Question

explain the meaning and characteristics of sanskritisation.

Answer 1

Sanskritisation (Indian English) or Sanskritization (American English, Oxford spelling) is a particular form of social change found in India. It denotes the process by which caste or tribes placed lower in the caste hierarchy seek upward mobility by emulating the rituals and practices of the upper or dominant castes. It is a process similar to passing in sociological terms. This term was made popular by Indian sociologist M. N. Srinivas in the 1950s.[1] According to Christophe Jaffrelot a similar heuristic is described in Castes in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development by B. R. Ambedkar.[2] Jaffrelot goes on to say, "While the term was coined by Srinivas, the process itself had been described by colonial administrators such as E. T. Atkinson in his Himalayan Gazetteer and Alfred Lyall, in whose works Ambedkar might well have encountered it."[3]