Is Indian culture really that great

I have always tried to convince myself that overall, indian culture has more good things than bad, but as i greww older and became more experienced with life ive becoming increasingly doubtful of it.

As this is a ladies forum, it is only appropriate if i begin with issues faced by ladies. Most of the issues we Indian women have faced in our lives are deeply linked to culture. My experience from men in school gave me a feeling that i am weak as a woman because my virginity once 'broken' will be permanent, but a man only has to wash himself to move on with his life. I actually believed that if a man misbehaves with me, it is my fault, theres something wrong with my approach to him or maybe i am not decently clothed. It took me years to unlearn that and thankfully i dont have such notions anymore.

Married life brought about fresh bouts of culture based life issues. But the issues dont end with us ladies they extend out to men too. My husband has also had similar experiences. When u are 25+ the societies culture makes them pressurise you day in and day out to get married. Many keep reminding you your own age and start speculating if a love failure is what is keeping you from getting married. If you do have a love during your young days, it invariably should lead to marriage. If the girl breaks up and moves on with life or maybe finds someone else, she becomes a traitor who deserves an acid attack. If a woman wears sexy clothes she becomes the wh ore of the street whom men dont hesitate gathering and leering and raping her with eyes because now she earned it. I have experienced this all my 'rebellious' teenage life when i wore a pair of tight fitting jeans. My fear of course overtook my rebellion and i stopped wearing them completely in india. The 'elders' are also pleased now.

I see many culture induced interpretations to atrocities like rape. Rape in most of our languages loosely translates to 'losing chastity' or 'losing virginity ' and suchlike. I cannot imagine a girl becoming pregnant outside marital relationship and living with dignity giving birth to the baby. If that happens it will be considered to be the peak of 'kali kaalam'.

I also see how we have a blind culturally attributed power to 'elders' and the powerful. He could be a heartless tyrant or a pedophile or a rapist, but he is an elder or the boss and that absolves things to a large extend. How can a person deserve respect only by the virtue of he or she being an elder? Why am i culturally obligated to fall on their feet? Probably to tell them- I not only want to tell you that you are above me, infact i want to tell you that i am so below you that i belong to your feet like so. Why is a child always discouraged to speak up or have a voice of their own? Why is a child brought up being taught that it is wrong to claim respect from someone who is above her by age or power? Why do we always fear bringing bad name to our family and in the process betray ourselvs and the ones we love? Why do we have deep prejudices against darker skin colours and lower castes? Why do we pry into others privacy? why cant we show some sensitivity towards a childless couple or a couple with handicapped child? why do we live a pointless life without little joys like vaccasions and nice candle light dinners all our lives only to save up for an irrationaly expensive wedding and laksh worth of gold(and dowry) for our daughter with someone she is not even sure she can connect with.

After my marriage i came to europe. And although people are people everywhere, i see MUCH more independance of thought, compassion and respect for others in this part of the world than what i am used to in india. And interestingly, their culture as it was 2-3 generations back matches better with the current culture of india. Is it because our culture is stagnant and backward?

 

Arunarc;3077350

Please go through the links that are in your post below. You will get to learn a lot about Indian culture.
Reading your post I feel that you were brought up in a very orthodox family, where there is differentiate between a girl and a boy.

The post above is very personal, and i share it here ONLY because of anonymity. India is very close to my heart and inspite of the many REAL issues, i would still want to come back to india and spend the rest of my life there. That said, we should always call a sphere a sphere here are many posts that address the positive aspects of our culture and i see that Indian spirituality is something that a lot find solace from, and i absolutely see why. My parents were not orthodox, not to say they were the most 'un indian' but the reason behind my above post is my experience with indian society and not my family.

It depends on the individual if she/he feels Superior of oneself, if we feel we are weak and that is what you will carry with you and do all such things like not wearing jeans becoz of what other's might say etc etc......
1st it is we who need to be strong and feel strong from inside then what you wear and how you carry yourself, no one will dare bother to have a panga with you.

In my college, my spanish teacher was an actual spaniard from canary islands, and she would wear a long kurta if she wears jeans, she looks very ordinary, infact she looks like me, dfor example in her attire. Not because she is weak but because she sees the logic behind why her safety in a foreign country comes ahead of being harrased. Not just her, all the foreign ladies i have met in this metro city where i come from wear fully covered clothes and have a shawl around their chest.


Indian culture is the best culture that we have so that many outsiders come here to learn about our culture.

I beg to differ, and i am very sure so many other do too

 

It has become common these days to put down our own Indian culture and blame it on the rapes happening in india. no place in the world is safe and I had been here for 25 years, neither me nor my friends had any traumatic experience at any point of the time.

Nowhere in my post i blame the rapes on indian culture. I have only expressed my shock at the cultural intepretation of rape over indian culture. Even if someone blamed the rapes on the culture, i wouls still understand them though.I am surprised at you winning bthe bumper lottery of having lived in india for 25 years and have never faced any culture based harrasment on you. So much that i dont almost dont believe it. That is not the case with anyone else with whom i have discussed this with

Again I have to point out here that I was scarred to death by group of teenagers all aged not more than 13 in the United states of America(let me make it clear, I was in salwar suit with chunni wrapped around,hope this is decent enough)..I cant blame it on US culture since it depends on the people who tend to such acts and the environment they grow in.

I agree

guess no culture in world would ask them to trouble others or scare others. some mishaps go unnoticed in some countries and thanks to india media who constants give hype on such things to increase the trps..

Although it is true that more of these incidents are getting reported: That doesnt f them are reported especially those that deals with the homeless. This is a HUGE country of 1 billion people where 100s of crimes happen every day and i wonder how practical it is to bring into notice every atrocity caused every minute

Not all5 fingers of a hand are same and so are families..my in-laws are well educated and they are against girl child and my husband is from same family and he is not that way..my mom side family are not so educated but they love girls more than boys in our family and I was the on who was made to go for higher studies against all odds jus t because I was good at studies..is this discrimination against boy?

I appreciate the decision of your family. My family has also treated me and my brother alike. Truth is, many families with daughters succumb to the power of love and can no longer discriminate against their daughters. But the same families also often end up showing preferential treatment towards their DIL. And all this is the case with english educated, internet accessing middle class family like us. It is often not the same story when you go lower down the economic/social ladder.

Everythng depend on the way we take. if we want to be like doormat, we will be treated as one may be it be in India or other country.

I wholeheartedly agree.

we moved back very recently and I have seen people dressing much worse than the people in US. There they dress accordingly and never felt awkward and weird as I feel back in india.. (sorry I used word worse but coulnt find better word). I remember this line now 'when you are in rome,be like roman'.

I agree with that. It is best to wear and behave the way a culture is comfortable with. If i wear salwar kameez in this country, everybody looks at me like i am a circus clown. That makes me uncomfortable. But if somebody leers at me or thinks that i earn sexual or racist remarks, that is unacceptable.

 

Dinny;3077422]

Correction:
Our culture was never backward...nor is it stagnant.
Our civilisation has survived for more than 3500 yrs and theres a reason behind it...our forefathers believed in doing what they did.

Yes that is very true. ANd thats what surprises me.


But hey all this exists in the so called European countries too...just that it is under a different guise.

True again


You need not follow something blindly just because you are asked to.

It is not that practical in India when you live in indian society or are married to an Indian man.

And about darker skins......well....apartheid was supported by America,EU and Israel too.
It took somebody like Nelson Mandela to stand against them.

The lower caste people never had to really fight to legally change anything from the free indian constitution. The founding fathers of modern india already did everything they could ask for and more.

If you want to bring about the change then be the change you want to see.

I try my best to never hurt anyone or make anyone feel uncomfortable with any notions, culture based or otherwise