Tradition

Every civilization has its positives and negatives.   I see India as an strange mixture of old and new.  It has not shed its old baggage of blind-beliefs, and it has imbibed the consumerist culture to full. Many may disagree with my above statement.  I will try to elaborate my viewpoint in the following discussion.

We see the full glory of traditional celebrations during ceremonies like birth, marriage, and death. A priest recites the hymns for several hours in full volume over the public address system.  No one seems to care or understand the hymn, yet the loud speaker keeps blaring out loud noise through out.   Of course we hear bollywood songs in the intervals. Isn't it a strange mix of old and new.  I encountered a very interesting episode recently.  For Godan (offering of  a cow to the priest) during a death ceremony, a single cow was offered by many people during the same day to the same priest.  Priest was wanting to sell the cow right away to decrease his headache.  There are many inane, antisocial, and humiliating things like leg washing of all the guests  by a barber of a bride side, firing of a bullet during marriage, traffic jam by bridegrooms brigade during barat, extravagant lunch or dinner during a sad occasion like death.  This is considered to be a tradition.  Most families go through these ceremonies even when all the family members of bride and bridegroom are graduates.  Why  can't we see whether these rituals are meaningful or not.

Now something on consumerist culture of the present day.   If you can afford only a motorcycle, buy a car to  show off to your neighbour and family  members by taking  a huge loan.  It is impossible to walk on the road due to heavy traffic, but people want to ride these vehicles.   Students feel ashamed to ride bicycles.  The food habits have changed.  There is so much of wastage of food, and it is showing up as obesity on our bodies.  Our fancy building are completely unsuitable to our climate; they  do not have good ventilation system.  We compensate them by putting plenty of ACs and Coolers.  Of course some of us even steal electricity to run these gadgets, and blame the politicians.  Our clothing like coat and tie is again unsuitable for the environment. It is amusing to see a bridegroom clad in coat and tie sitting in front of a priest reciting hymns.    This is a strange mix of new and old I was referring to. I do not wish to propagate a value system; in fact I do not believe in a value system.  I wish every individual thinks rationally what he/she is doing.

A hurtful feature of this is equating the above blind-beliefs and consumerist social customs to Indian philosophy and religion. The philosophy of Adi Shankara was advaita (non-dualism) that says that the whole universe is one consciousness, then where is the place of divisive concept like caste and religion.  Caste is so much entrenched that we kill people in the name of caste.  I find it strange that present day gurus with enormous following also do not attack these ill social customs,  rather they propagate them.

The present day women suffer through both the exploitative feudal system of the past, and consumerist system of the present.  A woman is used be a slave in the past, and an pleasurable "thing" in the present (recall "yeh chiz badi hai mast mast").   Where is the dream of  free society where every individual is free?  Till when a woman will carry this burden in the guise of "Indian Tradition"?

Every age and every region has its social customs that is dynamic.  I mean we set certain norms acceptable to the majority for smooth functioning of the society.  For example, all of us ride in the left side of the road.  Of course, these rules or norms change with time.  Similarly, the harmful social customs must be set aside.

I hope these arguments are convincing enough for us to see that we have major social problems at hand.  The sooner we realize it, sooner we will set forth to build a new social system where every individual is free and happy, and strives to attain perfection, which is the main aim of an individual in healthy society.