You must have seen a big gang of intellectuals and Bollywood people defending the working of Pakistani actors/singers in Bharat. The argument is that border tensions and Art must be kept separate. Well, what is so special about Art that it must always get VIP treatment? Most stories in Hindi films are either from South Bharat or foreign; and consist of repeated re-takes, garish makeup and nepotistically casted star kids playing lead roles. For now I am focusing on effects of cultural invasion.
Music and arts within Bharat and exchange from Pakistan always flow in one way traffic. No Pakistan actor will recite Gayatri Mantra or Hanuman Chalisa for movies. Urdu is constantly imposed on us. Most of our songs in Bollywood are mixture of heavy Urdu and Hinglish. Our news anchors nowadays constantly say Siyasat and not Raajneeti! Our so-called intellectuals are trying to adulterate Hindi with too many Urdu words!
The Cultural hegemony
Gramsci, an Italian Marxist, gave the theory of hegemony. He defined hegemony as when a class succeeds in persuading other classes of a society to accept its own moral, political and cultural values.
Christian backed NGOs, Islam defending activists and pure Marxists do exactly that to common Hindus. They all are different categories of people but their primary objective is same – to defame Hindu Dharma!
Do you know what is meant by Hindu rate of growth?
Bharat in pre-liberalised period had a slow growth rate of about 2-3% per annum. This was termed as ‘Hindu rate of growth’. Why did these intellectuals never call it Islamic or Christian rate of growth?
One can see this as systematic plan to insult Hindus and create a forced consensus that economic growth and being a religious Hindu are incompatible. On the one side our secular class cries that socio-economic status of Muslims is worse than Hindu counterparts, but they will relate poverty with being a Hindu!
I have never seen any English editor criticising Burkha as symbol of patriarchy and male domination over women. The intellectuals of editorial pages and news channels are fond of criticizing Karva Chauth fast as an old and superstitious practice. But they will never question Ramzaan fast of Muslims. There are talks about cracker-less Diwali but not about blood-less Eid! They always try to present Hindu Dharma as a religion of superstition and economic backwardness.
Cultural imposition by film and glamour industry
Fashion trends by our elite Bollywood are copy pasted from West – they have nothing original to showcase. The type of clothes showcased in Oscar are now being copied in Bharat’s film industry.
Producers like Karan Johar justified nepotism in Bollywood. According to him kids of stars only have the right acting and fashion sense. Only they deserve lead roles in movies. So common people in Bharat must only yell against nepotism in politics, and not of Bollywood because you know – Art is above All!
Women empowerment by fashion industry is always viewed from the narrow lens of women’s clothes. Nudity is branded as ultimate right of women. The criticism of news media and fashion industry is termed as Trolling and no one must do that. Because you know – Art is above All! One can only abuse politicians.
There must be a decent dressing sense, both for boys and girls. Youth channels of our TV often justify extra-marital sex. I am not commenting on anyone’s personal decision, but this Western ideology breaks the social & family fabric.
People have the right to drink alcohol, but it’s still not seen as desirable culture. Government does not allow direct advertisement of alcohol because it may destroy entire youth in the race of being ‘fashionably forward’. There are things which must be under ambit of social supervision.
The Role of State
After Bharat’s Independence, Nehru gave a speech- ‘Tryst with Destiny’. More than 95% Bharat did not understand English at that time but Nehru wanted to show his intellectual superiority. I am not saying that kids must not study in English medium schools. English is imposed on us by the state and we are forced to learn English or else our career is doomed. Even in UPSC civil service, English language is a compulsory paper in mains.
If you do not know English, then you have no knowledge – that is the key thing enforced in present Bharatiya society. Nehru and Gandhi failed as lawyers but they had excellent command over English! I respect our Army, but aping English culture is a typical problem of Army officers. If you are an officer, you must have a habit of drinking alcohol or else….
Engineering courses happen only in English, as do all other professional course including medicine, management etc. We have only one Hindi college in Madhya Pradesh. But alas, you know how our society views Hindi/regional medium students!
Historical impacts of Cultural hegemony
One can read about growth of Sufism and poets like Amir Khusro! One can read from historical accounts that Alauddin Khilji was very much impressed with Khusro and his qawwali compositions.
On one hand Khiljis were looting Bharat and killing innocent Hindus, on the other hand Khusro was spreading qawwali devotion towards Art among Hindus. The hangover of Urdu among North Bharat middle class still persists. Muhammad bin Tughluq was the first Sultan to visit Muinuddin Chishti’s dargah.
I can give lot of examples. The fact is Sufism was one of the cleverest ploy against Hindus. All Chishtis /Doha writers got patronage of barbaric Islamic rulers. Sufi shrewdly criticized Hindu Dharma softly by attacking ‘idol’ worship. These people convinced Hindus that all invading Muslims are not bad and asked local Hindus to hear their qawwali instead of worrying about Islamic invasions. It was a kind of hegemony exercised over natives of Bharat by invading Islamic rulers. This led to conversion of many natives into Islam and brains of most native Hindus were indoctrinated by secularism!
What can cultural invasion do at present?
Nudity and pre-marital sex are glorified by our fashion industry. If these things perforate within our society people will refuse to marry and have families, as only materialistic and sexual pleasure will matter. Thus society will remain child-less and gradually Hindu society will start ageing. Already Hindus are minority within 7 states and 1 UT. You can yourself think of many other hazards of this cultural invasion.
Conclusion
Modernization is not Westernization. I favour technology transfer from West but not cultural transfer. Developed nations are anyway reluctant to transfer new technology and only share what is obsolete. We must not trust Western NGOs because they have an imperialist past. Why did Meghalya and Nagaland became Christian states, losing their past Hindu/tribal identity? There are a lot of things to ponder!
(This is an edited version of an article that first appeared on the author’s blog)
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