Society & Welfare
Basic Concepts of Sociology
Culture
Culture for CGPSC Mains: Tylor's definition, norms and values, cultural lag, ethnocentrism, Sanskritisation and Little and Great Traditions, with Chhattisgarh examples.
Prerequisites
- Socialisation: culture is what socialisation transmits
- Festivals and Traditions and Folk Arts: the living culture of the state used as examples here
The Hook: A Dussehra Without Ravana
Connect
In most of north India, Dussehra ends with the burning of a Ravana effigy. In Jagdalpur, the 75-day Bastar Dussehra (बस्तर दशहरा) has no Ravana at all. It honours Danteshwari Mai (दंतेश्वरी माई), brings village deities from across Bastar, and ends with the Muria Darbar (मुरिया दरबार), where village representatives meet the administration.
The same festival name, two very different ways of celebrating it. What is culture, how is it learned and shared, and how do all-India and local traditions shape each other? That is the subject of this page.
Why it matters: “Define culture and explain its characteristics”, “What is cultural lag?”, “Distinguish ethnocentrism and cultural relativism” and “Explain Sanskritisation with examples” are standard GS-IV questions. Chhattisgarh’s tribal and folk culture gives you examples no other state can.
Definitions to Quote
| Thinker | Definition |
|---|---|
| E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture (1871) | “Culture or civilisation … is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” |
| Melville J. Herskovits | Culture is “the man-made part of the environment”. |
| A. L. Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn, Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions (1952) | Reviewed and classified 164 definitions of culture |
Tylor’s definition is the one to quote first. Its two key words are “complex whole” (culture is integrated) and “acquired … as a member of society” (culture is learned, not inherited biologically).
Characteristics of culture
- Learned, not instinctive: through socialisation (also called enculturation).
- Shared by members of a group.
- Transmitted across generations, mainly through language and symbols.
- Cumulative: each generation adds to it (from stone tools to satellites).
- Symbolic: meanings are attached to objects and acts (the mangalsutra, a tattoo of “राम” on a Ramnami’s body).
- Integrated: its parts fit together; change in one affects others.
- Adaptive and dynamic: it changes with environment and contact.
- Varies from society to society, and is the basis of identity.
Components of Culture
Material and non-material culture
The distinction is usually credited to W. F. Ogburn.
| Material culture | Non-material culture |
|---|---|
| Tangible objects people make and use | Ideas, beliefs, norms, values, language, knowledge |
| Bastar Dhokra bell-metal craft (Kondagaon), kosa silk of Champa, the plough, the gedi (bamboo stilts of Hareli), the chariot of Bastar Dussehra | Pandavani narratives, the Chhattisgarhi language and proverbs, belief in village deities, clan rules, the values of Guru Ghasidas’s “मनखे-मनखे एक समान” |
| Changes fast | Changes slowly |
Norms (मानदंड): rules of behaviour
| Type | Meaning | Sanction for breaking it | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Folkways (जनरीतियाँ) | Customary, everyday ways of doing things (W. G. Sumner, Folkways, 1906) | Mild: ridicule, gossip | Greeting elders with “Jai Johar”, eating with the right hand, removing shoes before entering a home |
| Mores (रूढ़ियाँ) | Norms with strong moral significance, believed vital to the group’s welfare (Sumner) | Strong: social boycott, excommunication | Prohibition of incest; clan exogamy in tribal society |
| Taboos (निषेध) | Strong negative mores: “must not” | Severe | A totemic clan must not kill or eat its totem animal (for example, the Oraon clan Lakra, tiger) |
| Laws (कानून) | Formal norms made and enforced by the state | Legal penalty | The Chhattisgarh Tonahi Pratadna Nivaran Adhiniyam, 2005 against witch-branding |
| Customs (प्रथाएँ) | Long-established group practices, often codified in customary law | Community pressure | Bride price, lamsena service marriage |
Values (मूल्य)
Values are shared ideas about what is good, right and desirable (equality, honour, hospitality, harmony with nature). Norms are the specific rules that put values into practice. Example: the value of community in tribal society is put into practice through norms of shared labour at sowing and harvest and through the Ghotul’s service to the village.
Concepts of Cultural Difference
| Concept | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Ethnocentrism (नृजातिकेंद्रितावाद) | Judging other cultures by the standards of one’s own, treating one’s own as superior. The term was popularised by W. G. Sumner in Folkways (1906); the idea appears earlier, for example in Ludwig Gumplowicz | Calling tribal customs “primitive” or “uncivilised”; treating the Ghotul only as a scandal |
| Cultural relativism (सांस्कृतिक सापेक्षवाद) | Understanding a culture in its own terms; associated with the anthropological tradition of Franz Boas | Explaining bride price by the economic value of women’s labour in tribal households |
| Xenocentrism | Believing that another culture is superior to one’s own | Valuing anything foreign over local products and languages |
| Culture shock | Disorientation on entering an unfamiliar culture; the term was popularised by anthropologist Kalervo Oberg in the 1950s | A tribal student moving from a Bijapur village to a Raipur hostel; an officer posted from Raipur to a remote Sukma block |
| Subculture | A group with distinctive norms within the larger culture | Coal-mining township culture of Korba; student culture; the Ghotul youth world |
| Counterculture | A subculture that rejects key norms of the dominant culture | Religious protest movements that reject caste hierarchy can be read this way, such as the Ramnami Samaj, whose members tattoo “राम” on their bodies |
Relativism has limits
Cultural relativism is a method for understanding, not a licence to accept every practice. Witch-branding, child marriage or caste exclusion cannot be defended as “our culture” against constitutional values of dignity and equality. A balanced Mains answer says: understand first, then judge by universal human rights.
Cultural Change
Cultural lag (सांस्कृतिक विलंबना)
W. F. Ogburn, Social Change with Respect to Culture and Original Nature (1922): material culture changes faster than non-material culture, and the gap between them is the cultural lag. Society must adjust its norms, laws and values to new technology, and it takes time.
Chhattisgarh examples:
- Mobile phones and UPI reached villages faster than the habits and rules needed to avoid online fraud and misinformation.
- Modern medicine and health workers (mitanins) are available, yet beliefs in tonhi (टोनही) witchcraft persist in some areas, which is why a special law was needed in 2005.
- Mechanised harvesting changed farm work faster than labour arrangements and wages adjusted.
Processes of cultural contact
| Process | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Diffusion | Spread of cultural traits from one society to another (tea, cricket, smartphones) |
| Acculturation | Changes that follow sustained contact between two cultures; both may change |
| Assimilation | A minority culture is absorbed into the dominant one and loses distinctiveness |
| Integration | Groups participate in common institutions while keeping their identity; the stated goal of Nehru’s Tribal Panchsheel |
Culture and Change in India: Key Concepts
| Concept | Thinker | Meaning | Chhattisgarh illustration |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sanskritisation (संस्कृतिकरण) | M. N. Srinivas, first used in Religion and Society among the Coorgs of South India (1952) | A lower caste or tribe raises its ritual status by adopting the customs, rituals and beliefs of higher castes (vegetarianism, teetotalism, Sanskritic deities). Positional change, not structural change | Some Gond ruling and landed families (Raj Gond) adopted Kshatriya-style customs and claims; abstaining from meat and liquor has been a common route of upward mobility in the plains |
| Westernisation | M. N. Srinivas, Social Change in Modern India (1966) | Changes in Indian society and culture resulting from more than 150 years of British rule: technology, institutions, ideology and values | English education, railways and the industrial towns of Bhilai and Korba; new dress, food and family patterns |
| Little and Great Traditions | Robert Redfield (concept); applied to India by Milton Singer and McKim Marriott | Great tradition: the written, reflective, all-India tradition of the elite (epics, Sanskrit texts). Little tradition: the oral, local tradition of villagers and folk | Pandavani turns the Great tradition (the Mahabharata) into a local oral art; village deities and the Madai are Little-tradition institutions |
| Universalisation and Parochialisation | McKim Marriott, study of Kishan Garhi (western Uttar Pradesh), 1955 | Universalisation: a local element moves up into the Great tradition. Parochialisation: a Great-tradition element moves down and is reworked locally | Bastar Dussehra is a vivid case of parochialisation: an all-India festival reshaped around Danteshwari, village deities and the Muria Darbar, with no Ravana |
Mains nuance on Sanskritisation
Sanskritisation allows individual groups to move up but leaves the caste hierarchy intact. It can also spread restrictive practices (dowry, seclusion of women, ban on widow remarriage) to groups that earlier did not follow them; for instance, many tribal and lower-caste communities in the state traditionally allowed bride price and widow remarriage. Contrast it with assertion movements such as Guru Ghasidas’s Satnam Panth, which rejected the hierarchy itself.
flowchart LR
G["Great tradition
epics, Sanskrit texts,
all-India festivals"] -- "Parochialisation" --> L["Little tradition
village deities, folk songs,
Madai, Bastar Dussehra"]
L -- "Universalisation" --> G
L -- "Sanskritisation
(status mobility)" --> GAnalysis for Mains: Chhattisgarh’s Cultural Identity
- Layers: tribal cultures (Gond, Muria, Oraon, Baiga and others), the Chhattisgarhi-speaking plains culture, Kabirpanth and Satnam Panth reform traditions, and urban–industrial culture.
- Synthesis: Bastar Dussehra combines kingship, tribal deities and Hindu ritual; Pandavani localises the Mahabharata; Bhojali creates friendships across caste lines.
- Threats: displacement by mining and dams, migration, conflict in Bastar, commercialisation and “museum-isation” of tribal culture, and ethnocentric portrayals.
- Protection: Fifth Schedule and PESA (recognising customary law and practices), GI tags for crafts such as Bastar Dhokra, state support for folk arts, and the Chhattisgarhi language’s official recognition.
- Approach: integration rather than assimilation; cultural relativism as a method, constitutional morality as the limit.
Memory Tricks
Tylor's list: K-B-A-M-L-C
“Knowledge Brings Art, Morals, Law and Custom.” Knowledge, Belief, Art, Morals, Law, Custom: the six items of Tylor’s “complex whole” (1871).
Norms from soft to hard
F-M-T-L: “Folk Mostly Tolerate Lightly” in increasing order of strength: Folkways (mild) → Mores (moral) → Taboos (must not) → Laws (state-enforced).
Up and down
Universalisation goes Up; Parochialisation goes to the People (down). Both are Marriott (Kishan Garhi, 1955). Sanskritisation is Srinivas (Coorgs, 1952).
Don’t Confuse
| This | vs | That |
|---|---|---|
| Culture (way of life, learned) | vs | Society (web of relationships). Society is the people in relationship; culture is how they live |
| Folkways (mild sanction) | vs | Mores (strong moral sanction); both from Sumner (1906) |
| Ethnocentrism (own culture superior) | vs | Cultural relativism (judge in its own terms) |
| Sanskritisation: Srinivas, 1952 | vs | Westernisation: Srinivas, 1966 |
| Little/Great tradition: Redfield | vs | Universalisation/Parochialisation: Marriott (1955) |
| Cultural lag (Ogburn, 1922) | vs | Culture shock (Oberg): a personal experience, not a gap between material and non-material culture |
| Assimilation (identity lost) | vs | Integration (identity kept) |
Common Mistakes
Trap 1: culture is inherited
Culture is learned, not biologically inherited. “Acquired by man as a member of society” is the key phrase in Tylor’s definition.
Trap 2: cultural lag means non-material culture leads
In Ogburn’s theory, material culture changes first and faster; non-material culture lags behind.
Trap 3: Sanskritisation ends caste hierarchy
It changes the position of a group within the hierarchy, not the hierarchy itself. Srinivas called it positional, not structural, change.
Trap 4: Sumner invented ethnocentrism
Sumner popularised the term in Folkways (1906), and it is usually credited to him in exams. The idea had appeared earlier in the writings of Ludwig Gumplowicz. In an MCQ, Sumner remains the expected answer; in an essay, “popularised by” is the safe phrase.
Practice
All questions below are original practice questions written in CGPSC style. They are not previous-year questions.
Level 1: Foundation
- Tylor defined culture as that “complex ______” which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law and custom.
- The gap between fast-changing material culture and slow-changing non-material culture is called ______ (Ogburn).
- M. N. Srinivas first used the term Sanskritisation in his study of the ______ of South India (1952).
Answers
- Whole (Primitive Culture, 1871).
- Cultural lag (1922).
- Coorgs.
Level 2: Prelims-style MCQs
Q1. Consider the following statements:
- According to Ogburn, non-material culture changes faster than material culture.
- Folkways and mores were distinguished by W. G. Sumner.
- Cultural relativism means judging other cultures by the standards of one’s own.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a) 1 and 2 only
- (b) 2 only
- (c) 2 and 3 only
- (d) 1, 2 and 3
Answer and explanation
(b) 2 only. Statement 1 reverses Ogburn: material culture changes faster, and non-material culture lags. Statement 3 describes ethnocentrism; cultural relativism means understanding a culture in its own terms.
Q2. Match List I (Concept) with List II (Thinker):
| List I | List II |
|---|---|
| A. Sanskritisation | 1. W. F. Ogburn |
| B. Cultural lag | 2. McKim Marriott |
| C. Parochialisation | 3. E. B. Tylor |
| D. Culture as a “complex whole” | 4. M. N. Srinivas |
- (a) A-4, B-1, C-2, D-3
- (b) A-4, B-2, C-1, D-3
- (c) A-2, B-1, C-4, D-3
- (d) A-3, B-1, C-2, D-4
Answer and explanation
(a) A-4, B-1, C-2, D-3. Srinivas (Sanskritisation, 1952), Ogburn (cultural lag, 1922), Marriott (universalisation and parochialisation, Kishan Garhi, 1955), Tylor (Primitive Culture, 1871).
Q3. In Bastar Dussehra, an all-India festival is celebrated around the local goddess Danteshwari and village deities, without a Ravana effigy. In McKim Marriott’s terms, this is an example of:
- (a) Universalisation
- (b) Westernisation
- (c) Parochialisation
- (d) Assimilation
Answer and explanation
(c) Parochialisation. An element of the Great tradition (Dussehra) has moved down into the Little tradition and been reworked in local terms. Universalisation is the reverse movement, of a local element upward.
Q4. Social boycott of a tribal youth for marrying within his own clan is a sanction against the violation of:
- (a) A folkway
- (b) A more
- (c) A fashion
- (d) A law
Answer and explanation
(b) A more. Clan exogamy is a norm with strong moral significance, and its violation brings strong community sanctions. Folkways carry only mild sanctions; laws are enforced by the state.
Q5. “Culture is the man-made part of the environment.” This definition is associated with:
- (a) E. B. Tylor
- (b) Melville J. Herskovits
- (c) Robert Redfield
- (d) Ralph Linton
Answer and explanation
(b) Melville J. Herskovits. Tylor’s definition is the “complex whole”. Redfield is known for Little and Great Traditions, and Linton for status and role.
Level 3: Mains Answer Writing
Q1. (60 words) What is cultural lag? Illustrate with an example from Chhattisgarh.
Model answer outline
- Definition: W. F. Ogburn (1922): the gap that arises because material culture changes faster than non-material culture (norms, beliefs, laws).
- Example: mobile phones and digital payments reached villages faster than awareness of online fraud; or modern health care is available, yet tonhi (witch) beliefs persist, requiring the Tonahi Pratadna Nivaran Adhiniyam, 2005.
- Conclusion: education and law help non-material culture catch up.
Q2. (150–200 words) Explain Sanskritisation. How far does it explain social mobility among castes and tribes in Chhattisgarh?
Model answer outline
- Intro: M. N. Srinivas (1952, Coorgs): lower castes or tribes raise ritual status by adopting higher-caste customs, rituals and beliefs.
- Features: emulation of a reference group (link to Merton’s anticipatory socialisation); positional, not structural change; often linked with economic or political gain.
- Chhattisgarh illustrations: Raj Gond families adopting Kshatriya-style customs; abstention from meat and liquor as a route of mobility; Hindu deities and festivals entering tribal practice alongside village deities.
- Limits: does not end hierarchy; can spread restrictive practices (dowry, restrictions on widow remarriage) to groups that earlier allowed more freedom to women; ignores mobility through education, reservation, jobs and politics (secularisation, Westernisation); misses assertion movements such as the Satnam Panth that reject hierarchy.
- Conclusion: Sanskritisation explains part of cultural mobility; modern mobility in the state is better explained by education, democratic politics and economic change.
Quick Revision Table
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Tylor | Primitive Culture (1871); culture as “complex whole” |
| Herskovits | Culture = “man-made part of the environment” |
| Kroeber and Kluckhohn | 164 definitions (1952) |
| Material / non-material | Ogburn |
| Cultural lag | Ogburn, Social Change (1922) |
| Folkways, mores | Sumner, Folkways (1906) |
| Ethnocentrism | Popularised by Sumner (1906) |
| Cultural relativism | Boas tradition |
| Sanskritisation | Srinivas, Coorgs (1952) |
| Westernisation | Srinivas, Social Change in Modern India (1966) |
| Little / Great tradition | Redfield; Singer and Marriott in India |
| Universalisation / Parochialisation | Marriott, Kishan Garhi (1955) |
| CG example of parochialisation | Bastar Dussehra (no Ravana; Danteshwari; Muria Darbar) |
Key Takeaways
Key Takeaways
- Culture is the learned, shared, symbolic and cumulative way of life of a society: Tylor’s “complex whole” (1871).
- Norms range from folkways to mores, taboos and laws; values are the ideals behind them.
- Cultural lag (Ogburn, 1922): material culture runs ahead of norms and beliefs.
- Use cultural relativism to understand and constitutional values to judge; avoid ethnocentrism.
- India-specific tools: Sanskritisation and Westernisation (Srinivas), Little and Great Traditions (Redfield), universalisation and parochialisation (Marriott). Bastar Dussehra and Pandavani are ideal Chhattisgarh examples.
What’s Next
- Basic Concepts of Sociology — Quick Revision: every definition and thinker on one page
- Social Aspects of Chhattisgarh: culture, caste and tribe in the state
- Festivals and Traditions: Bastar Dussehra, Bhojali and other living traditions
- Art and Culture: India’s Great tradition in architecture, music and dance
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