SERICUL TURE AND THE PROCESS OF CHANGE - Institute for ...

Industrialisation and greater employment opportunities in urban
centres have contributed in extending the limited traditional networks of
caste, kinship and village affiliation to a wider friendship, bureaucratic,
occupational and political interactions. This has helped in greater
diffusion of information, ideas, values and life-style. All these have
brought about significant changes in the life of the rural masses.
Thus, social Change has manifested itself to be multi-factored,
multi-dimensional and multi-motivated process (Ishwaran 1970b). One
single factor alone cannot explain the change phenomenon of rural India.
It involves both extrinsic and intrinsic factors, the mutual reinforcement
of which provides a favourable condition for effective change. It also
involves wider processes beyond the village. Since independence, as
Ishwaran perceives, the rate of change and its scope have gone up
dramatically and its direction and contents have taken a revolutionary
turn. Which areas of village society, then, are undergoing change? For
him no important area of social existence has escaped the process of
change though its receptivity by different aspects in different areas may
vary (1970a: 7-17). There is also a possibility of varying responses to
the change situations. These are due to the general traits of a given group
as well as to the combination of them, with the varying realities and
tradition (Eisenstadt 1970: 22). Further, the different aspects in the life
of the people are not isolated segments that one can locate changes in
one, without any reflection of the same on the other. These are all so
neatly interwoven that any change in one aspect has its repercussions in
others too. This is clear from Ishwaran's study (1970b:93) of Mallur
village, which shows that the changes studied are important not merely
in themselves but also as causes for further change in social
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