Read the passage and answer the questions that follow:
Modernity spelled not merely new ideas but also rethinking and reinterpretation of tradition. Both culture and traditions are living entities. People learn them and in turn modify them. India's structural and cultural diversity is self-evident. This diversity shapes the different ways that modernisation or westernisation, sanskritisation or secularisation effects or does not effect different groups of people. It is up to you to explore and identify the complex ways modernisation impacts people in different parts of the country or impacts different classes and castes in the same region. And even women and men from the same class or community.
What is 'westernisation'?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → Cultural change brought about by colonialism
Option (1) Structural change brought about by colonialism — Incorrect. Colonialism did bring structural changes, such as new industries and cities. But westernisation is one of the four processes of change in cultural practices: in ways of life, ideas and values. So it is a cultural change, not a structural one.
Option (2) Cultural change that predates colonialism — Incorrect. This describes sanskritisation, which pre-dates the coming of colonial rule. Westernisation came with British rule, so it cannot predate colonialism.
Option (3) Cultural change brought about by secularisation — Incorrect. Secularisation is a separate process, one of the four processes of cultural change beside westernisation; in the modern west it has usually meant a decline in the influence of religion. Westernisation is not caused by secularisation; its source is British colonial rule.
Option (4) Cultural change brought about by colonialism — Correct. M.N. Srinivas defines westernisation as the changes brought about in Indian society and culture as a result of over 150 years of British rule, covering technology, institutions, ideology and values. It is a cultural change, and its source is colonialism.
NCERT (2025-26): “…The second with the less deliberate yet decisive changes in cultural practices that can broadly be understood as the four processes of sanskritisation, modernisation, secularisation and westernisation. Sanskritisation pre-dates the coming of colonial rule. The other three processes can be understood better as complex responses of the people of India to the changes that colonialism brought about.” “Westernisation … You have already read about our western colonial past. You have seen how it often brought about changes that were paradoxical and strange. M.N. Srinivas defines westernisation as ‘the changes brought about in Indian society and culture as a result of over 150 years of British rule, the term subsuming changes occurring at different levels…technology, institutions, ideology and values…” |