Modernity is the end state of becoming modern is mistaken in India. Modernity has been misrecognised in India because of the tendency to equate it with technology and with other contemporary artefacts (Gupta 2000)
What we see now as India’s attempt to be modern is only superficial modernisation or ‘westoxication’ in Dipankar Gupta’s term. India sure has grown materially over the last few decades, enormously since independence, but can the same be said for the non-material aspects? And herein lies the great ‘cultural lag’ that our country is facing. This cultural lag is a concept developed by William F. Ogburn denoting the gap between the material aspect of culture which is rapid in change and the non-material aspect of culture which is slow to change. This concept of cultural lag is helpful in understanding why India still cannot be called a truly modern nation.
Starting from the time of India’s independence, India has tried to ‘catch-up’ the path of development modelled by the west. India in its attempt to be developed nation has tried to hasten the transition from being mainly an agricultural country to an industrial one through rapid capital accumulation, investment and state intervention. This transition from an agrarian to an industrial economy and society which took several centuries for the west, India hopes to achieve within a few decades. What we don’t understand is that when this economic transition happened in the west, it happened along with the cultural transition. In the west, people’s mentality and culture changed along the same pace as economic change. These two changes happened side by side and in many aspects the two overlapped.
Modernity arose in the west during the renaissance period in the late 17th and 18th century. This period is also known as the ‘age of enlightenment’ or the ‘age of reason’ where primary emphasis began to be given to reason, scepticism and scientific thinking. It was during this period of enlightenment that the ideals of rationality, equality, liberty, fraternity, individualism, progress and tolerance began to emerge. This period gave a challenge to the traditional religious beliefs and dogmas, the institutionalised church and out rightly rejected absolute monarchy, blind faith, intolerance and superstition. This age of enlightenment was a mass ‘intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe in the 18th century’ and to which the people were subjected to.
It was during this period of transition in the prevailing attitude from religiosity to secularism, superstition to reason, orthodoxy to individualism, that economic transition also started to emerge, owing to the growing scientific rationality. This economic transition was from the prevailing feudal system to the capitalistic system. This gave rise to the market economy, industrialisation and urbanisation which all helped in further shifting the attitudes, culture and values of the people from homogeneity and irrationality to individuality and rationality. Thus we see that in the west, modernity arose and encompassed both the processes of change in the cultural and attitudinal spheres as well as in the economic sphere. Both the rise of reason and rise of capitalism affected each other and owed each other the emergence of the enlightenment period and ultimately in the emergence of the modern period. In simple words, modernity arose in the west without a gap in the materialistic and non-materialistic aspect of culture.
As with regard to India, unlike the west, it was the economic transition that happened first. India’s attempt towards modernity was characterised by rapid economic transition through industrialisation and urbanisation which hoped to bring shifts in the mentality, attitudes and behaviour of the people. Though India has been able to achieve much progress economically in a few decades time, but what it has achieved is only economic growth and not all round development which can ultimately help make it a modern nation. Though these are considerable changes, these are only material changes which are easily visible and also tangible. The material aspect of our culture is not only developing and advancing but it is developing and advancing way faster than the non-material culture which already started later in the first place and even now it is not being able to keep pace with the rapid material changes in our country. This non material culture is slow to change and is intangible because it deals with the values, morals, beliefs, ethics, norms and religion of people.
The intangible non-material culture unless they are in the same pace as the other material developments, our country can never become modern no matter how much material progress our nation does or no matter how many incentives, investments and multinational companies are built. If there is material development but no self-development then the ideal of modernity cannot be reached. Modernisation requires mass self-development because unless there is self-development, the non-material culture cannot be changed and unless material and the non-material culture runs in the same pace, we cannot achieve true modernity. Modernity thus in a way can also be relegated equal to the ideals of development.
