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

means of economic survival (1970:121;126). Many traditional roles of
service castes have also undergone changes by acquiring more
temporary contractual nature. He attributes this to modern technology
and transport that make it feasible for both poor and middle class people
to resort to more impersonal services (Mencher 1970:208-9). The
labour-intensive cottage and agro-industries as well as the livestock
industries along with the green revolution, have also caused significant
economic changes in the life of the rural masses. In short, the village
India is exposed, today, to a market and wider economy, different from
the traditional subsistence and autarchic economy. The economic
capability of the people has been steadily increasing, thus enabling them
to raise their standard of living and further aspiring for better living
comforts.
The rigid and traditional barriers of caste are breaking gradually
if not radically. In the words of Mencher (1970: 199), it is being
drastically remodelled. It assumes new shapes with the increasing
possibility of greater opening for occupational mobility and varied job
opportunities in the new set-up. While there is a process of
Sanskritisation taking place in the lower sections of the strata, there is a
process of Westernisation, engulfing the higher strata (Srinivas
1962:42). There is also a class consciousness emerging with a struggle
for an improved way oflife (Dube 1955:57-8). Motivated by the ideal of
equality, a definite change has been discerned among the lower caste
groups (Gough 1970). The whole process that started with
Sanskritisation is being replaced, today, with the modern political
channel of election and ideological mobilisation. The taboos on intermarriage
and inter-dining as well as the rules relating to ritual pollution,
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