‘Tradition is not always incompatible with Modernity’. Comment on the statement with reference to the modernisation trends in Indian policy. (1992)
Mid-century modernisation theory, from Talcott Parsons‘s pattern variables to Daniel Lerner‘s The Passing of Traditional Society (1958), placed tradition and modernity at opposite ends of one line: ascription would give way to achievement, and faith to reason. Joseph Gusfield called these “misplaced polarities” (1967). The Indian polity is the strongest evidence for the statement, though the compatibility it shows is selective, not automatic.
Why the dichotomy failed
- Samuel P. Huntington (Political Order in Changing Societies, 1968) traced disorder not to tradition but to the speed of change: “modernity breeds stability, but modernization breeds instability”.
- Edward Shils, who helped build the dichotomy, conceded in Tradition (1981) that no society can function without inherited beliefs and practices.
Tradition as a carrier of modernity
Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, The Modernity of Tradition (1967), tested the claim in three domains:
- Caste: caste associations acquired constitutions, journals and electoral strategies, so a traditional boundary came to perform the work of a modern interest group. Rajni Kothari (Caste in Indian Politics, 1970) put it as “it is not politics that gets caste-ridden; it is caste that gets politicised”.
- Charisma: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi turned renunciation, fasting and ahimsa, familiar ascetic idioms, into the discipline of a modern mass movement.
- Law: a flexible, plural body of customary and shastric law was folded into a modern legal order rather than simply abolished.
M. N. Srinivas added two mechanisms. Sanskritisation let low castes claim mobility in a traditional idiom, and the dominant caste carried the vote into the village. Yogendra Singh (Modernization of Indian Tradition, 1973) showed that India absorbed change selectively, adapting its traditions rather than breaking them.
Modernisation trends in the polity
| Modern institution | Traditional medium |
|---|---|
| Universal adult franchise (1950) | Caste and kin networks mobilise turnout; the rural poor outvote urban elites |
| Panchayati raj (73rd Amendment) | The village assembly becomes a constitutional gram sabha |
| Reservation | Caste, the old principle of hierarchy, becomes the instrument of equality |
| Lok Adalats (1987 Act) | Panchayat-style conciliation inside the court system |
| Mass parties | Hindu nationalism and Dravidian self-respect build modern organisation on cultural memory |
Alternative modernities
- Ashis Nandy (The Intimate Enemy, 1983) treats tradition as a vantage point from which to criticise the violence of colonial and technocratic modernity.
- Partha Chatterjee (The Nation and Its Fragments, 1993) shows nationalism modernising the “outer” domain of state and economy while guarding an “inner” domain of culture: hybridity by design.
Where the two still collide
- Untouchability, abolished by Article 17, survives in atrocities. Khap diktats against inter-caste marriage were struck at in Shakti Vahini (2018), and instant triple talaq in Shayara Bano (2017).
- Compatibility can also mean capture: dominant castes seized panchayats, and religious tradition can be mobilised for polarisation rather than for pluralism.
- B. R. Ambedkar‘s constitutional morality supplies the test: a tradition is compatible when it submits to equal citizenship.
Conclusion
The statement holds: India modernised through its traditions, not by discarding them, and the Rudolphs were right against the dichotomy. But compatibility is conditional. Traditions of association, conciliation and pluralism have served modernity; traditions that defend hierarchy have resisted it. The Constitution is the filter that decides between them.