However, the Kolenda text is somewhat prescient in identifying some of the ways that Indian society has adjusted to change as modernization has become a matter of inevitability. Indeed, Kolenda denotes entering into the discussion that "the shape of India emerging will be different from the shape of modern Western societies. Caste in its new transformations will be an important contributing factor to determining that shape." (Kolenda, i) as Kolenda's is a text which was composed in 1985, this renders it a particularly insightful set of predictions on how the desire of traditionalists and the culturally elite to maintain ancient systems of class demarcation will find balance with the push of the global community to assume a more democratically driven strategy for socioeconomic organization.
Conclusion:
Ultimately, one is left with the sense that a subject such as this would best be explored in a study with a more current context. That the selected text is now 25 years old renders it almost totally irrelevant with respect to the current generation of laborers, global employees, political...
Moreover, its conclusions would truly be drawn just before a major revolution in the opening of India's to geo-economic interests had touched off. More in the last ten to fifteen years than ever before has Indian society been molded by externalities.
But there is a value in Kolenda's text insofar as it appears to accurately forecast a principled impasse between the traditions of the Caste system and the philosophical demands being foisted upon India by its investing global partners. Kolenda's text is therefore -- due to its age -- now more valuable as a critical investigation into the cultural implications of this internal contradiction. Raising questions as concern the discord between a desire for the retention of cultural identity and mounting pressures to assimilate toward a universal 'modern culture,' Kolenda's text does ultimately provoke a conversation on the global push toward democracy that calls into question the very feasibility of such an ambition.
Works Cited:
Kolenda, P. (1985). Caste in Contemporary India. Waveland Press.
