Caught in archaic perceptions....

One of the things that makes India so different from the world and possible the single most powerful adhesive between us and our past is the grip of legacy and often archaic perception driven behavior. a lot of people will call it "our culture" and some will call it "our tradition" but what it mostly is, is a set of practices and an outlook that probably made some sense in terms of practicality a long time ago. But they have stayed on with us over generations and gotten enforced as a tremendous force of inertia that drives the way we think, what drives our beliefs and value systems and how we act.

As a country and civilization, we have come a long way from our past that, while studded with gold nuggets and diamonds, is in no way all great. And while we have uniquely adopted the new realities of the environment around us, a lot of the burden of the past still lingers on creating a very complex and sometimes counter-productive approach to seeing and reacting to incidents and surrounding.

These sometimes manifest themselves in taboos that have outlived their utility. Sometimes these are presented in their associations of religious symbolism - most notably heaven and hell. Most times however this manifests in what it really is - "it is what it has been", a generational treatise that has been passed down from the past to the present.

Every passing day these carvings on the stone are being challenged and in some corners being broken down but the progress is slow. Some would probably challenge me in that any way forward breaking shackles of the past, is not progress at all! But how is breaking away from the disappointment of giving birth to a daughter, or the often frowned upon single motherhood or the taboo associated with relationships outside the wedlock not progress.

If you step outside the neon flashes of the mega cities, as you make inroads into the small town and rural cultures, such practices abound in every aspect of life. And I think that holding on to such prejudices, perceptions and practices thus have very little to do with culture or tradition or any other justifying attribute such. We hold on to these beliefs and customs driven by antique value systems because they provide a corner of comfort and a place from where the practicing individual can wield some level of unjustified influence while being shielded from the harsh discomfiture of having to change.

And more often than not we would rather be exploited for this way of thought and action than change. It is how the colonial oppression succeeded and it is how every eon of ruling class has succeeded. We are so divided in our small universes and in our minds that our effectiveness as a united force is sub-optimal at best.  

The very fact that progress has proven inversely proportional to social rigidity, shows that it is. And as long as we choose to hold on to what our ancestors believed in and continue to explore the world and our lives through those narrow lenses, real progress shall elude us. The time has come for new sets of values and beliefs to be adopted that are more in line with the realities and forces of economics and globalization.