Need to Study Rural Religion

The study of rural religion is very important for having a composite story of the ‘past cultural evolution of the Indian People”. The history of Indian culture is still scattered and is more over still in a fragmentary state. Controversy still exists regarding the genesis of Indian culture and the subsequent phases of its subsequent development. Different views have been advanced on the subject. ‘Also problems such as, where the Indian culture originated and how it spread in different parts of India, also remain in the domain of debate.’

Although the study of rural religion and its valuable role in ‘determining the life processes of the rural society’ must always form an essential part of the study of that society. The following are the principal reasons for this:

1. It has been observed by sociologists all over the world that rural people have a greater predisposition to religion than urban people. The dependence on agriculture the basic form of production in the countryside- on the hitherto un-mastered forces of nature like rains and the near absence of scientific culture, which provides a correct understanding of the natural social worlds, among the rural people are two main reasons for the greater degree of religiosity among them. Traditional religion composed of the crudest conceptions of the world holds their mind in its grip. Animism, magic polytheism, ghost beliefs, and other forms of primitive religion, are rampant among the rural people to a far greater extent than among the urban people.’
2. The religious outlook of the rural people overwhelmingly dominates their intellectual, emotional, and practical life. It is difficult to locate any aspect of their life which is not permeated with and colored by religion. Their family life, caste life, general social life, economic, and even recreational life, are more or less governed by a religious approach and religious norms. Religious conceptions also largely dominate their ethical standard; the form and content of their arts like painting, sculpture, architecture, folk songs, and others; as also their social and economic festivals. This special true of societies based on subsistence economies of the pre-capitalist epoch when religion was almost completely fused with social life and when even the then-existing secular scientific knowledge of man-psychology,  medicine, astronomy, mathematics, agronomy, mechanics, sociology, ethics, etc. was clothed in religions garb and was the monopoly of the priestly caste.
3. In societies based on subsistence economies, the leadership of the village life in all domains was provided by the priestly group, in India the Brahmins. Modes, which this group laid down for individual behavior as well as for social control, were determined by traditional religious concepts. Hence the life of the village aggregate in all spheres was molded in the spirit of religious ideas and was controlled by religious institutions and leaders.
4. A new development took place in modern times in India after the advent of British rule. The social, economic, and political life of the village, as stated elsewhere, experienced a progressive transformation. The development and spread of capitalist economic forms led to the disintegration of the subsistence economy of the autarchic village from the village panchayat and caste councils whose outlook was essentially religious and who were generally guided by religious conceptions and criteria even in secular matters. 

There has been a change in the past. The new economic and political environs, new norms, and secular forces have increasingly superseded the authoritarian religious norms which for centuries had governed even the secular life of the village people. It is because of these factors of change, ‘the village people for the first time in history felt the impact of secular, democratic, and equalitarian ideas on their consciousness. A new ferment began to spread among them which has been steadily affecting their life and outlook hitherto colored with religion. There have also led to the emergence of new secular institutions and associations, new secular leadership, and social controls, within the Indian rural society.

These changes have caused a slow but steady decline in the ‘hegemony and control of the leaders of religion over the life of the rural population.’