The New in the Old: Celebrating Fifty Years of Modernization of Indian Tradition

Introduction

It is 50 years now since Professor Yogendra Singh’s book, The Modernization of Indian Tradition, was published. This work announced a major intervention in sociological literature and captivated us all for a number of reasons. First, it was rather unusual for an Indian sociologist to write a complete book which was not primarily ethnographic and a product of localised field research. By and large, scholars from our part of the world are expected to front load their books with a heavy consignment of first-hand data of a limited area. This left little room, that too in the conclusion, to make some theoretical comments which were not really the reason why those books received academic attention.

Modernization of Indian Tradition clearly broke with this tradition. Professor Yogendra Singh took on the task of providing a comprehensive theoretical perspective, accompanied by an empirical sweep, on the contentious subject of social change. This was no micro village study, or an examination of a slum, or workers in a particular factory; it was all this and more for it brought universal concepts to bear witness to them. To top it all, Professor Singh built his arguments on the subject of modernisation, a specific aspect of social change, which was of great concern to academics and lay intellectuals alike. In India more so, because most of us felt the tension of this subject in our bones; we were living out these themes even as we read about them.

Professor Singh eases us into the principal problematics of Modernization of Indian Tradition by reviewing some of the major contributions on social change. This sets the stage for him to then initiate inquiries in areas that had remained away from sustained scholarly attention but were in the penumbra of received literature. It is somewhat unfortunate that many of us, this author included, elided over aspects of these subtle probes that Professor Singh inaugurated 50 years back. We rested instead primarily on his exegesis of available scholarship overlooking the daring forays he made in the study of modernisation. It is only today, in the fulness of time, that we are ready to properly receive and appreciate them. It is quite characteristic of Professor Singh that he modestly stayed away from overtly calling our attention to these themes. In some ways, one might say, he suffered for being not just too modest but also far too ahead of his time.

Sanskritization and Modernization

True, Modernization of Indian Tradition underscored the significance of hierarchy, holism and continuity in Indian society, but our reading should not stop there. What the triumvirate signals is the baseline against which social change has to be graphed. Indian society, by all accounts, was never stagnant but all the changes that it underwent did not unsettle the grip of the triumvirate just mentioned. Dynasties came and went and even after Islam overwhelmed large parts of India, the triumvirate held ground; it absorbed the exogenous factors and internalised them. It is not as if Islam did not disturb the ground but it was not enough to uproot the undergrowth that soon sprang to life again.

Along these lines, it needs also to be mentioned, that Sanskritisation is not a novel insertion in Indian society but a perennial historical phenomenon. While it can be pegged to the reference group theory it also has specific cultural manifestations and that is how the singular and the general can be mutually sustained. In other words, what we see around us today, after Professor Srinivas’s alert on Sanskritisation, calls out only to recent events but the feature itself is of deep and hoary vintage. Professor Singh now takes an unusual turn in his examination of this familiar term. He argues that Sanskritisation may have helped modernisation by reconfiguring traditional hierarchical arrangements through upward mobility within the caste order. This opened avenues for exogenous forces of change brought by British rule as Sankritisation’s collaterals were not limited to ritual emulation alone (Singh, 1973, p. 202).

Till now, ‘Sanskritisation’ and ‘Modernity’ were separate compartments. To be fair, the role of contemporary technology aiding Sanskritisation did not go unnoticed, but Professor Singh emphatically argued that there was more to it. Telegraph and railways made certain ritual observances easier to conduct but modern technological and economic insertions also established other non-ritual and secular practices for emulation. As those from so-called deprived castes began emulating the so-called powerful and entrenched castes they also began to acquire the basic equipment to develop along modern lines (Singh, 1973, p. 197). In due course, during decades of British rule, that is, Sanskritisation also had as its accompaniment economic enterprise, education and political participation (Singh, 1973, p. 58). This seems a rather obvious conclusion to come to but it needed somebody to say it and Professor Singh did, though, characteristically in a soft voice.

What does a position such as this also imply? First and foremost, tradition favours a closed hierarchical arrangement but is unable to withstand, foursquare, the superior forces of modernisation. While this conclusion may be arrived at by many and may seem commonplace, but when situated in the framework of Sanskritisation, it gains in valency and universality. We can now appreciate not just the pressures traditional Indian society had to contend against but also how traditional Europe too ceded territory to the forces of modernisation. What remains unanswered is why modernisation developed at all in the west? Was it a miracle? As far as I can tell there has been no satisfactory resolution of this query especially when one examines Europe from the era of the Enlightenment onwards.

Social Relations and not Things

It is true that Srinivas did wrestle with whether he should examine in depth westernisation or modernisation and eventually decided on the former. He felt modernisation would be too ambitious a term in the Indian context for here rationality in social interactions is not yet a dominant feature. That much Professor Singh concurred with but he argued that westernisation had created the first stirrings of modernisation in India as well. Economic and social policy discussions on development in Independent India may have begun with brush strokes of westernisation, but had then become increasingly modern in their bearing. That these policy concerns were raised and argued on rational principles could only mean modernisation was gaining ground.

That being said, Professor Yogendra Singh was still not convinced that modernisation had won the day. For example, he drew our attention from examples from everyday life where we find people who seem ‘hyper-westernised’ but lack the value and ‘psychic’ features of modernity (Singh, 1973, p. 91). Though he did not openly scoff at such people, that was never his style, it is clear that he found little to commend them. This is because their lifestyles were informed by superficial views and had no sympathy with the basic principles of modernisation. At this point we cannot help but recall the similarity between this position and that of ‘westoxication’ that the Iranian scholar Jalal-al-i-Ahmed forwarded. As that was made in a completely different setting, it is interesting that both these conclusions were arrived at independently of each other.

This brings us to the most seminal page in the text Modernization of Indian Tradition, that is, page number 61. If I could, I would commit this entire page to heart and have everybody in every classroom discussion on social change repeat it time and again. It is this page which marked Professor Yogendra Singh as a leading thinker and like all leading thinkers, he said what was true but well before people were truly ready for it. He was, in that sense, a victim of his own brilliance. It is only now, after several decades, that we can comprehensively appreciate that page. This is much like hearing a thunderclap after a lightning has evanescently lit the skies. One might feel sorry for those who still labour under a pre-Yogendra Singh understanding of modernisation because he makes a huge leap away from the past (Singh, 1973, p. 61).

Allow me to paraphrase what page number 61 says though it is there for all to read in original. It is also possible that others might see the contents of the page differently from my interpretation of it, but I do not think I have strayed too far from Professor Singh’s intent.

The most important conceptual concern Professor Singh raises here is that modernisation is not about things and acquisitions but a commitment to a world view. One might, therefore, be a great scientist and a very accomplished intellectual, but yet be quite unmodern in the true sense of the word. Modernity then is not about the acquisition of knowledge, or about how many books one has read, or even about how much mastery a person has over technology. For all of that to translate into modernity there must be an ideological proselytisation where enlightenment values inform our relationship with others. This makes modernisation a universal destination that any culture can aspire to. It is not the preserve of the west alone though in that half of the world there are more material acquisitions.

When we discuss Enlightenment there is the somewhat simplistic version that focuses primarily on scientific achievements of that era. Yes, knowledge expanded tremendously, but that was possible because relations between people underwent a change from holism and hierarchy to individual respect. If accidentally, or deliberately, a discovery is made in a traditional society, its impact will not reach out but will remain cloistered and soon die. Knowledge is never shared freely in tradition which is why feeder channels of information do not exist except in limited and privileged quarters. For Robert Merton’s ‘communism of knowledge’ to prevail, societies have to be free of hierarchy and holism or, in other words, be informed by ‘Enlightenment’. Only then can individuals freely propagate knowledge because structures are not bound by a single, unquestionable worldview. Enlightenment is not just science but it is about relations between people as well.

The Enlightenment Effect

Again, once this is said it seems all so obvious, but this has to be said first and only then can the consequences of this position be teased out. Enlightenment was a breakthrough across the world because nothing like it had ever happened before nor can we trace clearly the empirical linkages that brought it about. There are many post factum justifications for the rise of Enlightenment in Europe but these, on close scrutiny, are akin to detective stories read backwards. Once we know the culprit it is easy to see the connections. Real life does not afford such luxuries though they abound in certain varieties of fiction. This explains why extraordinary minds in ancient times contributed little to social change. What they said and discovered remained confined to small groups of the learned and their disciples without disturbing the larger ethos and structure of society as a whole. Today we marvel at the astronomers and geometricians of the past but rarely do we ask why their extraordinary achievements did not create the kind of impact that later discoveries did.

This is true of philosophy as well. For example, Immanuel Kant’s discourses on categories and causation were in many ways present in Nyaya Vaisheshika treatises about 12 centuries earlier. Yet, as times were different and relations were still governed by hierarchy and holism, traditional Indian thought did not reverberate as Kant’s works did across the enlightened world. Likewise, if we examine the Upanishads we find repeated ethical postulates on substantive equality that went against the hierarchical principal and were clearly radical in their import. Yet they did not stir their world as did post Enlightenment scholars when they expressed similar views. It is certainly not good fortune then to be born before one’s time. Little wonder that some of the greatest thinkers and artists of the past are revered today but lived in relative obscurity for most, if not all, of their lives. The thunderclap always sounds much later and lasts longer and shakes people up a lot more.

Enlightenment may have been come upon us three and a half centuries ago, but its value system has continued for long and has found fresh manifestations over time. Enlightenment never ceases just as learning does not. If that be true, what of modernisation? If modernisation is Enlightenment by another name, then that too should be examined as a universal category that cannot be sequestered in any one culture, clime or continent? To return to an earlier theme: can universal technical education create modernity? Professor Singh would respond in the negative.

Education and knowledge are handmaidens of modernity, but they have to be imbrued with a specific psychic component which is at the level of values. Failing that, education will remain a ‘thing’, an exterior object, and not impact the lives of many. This is because, in the absence of that psychic aspect, those social relations that actually inform modernity will remain inactive and so will the Enlightenment spirit. It is with modernity that diversity of opinions begin to flourish which is principally why rigid structures of tradition get disarticulated. Up until the modern epoch social change were positional adjustments within the structure. Westernisation added some flavour to it without rocking the boat too much. Only after modernisation’s spirit entered the historical stage that structural changes began to happen.

Unending Modernity

As we just said, on page number 61, Professor Singh brings to our notice the fact that modernisation, like Enlightenment, never ends. It is a continuous process that will go on and on and with every turn find something new. To believe that modernisation has been finally achieved anywhere in the world is a fallacy because the enquiring mind can never stop. This is the gift of Enlightenment because uncomfortable questions are non-conformist and they require, for their full expression, a society free of hierarchy and holism. To believe, therefore, that modernity has a fixed end, or that there is a permanent paradise somewhere, is illusory. Modernity is unlike tradition because it is ever reluctant to repeat itself. Just when one might imagine that nothing could be more modern, a modern society will excavate something new that requires societies to undergo further transformation.

This awareness corrects the supposition that modernity has a firm empirical pole against which all else can be measured. If, on the other hand, we proceed along the grooves that Professor Singh has outlined, we find modernisation wrestling with itself, unhappy with its own past. It is for this reason, that modernisation’s own tradition is hard to plot because, as Professor Yogendra Singh argued, change is now an ever-present category and nothing stands still (Singh, 1973, p. 126). Just when one thought that one could rest with the accomplishments of knowledge, the enlightened mind unsettles the waters and a fresh quest begins.

Unsurprisingly, modernisation always co-partners democracy, for they both share identical characteristics. Democracy needs modernisation for the simple reason that it too never rests. Once every adult male got the right to vote, women began to demand the franchise. This thought never occurred in any significant way till well into the dying years of the 19th century in Europe. After that minorities demanded recognition, and then there were international treaties of war and peace. Today, there is no true democracy which does not respect gay and transgender rights. Who could have imagined that even decades ago?

Nobody and no society then is completely modern and to claim otherwise is actually a demonstration of an inadequate modern temperament (Singh, 1973, pp. 62, 205). It is only in a non-hierarchical setting, where an open mind flourishes, and that it is not a crime to make an error as it is the effort that is rewarded. Most importantly, and here comes another knowledge nugget from Professor Singh, we must examine modernity not by its antecedents but by its consequences. Pause here and reflect. What this means is that it is a wasteful exercise to trace how modernity comes into being, instead it is much more rewarding to ask what it does, and is expected to do, after it has arrived.

Consequently, one is now freed from historical causation, or even dreaming of approximating a yellow brick road to modernity. This is an important consideration to bear in mind for all too often one hears that certain societies, because of their starting point, just cannot be modern, so why even try. If one were to think along with Professor Singh, modernity can enter in a variety of ways and even traditional societies can transform themselves, but for that you need the will. In India, for example, modernity and its twin, democracy, came about not because of the gradual unfolding of history, but because of ‘elite choice’ (Singh, 1973, p. 159). Once this step is taken, the standards of measurement no longer hearken backward into the past because modernity and democracy are constantly unearthing the new. Should this process halt, for any reason, one must admit that modernity has failed and not just stopped.

To examine a phenomenon in terms of its consequences and not causes has an established history in Indian philosophy and here I am thinking of the Sankhya texts. In this body of literature the thinkers urge one to understand a phenomenon in terms of its consequences and not what brought it into being. Though Professor Singh does not mention Sankhya, he is quite clearly contemplating along those lines. The fact that he is considering such a position at all suggests how fertile modernisation is and also why it is in a modern climate that Sankhya can realise itself much more fully. By liberating oneself from the incubus of the past gives one the confidence required to surge ahead and become modern. No longer must there be self-doubts about inherited inabilities (or, disabilities) for it is the future more than the past that matters. To take a cognate example from nationalism we can see immediately how consequences matter more than causes. To do this competently we have to suspend text book versions of nationalism where it is assumed that language, religion and territory magically collapsed into one entity. This never happened anywhere and, therefore, nationalism has more than one starting point.

Modernization, Democracy and Nationalism

Nationalism and democracy have a multitude of origin tales and they are all valid and legitimate. What counts then is not to emphasise one original position over another but to strive for unity of goal in terms of consequences. This is an important corrective as we hear the frequent whisper that certain societies are incapable of being democratic or modern. This nudges one to give credit to the fallacy that unless we resemble Europe we do not stand a chance. Such a position would be casting modernity in an unfavourable light and that would not just be unfortunate but ethnically offensive as well. We do often chafe at western hubris on this subject but the foundational reason for that was not clear in our heads. We needed Professor Yogendra Singh to tell us that to understand modernisation think consequences and not be besotted with origins. After all, modernisation does not belong to any one culture but to humanity as a whole: it is a true cultural universal (Singh, 1973, p. 62).

This now brings us to examine the next big question. Modernity, as we have just seen, constantly supersedes its own past and constantly undoes itself. Does this mean that it cannot have a ‘Great Tradition’ of its own? Professor Singh said that it does and it is here that there might be a certain disquiet. My reading, clearly sponsored and encouraged by the quotes mentioned above, tells me that modernisation, if anything, is a wrecker of tradition. How then can it have a ‘Great Tradition’? That would be a contradiction in terms. Yet, there are a few passages in the Modernization of Indian Tradition, where Professor Singh lists urbanisation and industrialisation as elements of the ‘Great’ tradition of modernisation (Singh, 1973, p. 209). This is surprising as he has said elsewhere that knowledge, education and urbanisation on their own without the value component of universalism are not equal to modernisation (Singh, 1973, pp. 61, 82, 107).

This is a quandary, no doubt. If one were to weigh the emphasis this book places on the value component, one cannot include ‘urbanisation’, without qualifications, as aspects of modernisation’s ‘Great Tradition’. It might well be that Professor Singh used the terms ‘Great’ tradition, in this case, primarily to signal facilitators of modernisation rather than the content within this category. Hence, unlike the study of McKim Marriot (1955) (inspired by Robert Redfield, 2018), there is no attempt here to shake out the empirical contents of what constitutes modernity’s ‘Great’ tradition. What Professor Singh called the ‘Great’ tradition of modernity are the designated carriers of certain beliefs and practices with their contents unlisted and open ended. Marriot, following Robert Redfield, provided a welter of factual material to fill out the terms ‘Great’ and ‘Little’ tradition, but Professor Singh’s ‘Great Tradition’ of modernity is skeletal.

In Marriot supralocal myths, deities and festivals were docketed with ‘Great’ tradition and local Gods and specific contextual variations were categorised as ‘Little’. However, when Professor Singh discusses the ‘Great’ tradition of modernisation, there is no jingle of content as no practices are mentioned. What receives attention are supralocal structural features such as urbanisation and industrialisation (Singh, 1973, p. 210). It is because these phenomena exist that people at the local level can ascend the stepping stones to modernity but they may not complete the journey and actually become modern. For that, it is clear, modernisation requires the value component which may not always tag along with industrialisation or knowledge, as he clearly averred in earlier pages. Without this value, modernisation is just a patina and some may sport even ‘hyper western’ behaviour on the outside while remaining very unmodern within (Singh, 1973, p. 91).

It is now perhaps clear, or should be, that while the ‘Great Tradition’ of modernisation might provide the vehicles, its actual realisation is a completely different matter. For that we have to move from superficial modernisation, which is ‘westernisation’, to in-depth modernity. This requires upholding the value of ethical conduct and universality of orientation. Thus, Kolkata ‘bhadraloks’ (Singh, 1973, pp. 88, 118) may exhibit features of westernisation but they become modern only if there is that crucial value element involved. Without that they are just flashing small change of superficial modernisation, also known as westernisation. Nevertheless, it is at this point that it is difficult to whole heartedly endorse Professor Singh. It would have been better if he had clearly distanced his rendition of modernisations ‘Great Tradition’ from that forwarded by Singer, Redfield, Marriot and others (Singh, 1973, p. 118).

Respecting the other

By the time the book reaches its climax, we again have the reassertion of inconsistencies between modernisation and westernisation. What are these inconsistencies? Examples abound but Professor Singh provides us with a few. A major inconsistency that strikes us almost daily at the national level, and in the news, is that between claims of democracy without proper education of the values of democracy. Or, again an everyday phenomenon, bureaucracy without an appreciation of civic culture, or secular aspirations without concern for distributive justice (Singh, 1973, p. 210). The siren call, that goes out loud and clear, is to warn us against being mesmerised by appearances. The essence of modernisation lies in values of enlightenment and not in accepting gift wrapped what was produced elsewhere (Singh, 1973, p. 205).

All of this prompts us now to come to the overwhelming conclusion that modernisation is never about things but about social relations. Yet, that is rarely, if ever, emphasised enough. Look at all the major sociological categories we work with and we will find that all of them are about social relations and not about things. Capital is not a wad of money but a social relation between entrepreneurs and workers. Feudalism too is a social relation between landlords and peasants, just as social relations between parents and siblings define the family. Why then should such an important concept as ‘modernisation’ be about things, such as cars, smoking chimneys, clothes, technical achievements, and so on, and not about social relations. This is what Professor Singh brought out and he may well have been one of the earliest to do so.

In philosophy, GWF Hegel, or more contemporary ones like Emmanuel Levinas, taught us that respecting the ‘other’ was the root of all ethics. Morality is different because it can quite easily be just about the self. The Isha Upanishad also said that the source of all sorrow is to consider one’s self distinct from the self of others. But before Professor Singh such statements were not vehemently echoed in the context of modernisation, but should have been. This is why in the 50^th Anniversary of the Modernization of Indian Tradition we must specifically hail this work for emphasising values, and not just things, when examining modernisation.

It is because modernisation is easily equated with ‘things’ that it is so facile and easy to condemn modernisation for it can be linked to fast cars, night clubs, urban violence, and so on. Shmuel Eisenstadt (2017) has quite recently even catalogued terrorists as modern because these hate mongers use technologically advanced and sophisticated weapons. Once ‘things’ such as these take over we make not just the mistake of tying modernisation down with westernisation but also of associating it with the contemporaneous. Just because certain ‘things’ are taking place today and are contemporaneous, is not reason enough to call them modern. By the same token if certain acts took place in the past that should not make them traditional either. If it is relations between people we are talking about, then the time element is, at best, an empirical correlate but not an absolute one.

It would not be incorrect to consider, in my view, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar to be a more modern person than the radical advocates of the Young Bengal group. Even Michael Madhusudan Dutt found the activists in this organisation so superficially westernised that they did more harm than good by offending people’s sensibilities. Vidyasagar, though conventionally attired, was an agnostic (but had good relations with Ramakrishna), and fervently advocated widow remarriage and education of the girl child. Not just that, he opened Kolkata’s Sanskrit College to Kayasthas and Subornobaniks which could not have been imagined at the time by mainstream conventions. Vidyasagar fought for altering the status of women and under privileged castes in order to promote an open society where an enquiring mind can prosper. Michael Madhusudan Dutt, on the other hand, dressed in western clothes, converted to Christianity, and, for all appearances, was thoroughly estranged from tradition. Even so, it was Vidyasagar who had a greater impact in forwarding modernisation because he campaigned at the level of social relations. Vidyasagar, for all his traditional Bengali visage and mode of communication, possessed a very modern mind.

Against Multiple Modernity

At this point it would be worth our while to return to page number 61 again where Professor Singh said that modernisation was a ‘cultural universal’ and belonged to humanity in general (emphasis added). The significance of this needs to be deeply underlined today because influential western scholars, led by Eisenstadt, are advancing the case for ‘multiple modernity’ (Eisenstadt, 2017). This notion fractures the conception of modernity as a cultural universal and makes it situationally several. Consequently, as we mentioned earlier, anything that is contemporaneous tends to be clubbed as modern. This is not a superficial error for it takes attention away from the fact that modernity is not contemporaneity, nor synonymous with advanced technology. With ‘multiple modernities’ one can be modern in any way one chooses to as long as what they do is contemporaneous. There is now no standard of judging modernity, all that matters is that they are happening today.

This is a surrender to the world of ‘things’ which cannot serve the cause of universal modernity or even a humanistic one. What if there is genocide somewhere but it is happening today? Would that make it modern? What if there is gender discrimination? Or, racism? Can we call them a specific kind of modernity under the umbrella rubric of ‘multiple modernity?’ Where would this kind of indulgence and conceptual promiscuity finally land us? It would, and this is a harsh truth, take the pressure off those who benefit from an unjust world. All they need to turn around and say: ‘You be modern your way, and I will be mine’. This is also how traditionalist get their ammunitions against modernity and train their guns at courageous individuals who stake their all to bring about a more just order.

This is not unlike the confusions that exist around the notion of ‘democracy’. Is democracy just a thing when people go and vote or does it demand a commitment to humanitarian values within whose constraints elections must take place. That democracy is not always seen this way but in terms of a thing called ‘elections’ makes democracy so easy to practice and malign. Like enlightenment and modernisation, we cannot quite trace what brought democracy because it is certainly not a correlate of wealth and urbanisation. There are many wealthy countries which are far from being democratic. The transition to modernisation and democracy cannot be charted on positivistic principles, that is in terms of firm historical antecedents. This is why Professor Singh insisted that modernisation does much better when studied in terms of consequences and not origins.

In India, democracy did not come about because of social evolution, nor because of the growth of capitalism but, as Professor Singh pronounced categorically, on account of ‘elite choice’ (Singh, 1973, p. 130). Once again, we must be wary of being seduced by ‘things’. Verily, there are elites and elites. There are, for instance, elites of business, elites of professions, elites of fashion, elites of the entertainment world, but the elite of democracy are those possessed with ‘value excellence’ (Singh, 1973, p. 159). Not external attributes, not wealth, not education, not guns and gizmos, but democracy needs an elite that propagates a value even if the society is not ready for it. Come to think of it, elite do not evolve, they assert and push themselves. On rare occasions we have elite which can be classified as the ‘elect’ because they have chosen to take democracy forward and with it the tenets of citizenship. Lest we forget, citizenship is all about social relations between people and not just about voting rights.

Thoughts such as these would have probably escaped us if Professor Yogendra Singh had not enlivened them in our mind. Yet it must also be said that we realise all of this more fulsomely today because of the road we have travelled in recent years. In the 1950s and 1960s there was an optimism that blurred conceptual clarity on certain matters. No doubt, the hold of tradition had weakened, no doubt material progress was galloping, no doubt also that earlier despots were being displaced as was colonial rule. All of this began to convince many that modernity had arrived and there was an easy equation between it and contemporaneity. It was a happy time of analytical slumber or, to be less caustic, analytical complacency. Villages were giving way to cities, technicians were being churned out of colleges and it all seemed like an uninterrupted pathway to modernity.

As the years passed we began to see warts in all that we had so easily exclaimed and boasted of earlier. Democracy did not filter out corruption and cruelty, technology did not create better access to the poor, urbanisation soon became equated with slums and squalor. It is against this background that the earlier optimism lost its fluency and began to stutter. This is why much of what Professor Singh wrote in Modernization of Indian Tradition, especially with regard to the importance of ‘values’ over ‘things’, rings so true today. They may not have struck us in the same way when this book appeared in 1973 for most of us possessed a certain naivete about modernity in those days. But time has not robbed this work of its youth and vibrancy for it speaks eloquently to what is currently happening around us. It is then, in the fitness of things, to acknowledge the Modernization of Indian Tradition as a classic. It is just 50 years young and has many more lively years ahead. Clearly, Professor Yogendra Singh is still alive and in our midst.