The Fading Cultures of India

Families would eat meals together in the cabins they shared with strangers from all walks of life. The businessman traveling alone with his proper suitcase or the couple honeymooning from the North would always have someone to talk to. It was, after all, the pinnacle experience of the newly emerging middle-class to travel the nation. After the initial scramble over space for luggage, everyone became friends, part of an exclusive club discovering their nation and its rich tapestry.

In the years since I made those routine visits back home, India has become a major player on the world stage, flexing its political and economic muscles. The nation’s image of itself has changed dramatically in this short time, with repercussions for the aspirations of its youth and the quality of life of most Indians.

As an overseas Indian, my image of India has emerged in part from my family experiences and community events. But it has also been shaped through the eyes of awestruck Americans enamored by their travels, Indian religious philosophy, or Bollywood movies.

As an Indian American I am proud of India’s diversity. With a Kannadiga mother and a Tamil father, I was raised with an appreciation for the differences and commonalities between these two South Indian cultures. Most of my Indian friends when I was growing up were not South Indian, which expanded the reach of Indian diversity early on. Sometimes my conversations with other Indians would involve disabusing them of their stereotypes, such as my relatively fair skin, which did not match their expectations of someone from the South.
Recently, while visiting an Indian restaurant, an Indian colleague was accosted by a patron curious to know how to say hello in “Indian.” I interjected, “Which Indian language are you referring to?”

Perplexed, he turned to me: “You’re Indian? You don’t look very Indian … and isn’t there only one language?”

After I explained the subcontinent’s diversity, the diner expressed amazement: “Why don’t they teach that in schools here? That’s amazing!”

I fear though that India’s diversity is today at some risk.

It is painful for me to visit India these days and see Indians my age attempting to mimic the Western culture portrayed in movies rather than embracing their own varied cultures. It’s even harder to reconcile how Indian cinema, in a matter of two decades, went from making great films like Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge and Anjali to Dhoom and Dhoom 2.

Indeed, it’s hard to pinpoint one unique aspect of India worth preserving that has been preserved. The nation marches toward a view of modernity shared by shortsighted leaders of industry and media. In their pursuits, the uniqueness of the various regions of India is an obstacle, not a boon. As a result, they push policies that edge the nation toward a shared language and culture, homogeneity rather than diversity.

Unfortunately, the culture they’ve chosen and the perceptions of modernity they subscribe to are not Indian at all. Craven politicians gain from communalism, regionalism and attempts to drive wedges between Indians of different cultures. At the same time, many Indian educated elites abjure their language and heritage in an attempt to elevate themselves above the problems of communalism.

The people charting India’s emergence are a brilliant and restless group, but the effects of their zeal are unbearable for the image of India I hold dear. I miss being able to escape from the stresses of life in America every few years. I see those same stresses now in India. I miss the city of my birth, Bangalore. Its beauty has been displaced by development-induced pollution as its local culture and language succumb to modernization. One hears the refrain that English is the language of business and Hindi the language of youth culture, so why bother with Kannada, the language native to Bangalore? Most of all, I miss traveling between Chennai and Bangalore and feeling the weight of the individual heritages that shaped the culture of each city. On every visit, I discover just how much the mix of colors the nation has so long known have receded.

Admittedly, many reforms are necessary, such as the loosening of the caste system and enhancing education and economic mobility. These reforms targeted problems and injustices shared across all regions and peoples of India and were not necessarily tied to India’s emergence on the world stage. But many assume that the next step toward modernity and equality for all Indians involves the forging of a common identity, mimicking nations that many Indians tend to idolize.

This next step marks a drastically different mindset from the past. Throughout history, Indians preserved their identities even under foreign rule. In fact, India had more effect on its foreign rulers then those rulers had on India. Even changes or transformation wrought by others were identifiably Indian. The train system I cherished as a child was introduced by the British, but no one would dare say that India’s railway experience is anything but Indian.

These days, however, Indians are abandoning their identity even in the absence of external pressure. While charming the world with remnants of India’s past, on the domestic front its rich culture is being erased. In a modern India, will another Meenakshi Temple or Taj Mahal be built? Not when the country mimics the skyscrapers of New York or the office parks of Silicon Valley. What philosophers will follow Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore as Indians stampede toward and reject the uniquely Indian ways of life? What will make India distinct, what unique perspectives will it bring to the world, if it apes the West?

Development at the expense of our heritages and cultures is not development. Communal violence needs to be addressed, but uniformity is not the answer. It may seem naïve to expect India to remain diverse and not be ridden with conflict or tension, but education that pursues the truths of peaceful coexistence allows for continued development without succumbing to the sterile view of modernity.
India should preserve its unique identities even as it pursues development. No other nation can even begin to approach India’s diversity. Why change this truth?