Western Culture

Indian Culture, which is one of the oldest & richest cultures, is now days posing a serious threat as western culture is establishing its strong base in India and slowly and gradually wiping the Indian culture. It had already made its presence in Metro’s & now slowly heading towards other parts of India.
Westernization has greatly effected our traditions, customs, our family and our respect and love for others. The concept of joint families is fastly decreasing every one wants to remain aloof from others. No body now bother about others and only cares about himself which is totally contradictory to our Indian culture which teaches to be a part of each other Joy’s and Sorrows to celebrate the moments together and share the grief together. Slowly all our values for which India has the pride is vanishing & western culture is taking its place. People are blindly following the western culture without knowing its consequences.
Westernization has given rise to single families. Marriages are fastly breaking & our tolerance and patience has given the answer. The most effected are our new blooms, which have sprouted they find themselves stressed and isolated in this new atmosphere as there is no one to take care of them. They will not get the care and love of their Grand parents and they find themselves in crutches were some others will take care of them. It is very unfortunate that the new sprouts remain untouched and cut off from our moral values and sanskaras. In today’s Scenario were both husband & wife are working there is no one at home to look after them to inherit the sanskaras in them as our elders who gives these sanskaras to their grand children are not with them. To many cases it is not deliberate but in majority of case the children prefers to remain away from their parents which is very unfortunate.
There’s no harm in taking good things from western but this does not mean that we should completely adopt it and pretend to be western and misrepresent our identity. It is understandable that India is growing in every field and there is necessity of knowing all the cultures and their traditions. To some extent it is fine but we should not pretend that we dislike the Indian values and likes only western culture. We have to preserve our identity. One thing should be always kept in mind that western world is looking India for its honesty and its rich Cultural heritage.
It is shocking to see that Indians are forgetting their culture and western people are seeing India for obtaining salvation. They are coming here for seeking the true peace, which is total absent there. India

has earned a good name in the field of Yoga and meditation were our gurus are giving teachings to western countries how to relax themselves & how to keep themselves away from disease were in India it is contradictory to it. People are only seeing money as necessity and for the same they do any thing, which is very shocking.
It is very unfortunate that today’s generation has very little knowledge about their culture, traditions & their roots. This is not their mistake but the mistake of their parents who does not enlighten their children about their roots about their rich cultural heritage.
Contradictory to it Parents feel proud in giving the western Sanskaras to their children. Children are brought up in this atmosphere. They are thus kept miles away from Indian culture. There is no harm in giving the knowledge of other cultures and traditions as Indians have made their presence in every part of world and it is very necessary that we should have knowledge of their culture, traditions and their language. We should do but to the limit, which is really needed, and also take care that our new sprouts are well versed with Indian culture and its values. It is the responsibility of parents to inherit the same and for this it is very necessary that parents should also be well versed with Indian culture and traditions.
No doubt the western culture is versatile and has taught to be self-independent but this does not mean that we will forget our culture at all and blindly follow it. Since India has the tradition to take good things from others but this does not mean that we will completely forget our values. We should feel proud that we are Indian s and we have such a rich cultural heritage which is very rare and should carry this forward and inherit the same to our New blooms who are going to be our future.

India is considered to be one of the oldest nations in terms of culture and tradition. Epics like ‘Mahabharata’ and ‘Ramayana’ are the real evidences that depict the strong Indian culture. Since ages, it has been a land of sages, saints and various renowned people. Thousands of pious temples built in different parts of the nation reveal that people have been worshiping God and following their culture and tradition since time immemorial. It was the same going on till few decades back. Most of the people were farmers and survived on their pieces of land. They were satisfied with their earning and hardly had any time to think further. As a result tradition was in touch and people were in accordance with the Indian tradition. As the time passed by and India got independence, the scenario started changing slowly and gradually.

Westernization started attracting the Indian citizens towards it like a magnet. Call it an easy way to earn money or to compete with the rest of the world or to imitate the other nations or for other purposes, but anywhere it was taking us away from our culture at a slow pace. The intoxication of westernization was so strong that people started carrying away with it. The things were new, appealing, attractive and something to try upon, but forgetting that these things might become their habit some day and deviating them from their actual goods and culture.

Seeds of Westernization Sown by the Britishers:

India was known as the ‘Golden Bird’ one time. It was known for its abundance in gold, silver, diamonds and various other precious pearls. ‘Kohinoor’ one of the most expensive pearl in the world was mined from Golconda mines. Kings and rulers in India owned these precious things. Scintillations of such commodities attracted the British people towards India and they placed their feet on our motherland in the early 16th century. Initially their echo chamber behavior pleased everyone without knowing the hidden motives behind it. It was due to such shrewd techniques that they were able to take away tones of wealth in ships to their places. Eventually they took the authority in their own hands and India became the slave of these English people. It was during this time that they introduced many things in India which the general people were not at all aware of. Guns, cars, cinema, foreign clothes, cigarettes etc. were used by them and hence came into existence. Though we cannot completely say that all the things were bad, most of us were a boon for us, but the extra influence of all these things has hampered our Indian culture. As the years passed by more and more western commodities came into the Indian market and people became aware of them. Thus taking them away from their own things.

Mahatama Gandhi, known as the ‘Father of the Nation’ tried to bring back the public from eye catching western things. He started a ‘Swadeshi Movement’, emphasizing on the use of commodities manufactured in the nation itself with its own raw material. He asked people to make use of ‘Khadi clothes’ so that British cloth does not stand in market. It will serve as a boon for the Indian manufacturing unit and will provide more employment. Though it was a great move initiated by Gandhi, but seeds of westernization were so deep sown that after the death of Gandhi the Indian scenario totally changed. India got freedom, and elite group from India started following British trends and implementing them in the nation as well. As a result general public also started following it. Thus drifting the Indian people slowly towards westernization.

Present State of India:

If we look into the present state of India, we will find westernization has made a place in each and everything. We cannot even think of running the nation now avoiding these things. These things have now become a necessity. Though culture, tradition, religion is still there and have many followers but its percentage as compared to earlier days as fallen by a big amount. We can have a look at various examples where westernization can be seen at its culmination:

1.Cinema:

Westernization has shown its major effect in the ‘Bollywood’ industry. Starting from the early 40 movies till 2009 the concept, dresses, fashion and script has totally changed. Earlier main focus was made on the India culture, Indian problems depicting an ordinary man. There was decency in dresses; story of the movie had some moral to the viewers. Actors used to have good theatre experience. Money earning was not the sole concern that time. These days the idea has totally changed. Vulgarity and obscenity is displayed every now and then. It is not our culture but a western impact. Stories of the movies are copied or idea is taken from western movies. The main aim is always to compete with ‘Hollywood’. Cinema is influences the youngsters and even the elders a lot. As a result they also start imitating their movie role models. Hence westernization is spreading one or the other way.

2.Opting foreign Countries for Profession:

Why there is a desire in a young Indian to go abroad after studies and continue there with the profession? Why cannot we work for the country that imparted us with such a magnificent education? The only reason is that western countries have mesmerized us. We are going for momentary things and forgetting the real rich source is with us that is our nation.

3.Food and Cloth Items:

Trendy clothes are in vogue these days. But none could find a new fashion based on Indian work. Jeans, shoes, shirts, jackets and every other accessory is foreign made. Adidas, Reebok, Wrangler, Woodland, Van Heusen all these are foreign brands and we make use of them. It is not bad but at the same time completely forgetting our tradition and culture is also not good though. One can find very few ‘Khadi’ showrooms throughout the country. Also various junk food items have also made the hegemony over our traditional food items like rice, pulses, chapattis etc. Younger generation is more affected by it. It becomes the duty of the parents to guide them.

It is a rousing call to the people of the nation which has rich culture, religion and heritage. People must get aware that they are going far from their basic system. It is high time to put a halt to the westernization and give an edge to our culture.

The lose of morality as far as the sexual attitude is concerned.The present day cinema revealing the nakedness of women. This way of exhibitionism, we call it cultured and at the same time we dont want to show alsocompletely naked,to say that we are of Orient in nature. You see the advertisement in the Yahoo, how to increse the size of penis. Do this ad project us as cultured? I doubt. One may say that Western culture makes us bold enough to face the challenges of the present world. When west was sleeping, we were cultured and were bold.
2. lose of affection and attachment to the family. Because of westernisation, our children does not know even their close relatives, forget about the the big family tree under which they have come.Separation in the family can be due to various reasons,but one can still remember their members. One parent finds the solace in telling that his son is a moody chap,so to say, the western jargon of the usage of english language. Parents should be blamed for this attitude. This is the impact of western culture, and we forget our own roots.
3. The greed towards the materialistic world of amassing wealth and to say to the world that I am great. This has become more pronounced in the world of sports in India. If this were shown in the field of education as well, especially in Science and technology education with the mixing of the development of the western world,without the interference of politics, Our currency value of Re 1 would have reached $58 Culture is a broad term which has been described by various philosophers since decades. It has been claimed by Raymond Williams to be “…one of the two or three most complicated words in English language” (Williams, 1976). Different definitions of the term, culture may have distinct descriptive ways and criterion to evaluate human activity. It is important to define the broad base of the sophisticated term ‘culture’, in the sense used later in the paper, to narrow down the discussion on our topic.
Culture is a word stemming from a Latin word ‘cultura’ which means to cultivate (Harper, 2008). It is defined by Findley and Rothney as, “systems of symbols and meanings that even their creator contest, which lack fixed boundaries, that are constantly in flux, and that interact and compete with one another" (Findley & Rothney, 2006). This is the defination of culture I would be using here on. The authors describe culture to be a system of symbols having blurred boundries. The curx however is to see how do we recognize these system of symbols? The answer to this question is provided by Williams who says that culture can be judged or embedded in music, literature,lifestyle, painting and sculputure,theater and film and similar things (Williams, 1976). These dimensions are common to all cultures. In the foreface of the rapid globalization and the interaction in the past, these dimensions of various cultures are often influenced by each other. The following Paper discusses the influence of the dimensions of western culture to the respective dimensions of the subcontinental culture and vice versa. The subcontinential culture, is the culture refering to the South Asian region which includes the modern day India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Sirilanka.
The major influene on the subcontinental cultrue came first with the arrival of the British in India in the early 1600’s. The British brought with them the rest of Western culture customs and traditions.