A common and genuine fear amongst conservative Indians (specially elders) is that the rampant westernization amongst Indians is leading to the gradual decline and eventual ruins of Indian culture and tradition. Western goods, dresses, foods, festivals, style, language and moreover the western thought is suspected to be spreading across the populace. The purpose of this article is to look at the many reasons that cause such fears and analyze them by comparing with reality. This analysis is mainly from the Hindu perspective since that is where the author’s experience lies. The analysis however, would probably apply in equal measure to those Indians of other religious persuasions as well.
Broadly Culture and Tradition can be thought to be made up of:: Celebration of festivals and religious practices, dresses, foods, arts, traditional sciences, language and lifestyle. An analysis on these lines may give us a good handle on the topic and provide a reasonably complete picture.
Festivals and Religious practices
Indians now celebrate a wide variety of festivals cutting across religious lines. Special attention has been focused on Valentines Day, New Years Eve, Halloween, Christmas and such festivals that are considered to be alien to India. The fact that large number of youngsters have taken to celebrating these has aroused substantial fears leading to even threats of, and in many cases real, physical violence.
Christmas and New Years Eve are celebrated these days with gusto amongst the Indian middle and upper classes. Though Christmas is an important religious festival for Christians many Hindus celebrate Christmas. Valentines Day is gaining popularity mainly amongst youngsters. There is an allegation that Valentines Day is a media and commerce introduced venture. Whatever be the cause, it has gained popularity.
Most people celebrating Christmas, New years and Valentines, do it as a celebration rather than as a religious festival. Valentines Day is looked upon as a celebration of love and it provides youngsters opportunities to romance the opposite sex. Christmas and New Years are celebrated more for the consumption of cakes and wines rather than for religious reasons. In a manner, many Indians have adopted these as general non-religious festivals. Interestingly, New Years eve celebrations have started acquiring an Indian dimension and it is not always about drinking and dancing.
We must note that the traditional Hindu festivals are also celebrated in pomp and splendor, increasing by the year. In Mumbai, during the 2-3 days of Ganapathi Visarjan, Mumbai’s beaches are full to the brim. The number of people coming and the number of Ganapathis (Huge ones and small ones) is to be seen to get an understanding of the involvement of people. Krishna Janmashtami is celebrated publicly in every other street. Handi breaking competitions in this period have tough competitions and tougher competitors. Heights of the Handis go up to 13 tiers and prizes of some of the mandals go even above 50 Lakh rupees. Sankranti, Ugadi, Deepavali, Dasara, Durga Pooja, Raama Navami are all celebrated nowadays much more than in the previous generation (around 25 years ago).
We find that many festivals are moving more and more into the public domain while retaining the private celebrations too. The Public Ganapathi pandals in Mumbai attract lakhs of devotees (crores of rupees are collected at Lalbaghcha Raja Ganapathi). The public celebration of festivals provides coverage for those who don’t or can’t celebrate privately.
Regarding religious practices, the activity is now higher than it was in the earlier generations. Group singing of Soundarya Lahari, kumkumārchanas, homās and yāgas seem to be increasing. Temples are overflowing (may be the same with Churches and Mosques). What used to be road side shanty temples acquire full temple status with permanent buildings and committed following. Old temples in several villages are all being renovated and people (both local and those who have migrated) are actively contributing to these initiatives. Religious gurus are attracting more followers and there is a wider audience for their discourses.
Dresses
Western dresses have percolated into the Indian populace quite widely. Some of the Indian traditional dresses such as Dhoti, Turban (for men), Saari, Langa-Blouse-Daavani (for girls) are becoming rare.
The westernization of the Indian dress started much before, during the British rule. The Pants, Skirts, Shirts, Ties, Suits and such have been in vogue for quite some time now.
Indian dresses continue to live well. The traditional dresses are common on all special occasions including amongst youngsters. The Salwar-Kameez, Kurta-Pyjama, Mundu, Saari and such are still commonly used. Western dresses have also been adopted widely, probably from the convenience aspect. The western dresses that are inconvenient to wear such as corsets, large flowing gowns and skirts are quite rare. Here again, traditional Indian dresses don’t seem to be in any danger of being subsumed by westernization.
Foods
The Indian palate has welcomed many western foods (and eastern as well). Pizzas, Burgers, Ice creams, Noodles are all common place in Indian cities and towns. Of late Barbecues, Steaks, Pasta, Lasagna, Spaghetti, Tacos, and other foods are also making their presence felt.
When the major western food joints started operations in India, there were widespread fears that it was the end of Indian foods like Dosa and Idly. No such thing has happened. If any, the Indian foods, with all their regional traditional identities in tact, have grown stronger. There is enough demand for the Appam as for the Rumali Rotis. The Rasgullas and the Mysore paks are both relished with equal fervor. Some special dishes that were getting quite rare a decade ago are now reappearing and are even being marketed commercially. For instance, in Karnataka, dishes such as Manohara, Kunda, Kardant, Todedev are spreading from their earlier regional silos and are addressing larger markets.
There may not be many Indian dishes of value that have been sacrificed at the altar of western / foreign foods.
Arts
Western music and dance are quite popular amongst urban Indians. Concerts by western artists are well received. Hollywood movies have a decent market, at least in the tier-1 cities. Have these affected Indian arts?
Indian traditional arts also seem to be doing well. Carnatic and Hindustani – classical and light music, Bharata natya, Kathak, have good following. Many people qualified in various professions also practice these, at times giving up their main professions to follow the route of the traditional arts. Many schools / trainers teaching the classical arts seem to have enough students. Bollywood, Tollywood, also have good markets and are teaching a thing or two to Hollywood.
As in foods and dresses, even in art, the Indian traditional arts don’t seem to have lost out to the western arts
Traditional Sciences
In case of traditional sciences, there is a widespread feeling that Indian medicinal systems like Ayurveda have been ignored and ridiculed and only western allopathic medicine is being encouraged. Some feel that Indian sciences like yogāsana will be appreciated only if it comes from the west.
Ayurvedic practitioners are doing quite well. There are many companies that prepare and market ayurvedic medicines and these are as commercially oriented as their allopathic counterparts. Governments are running Aurvedic colleges and enough people are graduating from these. All in all, Ayurveda seems to be doing quite well. We must acknowledge that the allopathic medicine is far advanced in terms of scientific growth and is the only option available for proven remedies in critical conditions. The improving infant mortality, life expectancy and such health care related metrics can all be credited to the allopathic medicine. Adaptation of this is inevitable and desirable.
As for yogāsanas, they never went out of practice in India. There is now, much higher appreciation for the benefits of yogāsanas, prānāyāma and Meditation. Many schools teach these to students as part of the regular extra curricular activities and the children of today are likely to know more āsanas than their parents.
Language
Learning English is seen as the ipso-facto requirement for gaining better employment opportunities and consequently better life style. Usage of English is on the rise and it shall be so for some time to come.
Have the Indian languages been neglected? Study of these by serious student scholars may have seen a down trend. This is to be expected since English is a vehicle that brings in global employment opportunities to India. Almost all scientific and engineering terminology is in English and this is the natural language for studying these subjects. However, following for literature in the local languages seems to be quite healthy. Lakhs of people attended the recently concluded Kannada sāhitya sammelana in Bangalore. Large number of Kannada books (amounting to Rs 8 Crores) were sold on this occasion. Similarly, the International Tamil conferences have been great hits recently.
The leading authors of Kannada are still writing books and selling in substantial numbers. It could be a similar story with other Indian languages. There is a sizeable market for English books too. However, when people read English literature, novels and such, it is from the standpoint of an external observer. Few will try to superimpose the western cultural and traditional aspects expressed in these books upon themselves and their lives. A casual look at all the famous intellectuals of the country (those exposed to wide range of western literature) in the last century will prove that study of English literature does not automatically affect the lives they lead.
We can find that in the different regions of India, people are quite comfortable in using their mother tongues without any sense of inferiority. The education system fosters learning of multiple languages and anyone not conversant with the local language and / or mother tongue would be considered not up to the mark. As usage of English spreads to all sections of the society across the country, the exalted status enjoyed by English will come down to be on par with other native languages. Then it will become just a language of convenience and not have any cultural aspects coloring its usage. That local languages are as popular as English is already seen – a sampling of popular Radio / TV channels / programs should establish this.
There is a strong following for the vernacular television and print media.
All in all, it appears that though English is getting quite common, the other local languages are not really languishing.
Lifestyle
A great deal has been said about the Pub culture fostered by the western civilization and the devastating effect it has on Indian culture. The ease with, and extent to, which girls and boys mix together; the disco bars; the drinking and merry making; the coffee joints with hookahs; are all frowned upon as being against Indian morality.
There is no particular lifestyle that can be said to be Indian. The Indian values of family life, respect to elders, affection to younger, sense of duty are all still very much in evidence. People given to the pleasures of life like drinking, merry making, were always there even in the ancient Indian society. In fact, it appears so that in ancient India, people by and large had a jolly good time. The frowning upon all pleasures as sins is probably foreign to Indian and may be an effect of the Victorian conservatism imported by British. The Muslim rule may also have had significant influence in this conservatism.
Indians, including the financially well-to-do still get married with the intention of staying together for the rest of their lives. If financial insecurity has reduced amongst working women and consequently they are able to assert themselves against abuse, it has be applauded as progressive rather than considering it as a loss of culture and tradition. If in the past Indians treated their women badly or unequally (daughters, wives and widows), then the equality that is being bestowed upon women is a good value. This shall probably restore the respect for women that ancient Indians were proud to have.
