When East meets West, there is no guarantee about rest. Its no strange fact that 'Sanskritization' and 'Westernization' is fast catching up with the Indian society and its people. While the former engulfs the caste differences, the latter bridges the cultural gulf. Yet it cannot be disputed that most of the social stigmas and taboos associated with our society is somehow revolved around these two social changes. The incidents of Dalit killings and honour killings and hate crimes against women expose the dark elements, still prevailing in Indian society despite our claim that we have gone past the orthodox unjustified caste and social barriers.
Caste has always been a subject of debate in Indian society. What determines your caste? Your profession? your birth? your desire? or is it just a tag attached to a person to segregate people in different groups. Our ever evolving society reflects, at some point of time or other, caste has been defined by either profession or birth or one's desire. A complete sanskritized society is a bliss but its the semi sanskritized society that becomes peril. India is facing brunt of the latter. Though certain sections of society have welcomed the change, yet most people (even the educated class) do carry grunts against the fast improving so called "lower" caste people. And this naturally results in hate killings. So how do we tackle such a scenario? Personally I don't believe in casteism. Yet I must say most Brahmins or Kshatriyas wouldn't like the Dalits getting more preference than them. They had been used to getting super status in society and the sudden shift in paradigm has become too difficult for them to digest. They lash out their anger in some way or the other.
Tagging a person as being 'SC' or 'ST' or 'OBC' is itself demeaning. Do people need to be divided when on one hand we talk about uniting the people under same roof? Yes, I agree that certain sections of society need to be brought at par with others, but for that matter is there no Brahmin sleeping on road and not getting opportunity? This is where conflict arises. Caste based distinctions create more rift in societies than economy based distinctions. There are lot of Muslims who have been facing the ire of society. Why can't they come under these tags? It is this tag that creates rift in inter-caste marriages, it is this tag which creates a feeling of alienation in the minds of the tagged ones. In order to create rift-less society its high time we stop tagging people. Every person should feel he is being treated at par with his fellows. This would be more harmonious. So far as bridging the opportunity gap is concerned, there must be a plan devised to identify the exploited class and attempts should be made to bring them to the fore and if needed, provided with extra privileges too.
The next million dollar question is, are we ready to embrace westernized society? Most of us would say, certainly we are heading in right direction. Yet I bet at some corner of our heart we still possess the orthodox thinking which we wouldn't do away with. This is again a matter of conflict. And this is precisely one of the reasons for rise in violence against women. The changing trends in Indian society viz; live-in relationships, homosexuality, contractual marriages, easy divorcing and so on have certainly indicated our advancement towards getting westernized. But the rapes, hate crimes and fatwas highlight the dark aspects of our society as a result of westernized culture.
The positive change that our society has seen as a part of westernization, is the condition of women. They enjoy freedom and education which had wrongly been denied to them in the past. Today they have the freedom to move and they can present themselves without any inhibition. But the recent removal of attire ban which was enforced in Aligarh University states that in some way we are still not able to accept women of our society as we should. Women are getting more fashionable and have embraced the westernized style of living and clothing. But its the orthodox minds of men around them that poisons our society.We say ourselves modern, yet, even the educated men can't stop themselves from passing lewd comment on seeing a girl dressed in "western" clothes. This semi-westernized mind is doing more harm to Indian society than good. So there are two possible scenarios to get rid of this; either the women should maintain the pace with their opposite sex when it comes to the rate of getting westernized is concerned, or the men (or society at large) have to evolve their mindset to next level to prevent the heinous crimes against women.
We might get westernized but its the "Indian-ness" in us which sets us apart from the western countries. Westernization towards advancement of society is good but it should not be at the cost of family values and traditions. Here there needs to be a perfect mix or balance, and compromise from both sides. While the orthodox dogma needs to compromise and do away with its unjustified traditions and restrictions for the betterment of society, the ever changing tradition of Indian society needs to withhold its act of westernization keeping in mind the foundation of Indian culture and tradition. The society will be nearing utopia only when the twain shall meet.
Caste has always been a subject of debate in Indian society. What determines your caste? Your profession? your birth? your desire? or is it just a tag attached to a person to segregate people in different groups. Our ever evolving society reflects, at some point of time or other, caste has been defined by either profession or birth or one's desire. A complete sanskritized society is a bliss but its the semi sanskritized society that becomes peril. India is facing brunt of the latter. Though certain sections of society have welcomed the change, yet most people (even the educated class) do carry grunts against the fast improving so called "lower" caste people. And this naturally results in hate killings. So how do we tackle such a scenario? Personally I don't believe in casteism. Yet I must say most Brahmins or Kshatriyas wouldn't like the Dalits getting more preference than them. They had been used to getting super status in society and the sudden shift in paradigm has become too difficult for them to digest. They lash out their anger in some way or the other.
Tagging a person as being 'SC' or 'ST' or 'OBC' is itself demeaning. Do people need to be divided when on one hand we talk about uniting the people under same roof? Yes, I agree that certain sections of society need to be brought at par with others, but for that matter is there no Brahmin sleeping on road and not getting opportunity? This is where conflict arises. Caste based distinctions create more rift in societies than economy based distinctions. There are lot of Muslims who have been facing the ire of society. Why can't they come under these tags? It is this tag that creates rift in inter-caste marriages, it is this tag which creates a feeling of alienation in the minds of the tagged ones. In order to create rift-less society its high time we stop tagging people. Every person should feel he is being treated at par with his fellows. This would be more harmonious. So far as bridging the opportunity gap is concerned, there must be a plan devised to identify the exploited class and attempts should be made to bring them to the fore and if needed, provided with extra privileges too.
The next million dollar question is, are we ready to embrace westernized society? Most of us would say, certainly we are heading in right direction. Yet I bet at some corner of our heart we still possess the orthodox thinking which we wouldn't do away with. This is again a matter of conflict. And this is precisely one of the reasons for rise in violence against women. The changing trends in Indian society viz; live-in relationships, homosexuality, contractual marriages, easy divorcing and so on have certainly indicated our advancement towards getting westernized. But the rapes, hate crimes and fatwas highlight the dark aspects of our society as a result of westernized culture.
The positive change that our society has seen as a part of westernization, is the condition of women. They enjoy freedom and education which had wrongly been denied to them in the past. Today they have the freedom to move and they can present themselves without any inhibition. But the recent removal of attire ban which was enforced in Aligarh University states that in some way we are still not able to accept women of our society as we should. Women are getting more fashionable and have embraced the westernized style of living and clothing. But its the orthodox minds of men around them that poisons our society.We say ourselves modern, yet, even the educated men can't stop themselves from passing lewd comment on seeing a girl dressed in "western" clothes. This semi-westernized mind is doing more harm to Indian society than good. So there are two possible scenarios to get rid of this; either the women should maintain the pace with their opposite sex when it comes to the rate of getting westernized is concerned, or the men (or society at large) have to evolve their mindset to next level to prevent the heinous crimes against women.
We might get westernized but its the "Indian-ness" in us which sets us apart from the western countries. Westernization towards advancement of society is good but it should not be at the cost of family values and traditions. Here there needs to be a perfect mix or balance, and compromise from both sides. While the orthodox dogma needs to compromise and do away with its unjustified traditions and restrictions for the betterment of society, the ever changing tradition of Indian society needs to withhold its act of westernization keeping in mind the foundation of Indian culture and tradition. The society will be nearing utopia only when the twain shall meet.
1 comment:
Well, the first thing that comes into my mind is the conversation between a sarpanch and Shahrukh khan in Swades..(I am not elaborating, everybody has seen the movie and hopefully can recall what i am trying to point out here, with the relevance been taken care of).
India is altogether a different society than the western world. Our tradition, culture and even the way of thinking is much different than those in the west. As you have rightly pointed out, there is a peculiar blend of ideas of Westernization and Sankritization to pave the way for "Indianization".
These two ideologies, though apparently conflicting, can go hand-in-hand, if we form proper policies, and more importantly implement those properly.
As can be seen, the justification for providing reservation, has been given as to provide equality to everybody. Those who are under-privileged should be given a chance.
But we see two different views in two different societies. The rural condition has still not improved as far as atrocities towards dalits are concerned. So here the fruits of reservation have not reached the common people.
On the other hand, in urban areas, this tool of promoting equality among individuals, has divided the society into SC,ST, General, and OBC sections, as each of the sections looks down upon each other.
"To Point kya hai?"
The point here is, simply embracing westernization, or sanskritization will not help solve the problems in india. What we need apart from these two, is "innovation" in policy formation, rather than the mere political games being played. The development should be always inclusive. We should try to follow an "Indian" way to tackle things, rather than following our ancient traditions, or merely adapting the western culture.
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