in developing countries like our own where the desire for progress brooks no delay.

Differences in conditions of development in different regions may not be caused by geographical factors alone, but the physical surroundings have their share of importance. Countries in Europe are developed not because they are located in the temperate zone of this earth of ours, but because they felt the impact of industrial revolution before other countries.

Yet physical conditions have their share of importance in so far as they help in the growing up of habitations and in conditioning people’s physical reflexes. Excessive heat or cold will not help the concentration of habitation in any locality, nor will human beings tend to settle down in places that are devoid of the minimum of natural resources. People living in colder countries can be more hard-working than those of warmer climates, and man necessarily learns to correlate his efforts to the geographical conditions in which he lives.

People inhabiting fertile plains fed by rivers, as in Bengal, will lead easy going lives because nature rewards his efforts of the minimum magnitude; and those who live under hard conditions of incommunicable mountains or rough deserts will apply their skill and experience to the possibilities of improving their living conditions under such difficult habitat. The different localities will, therefore, generate cultural differences in the respective ways of life that can hardly be missed by the student of sociology.

A separate consideration of the cultural factor of social change will be engaged in for the elucidation of the reader, but even as one refers to the physical environment of man, one cannot fully dissociate it from the culture that pertains to it. For example, it can be asserted that wherever man has attained a higher standard of cultural development he has bettered his physical habitat.

Knowledge of technology affects his immediate surroundings and then, in turn, helps to mould the associations and institutions in his society. Thus, writers who emphasize the importance of economics in human society hold that levels of social attainments are determined by the productive forces of nature, for these must necessarily condition the economic structure of a society.

According to Karl Marx, the very basis of social relations would be the desire for production; for the relation of production brings human beings together for productive pursuits. Interaction in this relation of production, according to Marx and Engels, brings about changes in society. Kingsley Davis, however, does not consider this analysis of social relations to be very perfect.

According to him, it would be an oversimplification to state that the economic structure alone brings about changes in a society; there are other factors too that account for such change. No single factor can afford to bring changes in a society through each of them has its own share of contribution in the process that has been described as social change.

(2) The Biological Factor:

Of the several factors that account for social change, the biological arguments are of considerable importance. Particularly when one notices that biological conditions can change faster than the slow natural changes, one admits that the changes in the former condition society in a very clear manner and over a shorter span of time.

Population conditions and changes in the composition of population account for the biological element in social change, and the demographers chart as to birth and death rates and the division of any population according to the various age groups are the immediate subject of our study in this regard.

The composition of population in any society changes according to social conditions, and this fact is true not only with the developed countries of Western Europe, but also with some of our countries in the Orient. With the onset of the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century, population rose in the Western countries and then became stabilized in the last fifty years with the result that today birth rates as well as death rates tend to remain on the lower side.

The biological factor of social change impresses us not only in respect of population and population changes; it has its importance as regards the tendency towards the shifting of the people from one place to another which can be described as migration. Besides that, hereditary traits in any community, nation or a country come in for analysis as those traits are never likely to remain the same even in any two succeeding generations.

The changing genes that find living expression in the child after one half of the qualities of each of the parents is rejected in the process of procreation will distinctly change the social scene in biological terms over a span of a few decades. Migratory activities, whether they are caused by economic conditions or otherwise, sooner or later affect the composition of the population and raise new social problems and perspectives.

Problems like those related to over-population or race-suicide are not the concern merely of the economist or the politician; the sociologist finds these problems interesting as he appreciates that social concepts and hypotheses change considerably with population changes. In fact, the sociologist’s task of measuring social changes caused by biological factors is easier because such changes are observed in concrete terms.

Birth and death are biological factors without any doubt, but their social significance makes them more than that; these acquire the status of social phenomena shaped and moulded by the conditions obtainable in any society. Social values and customs to a considerable extent condition the birth and the death rates in any society.

For example, birth in a society is determined by the attitude it takes towards marriage and the laws relating to it. Marriage is a socially recognized union of man and woman essentially for procreative purposes and, at different stages of social development, this institution has been blessed by religious dogma and statutory provisions. Today, in most of the countries, marriage is ceremoniously performed by observing religious laws, but the social status of it is gained by legal sanctions.

The law’s attitude to marriage is not an arbitrary or an isolated affair it is also a true reflection of the social will. Thus, polygamy had been the order of the day for the Hindu male and religion did not quite look down upon it; but the modern enlightened Hindu has so clearly cast his options against the system that the monogamic constraints placed by the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955 are only a legal acceptance of the inevitable in society.

Today, the amended law relating to Hindu marriages in India places the marriageable age higher, and consequently the imprint of the law will be directly felt upon the population pattern. Since premarital sex and the illegitimate baby are taboo, and more so in Eastern countries than in the West, the demographer’s study of the general fertility rate will hardly accommodate the fertility conditions of women between 15 and 44; the changed conditions will allow him to begin to consider the woman from the age of 18.

On the higher side, too advances made by medical sciences may bring into the subject of study women above the age of 44, and consequently the fertility ratio will also subject itself to different conditions of study. Birth rates may be determined by the interplay of other social conditions too, including the economic, religious and political ones.

Fascists in the pre-war years advocated the theory of a ‘fecund’ population and even now political considerations aimed at aggrandizement of power may encourage larger populations, as was done by Italy and Germany under Mussolini and Hitler respectively.

Economic policies adopted by governments may affect population trends and in a number of West European countries the accepted idea of small families is raising concern over the prospects of race-suicide, whereas in our country the battle is being desperate fought for impressing upon people the advantages of having small families. The use of contraceptives and other means of birth control are being encouraged and, in fact being endorsed with a quality of patriotic obligation in our country so that our economic does not collapse in the wake of frightfully expanded populations.

But compulsions in this regard have proved to be disastrous in the past few years, and it has been admitted that ideas of religions in matters of use of birth control devices and raising small families can have significant influence upon our society. Fertility in any society may be determined therefore not only by marriage laws, political ambitions of rulers and the economists’ apprehensions as to the stability of the national economy, but by other factors too.

Beliefs about means of birth control and attitudes towards abortion may be made so rigid by religion that these devices in-controlling population may be rendered less effective in certain countries than in others. Hindus and Roman Catholics have more or less the same degree of aversion to anything that makes sex un-procreative and, therefore, unnatural.

Besides that, within the same society there may be urban and rural segments and, in each of these, different considerations may prevail. The rural people entertain thoughts of having large families, while urban conditions necessarily keep the family in a small size.

Death rates reflect social conditions in the sense that a society that suffers from conditions of malnutrition and undeveloped medical and hygienic standards will have a high incidence of death. Malthus explains that in any country population increases in geometrical progression while food production increases in arithmetical progression.

As a result, scarcity of food results and famine conditions and consequent malnutrition of the population tend to keep life expectancy at a low level. Improvements in medical standards lead to a fall in death rates and if the case of the United States is taken as an example of a highly developed country, it will be seen that while the crude death rate in that country in 1900 was 17.2, in 1970 it fell to 9.4; and in 1975-76 it came to 8.9.

In India, it is a vastly improved picture now with the death rate ranging at present between 15.9 to 15.3. A lower death rate necessarily means that there will be more of elderly persons in a society, while a falling birth rate will give to the society at any given point of time a smaller number of young persons. Consequently, the demographer’s study of the ‘dependency ratio’ in the population will admit of changes.

The dependency ratio is determined by working out the combined percentages of dependent children and the dependent aged by the percentage of active population. For this purpose, population is divided into three age groups; dependent children form the first group comprising all persons below the age of 14, the group of active population including persons between 15 and 64 years of age, and the third group being made of the dependents aged above 65 years.

A study of the population distribution in the United States according to the United States Bureau of the Census Reports, 1972, shows that while in 1880, 38.1% of the population was dependent children. 58.5% were active and 3.4% were dependent aged, in 1975, 26.9% belonged to the first group, 63.1% to the second and 107o to the third.

The changes in the composition of population in that country directly reflect social changes caused by changing birth and death rates. While changing death rates may reflect improvements in material conditions obtainable in a society, falling birth rates show a change of social attitudes.

Social influences affect the social environment, and it has been noticed that these influences spread to different societies, and in every society there are groups that become responsive to such influences so that changes in the social environment in one case will necessarily mean a similar change in another.

Now-a- days, in several Western countries a new study is being made on the influence of occupation upon the family. A British Report on the Fertility of Marriage according to the Census of England and Wales, published in 1923, shows that occupations and the size of the family can be regarded as correlated factors.

The following observations have been made in the Report:

(a) if the wives are employed, fertility is lower and the family tends to be of a small size;

(b) fertility will also be lower if the occupation of the couple or any of them involves the changing of locality and residence;

(c) if the professions to be taken up by the couple or any of them involve longer training periods, fertility is lower;

(d) if, however, physical exertion in the occupation of the parents or any of them is greater, fertility will be higher and families of manual labourers will in general be of a large size;

(e) if the occupations of the couple or any of them bring them into direct contact with the ‘upper classes’, as in cases of chauffeurs and waiters, fertility tends to remain on the lower side; and

(f) So far as the ‘mores’ are concerned, the birth place of the husband has more of influence than that of the wife upon the size of the family. There are few reasons to believe that these readings will not hold good in the latter half of the century.

According to Darwin’s thoughts, variations occur in sexual production and such variations or ‘mutations’ do not favour the survival of all the elements.

The less favourable are eliminated and the more favourable are encouraged and perpetuated. Again, the struggle for existence including the struggle for food and mates are making the conditions for survival so difficult that the doctrine of the ‘survival of the fittest’ necessitates serious consideration; and whoever is seen to survive amidst nature that is ‘red in tooth and claws’ will find his prominence according to the rule of natural selection.

The theory of ‘social selection’ is an advance upon the doctrine of natural selection in the social context. Human beings live in groups and associations which themselves condition the levels of living for them. We have noted above that occupation has their influence upon the family, and like-wise we may note mthat different occupations will have their impact upon conditions of survival. People in hazardous or menial occu­pation have less of chances of survival than those who are placed high.

Similarly, diverse customs and conventions operate in a society in a competitive manner; institutions and associations that have no strength of survival will perish and the stronger ones will grow, consolidate themselves and spread to other societies with the help of communication. Social selection, therefore, stands for the process which will create conditions for the rates of reproduction and survival of man in the social, rather than the natural, context.

Natural selection presents only one option to man. that is, life as opposed to death; while social selection gives several options in conditions of living, standards of mating, the demands of occupations and the like. Better living conditions may make better social living possible, and the chances of survival are better in terms of social selection.

The chances of survival are lessened when occupations are risky and accidental mutilation of limbs or the contracting of occupational diseases rise in incidence. Man has so designed his social life that conditions of mere natural selection do not guarantee his chances of survival; his social customs and conventions regulate his being to such an extent that the principle of social selection cannot be ignored.

Migration is yet another factor that conditions the structure of population in a country. Even from very ancient times, people have migrated from their country of origin to another, and on several occasions political persecution has been the cause behind such activity. Differences in religious thoughts have on numerous occasions led to migratory efforts, and as the recent Report submitted by the World Federation of Trade Unions on the question of immigration shows, poverty or repression can compel large numbers of people from undeveloped or politically unstable countries to migrate.

From India, too several persons yearly flock out into distant countries in search of jobs and a reasonable standard of living. Throughout the world, communi­cation conditions are so vastly improved that emigrants find it easier to travel now than when gypsies left our country in search of new homes.

Migration by itself may be a question for the politicians or the economist to ponder over, but to the sociologist its implications are of greater importance. Immigrants carry into the country of their adoption not only themselves, but the distinct personality combined with their own customs, associations and institutions.

The intermixture of the different social thoughts will have their direct impact upon the society and, at the sometime; the nature of the change that takes place in the composition of its population by reason of racial or cultural intermixing will have their significance. One must not forget that in geographical terms there is greater mobility now than was witnessed before and consequently there has been much of liberalization of thought in respect of racial purity.

Inter-racial or inter-group marriages are not considered to be undesirable, and the consequences of intermixing of peoples are of signal importance to the sociologist. The study of eugenics seeks to establish the measure of transmission of genetic qualities from the parent to the child, and these studies become more complex with the growth of human groups and classes formed as a result of intermixture. People adhering to different creeds or speaking different languages may thereby come closer to each other, and social change is consequently facilitated.

(3) The Cultural Factor:

The word ‘culture’ stands for all such beliefs, norms and standards that people in any society adhere to and become conscious of. Man differs from the animal in so far as he has a system of such values, norms and standards pertaining to his life while the lower forms of life bear their existence with the help of their general instincts.

Yet man’s beliefs, attitudes and standards do not apply to human kind in general without variations; it would rather be correct to hold that different groups of human conglomerations adhere to different forms of culture; and it is in this respect that the study of the cultural factor in the context of society becomes important.

Societies are different not only according to the factor of space; in terms of time too there are differences in the conditions of a single society; when time passes, any given society feels the passage of time in the modification of the very standards, norms and beliefs upon which its culture rests. As we make this statement, we must remember that the type of emphasis laid upon culture by spiritualists is different from that which materialists prefer.

In matters of social change, materialists take into account only such things as are of material importance while spiritualists consider morals, ideas and anything that pertains to faith. Not that there is no difference between the two aspects of culture, but society comprehends both, and one cannot be said to be the subject of complete study unless the other is also taken into account.

A study of history tells us, therefore, that material progress was not made in different societies for a considerable length of time for the simple reason that in such societies the level of non-material culture remained low. As long as India remained orthodox, progress in material terms was not considerable.

Unless thought is democratized, principles and ideals remain unchanged and stagnated culture consequently prevents any important degree of social change. Cultural advance necessarily signifies change in the social structure and such advance has to be basically in non-material terms, as an anthropologist would put it.

Non-material culture changes in the collective manner in the sense that the associations and the institutions in the society become the agents for such change. Social institutions are a reflection of the general will, and they help in harmonizing social activities by removing the causes of sectional conflicts whether by arbitration, by mediation or by persuasion. In harmonizing social interests and in integrating society, culture sifts the good and the ethical from the bad and the unethical and tries to give such integrated social interests a lasting character.

These institutions, whether religious, educational or cultural, help in removing superstitious and blind beliefs from society by rejuvenating thought, and consequently vast and significant changes are caused in material culture itself and life becomes dynamic.

However, changes in material culture can also affect non-material culture and result in a significant cultural shift that may be looked upon as social change. New inventions and innovations have in the past one hundred years raised the material standards of living, and distinct social change has been noticed in the institutionalization of division of labour and specialization of work, of the class structure in society along wealth and possession lines, and of the new urbanized way of living.

As a result, human beliefs, attitudes, habits and value-judgments have changed radically. These changes are reflected in the modern acceptance of the class structure on the basis of possession of wealth, and hereditary bases have been outmoded. Technological developments have made the individual more conscious about his individuality, and the formation of various voluntary associations for the purpose of engaging in purposive thoughts upon problems of the society and of the individual is indicative of such rising consciousness.

In fact, changes on material, as well as non-material, levels affect the society in which they are taking place, and if any imbalance between the two levels is noticed, the sociologist generally terms it as a ‘cultural lag’. Cultural lag is the inability of the society to adjust its non-material culture conditions with changing material culture.

However, a cultural lag can be as disturbing a factor under conditions of social charge as a ‘culture clash’ can be, and it cannot be maintained that the latter will have no relation whatsoever with conditions obtainable under the former. When a higher technology is introduced into a society, not only that the material culture thus imported will be of a different level than that of non-material culture in such society; but the situation may have ingrained in it a cultural clash.

In fact, higher technology as introduced in a developing country may at first meet with such resistance that the very cultural life in its society may be threatened; and conditions become more aggravated when the local population equates such higher material culture with an onslaught of imperialistic interests, as was the case in our own country when the ways of the West were first introduced.

However, it may not for a moment even be thought that social values are mere products of technology. As technology affects culture, culture in turn shapes technology and the sense of aesthetics or ethics may modify, limit or restrain the machine to more purposive ends.

Max Weber states in his Sociology of Religion that the economic system of a community will be influenced by its practical ethics and allied religious beliefs, just as Western capitalism has been influenced by the dictates of Protestantism.

Emancipated as we are from the bonds of traditional economic thoughts and principles, our Indian society with its peculiar religious beliefs and allied sense of ethics has conditioned its economic structure.

McIver and Page point out that cultural factor are important in social change in as much as cultural life makes a selection from the potentialities of material expression and consequently gives expression to its inherent cultural tradition in terms of valuations and styles. In free countries, the modes of living and group attitudes as indices of social change will therefore be different from those that nourish totalitarian thoughts.

(4) The Technological Factor:

Cultural life in a society is influenced by technology and social change results; and technology by itself can be regarded as a factor facilitating changes in society. Mechanization as an established attitude ushered in by the machine age has its own traditions and peculiar beliefs. Besides the changes occasioned in standards of living and the structure of social classes, technology and mechanization have changed values so radically that men now go more by quantity than by quality, by material measurement than by appreciation.

The changing process is so continuous in nature that while machine begins the work by altering standards and, therefore, cultural values, such newly acquired culture demands in turn the required change in the original machine itself. From new agricultural techniques, therefore, society has advanced the shape of technology in superfast forms of communications and in the reliance upon atomic science for the purpose.

Kingsley Davis maintains that technology as the most recent human skill and knowledge has been caused by a definite shift in men’s attitudes towards social values. He feels that development of technological knowledge and skill will be facilitated in societies that encourage competition and social mobility.

Thus, in societies in which the economic structure depends upon scientific division of labour and specialization will the chances of application of technology be better. Such division and specialization will help efficiency in production and consequent economic advancement. Old societies in which the traditional determined the mode of living did not foster competition and mobility, and the need for technological improvement was not felt.

Inventions and innovations were made in the past hundreds of years particularly after human thought was liberalized; and these inventions were caused by the interaction of several factors, some of which can be stated as follows:

(a) Human kind has a general instinct of curiosity and the desire to know the unknown brings about productive results when adventurous pursuits are aided by demands of necessity.

(b) Scientic knowledge advances in a correlated and a complementary manner in the sense that any advance in any one field of scientific knowledge will bring about developments in another.

When the Renaissance years in Europe took man to new lands on the globe, the widening of geographic knowledge came as a precursor to developments in other sciences. Hence, with geographical discoveries came the knowledge of new resources of nature and that in turn saw the beginnings of technological knowledge.

(c) Scientific knowledge brings utility when social mentality becomes receptive of new technological techniques. If social mentality is repugnant to the use of technology, further advances will not be possible; but if scientific training is imparted correctly and received with a liberal spirit, the innate quality of technology is such that improvements in techniques will build upon themselves and newer innovations come in the natural course.

Hence, developing countries with an inadequate system of scientific training keep lagging behind the developed ones in respect of latest innovations and most of the significant contributions of technology to mankind come from the West.

According to Ogburn, technological inventions improve the material culture of a society, particularly when a particular invention accommodates various modes of application of technology. He feels that the technological factor helps in occasioning social change in at least three different ways.

The first of these is termed as ‘Dispersion’ by him. Every scientific invention has its direct and indirect impacts upon society. For example, the use of electricity as energy has not only helped in the electrification of distant villages but helped in the diversification of small industries.

The indirect result of all this has been the raising of the standard of living as well as secularization of thoughts, beliefs and ideals. Secondly, different mechanical devices brought about by improved technology make cumulative changes in the society and this process of social change has been described by Ogburn as ‘convergence’.

Improvements made by technology have led to better communications systems, and the benefits of the radio, television and the other mass media have been so extended to different regions that as a result the urban centres have spread out into suburban areas in which people have looked for near similar comforts of urban conditions. The growth of the suburb is a distinct indirect consequence of the advance of technology.

The third mode in which technology brings about social changes has been termed as the ‘spiral’ by Ogburn; the same process has been described by other sociologists as the ‘circular cumulative accelerating process’. For example, if the facilities provided by technological developments are extended to the backward society or to the backward classes in society, spiral developments will take place.

In the initial stages, education will be liberalized and made universal. With better education facilities, opportunities enlarge themselves in scope, whether they relate to employment conditions or to general conditions under which wealth is acquired.

Consequently, social life as a whole improves, and social systems as they obtain after the Industrial Revolution have become considerably different from the old systems that had no touch of improved technology in them. The ‘spiral’ effects do not manifest themselves in luxury items like synthetic goods and labour saving devices, but their far-reaching impact has been felt in the changed family codes and mores and in the altered perspectives in which the sexes are placed in society.

Women have been emancipated and the role of the fair sex both at home under conditions of marriage and in public life has been changed. In the agricultural society, woman was a drudge in domestic terms and a helper in the field; advanced technology has made sure that this attitude be changed and it has been recognized that the woman can be as effective an agent as the man in efforts made; production of goods.

As in public life she has been placed on par with the male, and the relationship between husband and wife has been necessarily re-oriented. Similarly in another spiralling effect of the use of technology, the class of specialized trained for specialized labour has been inducted into society and a new stratification into classes has been made possible. These classes enjoy such status in society as is I warranted according to the degree of skill they are generally associated with in the | process of production.

Modern technology has impressed upon mankind such a high degree of its relevance and importance that some writers have held it to be a main determinant of social change. Subscribers to this deterministic view of social change include Karl Marx and Thorn stein Veblen. Marx looks at society quite characteristically on a materialistic basis.

Social relationships, according to him, are not basically different from economic relationships; and these relationships are determined by the power of economic production. It follows, therefore, that the stage of technological development reached in a society will determine the nature of the institution in the economic system that obtains in it, and also the mode of production and the human relationships.

The cultural life of man, including his intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic pursuits will reflect the economic order that pertains to him. Marx says that wherever ‘the material forces of production’ are subjected to any change, a necessary change would be brought about in the economic relationships in society, and the social structure will change.

At this stage, the changes necessary in the production processes will be held in restraint by the older generation with its built-up ideologies and vested interests. As a result, those that are so fettered will rise up to a consciousness about their plight and will overthrow the old order. Class struggles are, therefore, likely to continue until liberation from economic determinism is achieved.

Marx followed Hegel in explaining social evolution in the three stages of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. While Hegel maintains that through this process, reason or spirit fulfils itself in society, Marx uses ‘material conditions’ instead of spirit when he emphasizes the importance of the economic factor.

According to him, the economic order depends on the productive forces that develop into new forms. McIver and Page criticize this analysis and maintain that Marx’s ‘theory of value and its corollary of surplus value, his theory of the sole productivity of labour as such, and his law of the accumulation of capital are derived from an outmoded, abstract and narrow doctrine of the equivalence of price and cost which modern economic analysis rejects.’

The American writer, Thornstein Veblen presents an analysis that is clearly opposed to the ideas of Marx and Hegel. According to Veblen, man’s life is guided by his habituation to the type of work that he does and his mental discipline is formed along those lines. His work influences his thoughts, institutions, cultural and human relations, and distinct habits are formed.

Veblen points out that while instincts are common in all men, habits differ and, as such, differences in environment will account for the differences in the social structure. When man is habituated to his own work, his propensities to act are determined by habits that condition their expression.

Man is taken to feel and think according to the mode of his acts and, when he creates economic institutions for himself, these institutions appear as habitual methods of carrying on the life process of the community in connection with its material environment. Veblen finds that where ever social institutions are such that hierarchical conditions are created, the institutions fall in the hands of the upper classes and they maintain law and order.

The upper class has a set of discipline for itself which is different from the one that applies to the lower classes. The upper classes are devoted o social institutions that carry honour, prestige and responsibility. In Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, Caius Marcius emphasizes the correlation between upper class honour and upper class responsibility. Coriolanus states that plebeians do not deserve honour since they bear no responsibility.

The lower classes, according to Veblen, are kept for toilsome occupations that involve special techniques. The two classes are kept aloof from each other and hence two distinct cultures grow up in a society. That is, therefore, the picture of the feudalistic and the hierarchical society.

But as soon as technology enters the field of consideration in an industrial-democratic society, the importance of technique becomes felt everywhere and, according to Veblen’s theory of work- behaviour relationship, all behaviour becomes closely related to the same ‘work-day generalizations’. Industrial activities and industrial skill find their impression upon social attitudes and thoughts in the sense that all tend to think in terms of mechanisms, geometrical relations and standardized patterns. Veblen establishes the proposition that ‘the use and wont’ of everyday life in any occupation whatsoever is decisive in society.

Even Veblen’s analysis is not found to be satisfactory to sociologists, including McIver , who feels that every deterministic theory, be it Marxian or of Veblen, suffers from the defect that it refers to one factor only and gives it priority, instead of acknowledging the fact that a plurality of factors moulds the individual. Because of their exclusive concern with one particular factor, the determinist writers analyse reactions to such factor only; they ignore the possibility of interactions of factors.

Life and environment have a complex relationship, and there are noticeable interactions between man and his heritage and between his environment and aspirations. These complexities find no discussion and analysis with deterministic theories like those that are propounded by Marx and Veblen. Sociologists, who discard deterministic theories as inadequate, reinforce the argument that technology and, for that matter no factor alone, can bring about social changes.

(5) The Psychological Factor:

Some writers notice a psychological process in the formation of society and, according to them, human relations based on the consider­ations of the individual mind and the group mind shape and mould social systems. Therefore, when physical forces like floods, earthquakes and epidemics are considered as factors causing social change, the importance of the psychological factor in that regard cannot be ignored.

Human will, mentality and propensities keep their stamp upon social systems whether under conditions in which democratic institutions are nourished or in times when autocratic regimes are upheld with the sanction of the law. Sociologists have found in changing fashions in society an adequate justification of the view that the psychological factor does influence social change.

In psychological terms, fads and fashions indicate the human yearning never to remain satisfied with static factors; changes introducing a variety in life are spontaneously received by society.

A consideration of the following points will further strengthen the sociologists’ belief in the psychological factor concerning social change:

(a) The social processes that build up associative and dissociative attitudes in the individual and the group emphasize the importance of psychology in social change. The associative attitudes like accommodation, co-operation and assimilation can work important changes in society almost in the same way in which dissociative altitudes function in that regard.

When different groups learn to accommodate with each other, whether or not they extend their positive desires in the line of co­operation, old ideas, customs, beliefs and prejudices give way to a new order. Religious and caste hostilities of yesteryears have been removed in this manner, and this has been made possible primarily by a change of attitudes.

Assimilation of different social ways is an idealism, but thoughts and teachings of social reformer inspire humanity in such a manner that a complete demolition of differential barriers between man and man does not look like an impossibility. In this regard, one can venture to say that knowledge and thinking upon the point is clear; what remains wanting is the consolidation of attitudes along those lines.

Dissociative attitudes like conflict in crude terms, or competition in the more refined manner, help social change in so far as they encourage development with the aim of establishing one’s superiority, whether the consciousness of remaining above attaches to an individual or to a nation as a whole.

Modern technological developments have been the net result of such competitive efforts; and even when marked disparity is noticed between groups, communities or nations as to levels of material development forces of conflict and competition can be taken to account for it.

Conflicts of ideas can to some extent help progress, for they facilitate the processes of trial and error but when conflicts and competitions take destructive turns, groups and communities may suffer repression or even annihilation and the social structure experiences an imbalance. Again, when dissociative attitudes find a free play according to the dictates of institutions in a society, a suppressed class emerges and causes a distinct cleavage in it.

Plebeians, serfs, untouchables and the like are examples that tell the same story of having their origins in conflict and hatred. Subsequently when preachers and educators loudly pronounce the superiority of the human being over institutions made by him, the corresponding changes in attitudes apologetically admit the futility of perpetrating such cleavage and suitable amends are made. The contemporary level or progress made in human social relations is a manifestation of the relevant change in attitudes and the liberalization of thoughts.

(b) Social values are not fixed and rigid in any case, and every society accommodates new conditions that arise with a shift in such values. Ancient India upheld the attitudes of plain living and high thinking; but in modern times Indian society has allowed to itself the pursuit for material excellence and the very yardstick for measuring social eligibility of the individual has been altered.

Today, the generally accepted value is based on quantitative arguments rather than on qualitative ones. With improvements in communication systems, ways of a society can be uprooted and transplanted in another; and the latter society introduces changes at a faster speed than the former one.

(c) The basic philosophy of human life has never remained the same and over the ages man has been busy in scanning the attributes that make life purposeful. Thoughts in this regard have varied from collectivism to socialism or individualism. At times, the society is sought to be placed above the individual.

When this effort is made in combination with generous instincts, the political administration seeks to establish a welfare state in the society concerned; but when the idea is adopted more as a dogma than as a practical approach to life, totalitarian trends are noticed and basic human values suffer. Therefore, the advocates of individualism place individual interests above those of the society as a collective entity, and the resultant modification of attitudes alters the social structure considerably.

Individualistic thoughts directly affect the family in the initial stages, and then come significant changes in the modus operandi of the different social associations and groups. Our own century has seen changes introduced by both individualistic and collectivist thoughts, but one cannot maintain with utmost certainty that any one of these approaches is beneficially superior to the other.

(d) Mans fundamental instinct for aesthetics can time and again prepare him and his society for signal social changes. The human being has an innate flair for constantly reviewing his likings and fixations and, in this process, he seeks to preserve the beautiful and the ethical and discard the ugly and the morally deficient. His march from primitive conditions to present conditions of refinement cannot but convincingly establish the truth of this observation.

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