Tradition and Modernity: Misplaced Polarities in the Study of Social Change

Author(s): Joseph R. Gusfield

Source: American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 72, No. 4 (Jan., 1967), pp. 351-362
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2775860
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 Tradition and Modernity: Misplaced Polarities
in the Study of Social Change'
Joseph R. Gusfield

ABSTRACT
"Tradition" and "modernity" are widely used as polar opposites in a linear theory of social change.
This theory is examined in the light of Indian and other materials on development. Seven fallacies in
this contrast usage are presented. It is incorrect to view traditional societies as static, normatively con-
sistent, or structurally homogeneous. The relations between the traditional and the modern do not
necessarily involve displacement, conflict, or exclusiveness. Modernity does not necessarily weaken
tradition. Both tradition and modernity form the bases of ideologies and movements in which the polar
opposites are converted into aspirations, but traditional forms may supply support for, as well as
against, change.

While riding the Kodama express from assumption in this model of change is that
Tokyo to Kyoto several years ago, I saw existing institutions and values, the con-
what might be taken as a symbolic expres- tent of tradition, are impediments to
sion of transitional development. The Japa- changes and are obstacles to moderniza-
nese passenger in the seat across from mine tion. It is with this assumption that our
had made himself comfortable during his paper is concerned. We wish to call atten-
nap by unlacing his shoes and pulling his tion to the manifold variations in the rela-
socks partly off. Half in and half out of tion between traditional forms and new
both shoes and socks, he seemed to make a institutions and values, variations whose
partial commitment to the Western world possibilities are either denied or hidden by
which his clothing implied. One could only the polarity of the traditional-modern mod-
wonder about his future direction either el of social change. We want, further, to
back into his shoes and socks or out of explore the uses of tradition and modernity
them and into sandals and bare feet. as explicit ideologies operating in the con-
This particular example has been chosen text of politics in new nations. Our mate-
because it accentuates the idea of change rials are largely drawn from modern India,
in contemporary new nations and economi- although we shall refer to other Asian and
cally growing societies as one which entails African countries as well.
a linear movement from a traditional past The concepts of economic development
toward a modernized future.2 A significant and of economic modernization have now
been generalized to many areas of national
'Presented at the annual meeting of the Amer-
ican Sociological Association, Chicago, September life by social scientists. There is now a dis-
2, 1965. cussion of communication development, ed-
2There is a wide literature analyzing concepts ucational development, and, most widely
of tradition and modernity or development. Lead- used, of political development.3 While these
ing efforts to conceptualize these societal types are sometimes used to relate specific insti-
are W. W. Rostov, The Stages of Economic tutions to economic growth and develop-
Growth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1960); Gabriel Almond and James Coleman, The 8See the various volumes published by Prince-
Politics of Developing Areas (Princeton, N.J.: ton University Press under the series title "Studies
Princeton University Press, 1960), chap. i; Daniel in Political Development." Also see A. F. K.
Lerner, The Passing of Traditional Society (Glen- Organski, The Stages of Political Development
coe, Ill.: Free Press, 1958), chaps. ii, iii. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1965).

351

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 352 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
ment as possible correlative influences or fect of unilinear theories. They make An-
effects, they are also utilized as independ- glo-American political forms either inevita-
ent concepts. Some writers have viewed ble or necessarily superior outcomes of
political modernization as implying the political processes in new nations. Func-
necessary framework within which nation- tional theories of political and economic
hood can be achieved and operate. Others development now seem less viable.5 An
have seen certain institutions and political emphasis on what Shils calls the issue of
values as inherently valuable and legiti- consensus at the macrosociological level
mate perspectives toward change.4 leads to a concern for how pre-existing val-
At the same time that the concept of ues and structures can provide bases for
development has become generalized, a identification with and commitment to larg-
large number of specific studies of new er social frameworks than those of segmen-
nations (many to be discussed here) have tal groups and primordial loyalties.6 Here
made us aware of the wide variety of out- traditional symbols and leadership forms
comes and possibilities for change and con- can be vital parts of the value bases sup-
tinuity. These have led to a more critical porting, modernizing frameworks.
appreciation of the many possible interre- In exploring the concepts of tradition
lations between new and old aspects of so- and modernity we shall discuss the assump-
cial, economic, and political life. The view tions of conflict between them. These as-
that tradition and innovation are necessari- sumptions are inconsistent with recent
ly in conflict has begun to seem overly studies which will reveal a wide range of
abstract and unreal. possible alternatives and show that "tradi-
In the study of economic growth we have tion" is a more specific and ambiguous phe-
come to be aware that Weber's conception nomenon than usually realized.
of traditional versus rational economic be-
havior is a great distortion of the realities FALLACIES IN THE ASSUMPTIONS OF THE
TRADITIONAL-MODERN POLARITY
of many concrete situations. In the study
of political alternatives and possibilities we In assuming that new economic and politi-
have become sensitive to the reifying ef- cal processes face an unchanging and uni-
form body of institutional procedures and
' We can distinguish several different uses of cultural values, the linear theory of change
the concept "political development." Sometimes it
is used as functional to economic development.
greatly distorts the history and variety of
Here the writer seeks to determine the political civilizations. In this section we will ex-
conditions essential to support effective economic amine seven assumptions of this theory and
change. For one example, see Wilfred Malenbaum, indicate the difficulties in its use.
"Economic Factors and Political Development,"
Annals, CCCLVIII (March, 1965), 41-51; in the
FALLACY I: DEVELOPING SOCIETIES HAVE BEEN
same volume, Lucien Pye uses the concept as in-
STATIC SOCIETIES
dependent of economic forms but gives it a sub-
stantive content (see Pye, "The Concept of Polit- It is fallacious to assume that a tradi-
ical Development," Annals, CCCLVIII [March,
tional society has always existed in its pres-
1965]). Shils gives the concept of "modernity" a
meaning closer to that of a goal toward which ent form or that the recent past represents
political elites aspire. This makes concern for a an unchanged situation. What is seen to-
given state of society a perspective rather than
Moore has suggested that we now know that
an empirical theory and is thus closer to the use
a variety of political forms are capable of both
we make of it in the last section of this paper.
congruence and conflict with economic develop-
"Our central concern will be with the vicissitudes
ment (Wilbert Moore, Social Change [Englewood
of the aspiration toward the establishment of a
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1963], p. 112).
political society" (Edward Shils, "On the Com-
parative Study of the New States," in C. Geertz 'This is a major problem discussed in Clifford
[ed.], Old Societies and New States [New York: Geertz (ed.), op. cit. See especially papers by Shils,
Free Press, 1963], pp. 1-26, at p. 6). Geertz, D. Apter, and M. Marriott.

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 TRADITION AND MODERNITY 353
day and labeled as the "traditional soci- FALLACY 2: TRADITIONAL CULTURE IS A CON-
ety" is often itself a product of change. SISTENT BODY OF NORMS AND VALUES

The conquests of foreign powers and the In elaborating the distinction and inter-
growth of social and cultural movements action between the "great tradition" of
deeply influenced the character of family urban centers and the "little tradition" of
life, religious belief and practice, and social village communities, anthropologists have
structure in India over many centuries.7 called our attention to the diversity and
Islamic civilization provided vital alterna- the existence of alternatives in what has
tives to caste and to political groupings. been supposed to be a uniform body of
The impact of British culture and institu- rules and values. We must avoid accepting
tions has been immense.8 Even India's caste the written and intellectualized versions of
system has by no means been a fixed and a culture as only the literate form of a com-
invariant system.9 mon set of beliefs and behavior patterns.
The conception of India as a non-indus- The distinction between "popular" religion
trial and agricultural society, only now and the religion of the literati elite has long
opened to industrialism, also needs revision. been a recognition of this difficulty in char-
The decline of native Indian industries in acterizing the "religion" of a society.1'
the late eighteenth and early nineteenth Even within the literate forms of a tra-
centuries was a consequence of the protec- dition, inconsistency and opposition are
tion of British textile manufacturers, then marked; the Sermon on the Mount and
spearheading the Industrial Revolution in The Wealth of Nations are both part of
England. The shift of both rural and urban Western culture. Catholicism and Protes-
artisans to the land was an important in- tantism are Christian religions, and even
gredient in the buildup of an agricultural within the single Church of Peter, diverse
surplus population. Even the system of monastic orders have expressed a catho-
land tenure in existence just before inde- licity of values. Hindu philosophical and
pendence was the product of fairly recent religious teaching is consistent with a num-
changes.'0 To speak of the traditional feu- ber of diverse orientations to life. The
dal structure of India is to confuse recent
"0R. C. Dutt, Economic History of India (Lon-
history with past history. Tradition has
don: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1908), pp. 32, 261;
been open to change before its present en- S. Bhattacharya, East India Company and the
counters with the West and with purpose- Economy of Bengal (London: Luzac, 1954), pp.
ful, planned change. 158-59; Vikas Misra, Hinduism and Economic
Growth (London: Oxford University Press, 1962),
7For a critical analysis and refinement of those chap. iii; Milton Singer, "Changing Craft Tradi-
views of India based on Hindu scriptures, as were tions in India," in W. Moore and A. Feldman
those of Max Weber, see M. N. Srinivas, Caste in (eds.), Labor Commitment and Social Change
Modern India (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, in Development Areas (New York: SSRC, 1960),
1962), especially Introduction and chaps. i and pp. 258-76; Neil Smelser, Social Change in the
xii. A similar point is made in Harold Gould, "The Industrial Revolution (Chicago: University of
West's Real Debt to the East," Quest (January- Chicago Press, 1959), pp. 109-16; Robert Fryken-
March, 1962), pp. 31-39. burg, "Traditional Processes of Power: Land Con-
trol in Andrha" (Paper presented to the meeting
'Percival Spears, India (Ann Arbor: University of the Association for Asian Studies Society,
of Michigan Press, 1960); Charles Heimsath, Washington, D.C., 1964); Daniel Thorner, The
Indian Nationalism and Hindu Social Reform Agrarian Prospect in India (Delhi: University
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, Press, 1956).
1964), chap. i; Srinivas, op. cit., chap. v; Gould,
op. cit.
'In a study of religious behavior among low-
caste sweepers, Pauline Kolenda has recently pre-
9Srinivas, op. cit.; Bernard Cohn, "Power, Land sented a vivid picture of the differences in the
and Social Relations in 19th Century Banaras" Hinduism of higher and of lower social levels
(Paper presented at meeting of the American ("Religious Anxiety and Hindu Fate," Journal of
Asian Studies Society, Washington, D.C., 1964). Asian Studies, XXIII [June, 1964], 71-82).

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 354 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
doctrine of the four ashramas, for example, growth, innovation, and entrepreneurial be-
conceives of the good life as one in which havior.15 The Jews in Europe, the Muslims
men pursue different values at different in West Africa, the Chinese in Indonesia,
stages in the life cycle.'2 and the East Indians in East Africa are
The importance of this diversity is that examples of groups whose marginality has
it provides legitimizing principles for a wide rendered them able to engage in the imper-
set of alternative forms of behavior. This sonality of market behavior and to remain
point has been rather convincingly made aloof from the status consumption demands
in the recent discussion of economic devel- of the indigenous population. In India, the
opment and cultural values in India.13 Parsees and the Jains have been potent car-
Neither the behavior of popular religion riers of economic innovation and the devel-
nor teachings of the scriptures are devoid opment of large-scale industrial production.
of moral bases for materialistic motivations Generalizations about the anti-economic
or for disciplined and rational pursuit of character of the Hindu traditions lose sight
wealth. Everyone need not be a sadhu of the provision for specific groups which
(holy man) at all times. are ethically capable of carrying a logic
of economic growth and change. Within the
FALLACY 3: TRADITIONAL SOCIETY IS A
caste system of Hinduism, the untoucha-
HOMOGENEOUS SOCIAL STRUCTURE
bles have been able to perform tabooed oc-
Like other societies, Indian society has cupations necessary to the economy. Other
institutionalized different styles of life in castes have developed traditions of business
different groups, both within and without and commerce which, although dishonored
the caste system. Such divisions of labor in Hindu "tradition," are permissible and
make it possible for specific communal and even obligatory for the Marwari, the Chet-
status groups to be the bearers of traditions tiar, and the Baniya. It is their very legiti-
which differ from the dominant streams yet mation within existing structure that per-
enable valued social functions to be per- mits their acceptance and implementation
formed. While Weber referred to "the Prot- of innovating economic behavior.
estant ethic," the specific sects who carried
the ethic were by no means typical of all FALLACY 4: OLD TRADITIONS ARE DISPLACED
Protestant groups.'4 The role of foreign BY NEW CHANGES

and pariah peoples has often been com- The capacity of old and new cultures
mented upon as a source of economic and structures to exist without conflict and
For a description of the doctrine of Ashramas, even with mutual adaptations is a frequent
see K. M. Sen, Hinduism (London: Penguin phenomenon of social change; the old is not
Books, 1961), chap. iii. necessarily replaced by the new. The ac-
13 Milton Singer, "Cultural Values in India's ceptance of a new product, a new religion,
Economic Development," Annals, CCCV (May, a new mode of decision-making does not
1956), 81-91. See the clash of viewpoints among
necessarily lead to the disappearance of the
Goheen, Singer, and Srinivas in the discussion of
"India's Cultural Values and Economic Develop- older form. New forms may only increase
ment," Economic Development and Cultural the range of alternatives. Both magic and
Change, VIII (October, 1958), 1-13. Vikas Misra medicine can exist side by side, used alter-
(op. cit.), similarly to Singer and Srinivas, does
natively by the same people.
not see the cultural elements of Hinduism as an
impediment to economic growth. ISheldon Stryker, "Social Structure and Preju-
I For an account of the atypicality of Quaker dice," Social Problems, VI (1959), 340-54;
economic rationality among American colonials, Bert Hoselitz, "Main Concepts in the Analysis of
see F. B. Tolles, Meeting House and Counting the Social Implications of Technical Change," in
House; The Quaker Merchants of Colonial Phila- Hoselitz and Moore, Industrialization and Society
delphia, 1682-1763 (Chapel Hill: University of (New York: UNESCO, 1963), pp. 11-29, espe-
North Carolina Press, 1948). cially pp. 24-28.

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 TRADITION AND MODERNITY 355
The syncretism of inconsistent elements lectivistic orientation, and a high degree of
has long been noted in the acceptance of vertical immobility have been factors sup-
religious usages and beliefs. Paganism and porting social and economic change in the
Catholicism have often achieved a mutual Japanese context while they appear to have
tolerance into a new form of ritualism been factors producing resistance in the
drawn from each in Spanish-speaking coun- individualistic culture of the West. In this
tries.16 The "great tradition" of the urban context the hardened commitment of labor
world in India has by no means pushed to a specific employer operated to pro-
aside the "little tradition" of the village mote economic growth while the same proc-
as they made contact. Interaction has led ess appeared an impediment in the West.19
to a fusion and mutual penetration.1" We Traditional structures can supply skills,
have become increasingly aware that the and traditional values can supply sources of
outcome of modernizing processes and tra- legitimation which are capable of being
ditional forms is often an admixture in utilized in pursuit of new goals and with
which each derives a degree of support from new processes. In one Indonesian town,
the other, rather than a clash of opposites. Geertz found the sources of economic ex-
pansion largely among the prijaji, the Mus-
FALLACY 5: TRADITIONAL AND MODERN FORMS
lim group representing new forces in re-
ARE ALWAYS IN CONFLICT
ligion as well as in business. In another
The abstraction of a "traditional society" town, the source of economic innovation
as a type separate from a specific historical and business expansion was in the tradi-
and cultural setting ignores the diversity of tional nobility. The prijaji could build on,
content in specific traditions which influ- but were also hampered by, the character-
ence the acceptance, rejection, or fusion of istics of the bazaar modes of trading and
modernist forms. Japan is unlike the West- the closed social networks of a pariah
ern societies in the ways in which "feudal- group. The traditional nobility, however,
ism" and industrial development have been was well equipped to form a business class
fused to promote economic growth.18 Com- through the wide social networks and the
mitment to emperor and to family, a col- strength of their authority, which rested on
" For one account of such syncretisms, see Rob- a traditional base.20
ert Redfield, The Folk Culture of Yucatan (Chi- Anthropologists have made the same
cago: University of Chicago Press, 1941), chap. point in connection with problems of selec-
ix.
tive culture change. One traditional cul-
17 "While elements of the great tradition have ture may possess values more clearly con-
become parts of local festivals, they do not appear
gruent with modernization than another;
to have entered village festival custom 'at the
expense of' much that is or was the little tradi- another may cling more tenaciously to its
tion. Instead we see evidence of accretion in a old ways than another. Ottenberg's study
transmutation form without apparent replace-
ment and without rationalization of the accumu- 'For a description and analysis of labor com-
lated and transformed elements" (McKim Marri- mitment in Japan, see James Abegglen, The Jap-
ott, "Little Communities in an Indigenous Civili- anese Factory (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1958);
zation," in M. Marriott [ed.] Village India [Chi- Solomon B. Levine, Industrial Relations in Post-
cago: University of Chicago Press, 1955], p. 196). war Japan (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
1958), chap. ii. Richard Lambert describes a simi-
8For some analyses of this phenomenon in Ja-
lar process operating in western India but sees it
pan, see Reinhard Bendix, Nation-Building and
as a possible impediment to economic growth
Citizenship (New York: John Wiley & Sons,
(Lambert, Workers, Factories and Social Change
1965), chap. vi; Robert Scalapino, "Ideology and
in India [Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Modernization: The Japanese Case," in D. Apter
Press, 1963], especially chap. iii and pp. 214-21).
(ed.), Ideology and Discontent (New York: Free
Press, 1965), pp. 93-127; Everett Hagen, On the ' Clifford Geertz, "Social Change and Economic
Theory of Social Change (Homewood, Ill.: Dor- Modernization in Two Indonesian Towns," in
sey Press, 1962), chap. xiv. Hagen, op. cit., chap. xvi.

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356 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
of tribes in West Africa found them able on the part of castes to become mobile, to
to accept and utilize the British culture in attempt improvements in their material as
Nigeria to a much greater extent than was well as their ritual position are by no
true of the other major Nigerian tribes. means new to Indian life. The expanded
The Ibo's system of voluntary associations, scope of regional castes, the development
coupled with their values of individualism of caste associations, and the importance
and achievement, adapted them well to the
of castes in politics are not impediments to
kinds of opportunities and demands which
economic growth.24 They enable credit fa-
British colonialism brought. In contrast,
cility, occupational sponsorship and train-
the Masai in East Africa are a notorious
ing, and political influence to be made
case of resistance to culture change, fiercely
upholding existing ways with very little
available on a basis of segmental, tradi-
accommodation.2' tional loyalties. This brings an element of
trust and obligation into an economic con-
FALLACY 6: TRADITION AND MODERNITY ARE text where suspicion and distrust are other-
MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE SYSTEMS wise frequently the rule between persons
A given institution or cultural system unconnected by other ties than the "pure-
contains several aspects or dimensions. ly" economic.
Each dimension does not function in the Studies of the impact of industrialization
same way in response to new influences on on family life in preindustrial and primi-
a society. Tradition and modernity are fre- tive societies similarly indicate the com-
quently mutually reinforcing, rather than patibility of extended family forms with
systems in conflict. industrialism.25 In the context of Indian
Earlier theories of economic growth economic growth, the large extended fam-
viewed extended family systems and caste
ilies of the Tatas, Birlas, and Dalmias are
structure as impediments to economic
among the most striking instances of major
growth.22 We now recognize, however, that
industrial organizations growing out of and
such relations are complex and can vary
supported by traditional family units.
from one context to another. Caste as an
Berna's study of entrepreneurship in Ma-
unalloyed impediment to economic growth
has been much exaggerated through failing dras provides additional information, among
to balance its role in the division of labor small businesses, of the extended family as
and in caste mobility (one dimension) ' This is a major conclusion of V. Misra, op.
against its tendencies toward status de- cit.
mands as limitations on desire to accumu-
' Caste associations and caste loyalties appear
late capital (a second dimension) .23 Efforts to be important sources of social support in urban
India and are growing in size and number (see
21 Simon Ottenberg, "Ibo Receptivity to Change," Srinivas, op. cit.; M. Weiner, The Politics of
in M. Herskovits and W. Bascom, Continuity and Scarcity (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1962),
Change in African Culture (Chicago: University chap. iii; Bernard Cohn, "Changing Traditions of
of Chicago Press, 1959), pp. 130-43; Harold a Low Caste," Journal of American Folklore,
Schneider, "Pakot Resistance to Change," ibid., LXXI (July-September, 1958), 413-21; Lloyd
pp. 144-67. Also see the description and analysis
and Suzanne Rudolph, "The Political Role of In-
of labor commitment in East Africa in A. Elkin
dia's Caste Associations," Pacific Affairs, XXXIII
and L. Fallers, "The Mobility of Labor," in
(March, 1960), 5-22.
W. Moore and A. Feldman, op. cit., pp. 238-54.
2 William Goode, "Industrialization and Fam-
22 For a generalized statement of this view,
ily Change," in B. Hoselitz and W. Moore, op.
stressing an open system of social mobility as a
prerequisite for economic growth, see Kingsley cit., chap. xii; Jean Comhaire, "Economic Change
Davis, "The Role of Class Mobility in Economic and the Extended Family," Annals, CCCV (May,
Development," Population Review, VI (July, 1956), 45-52; Manning Nash, Machine Age Maya
1962), 67-73. (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1958).

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 TRADITION AND MODERNITY 357
a major source of savings and capital ac- have not been part of the educational
cumulation.26 structure in the past now utilize it to gain
The role of traditional values in the form status increases as well as jobs. This is of
of segmental loyalties and principles of great importance in a nation attempting to
legitimate authority are of great impor- draw formerly isolated groups into a na-
tance in understanding the possibilities for tional identity.29
the occurrence of unified and stable polities
at a national level. The contemporary In- FALLACY 7: MODERNIZING PROCESSES
WEAKEN TRADITIONS
dian political process utilizes caste, village,
and religious community as basic segmental This discussion of Indian education sug-
groups through which the individual and gests that new institutions and values may,
the family are drawn into modern political and often do, fuse and interpenetrate the
institutions. Primary ties of kinship and old. In his influential paper on caste mobil-
clan are in process of fusion to centralized ity, M. N. Srinivas has shown that, while
structures of national, participative poli- higher social levels appear to be "western-
tics.27 izing" their life styles, when lower and mid-
The "stuff" of much modern politics in dle levels seek mobility they do so by be-
India is itself drawn from the pre-existing coming more devotedly Hinduistic, follow-
struggles between caste, religion, region, ing more Brahminical styles, and otherwise
and economic groupings. We have become Sanskritizing their behavior.30 The fluidity
aware that much of what appears to be introduced by political competition under
ideological and economic conflict in Indian independence and democracy becomes har-
politics is actuated and bolstered by strug- nessed to a more traditional orientation.
gles for social and economic position among The technological consequences of in-
the various caste groups.28 creased transportation, communication, lit-
The setting of traditional and pre-exist- eracy, and horizontal mobility, in further-
ing conflicts in the context of new institu- ing the spread of ideas, also intensifies the
tions is crucial to understanding Indian spread and influence of the "great tradi-
educational change. Critics of Indian edu- tion" into more and more communities and
cation often point to the intensive desire across various social levels.3' Pilgrimages
for humanistic curriculums among both ed- to distant shrines become easier and enable
ucators and students, contrasting this with
'The social composition of university students
the presumed necessities of technical and
in India shows a very high preponderance of high
agricultural skills in economic development. castes in the student bodies, although leveling
They fail to see that the politics of egali- processes are at work. This situation, and its sig-
tarianism revolves around the quest for nificance is described in my forthcoming "Equal-
ity and Education in India," in Joseph Fisher
status in traditional terms. Groups that
[ed.], Social Science and the Comparative Study
28 James Berna, "Patterns of Entrepreneurship of Educational Systems (Scranton, Pa.: Interna-
in South India," Economic Development and Cul- tional Textbook Publishers, 1967). For a general
tural Change, VII (April, 1959), 343-62. analysis of Indian higher education,see Allen Grim-
shaw, "National Goals, Planned Social Change
7 This is a dominant theme in contemporary
and Higher Education: The Indian Case," in R.
discussion of Indian politics (Joseph Gusfield,
Feldmesser and B. Z. Sobel, Education and Social
"Political Community and Group Interests in
Change (New York: John Wiley & Sons, in press).
Modern India," Pacific Affairs, XXXVI [Summer,
1965], 123-41, and the literature cited there). " "Sanskritization and Westernization," in Sri-
nivas, op. cit.
28 "The 'revolution of rising expectations' is in
reality an explosion of social competition . . . not 31McKim Marriott, "Changing Channels of Cul-
aimed at American, British or Russian living stand- tural Transmission in Indian Civilization," in L.
ards, but are demands by one group for improve- P. Vidyarthi (ed.), Aspects of Religion in Indian
ment . . . vis-a-vis another group within India" Society (Meerut: Kedar Nath Ram Nath, 1961),
(Weiner, op. cit., p. 71). pp. 13-25.

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358 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
the conception of a unified, national reli- policy. In Scalapino's apt phrase, intel-
gion to take firmer root. Caste groups can lectuals in new nations utilize "teleologi-
now be formed on regional and even na- cal insight"-the assumed ability to read
tional lines, buttressed by associational life the future of their own society by pro-
and written journals. The spread of com- jecting it in accordance with the experience
munity development and of educational fa- and trends of "advanced" nations.34 Such
cilities brings in its wake new, semiurban insight operates as a crucial determinant in
personnel who carry the Sanskritic tradi- developing goals, but it too is a creation of
tions fully as much, if not more so, than choice among possibilities, not a fixed and
they do the westernizing influences.32 The self-evident set of propositions.
communities of the "little tradition" are, in The desire to be modern and the desire
fact, more open to such traditional winds to preserve tradition operate as significant
of change than to wholly new movements. movements in the new nations and develop-
The holy men and the wandering players ing economies. It is our basic point here
who carry religious messages and dramas that these desires, functioning as ideologies,
drawn from the Hindu great traditions are are not always in conflict; that the quest
more likely to effect attention than the for modernity depends upon and often
movies.33 finds support in the ideological upsurge of
traditionalism. In this process, tradition
TRADITION, IDEOLOGY, AND NATIONHOOD
may be changed, stretched, and modified,
Tradition is not something waiting out but a unified and nationalized society
there, always over one's shoulder. It is makes great use of the traditional in its
rather plucked, created, and shaped to pres- search for a consensual base to political
ent needs and aspirations in a given his- authority and economic development.
torical situation. Men refer to aspects of
the past as tradition in grounding their TRADITION AND NATIONAL UNIFICATION

present actions in some legitimating prin- Writing about African intellectuals in

ciple. In this fashion, tradition becomes the formerly French colonies, Immanuel
an ideology, a program of action in which Wallerstein remarks that these parts of
it functions as a goal or as a justificatory Africa are the chief centers for the ideo-
base. The concern for tradition as an ex- logical development of "Negritude"-the
plicit policy is not an automatic response to preservation and development of a unique-
change but is itself a movement capable of ly indigenous African culture.35 Here, where
analysis. the intellectuals were trained in the French
In similar fashion, to be "modern" ap- language and where they fully accepted
pears in many new nations as an aspir- the French culture, it is necessary to iden-
ation toward which certain groups seek to tify and discover a national cultural tradi-
move the society. "Modern" becomes a per- tion and to self-consciously aid its develop-
ceived state of things functioning as a cri- ment. In a similar fashion, an Indian col-
terion against which to judge specific ac- league of mine once remarked that "Indians
tions and a program of actions to guide are obsessed with Indianness."
Many observers have noted the phenome-
32 The schoolteacher, in these decades of expand-
ing primary education, is a source of Sanskritic as non of the revival of indigenous tradition
well as Western influences. See David Mandel- as a phase of nationalistic and independ-
baum's account in "The World and the World ence movements, especially where intellec-
View of the Koda," in M. Marriott (ed.), Village
India, pp. 223-54, especially pp. 239 ff. ' Scalapino, op. cit., p. 106.
3 John Gumperz, "Religion as a Form of Com- ' Immanuel Wallerstein, Africa-the Politics of
munication in North India," Journal of Asian Independence (New York: Vintage Books, 1961),
Studies, XXIII (June, 1964), 89-98. pp. 75-76.

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 TRADITION AND MODERNITY 359
tuals had come to look to some other coun- ilization ignore the ways in which Hin-
try as a basic source of new values.36 Such duism and Indian family life exert strong
reactions have set in among Russian intel- pulls as continuing aspects of Indian life,
lectuals against France in the nineteenth even where highly westernized. Almost
century, among the Indonesians against the always the Indian intellectual speaks a
Dutch, among the Japanese against Eu- regional language as his mother tongue,
rope; and against the British among the is steeped in classic Sanskrit literature, and
Indians both during and after the struggle is deeply tied to an extended family. Paren-
for independence. The Indian intellectuals, tal arrangement is still the very domi-
westernized and European in cultural orien- nant mode of marital selection, and he is
tation, underwent a renaissance of tradi- often married to a highly traditional wife.38
tional Hinduism as one aspect of the strug- Independence, even within the western-
gle against colonial dominion.37 Despite ized circles, has given continuing support
their general commitment to modernization to a movement toward the recapturing of
(often against the British post-Sepoy re- Hindu folklore and the furtherance of tra-
bellion policy of maintaining native cus- dition as a source of national unity in a
tom), a recrudescence of Indian national common culture. What Indian book or
identity was partially fostered by explicit journal does not have its section that links
adoption of customs and styles which were modern thought or institutions to ana-
both traditional and closer to popular be- logues in Hindu scripture? How often is
havior. It was this ideology which Gandhi the romanticization of the village and the
gave to the movement, even as he sought rejection of the city not found among
the abolition of many features of that tra- vigorous exponents of political democracy
dition. and economic change? This ideological
The issue of the nationalist movement construction of Indian tradition is offered
is not abated in its victory. For the new as a "great tradition," and this Indian
elites of newly independent nations, the populism is found among intellectual and
issue is not so much that of overcoming urbanized elites as it is in the provincial
tradition but of finding ways of synthe- and peasant villages.
sizing and blending tradition and moder- Nationalism is deeply committed to both
nity. While it is now possible for the urban- horns of the dilemma of tradition and mo-
ized and intellectual elite to wear Saville dernity. The effort to define a national her-
Row and avoid the clothes of Chowri Ba- itage in the form of a set of continuing tra-
zaar without being a traitor, the issues of ditions is also a way of coping with the
personal integrity and of political functions wide gap that separates elite and mass,
still remain. city and village, region and region in the
Those who depict the elites in India Indian context. It is a complement to the
as cut off from roots in an indigenous civ- modernizing processes which are involved
in the aspiration toward a unified nation.
"6 Ibid., chap. vii; John Kautsky, Political
Change in Underdeveloped Areas (New York: A common culture that cuts across the seg-
John Wiley & Sons, 1962), pp. 53-54; Heimsath, mental and primordial loyalties is a basis
op. cit., chap. xii; Mary Mattosian, "Ideologies of for national identity and consensus. With-
Delayed Industrialization," Economic Develop- out it, the modernization based on nation-
ment and Cultural Change (April, 1958), pp. 217-
28.
hood lacks a foundation for legitimating
central authority.
87This "revivalist" stream was only one of the
In describing these movements we are
major themes in Indian nationalism, but it had a
great impact throughout the movement (Heim- ' Shils has made this point in his study of In-
sath, op. cit.; A. R. Desai, Social Background of dian intellectuals (Edward Shils, The Intellectual
Indian Nationalism [Bombay: Popular Book De- between Tradition and Modernity [The Hague:
pot, 1959], chaps. xiii, xviii). Mouton & Co., 19611, especially pp. 60-67).

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 360 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
not referring to efforts to pit tradition autonomy and participation in India rests
against modernity. This is certainly to be both on the growing political power of
discovered in populist and aristocratic village communities and the ideological
movements which call for the rejection of force which has recreated a tradition of
economic growth and the resistance or abo- Indian village democracy. In the various
lition of imported institutions and values. proposals for a system of Panchayati Raj
In India this can be seen in the xenophobic (movement toward greater local power in
and militant Hinduism which character- economic decisions at the village level), In-
ized the RSS and still is a potent political dian government and politics are wrestling
force in the Hindu Mahasabha and, to a with the problem of creating a consensus for
lesser degree, in the Jan Sangh party.39 developmental policies which will have the
This appeal to an undisturbed society legitimating support in tradition, even if
avoids the dilemma fully as much as does the tradition is newly discovered.4'
the ideology based on a linear theory of
change. THE MEDIATING ELITES
The synthesis of tradition and modernity Elsewhere we have analyzed the growing
is evident in Gandhian influence. Was Gan- political power of new, less westernized,
dhi a traditionalist or a modernizer? Ask- and more localistic political elites and sub-
ing the question poses the immense diffi- elites in India.42 Such people, with sources
culty in separating the various streams in of power in state and region, mediate be-
reform and social change blowing over the tween the westernized elites and the mass
Indian subcontinent. Certainly his genius of the Indian society in ways which bring
lay in uniting disparities, in utilizing the a greater degree of traditional commitments
traditional authority of the holy man for and styles, of caste and other primordial
social reforms and for political union. His ties, into the political and cultural arena.
leadership of the independence movement The very process of political egalitar-
gave India a common experience which has ianism and modernization contains the
been one of the crucial legacies of the in- seeds of new ideologies of tradition. Liter-
dependence movement to its present na- acy in India not only stimulates a common
tional existence and to the authority of cultural content but has also led to ide-
the Congress Party. ologies of regionalism, extolling the virtues
The Gandhianism of the neo-Gandhians,
of regional languages and cultures.43 While
such as Vinoba Bhave and Jayaprakash
Narayan, represents an important ideo- '4 This quest for an indigenous form of political
logical development in the search for polit- democracy is marked in Narayan's writings, as
ical institutions which will cope with the well as in conversation (see Jaya Prakash Naray-
an, The Dual Revolution [Tanjore: Sarvodaya
problems of nationhood within indigenous Prachuralaya, 1959]; Swaraj for the People [Va-
cultural forms.40 But Gandhian Socialism ranasi: Ahkhih Bharat Sarva Seva Sangh, 1961]).
represents only one form in which this drive
4' See the analysis of the Panchayats in my pa-
toward a synthesis is manifest. The recent per on Indian political community, cited above
movement toward the development of local (n. 27); and in Reinhard Bendix, "Public Author-
S See Richard Lambert, "Hindu Communal ity in a Developing Political Community: The
Groups in Indian Politics," in R. Park and I. Case of India," Archives Europeennes de Sociolo-
Tinker (eds.), Leadership and Political Institu- gie, IV (1963), 39-85, especially 61 ff.
tions in India (Madras: Oxford University Press, 42 Gusfield, "Political Community and Group
1960), pp. 211-24). Even in the Swatantra Party, Interests in Modern India," op. cit.
a movement led by an antitraditionalist set of
ideologies, its anti-Congress character has drawn ' Witness the rise of self-conscious rediscovery
to it strong forces of antimodernism (see Howard of Hindi literary tradition. The linguistic and cul-
Erdman, "India's Swatantra Party," Pacific Af- tural renaissances in many parts of India are post-
fairs [Winter, 1963-64], pp. 394-410). independence phenomena (see Selig Harrison, In-

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 TRADITION AND MODERNITY 361
such movements impede the development tarian societies, they are all reasonably
of an all-India cultural consensus, they are "developed."
neither antimodern nor specifically anti-
India. They do, however, presage the de- THE CULTURAL FRAMEWORK OF MODERNITY
cline of that form of national elite that has We cannot easily separate modernity
been associated with colonial cultural in- and tradition from some specific tradition
fluences. India appears to be approaching and some specific modernity, some version
and entering a phase in which moderniza- which functions ideologically as a directive.
tion will be directed and implemented by The modern comes to the traditional so-
persons whose loyalties and ideologies are ciety as a particular culture with its own
considerably more traditionalized than has traditions. In this respect it has been im-
been true in the past decades. possible to divorce modernization from
some process of westernization. McKim
THE AMBIGUITIES OF MODERNITY
Marriott has made this point most vividly
Just as "tradition" is renewed, created, in analyzing the reasons for villagers' re-
and discovered, so too "modernity" as a jection of Western and westernized doc-
goal toward which men aspire appears in tors. The role of the doctor, as a technical
some specific historical guise. The post- expert, grants him authority in modern
colonial elites owed much to the cultures of culture but not in the Indian village where
the colonial powers in India. Through technical and commercial skills have a low
travel, through language and literature, approval. Efficiency and thrift, those two
through colonial educational institutions, great Western virtues, are not such in the
they had absorbed a picture of modernity eyes of the peasant in Utter Pradesh.44
as it was practiced in one country at one The social scientist's designation of spe-
time. It is not a random selection that led cific institutional forms as modern may
the Indian elites to conceive of politics in also function as ideology and as aspiration,
the British mode or led Nehru's political specifying what it is in a particular cul-
pronouncements and judgments of the ture which is emulative. The concept of
1950's to echo the liberalism of Harold political development is far more difficult
Laski in the 1920's. and culture-bound than is that of eco-
But being modern is far more ambiguous nomic development. Even with the latter,
than being British. The disappearance of we clearly recognize a diversity of institu-
the postcolonial elites carries with it an tional routes to industrialization and higher
increase in the range of alternatives ideo- incomes. To label, apart from a specific
logically open to the new, more traditional- context, either a capitalistic, socialistic, or
ized political groups. The possible routes communistic approach to economic growth
to economic wealth and political nation-
44 "It is important to note that a distinction can
hood are considerable, as we have shown be made between 'Western' and 'scientific' medi-
in the earlier section of this paper. As cine. Westerners conceive of a Western medicine
countries come onto the scene of self-con- as a system of curing based on 'rational' tech-
niques and 'scientific' concepts of cause and effect.
scious aspiration toward the modern, they
But this characteristic . . . only partly determines
are presented with more and more success- the total range of practices involved in treatment
ful models of the process. England, Ger- and cure. Treatment is bedded in a social as well
many, the United States, Japan, the Soviet as a scientific matrix, and many practices of the
Union are highly diverse in political insti- Western doctor are based on cultural values and
ideas of personal relationships that are peculiar to
tutions and histories. In the sense of having
Western society" (McKim Marriott, "Western
achieved high standards of living and egali- Medicine in a Village of Northern India," in S. N.
Eisenstadt [ed.], Comparative Social Problems
dia: The Most Dangerous Decade (Princeton, [New York: Free Press, 1964], pp. 47-60, at p.
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1960). 59).

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362 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
as antithetical to economic growth would necessary and usable ways in which the
certainly seem fallacious to the economist. past serves as support, especially in the
Similarly, the industrialized and egalitarian sphere of values and political legitimation,
societies of the West have by no means to the present and the future. We need a
demonstrated either a uniform or an un- perspective toward change which does not
changing form of polity. The Soviet Union, deny the specific and contextual character
France, Germany, and the United States of events.
(and we might well include Japan) are I do not know much about the total
hardly a single form of political structure, style of life of that passenger on the Ko-
and each of these has in turn undergone dama express. To think of him as fixed
many changes during its history. They are on a continuum between tradition and
all national polities, to be sure, and all ones modernity (as well as between Kyoto and
in which the population is mobilized, to a Tokyo) hides the immense variations and
degree, to political participation and loyal- possibilities, the capacity for blending op-
ty. These facts, however, state problems posites, which human beings and nations
in a wider fashion, without specific institu- possess. In the concepts of the traditional
tional directives. and the modern, we are certainly wrestling
To conclude, the all too common prac- with a feature of social change. We need to
tice of pitting tradition and modernity recognize that there is a variety of events
against each other as paired opposites tends on the wrestling program and that the out-
to overlook the mixtures and blends which comes, unlike many wrestling matches, are
reality displays. Above all, it becomes an quite in doubt.
ideology of antitraditionalism, denying the UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

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