EVERY July, right after all of the United States has feted the star spangled banner and everything American, thousands of expatriate south Indians converge on the mid-western city of Cleveland to celebrate the musical heritage of the composer saint Thyagaraja. Many miles away, in the “homeland” (that many of this generation of Indian-Americans know only from brief vacations when the mosquitoes and the monsoons do their bit to take away any notions of romance), a private channel telecasts this cultural spectacle for thousands of “real” south Indians to watch. The music they listen to, the performers they watch, are the same ones who grace the annual festival of music and dance in Chennai every December. In bite-sized interviews, the artistes talk about how much their art is appreciated by NRI audiences, how much store they set by their “culture” and how commendable it is that they are making such a wonderful effort to keep their “traditions” alive. And watching these interviews in the heat of the south Indian summer, the “RIs” (Resident Indians) agree, wishing there were more interest in things “cultural” among their own kind—particularly the young.

Then, the NRIs return to their American homes and American lives, listening to Carnatic music recordings on their car stereos as they race down the clean American highways, the RIs return to their own lives, tuning in to the morning “kutchery” on All India Radio while the flower seller and the raddiwalla loudly advertise their merchandise on the streets below. Both sets of music lovers experience music just as fully, perhaps with the same amount of understanding and empathy. But “culture” for the NRI is a packaged, carefully preserved, “thing” that must be preciously handled while for the RI it is simply part of the continuum of existence. It is something that grows, changes, evolves, and complements other parts of life. It takes form as ritual practice, household tradition, music, theatre, dance, literature, and art. At times, it forms the backdrop to relationships and events; at others, it is the event.

One often hears descriptions of NRI homes where things happen “exactly as they were in India” and festivals are celebrated with a degree of attention to detail that has long vanished from most urbanized (not always Westernised) homes in India. The “culture” that these families took with them ten, twenty, or more years ago has remained carefully preserved in belief and practice, untarnished by dialogue, response to external circumstance, or mixing with other ways of doing and being. It remains unsullied and protected within the Indian walls of the American home, to be walked into after a long hard American workday.

Back in India, the doors and windows of the home are kept open for the winds of change to flow in at will. So the culture changes, it mixes with that of the neighbours and friends, it comes in off the streets and through the television cable, to become something different.

So when the NRI visits India, there is a serious incongruence between the idealized version of culture that s/he holds as “the authentic” Indian culture and what s/he finds in the homes, on the streets, in public arenas. There is much talk of how the culture has been “corrupted” by foreign influences, and how, despite living in a foreign country, they have been able to “preserve” [through a difficult process of pickling] the “real” Indian culture. The resident Indian bristles, and reacts almost defensively, affronted that somehow, this culture [and its attendant art form] he considers his “own” has been not only appropriated, but granted a more “authentic” status on foreign shores than what he lives and breathes every day.

Something about this situation has always bothered and puzzled me. Both these sets of people—the RI and the first-generation NRI—share a common heritage. To that extent their culture may be congruent. But their present reality is very different, and the place that heritage occupies in each of their lives is very different. For the RI, this heritage something easily carried, a light cloak that is barely felt because it is only a reflection of so many things around him. For many NRIs, this heritage is an important load that must be carried and displayed, a badge of identity that proclaims belonging to a certain somewhere. And because it is a load, it can be put down at will and occasionally—expediently--ignored.

Then, what about the young? A similar process seems to happen in both these contexts, particularly today, with Indian [urban] children exposed to so much that is Western. Authentic is neither the question nor the concern with them. Culture is something that is your own, a bit of this and a bit of that, put together in a way that sits as easily on you as that heritage cloak your father or mother wears. You are just as comfortable in jeans and skimpy T-shirts as you are with salwar kameez; chop suey and French fries are just as much your own food as dahi vada and Masala dosai. Some might call it pastiche, but you call it comfort—a collage of different styles, tastes, forms, that you have made your very own. And so you have windows that look into and out of different “authentic” cultures. These windows [potentially] allow you opportunities for understanding from different frames—much in the way multilingualism does.

And then, what about the cultural forms themselves? The classical arts—music and dance—that form part of the outer shell of the “authentic” culture? The performers at most of these cultural events are from the “homeland”; otherwise their art would somehow not have that touch of authenticity for the audience, and would be perhaps valued less. So while the stage is also given to a few upcoming artistes from the immigrant group, the main attractions are the performers from India. It seems as if the art has roots that cannot be dislodged from the place of origin, and to retain its authenticity must grow from there. Performers schooled in the classical arts (those who have carried their learning with them overseas and those who have learned abroad) who practice their art abroad tend to not set themselves apart from the context, and their art as a result is what classicists call “fusion”. This kind of active engagement with context seems to be absolutely necessary for the art to retain its vibrancy and relevance. This may also explain why the classical performers prefer to create in their land of origin. And also why this authentic form, when taken abroad, must be viewed as some sort of “museum” performance, enjoyed within the confines of these special festivals.

In our postmodern world, it is difficult to make claims or arguments for authenticity. There is of course value in knowing and learning about the “pure” form of a classical art (although, looking at history, it is equally difficult to make the case for such purity in any sphere), but it is also important to allow growing generations to explore each form, each aspect of culture, on their own, to understand it in their own ways, and then to make it their own—and the composite culture that results is richer for that exploration. There will always be elements of the pure in this composite, in the mélange, but there will also be new mixtures, unexpected juxtapositions that perhaps make shocking bedfellows, but that is as it should be—and more importantly, as it will be.

Points to ponder:

· Is there really value in keeping a ‘pure’ form of an art alive, when it may have ceased to retain any connection with the contemporary “lived culture”?

· Is it possible, in today’s mix-and-match world, to talk about “ownership” of culture, or even of cultural forms?

Sharing Room

Here are some responses to our initial talk of Culture:

Dear friends,

This letter is to celebrate your new series on culture. The first crop of notes on it in this issue of Edu-Care is exciting and promising. I thought I must bring…to your attention Som Majumdar/Nita Kumar’s essay in Economic and Political Weekly (July 19, 2003) on the postcolonial school in a modern world. There is so much in it to discuss in the context of culture and education, I feel it is a fit text to circulate to friends, asking them to respond to it in Edu-Care.

This issue has come at a time when our Institute is confronted, for the nth time, with the question of how it should deal with the Hindi-medium students—86 out of some 230 this time. Selected out of some 18000 who take our entrance test, the Hindi-medium students come through a longer struggle, involving personal and social histories of class, caste, and gender. They are all going to end up waiting for government school jobs, for they won’t even be called for interviews by the English medium public schools. Only a few of us, who are bilingual, teach them, which means they don’t have enough options to choose from, and they are also limited to reading material available in Hindi. Year after year, I see that they dominate in the student panchayat, but fair to make any impact on the ethos of the Institute, which is dominated by the English-medium students. Interaction between the two crowds is regulated by the many rituals we have, but there is no composite culture, permitting entry on the condition of equal respect. And this is one of the few enclaves of Delhi University where instruction is available in Hindi medium.

The message of this experience is obvious enough—culture as an outcome of interaction suffers when class, i.e., socio-economic, divisiveness is growing. This is of course, just one way of approaching culture. It occurred to me on reading Ms Geeta Dorairajan’s piece.

Krishna Kumar

Faculty of Education, University of Delhi

We welcome comments on the EPW article mentioned by Prof. Krishna Kumar, and on the issues raised by him.

--Edu-Care Team

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Many thanks indeed for the latest copy of Edu-Care - very interesting reading. Like Gurveen, I find the question of culture very difficult to handle. I strongly support people's need to express their identity, wear traditional clothes, speak their mother tongue etc and yet I hate nationalism (which is so closely connected to the expression of group identity) because it so often encourages contempt for different cultures. I believe that deep down, all human beings have the same needs, all deserve the same respect, are part of one family, but I hate to see all difference being subsumed by the drive towards globalisation. Like the bhangra pop culture, I'm mixed up!

I also enjoyed the exchange about theoretical language, long sentences
and taking a committed view. In my view, it's important that somewhere
there is an informed dialogue about complex ethical issues in education, even if its only readers are likely to be working at the tertiary level. I just wish Edu-Care had a wider circulation. It's also important that somewhere there are useful ideas for practising teachers, but perhaps these can be found elsewhere…. One type of publication shouldn't devalue the other.

Eleanor Watts

Food as Culture

Food is an important cultural symbol, and what we eat, how we eat, and the meanings we associate with different foods are all intricately connected with cultural identity. Meenakshi Mukherjee takes a look at how the “local” food culture remains vibrant despite the inroads of globalization.

V. S. Naipaul once used the word `client culture ‘ to describe Trinidad, the island of his birth, which, as everyone knows, he abandoned fairly early in life in favour of a larger island called England, presumably because British culture was not a borrowed one. `Client culture’ was Naipaul’s term to describe a lifestyle which imported wholesale from outside - -not only consumer goods, but also ideas, taste and entertainment.

Sometimes in my gloomier days I tend to think we too are moving fast towards becoming a client culture. But these moods do not last long. In moments of sanity I realise it is needlessly cynical to believe that all areas of our lives -- or even the lives of our young people – can ever be completely taken over by the all encompassing global way of life which is an euphemism for American mass culture. The most resistant of these areas is food--a major ingredient of any civilization. Despite the profusion of pizza-joints in the cities and the popularity of hamburger and coke, the basic staple of sambar-rice, daal-roti machher jhol or rajma-chawal will always stand resolutely unchallenged.

In fact one of the richest resources of our plural culture is its culinary diversity. Within the country I find a noticeable shift in the urban food culture in recent years-- the highlighting of specific and local cuisine in restaurants. While home food in our country has always been varied and interesting, earlier you could never find the same subtlety and distinctive taste if you ate out. Restaurants served either a faceless North Indian fare – which would be mostly spicy and oily stuff – standard items like butter chicken, paneer–matar etc., or a standard idly-dosa option which was seen as the “typical” South Indian food. The situation has not changed completely, but more and more places are beginning to serve food that is more specific to a region - Chettinad chicken or Rajasthani dal-vati or Gujarati thalis or apam-stew from Kerala or Konkani crab-curry We have more occasions now to be exposed to food from other parts of the country and it is becoming a mark of sophistication to be able to identfy and appreciate items of food that you have not necessarily grown up eating. But even now, the best way to sample food from another region is to get invited to a home. I do not know of a single restaurant in Delhi or Hyderabad that serves Maharashtrian or Bengali food, possibly because bhakhri / amti or shukto / charchari are somehow considered to be too humble to be eaten outside the privacy of home.

Food is such an intrinsic part of culture because it reflects the geographic and historic co-ordinates of a people. That coconut should be used extensively in the cooking of the coastal areas and that fish should form the staple diet of a riverine delta region are self-evident facts. Desert cuisine manages to produce tasty items with dry ingredients like besan and varieties of gram without depending much on leafy greens or fresh vegetables. Probably that also explains the range of chatpata namkeen prepared in Rajasthan, now made popular all over the country by Haldiram. The famous biryanis and kababs of Hyderabad and Lucknow (with interesting differences of taste between them ) are legacies of history. Oven cooking -- and tandoor is a form of an oven -- originates in areas where the winter is severe, where the oven serves the double purpose of warming the house while it cooks the food.

Food also contributes to a sense of cultural identity. Which Hyderabadi does not take pride in baghara baigan or mirchi ka bhajji ? You can have an animated debate in any gathering about the right way to put tadka (also known as baghar or chhaunk) in dal . There are very few countries in the world which have such a wide ecological variety – hence such a sumptuous range of gastronomical delights.

Culture is like a moving stream. Remaining frozen at any point of time is a sure indication of rot. In food too, habits are bound to change, become eclectic and inclusive. Hence getting agitated over the opening of yet another MacDonald’s or Kentucky Fried Chicken joint in our cities seems rather futile. City people are now more aware of cuisine from different parts of the world – not only Chinese – which has been a favourite for decades – but also Mexican, Italian and Thai food are available.

While these fancy options are welcome, these are never going to drive out food that is indigenous and traditional. Even those young hi-tech people whose sole objective of education is to get out of the country to settle in the West cannot abandon the culinary habits of home. Earlier they used to replenish their stock of pickles and spices on every holiday, but now such stuff are freely available wherever they live and Indian food served in numerous restaurants abroad are the marks of our contribution to the global culture.

It is a different matter however, that the samosas and gulab jamuns made in Devon Street in Chicago or Brick Lane in London are never as tasty as those made by our neighbourhood halwai.

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Points to ponder

Dr Mukherjee’s article prompts us to raise the following questions for readers to think about and respond to.

· What about the rituals that accompany cooking and eating that are so particular to regions? With the disappearance of certain rituals, do certain foods also become extinct?

· When certain foods become transferred out of their “original” contexts—such as food that is prepared during a specific festival—does something happen in terms of cultural change?

· The culture that surrounds the preparation and consumption of food—ways of serving, decorating, sharing, etc. are also peculiar to regions. What cultural beliefs are transmitted through such practices, which then get tied into the foods themselves?

Other Words

Political subjection primarily means restraint on the outer life of a people and although it tends to gradually to sink into the inner life of the soul, the fact that one is conscious of it operates against the tendency. So long as one is conscious of a restraint it is possible to resist it or to bear it as a necessary evil and to keep free in spirit. Slavery begins when one ceases to feel the evil and it deepens when the evil is accepted as a good. Cultural subjection is ordinarily of an unconscious character and it implies slavery from the very start. When I speak of cultural subjection, I do not mean the assimilation of an alien culture. That assimilation need not be an evil; it may be positively necessary for healthy progress and in any case it does not mean a lapse of freedom. There is cultural subjection only when one’s traditional cast of ideas and sentiments is superseded without comparison or competition by a new cast representing an alien culture which possesses one like a ghost. This subjection is slavery of the spirit; when a person can shake himself free from it, he feels as though the scales fell from his eyes. He experiences a rebirth, and that is what I call Svaraj in Ideas.

Krishna Chandra Bhattacharya, Svaraj in Ideas, Vishwa Bharati Journal, Vol.XX, 1954;pp 103-114.

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Culture is ordinary: that is the first fact. Every human society has its own shape, its own purposes, its own meanings. Every human society expresses these, in institutions, and in arts and learning. The making of a society is the finding of common meanings and directions, and its growth is an active debate and amendment under the pressures of experience, contact, and discovery, writing themselves into the land. The growing society is there, yet it is also made and remade in every individual mind. The making of a mind is, first, the slow learning of shapes, purposes, and meanings, so that work, observation and communication are possible. Then, second, but equal in importance, is the testing of these in experience, the making of new observations, comparisons, and meanings. A culture has two aspects: the known meanings and directions, which its members are trained to; the new observations and meanings, which are offered and tested. These are the ordinary processes of human societies and human minds, and we see through them the nature of a culture: that it is always both traditional and creative; that it is both the most ordinary common meanings and the finest individual meanings. We use the word culture in these two senses: to mean a whole way of life--the common meanings; to mean the arts and learning--the special processes of discovery and creative effort. Some writers reserve the word for one or other of these senses; I insist on both, and on the significance of their conjunction. The questions I ask about our culture are questions about deep personal meanings. Culture is ordinary, in every society and in every mind.

Raymond Williams, Moving from High Culture to Ordinary Culture. [Originally published in N. McKenzie (ed.), Convictions, 1958]

Notes (of an attempt) towards understanding Culture

--And some issues within it

Gurveen Kaur

1. The word ‘culture’ is used in two different ways. One could be called the “thin” notion of culture and the other the “thick” notion of culture. The “thin” notion refers to the style of dressing, cuisine, music, arts, dances and languages. The “thick” notion is more comprehensive. It connotes a whole way of living – the integrated web of ideas, values, traditions, customs and habits that give a society/community its distinctive life-style.

Nowadays culture is a word used more in the first sense rather than the second. Why is this? We need to look beyond the common use of the word to discover the realities that emerge from such a scrutiny.

Could this be because nowadays cultural differences are reduced to the visual, performing, folk arts, or dress and food, while an underlying sameness/ uniformity pervades other aspects? Could it be that reducing culture to these aspects kept alive a veneer of diversity while in reality it fitted well with the cultural imperialistic agenda of the West? For this reason isn’t it important that we return to the comprehensive meaning of the word?

For, even where culture is used in the second sense it is a restricted to arts, practices, mores, rituals, dress and food, leaving out the science, the systems of medicine, the technology, the values and the philosophy of a community. The exclusion of science could be based on the popular concept of science as an objective, universal inquiry, not “limited” by culture. But then how do we explain different medicine systems? And then again, what is the basis of the differences between Nyaya, Jaina and Aristotelian logic? How are we to understand the different emphases in science, mathematics and technology across the world? Are these really just the different stages of development, as we have been misled into so thinking?

Thus, when we think of culture, we think of the variety of art forms and life-styles. We seldom, if at all, think of the rationality of the various life-styles. The thin definition of culture highlights the quaintness of different cultures, whereas the real value of different cultures lies not in their quaintness but their rationality. The value of different cultures comes from this fact that each culture is a rational response to a particular set of basic co-ordinates.

The thick notion of culture is a celebration and recognition of the rationality of all human beings. It is a recognition that each culture is an appropriate and well thought out response to the geographical, metaphysical and axiological coordinates of that society or community, given that its values and understanding of reality. This is what makes possible alternative Science and Technology because they are appropriate responses of a society with different metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology factors. For rationality is universal and cannot be equated with or limited to Western logic, science or technology. In fact all human logical systems would perhaps still fail to encompass Rationality! Which is precisely the reason that cultural diversity is precious. It takes us closer to a richer understanding of Rationality.

2. Culture is a complex notion. Therefore, let us attempt through this exercise to identify the elements that constitute culture.

We shall begin by contrasting ‘culture’ with ‘tradition’. Tradition is custom that is handed down, and includes mores, folklore, and practice. Since culture is also about all these elements one can see why there is confusion between the two. There is so much overlap. Yet the two are different. A tradition is of the past but a culture can and should be continuously evolving. Those who closely identify or equate culture with tradition see it as a fixed and finished product and find it difficult to see it changing and evolving. Those who distinguish between the two find it difficult to accept its finite fixed form.

Next let us try and extricate the notion of culture from the notion of religion. Religious practices are so interwoven with culture that it becomes difficult to see where one ends and another begins. We may find it interesting to continue our exercise by subtracting religion from culture to discover what remains. It is only when we remove the religious element that a different dimension and understanding of culture emerges.

Perhaps then it becomes possible to consider the possibility of a pan-Indian culture that all the different religious communities can participate in and celebrate regardless of their religious identity or affiliation. Like a Punjabi culture that Hindus, Sikhs, and Pakistanis based in Punjab (Pakistan) could identify with?

Let us go further and subtract language from the notion of culture. What would be a common South Indian culture that arched across the different language barriers? Or an East Indian culture? A West Indian culture that united Rajasthan and Gujarat? Or think of a South-East Asian culture that arches across nations.

We could continue to take each item that is associated with culture and subtract it to see what remains until we can think of nothing more that can be subtracted. This will help us not just discover the elements but how each contributes and colours the notion of culture. This is not to suggest that all these elements do not constitute culture, but that culture is all this and more. Now let us put each element back, enriched by a better understanding of how each aspect adds another vital dimension to culture.

3. Every culture, as it were, has a body and a soul. The body consists of its visible elements and the soul, its invisible elements.

The visible elements are the outer “identifiers” of a culture. The visible elements constitute the body of a culture. Those who identify it by its visible elements want to hang on to their customs, rituals and particular ways of dressing, eating or doing certain things. If this is left untouched and they are not stopped from doing these, they feel that their culture is intact. They do not seem to notice that these have become peripheral or compartmentalized and no longer form an integral part of their life. Some practices may even be inconsistent with the rest of their life-style. Somehow they see nothing that is missing or inconsistent. Which is one reason that while others may see them as being hypocritical or inconsistent, they are doing what they believe in all sincerity. While there are some who see only the body, there are others who identify culture by its soul, considering the body to be of secondary importance.

It is more difficult to apprehend the frame or the core of a particular culture. Few ever get to know a culture in that form. This core consists of the key concepts and values that are central to that culture. This is the invisible soul or the essence of a particular culture. Since the invisible core is not easily discernible or apprehended, culture is often mistaken to be only the visible elements. Yet it is this invisible core that defines and gives meaning to the different expressions of the culture and gives every other aspect its place within the over-all scheme.

A few examples might help us understand this. One can see how the so-called “education” system and the media seem to have the same features as they did earlier but they no longer inform or educate. Instead they school the people, or in the words of Chomsky “manufacture consent”. Language is another example that would help us distinguish between the visible form and the essence of a culture. It is possible for people to speak a language that is alien to their culture while using their mother tongue. It is equally possible for others to speak in English – an alien language – while in fact speaking the language of the culture. In the same way it is possible to imagine a person dressed “conservatively” in jeans while others may flaunt their bodies in an “ethnic” sari or ghagra-choli.

This should make clear that presence of the visible and identifiable form does not ensure the continuity of the culture. The converse is however possible, where the form changes but the essential cultural values remain the same. Adapting to modern times and incorporating changes in the form of additions, alterations and deletions is easier for those who have grasped the spirit or core of the culture.

The appraisal of culture is very different for those who perceive it in terms of its visible elements and from others who apprehend it in terms of its invisible elements. For the former, the diverse cultures seem in good health, perhaps only marginally affected by the impact of other cultures. The latter, however, are seriously disturbed because they assess the impact of modernisation on their culture in terms of the effect on the core. They are seriously worried about what the dominant culture is doing to the diverse life-styles and value systems. They see that the visible forms are no longer expressions of a culture but hollow remnants of a non-existent life-style. In attempting to make a case for cultural pluralism, they are arguing for spaces for alternative values systems and coherent life-styles based on those value systems. Their fight is against monocultures that deny and destroy alternative lifestyles or value systems.

This is not to suggest that the body of a culture is not important. For the soul without the body would be ineffective. But to equate the expression with the culture while dismissing the spirit is also a mistake. It is when we realizes this that we see that if only one aspect can be saved, it should be the essence or the core rather than its expression or visible body. But this too can be dangerous. One can slowly give up more and more aspects of one’s culture, believing that the essence is safe, till one day when one wakes up to the fact that there is nothing left. Needless to say both the visible and invisible aspects should be given their due importance.

4. There seem to be two threats to the diverse cultures today: an external threat and an internal threat.

A. The external threat comes from cultural imperialism and from a very different modern reality. The obvious external threat to traditional cultures comes from cultural imperialism. It is true that much of what passes as modern culture is nothing but Westernisation or Americanisation, and therefore to be resisted for that reason.

If we move beyond equating ‘modern culture’ with ‘Americanisation’, there is a fundamental difference between traditional cultures and the modern culture. This disconnect between the two has more to do with the sources of traditional and modern culture.

Traditional cultures were a rational response of a people to their natural or physical surroundings. Geographical factors mattered in the evolution of traditional cultures. For this reason we may identify all traditional cultures as ‘physical cultures’, for their roots lie in a society’s response to an artificial world.

We are a lot less inconvenienced by the natural elements--although environmental degradation and the resultant ecological crisis are again increasingly forcing us to pay attention to the natural, physical aspects. We live in an artificial, man-made world. Modern culture has its roots in our responses to this man-made world - to the social, political and economic reality of our world. They are not based on a physical, objective or natural world. Modern cultures are basically political or economic cultures, defined by power and money equations. It would be equally true to say money-backed-power-equations as power-backed-money-equations. Modern culture evolves from our response to these determinants of our lives. In contrast to the natural and physical sources of traditionally evolved cultures, the modern culture has its roots in a human reality.

In fact it is difficult to talk of ‘modern cultures’. It seems natural to speak of a modern culture. This could be because modern cultures share significant similarities across the globe and differences, if any, are based on the economic class to which people belong rather than geographical factors. Across the world today, regardless of geographical location or cultural history a homogenous type of culture is evolving. For we share the same economic, political and technological reality as a result of the cultural imperialism of the West. These systems may be culturally alien impositions but at present we have no other alternatives --- unless we make the effort to regenerate them from traditional frames. This is the tragedy of cultural hegemony.

It should not be too difficult to change modern culture, considering that it is possible to alter the social, political and economic co-ordinates of a society in a way that cannot be dreamt of with regard to its physical or geographical reality. Yet isn’t it strange that in ancient times people dared to think of changing their reality but most today think it is beyond us to do so!

B. The internal threat to the diverse cultures stems from a lack of faith in traditional cultures to provide adequate frames for addressing the challenges of the present day.

This lack of faith leads to a lack of effort to adapt or renew traditional cultures to meet and confront the challenges of the present times. Post-colonial societies find it more difficult to believe and return to their traditional roots. Their struggle stops upon attaining political svaraj, but that is a long way off from ‘poorna’ svaraj.

The lack of faith is deepened by the non-availability of ready alternative value-systems or life-styles. It is even more difficult to generate the enthusiasm and effort necessary to regenerate alternative frames. And adaptation or regeneration of adequate frames would have been easier without this confusion between the invisible core of a culture and its visible form.

Giving up on the traditional culture stems from our own greed and fear. Our greed and fear which does not want to miss out on the goodies of the materialistic world. Convinced that “modernisation”, as equivalent to “Americanisation,” is inevitable, some are afraid to take the risk of resisting and losing out when “what will be, will be”. These factors have led some to desert their culture, while others seem content with hanging on to the visible body of the culture in its restricted form--for it permits a happy compromise of two very different frames.

These internal factors serve to strengthen the external factors threatening the diverse cultures.

5. The cultural debate has taken on a very different tone today. While at one end of the spectrum traditional cultures die a premature death because of lack of faith and desertion, at the other end those who hold up the torch of traditional culture sound its death knell by their chauvinism and hatred of the rest of humanity.

The cultural cause gets coloured by its exclusivity, rigidity and religious overtones. When we look at the religious fundamentalists who are ready to kill people or the cultural chauvinists attempting to impose their view upon others, we feel it would be better if there were no separate cultures or religions that made humans behave with such inhumanity. People who do not carry their culture too heavily on their shoulders seem preferable to those that cause untold misery upon others in the name of “defending” a culture or religion.

For this reason, the educated generally keep their distance from all identifiable cultures and institutional religions. They proudly speak of their non-allegiance to religion and think of themselves as global citizens, rationalists or humanists. They have an eclectic approach to culture and religion, picking and choosing desirable practices from all but refusing to belong to any one tradition.

Belonging to a culture may seem restricting, binding and inconvenient, but it is not possible to live in a cultural vacuum. We need clear, well-defined frames within which we can grow up, even if we later do not remain uncritical practitioners. Culture may be seen as a form of conditioning and we may want to reject it for that reason, but it need not be. Besides, we do not reinvent the wheel each time we want to do something. It is not necessary that we do so. Some may say, “I wish to borrow freely from all cultures and not be restricted to one culture, as a human being I am heir to all traditions--so why should I be restricted to one?”

Belonging to Sikhism does not mean that a Sikh cannot practice Rajya Yoga or the Buddhist technique of meditation if s/he so wishes. This may strengthen Sikhism, as well as sustain a Buddhist practice. On the other hand, if somebody uses a Buddhist meditation without belonging to a tradition, they would be partaking of something that they have done nothing to sustain. Is this sort of a life-style viable or sustainable? A second look reveals this to be the philosophy of a free rider. A free rider’s life is possible because a working system exists supported by payments made by others. The position of the educated elites is really not unlike those free riders, who are dismissed as unethical users of the system.

It is because diverse cultures exist and there is an availability of religious practices and ideas sustained by those who belong, that an eclectic approach or life-style is possible. As is becoming increasingly clear that in all areas of life, the educated partake of and benefit from that which they do nothing to sustain. While appearing to be the polished, sophisticated productive citizens, they are in fact the free riders of our modern society, who refuse to pay the price--which is to belong. We fail to shoulder the responsibility of constantly updating, adapting, maintaining, evolving and improving the culture by being critical insiders. We who could show the way of belonging to a culture non-chauvinistically, non-dogmatically and respectfully with other cultures and traditions sit on the fence and let a mischievous and uninformed lumpen mislead the people. A cultural frame does not force us to remain restricted within that frame. It merely ensures that each person takes the responsibility of sustaining some practice or tradition while being free to borrow from others.

End note: The challenges before us require that we confront the external and internal threats squarely and address them. If we take an honest and critical look at the issue we will realise that it is not our culture that has failed us, but we who have failed our culture. For the external and the internal threats are not really separate. The threat of Westernisation is also our own greed disowned and externalised. While this may be unpalatable to us, as truth so often is, it is also comforting to know that its cure is within each of us. The degree of guilt may vary, and its source could be fear or greed, but none of us can be absolved of the guilt and responsibility for the cultural situation (that we find ourselves in) today.

Points to ponder:

Can we really blame the so-called “free-riders” for not contributing to the sustenance of a culture? What if they too are products of an environment where the outer form is everything?
Is the “constant updating” of a culture a conscious effort or is it something that happens more or less naturally, over time, in a collectively negotiated manner?

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For private circulation only

Usha Raman

Food is an important cultural symbol, and what we eat, how we eat, and the meanings we associate with different foods are all intricately connected with cultural identity. Meenakshi Mukherjee takes a look at how the “local” food culture remains vibrant despite the inroads of globalization.

Other Words

Edu-Care Team: Gurveen Kaur, Usha Raman, Shyama Sundari