Tradition & modernization: Processes of continuity and change in India
- Allahabad, Indian International 1976
- 211p.
Professor Hagen while delivering the inaugural address to the Second Stage of the Seminar on Tradition and Modernization- Processes of Continuity and Change in India dealt with the causes of unrest in developing countries. He regarded that contact of the West with other cultures has initiated an urge for development in these countries. There are movements of protest sometimes potentially violent in nature. The cause of unrest is not so much due to poverty but it is to be seen in rising expectations resulting from the tensions of relative deprivation. The non-elites have no proper elite leadership, as it were in the feudal traditions to look towards them for the solution of problems. The younger generation, everywhere finds that problems connot be solved. So, there are frustrations, anger, aggression and protest. Professor Hagen's opening remarks at the inaugural session of the Seminar led most of the participants to challenge the basic foundation of his thesis. It may be possible that unrest may have a positive role to play. Freedom and demo- cracy do certainly lead to higher expectations but it is for the socio- economic system to contain them and give them a better direction and social purpose. The main themes to which the two Seminars held at Srinagar and New Delhi addressed themselves were the following : Theme No. 1: Conceptual Framework. Theme No. 2 : Historicity of Modernization. Theme No. 3: Agents and Instruments of Modernization. Theme No. 4: Indicators of Modernization. The papers selected for the present volume broadly cover the above themes.