Comment on Hertel's "Dimensions of Sanskritization"

Abstract

W must all agree with Bradley Hertel's contention in March, 1973, issue that only after phenomenon of Sanskritization is clearly defined can one hope to test hypotheses concerning Sanskritization as process. We must welcome all attempts to operationalize whether by factor analysis, as in this study, or by other methods. Studies of Sanskritization have indeed been impressionistic, as author states, and concept itself used loosely. This study, however, falls short of its mark for want of clarification of its starting premises. I would make note of interchangeability, in this study, of dyads and non-Sanskritic and and (p. 22). Hertel's definition of Sanskritization as the adoption of life styles of ritually high Hindu is a conventional and useful one, though in need of operationalization. The opposite of being Sanskritized is, logically, acceptance of one's caste dharma in schema which for lower castes does not include certain classical practices. Thus, for example, a typical practice is forbidding of widow remarriage; this rule was traditionally not practiced by low castes. A low or middle caste seeking to elevate its status would begin to keep its widows single. In a study of Sanskritization, items in questionnaire should be items which could be answered yes or no from within schema. With some of items in Hertel's questionnaire, this is case; many of items, however, rather than opposing Sanskritic vs. non-Sanskritic, actually are opposing and modern, which is something else again entirely. In his discussion of dimension of efficacy (p. 22) he categorizes poles of continuum as being traditional (ie, 'fatalism) and modern (ie, optimism), and indeed most of items would not be relevant discriminations within schema; e.g., Progress depends on science vs. beliefs. It is questionable whether fatalism as operationalized in items on questionnaire would be genuinely Sanskritic in any case (eg, see Potter, 1963), but in this study fatalistic responses are posited as response, and one must wonder how Dhobis and Chamars, lowest castes, also come out most