Changing brahmans: association and Elites among the kanya-kubjas of North India

This book has two interrelated purposes. Based on available
documentary and field data, it seeks to present a microsociological
account of Kanya-Kubja Brahman caste associations. The second
purpose is wider; for it relates to the problem of studying social
change in a complex and diversified society, especially where tra-
dition and modernity confront and compete in social reality. I
have attempted to answer these questions: What is the relation-
ship between the modern organizational and the traditional socio-
cultural bases of Kanya-Kubja behavior? And, how do the pro-
cesses of social change operate on the supposed dichotomy of
tradition and modernity under the Indian situation?
My approach is social-anthropological, seeking to see how far
its concepts and techniques can be used in the analysis of social
change in caste associations. Whenever necessary, I have turned
to the other social sciences-especially sociology—for useful
conceptual differentiations; but, as should be clear from textual
discussions, I have avoided their “wholesale transportation."
Thus, I have tried to be cautious about the wide-rather
sweeping—ambience accorded to "caste and kinship" under so-
cial anthropological emphasis, and about the relative polarities
and rigidities in the use of such sociological concepts as “ascrip-
tion," "voluntary organization,” and “achievement." Yet the
analytical implications of such concepts, as I note in the Introduc-
tion, are found to be helpful for explaining the organization of
Kanya-Kubja caste associations (the sabhas)—a dynamic meet-
ing ground of institutionalized and “organizational" (bureau-
cratic) behavior. The study also tries to indicate the usefulness of
such "adapted" conceptual tools beyond the sabha contexts.
My contact with the Kanya-Kubja Brahmans started in 1957,
when I was an anthropology teacher at Kanya-Kubja College
My interest in their social organization was aroused in 1958 by
the behavioral patterns of Kanya-Kubja colleagues and students.
With candor the latter introduced me to their own caste group.
My teaching assignments at the college lasted until the fall of
the data col-
1963; and during this period I continued, off and on,
lection on the caste group through the help of my Kanya-Kubja
friends. The topics of my inquiry varied from hierarchy and hy-
pergamy to family rituals. Between January 1965 and June 1966
I approached Kanya-Kubja Brahmans with a systematic and
more intensive field program, including the problem of their
caste associations.
The substantive field material upon which this study is based
was collected during this period in Lucknow and Kanpur. Living
in Lucknow, I made frequent trips to Kanpur and several to the
Fatehgarh-Farrukhabad (Kannauj) and Hardoi areas. About
eighty-two prestigious Kanya-Kubja families were intensively
studied through prolonged and repeated observations and inter-
views. Often a single interview lasted for several hours. I now ob-
served Kanya-Kubja Brahmans beyond the confines of the col-
lege, which became so familiar during the 1957–63 period. As
Brahmans and as officers, businessmen, contractors, priests, and
clerks, and such, Kanya-Kubjas were found to confront and re-
solve dilemmas of sociocultural change. Incentives and constraints
of their adaptive relationships appeared in varied empirical situ-
ations. In matters ranging from a daughter's marriage to a son's
employment, they exhibited capacities to manipulate value param-
eters and caste and kin resources on the one hand, and economic
and organizational influences, on the other. As pragmatists as
well as traditionalists, they handled the effects of modernization
in various ways.