(a) Rites and secularisation:
• It usually means a process of decline in the influence of religion.
• Indicators of secularisation have referred to levels of involvement with religious organisations (like church attendance), the social and material influence of religious organization, and the degree to which people hold religious beliefs.
• But the general assumption that modem societies are increasingly becoming secular may not entirely be hue.
• A considerable part of ritual in India has direct reference to the pursuit of secular ends.
• Rituals have secular dimensions i.e. they provide men and women occasions for socializing with their peers and superiors.
• They get an opportunity to show off family’s wealth, clothing and jewellery.
• During the last few decades in particular, the economic, political and status dimensions of ritual have become increasingly conspicuous.
(b) Caste and Secularisation:
• In traditional India, caste system operated within the religious framework.
• Belief systems of purity and pollution were centred to its practice. India has seen such formation of caste associations and caste based political parties. They seem to press upon the state their demands.
• Such a changed role of caste has been described as secularisation of caste.
• The traditional social system in India was organised around caste structures and caste identities. In dealing with the relationship between caste and politics, however the doctrinaire moderniser suffers from a serious xenophobia.
• Politicians mobilise caste groupings and identities in order to organise their power…. where there are other types of groups and other bases of association, politicians approach them as well. And as they everywhere change the form of such organizations, they change the form of caste as well.
(c) Gender and Sanskritisation:
• Sanskritisation supports traditional way of life for women and it is more liberal for modernization or westernization for men.
• Most of the supporters of Sanskritisation support the women life within the four walls of the houses. They support or prefer the role of women as a mother, a sister and a daughter.
• They like women to follow the traditional way of marriage with the consent of parents. Kumud Pawade as a student could enable her to read in the original what the texts have to say about women and the Dalits. As she proceeds with her studies, she meets with varied reactions ranging from surprise to hostility, from guarded acceptance to brutal rejection. As she says “I remember an expression I heard somewhere: “What comes by birth, but can’t be cast off by dying—that is caste?”
