________________
MATTER AND METHOD IN SOCIOLOGY & IDEOLOGY 49
and the commonsense view of life, though have their metaphysical origin and inspiration, are not reflective and critical in character. Popular faith and myths are enough to persuade the common man to accept the traditional life without question and query. For example, the myth of solar eclipse or lunar eclipse is enough to persuade him to accept it as valid, and therefore he does not bother the astronomer to tell him what we call the scientific explanation of this "strange" phenomenon. It is thus by uncritically accepting certain modes of thought and action that the common man easily adjusts himself to his own social milieu. He does avoid those questions and queries which might disturb his traditional ties with the other members of his family, caste, community and society. In the name of maintaining the homogeneity of a social unit, whatever that might be, and also in order to maintain the undisturbed continuity of its tradition he follows the path of least resistance. His uncritical eagerness to belong to his social unit and identify himself with it makes him feel easily inclined to Hinduise or Islamise himself. Now we are being told of the necessity of Indianisation as well.
This brief analysis of the static factors of the society is more or less true of all groups of people of the Indian society, depending more or less. of course on the level of their education and the degree of their exposure to the urban-in dustrial influences. What is generally true of all people is specially true of rural people, and that again is related to their mode of production and the resulting mode of living. The peasant is interested more. in the preservation of traditional values than in the transvaluation of the values handed over to him by the "wiser and older" generations and accepted by him in good faith.
The other side of the picture of rural India and of the peasantry has. so many dynamic factors in it and is extremely complex. Like the static. factors the dynamic ones are also of two types, conceptual and institutional.. Of the institutional factors most important perhaps are (1) industrialisation and (2) education. Our educational system has been fashioned out and out in the British model. Since the impact of this education is not intensively felt beyond the urban and semi-urban areas, the peasantry has not been deeply influenced by it, except of course through its inevitable spill-over effects. The more the traditional systems of education have been replaced by the modern and completely alien model of education, the more the traditional system of life has been disturbed and distorted. It is true that education can work as a modernising factor. But there I draw a distinction between modernity and modernisation.
If a son of a rich farmer is educated say for 5-6 years in an urban environment and becomes a doctor or engineer, he hates to go back to his original or any other rural place. This is even more tragically true in respect of the students educated abroad.
Our education because of its alien character instead of making us conscious of our "true" identity it facilitates the process of alienation inherent in our feudal and capitalist modes of production. Given its present
