"Indian culture"
OK. Random post. But I'm sure all zero of my readers will pardon me and continue to decline to comment on the matter. This is really cut from an email of mine.
I don't need to tell Indians about the professional culture vultures (CV). But quite a few amateurs too feel that way. I couldn't help noticing that even to many well meaning folks in India, "Indian culture" is simply a way to stifle any deviation from the mainstream (for instance, it's not indian culture that women wear jeans, while it's totally Indian Culture for men to wear pants since, as we all know, ashoka, buddha and adishankara were all
jeans-clad). In other words "Indian culture means doing things the
way everybody is doing them right now". Which is a fine definition. Except that this automatically makes it fluid and unbinding (without any need for rebellion). But this is not the CV's definition of Indian culture.
To take a "silly" example, consider the length of blouses that women wear (both the body length and the sleeve length). If you look at pictures when our parents were young (sixties and seventies), most ladies wore them very short. But those are not in fashion today. A lot of people in India will gasp at a young woman with a short blouse since it's against "Indian culture". The same people who wore those tiny ones when they were young! See, these folks don't mean to be hypocritical, they just forgot. They confused fashion for culture.
Please, don't tell me about how that's SO not the case in the big cities. The cultural difference betweent the villages in cities is so large and growing so fast that the cities no longer serve as any barometer of Indian life. Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore do not speak for Karur and Pathanamthitta.
Also, the CV have definitions of Indian culture that are often quite narrow. Most of their issues center directly or indirectly on sexual matters, of course since Indian society is obsessed with sex, or rather, a pretense of its non-existence. Deny, deny, deny. Don't talk about homosexuality, infidelity, AIDS, anything. Pretend it isn't there. What do you expect from such a sexually repressed society anyway other than gradual crazy Talibanisation? Check out what's happening with Anna University's dress code . Women wearing small dresses - APOCALYPSE ! Apparently, this is the one thing that threatens Indian culture the most, and such women don't deserve protection from rape. Followed closely by dating, hand holding and general PDA (meerut).
Crazy consumerism on the other hand, doesn't strike very many in India as not being "Indian culture".
I think in our time, it might not be uncommon for some of us to be more respectful of more ancient Indian traditions than even their parents simply because of liking them. Language, traditional music, literature, and religion - how many people in India give a damn about any of these? I think religion might be the exception in this list- largely for majoritarian reasons. How many people who freak out about Indian culture in dress have even read an old philosophical text, sought out a native art form to enjoy?
I'd like to suggest that it would be wise to view some of the changes in the country as modernization and not Westernization. Western society has undergone a tremendous amount of change in recent times too. Much of what is seen around today is not really "Western tradition". For all the talk of the caste in India, it's not so long ago that overt racism was around in the US. The status of women in Western culture, until very recently was worse than their contemporary counterparts in India. Dowry existed in the West. The Western societies acted quickly in getting rid of these ills (still in the process in some matters) and moved ahead. They didn't sit around saying "English/German/Norwegian culture is being destroyed". Why can't we think of social change as modernization and not Westernization? As far as dress goes, if you looked at Victorian dresses, you'd know that shorts and mini-skirts are not Western culture in any way. Afros hairstyles are not Western culture or African culture.
I don't need to tell Indians about the professional culture vultures (CV). But quite a few amateurs too feel that way. I couldn't help noticing that even to many well meaning folks in India, "Indian culture" is simply a way to stifle any deviation from the mainstream (for instance, it's not indian culture that women wear jeans, while it's totally Indian Culture for men to wear pants since, as we all know, ashoka, buddha and adishankara were all
jeans-clad). In other words "Indian culture means doing things the
way everybody is doing them right now". Which is a fine definition. Except that this automatically makes it fluid and unbinding (without any need for rebellion). But this is not the CV's definition of Indian culture.
To take a "silly" example, consider the length of blouses that women wear (both the body length and the sleeve length). If you look at pictures when our parents were young (sixties and seventies), most ladies wore them very short. But those are not in fashion today. A lot of people in India will gasp at a young woman with a short blouse since it's against "Indian culture". The same people who wore those tiny ones when they were young! See, these folks don't mean to be hypocritical, they just forgot. They confused fashion for culture.
Please, don't tell me about how that's SO not the case in the big cities. The cultural difference betweent the villages in cities is so large and growing so fast that the cities no longer serve as any barometer of Indian life. Mumbai, Chennai and Bangalore do not speak for Karur and Pathanamthitta.
Also, the CV have definitions of Indian culture that are often quite narrow. Most of their issues center directly or indirectly on sexual matters, of course since Indian society is obsessed with sex, or rather, a pretense of its non-existence. Deny, deny, deny. Don't talk about homosexuality, infidelity, AIDS, anything. Pretend it isn't there. What do you expect from such a sexually repressed society anyway other than gradual crazy Talibanisation? Check out what's happening with Anna University's dress code . Women wearing small dresses - APOCALYPSE ! Apparently, this is the one thing that threatens Indian culture the most, and such women don't deserve protection from rape. Followed closely by dating, hand holding and general PDA (meerut).
Crazy consumerism on the other hand, doesn't strike very many in India as not being "Indian culture".
I think in our time, it might not be uncommon for some of us to be more respectful of more ancient Indian traditions than even their parents simply because of liking them. Language, traditional music, literature, and religion - how many people in India give a damn about any of these? I think religion might be the exception in this list- largely for majoritarian reasons. How many people who freak out about Indian culture in dress have even read an old philosophical text, sought out a native art form to enjoy?
I'd like to suggest that it would be wise to view some of the changes in the country as modernization and not Westernization. Western society has undergone a tremendous amount of change in recent times too. Much of what is seen around today is not really "Western tradition". For all the talk of the caste in India, it's not so long ago that overt racism was around in the US. The status of women in Western culture, until very recently was worse than their contemporary counterparts in India. Dowry existed in the West. The Western societies acted quickly in getting rid of these ills (still in the process in some matters) and moved ahead. They didn't sit around saying "English/German/Norwegian culture is being destroyed". Why can't we think of social change as modernization and not Westernization? As far as dress goes, if you looked at Victorian dresses, you'd know that shorts and mini-skirts are not Western culture in any way. Afros hairstyles are not Western culture or African culture.
posted by Kurma at 12/16/2005 11:51:00 AM
4 Comments:
Funny thing. Thomas John. A couple of years back I decided to register a domain. After thinking my brains into pulp I went for a combination of my first- and lastname. Apparently, so did you :) Thojo.org for me, since you hade already taken the dotcom.
All the best.
Hey, other thojo,
This was my nickname in college. Wonder whether it was yours too. Hope to run into you some day.
thojo:
bharat here, taking a coffee break in Chapel Hill to check out your blog, never worry, you have at least one reader, Soumya reads your blog ever so often!
"Culture", as used in India, or here, or anywhere else for the matter is just a way for a society's elite to maintain status quo so they can continue to remain elite. While every action such as railing against pre-marital sex does not serve to help anyone's cause all by itself, the sum of a lot of these actions helps keep the people oppressed and afraid, and maintains status quo. culture has always, to me, been about preventing individual empowerment. On the other hand, crazy consumerism is good because it is the status quo that primarily profits from all the designer jeans being sold.
Religious leaders enforce culture as another way to maintain control. If you are not kept afraid, oppressed and in the dark, why would you have to listen to your priest/padre/mullah, you could see and live for yourself!
Anyway, coffee over, break over, nice blog, cool celebrity squash pictures!
Seen, Kurma, seen. I hear what you're sayin here.
Don't let my blog scare you off. I'm going to change it after my return from California next week. I wrote that craziness in a fit of humorous fury.
Don't worry, I'm not here to snatch you up.
I like your blog posts. My sentiments exactly about many things. But sometimes I'm taken to task for it.
As far as Bharat Chandramouli's opinion that culture is a means of preventing individual empowerment, it depends on how "culture" is defined. I see culture (music, art, literature, etc) arising from nothing but the empowerment of individuals. The individuals created the culture through the power of their art, music and literature. If on the otherhand by culture you mean "taboos of a society", then yeah, I see what you mean.
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