Author: Dr. Grishma Khobragade,

Abstract

This study is an attempt to look closely at Aggression in Indian Culture and to see how the writer mobilizes social analysis to locate the instances of upper-caste hegemony and apartheid in the form of untouchability and casteism, respectively.

Attempts are here made to find out how upper caste hegemony and caste-based discrimination in domains such as society, politics, culture, religion, and law. Caste is the common denominator or the base structure on which superstructures like politics, law, religion, and social institutions are built. We find that this very base of Indian society shows how the related aspects, such as religion, morality, social values, and media, are lopsided or biased. This work, unlike the other study, discusses more of the international issues, though it also touches upon cultural expression and Brahmanism and its impact.

Keywords: Caste, Culture, Brahmanism, ethnicity, discrimination, caste system

THE DARK SIDE OF CULTURE: AGGRESSION IN INDIAN CULTURAL EXPRESSION

Introduction:

This Paper tries to explain how culture is a complex notion in a multicultural society like India. India has many cultures and many nationalities though it has projected a dominant cultural tradition. This dominant cultural tradition does not represent the tribal and other social segments. The dominance or otherwise is only dictated by the ruling class culture, which since the last 3,000 years or so happens to be the Aryan culture. The highly advanced pre-Dravidian and Dravidian cultures were driven into the hills and forests-the last surviving examples of them being the tribal of India. (1988:5)

Objectives:

1. To examine various forms of aggression in Indian cultural expression
2. To analyse the social, economic, and political implications of aggression in Indian cultural expression.
3. To study the trends and patterns of aggression in Indian society.

Research methodology:

1. Literary analysis of selected books by Indian writers (e.g., Dr.Babasaheb Ambedkar and V.T.Rajshekar

2. Critical discourse analysis of relevant literary theories

This methodology provides a comprehensive framework for investigating aggression in Indian cultural expression

Significance of the Study:

This research paper on aggression in Indian cultural expression in society has significant implications for understanding the complex dynamics of aggression in Indian society. The study’s findings will contribute to:

1. Deepening understanding of Indian cultural expression: By examining aggression in Indian cultural expression, this study will provide insights into the nuances of Indian culture and its relationship with aggression.
2. Promoting cultural sensitivity and awareness: This research will raise awareness about the impact of aggression on individuals and communities, fostering empathy and cultural sensitivity.
3. Enhancing social cohesion: The study’s findings will inform strategies to promote social cohesion, tolerance, and non-violent conflict resolution.

Discussion:

A vibrant cultural face of India can also be seen in the rural Dalit villages though it is not often represented in mass media and literature. There is a significant Dalit culture which is outside the national mainstream culture that does not get represented. V.T. Rajshekar points out:

The mahua, the baul, the spirit worship, the cutting of tender chicken at Mariamma’s feet and countless such events – a veritable celebration of life – keep the real culture very much alive. But the problem is despite the fact that these original inhabitants are over 85% of India’s population, their “culture” is not noticed in the mass media. Because media does not belong to slaves who have no right to claim any culture which only the rulers can possess. (1988:5)

The Aryan culture as the dominant culture of India which tries to assimilate and Hinduize other cultures. This form of cultural hegemony very predatory. Indian culture has to be understood beyond the culture of the upper caste to understand the culture of suffering, the culture of casteism, the culture of being betrayed and the culture of the Untouchability.

The cultural paradigms imbedded in Hinduism to show how Hinduism creates a false polarity of ‘pure’ and ‘impure’ in Aesthetics and poetics. The culture of India perpetuated by Hinduism is that of dominant culture who control this dominant culture will not even make 15 % of the total population. The hegemony of language in culture. For instance, the people who know English in India are less than 2 % and over 50% of the populations are below the poverty line. It indicates that 50% of SC (Dalits) are agricultural labourers and many others work as rickshaw pullers, head load workers, construction labourers, and Bidi workers.

The life and the sensibility of these Dalits subjects are not reflected in the cultural texts produced in India. To illustrate this argument, we can give an analysis of the newspaper reading population in India. It indicates, with the help of statistics, that only 2.5 crore people read newspapers regularly in India. This indicates that the newspaper reading population is only 2.5 %. Subsequently, we can argue that this 2.5% of population take over the cultural expressions of India and hence, they represent Indian culture only in terms of industrialists, journalists, professionals, bureaucrats, judiciary, films, entertainment and sports industries, traders, bankers, educationalists, religious and trade union leaders, scientist etc. This shows that life, art and customs of the Scheduled Castes and tribal and backward castes are rarely reflected in the dominant culture.

Culture is often the essence of human life and by controlling culture. It is possible to preserve certain privileges of the upper caste. Culture constitutes ideas, values, and ethics. This is the basis of every religion. Life and preservation of life constitute the essence of religion. So from this angle, we will examine the cultural and philosophical tradition of “Hinduism” or Brahmanism. (1988:9)

Hinduism, as a religious practice, does not recognize the values of democracy. Its caste hierarchy has kept 70% of the population in illiteracy and poverty. Under these circumstances it is very difficult to imagine Dalits and the oppressed to have their culture. We know the evidence for the upper caste political conspiracy. Jagjivan Ram was denied Prime Minister ship because he was an untouchable. In a land where people are denied their Human Rights, the only culture that would be visible is that of aggression.

The only visible cultural expression in India is that of conflict. We can argue that India is a land of religious war, linguistic war and caste war. It evokes the myth of Parashuram who had killed every and had thrown his axe into the Arabian Sea. It indicates, this story is the foundation of Brahmin-kshtriya conflict which never ended in independent India. The cultural propaganda of Hinduism and indicates that in contemporary India there are no sufficient cultural forms through which ordinary human experience can be articulated. “The Brahmins, the chief salesmen of this religion, have divided all human experience such as time, space, things, and people into pure and impure.”

The hegemony embedded within the polarity of the pure and impure. It indicates how the concept of time which is one of the tangible ways of understanding one’s experience, is divided into good time and bad time and how this Brahminical division of time is imposed upon God fearing masses:

Time is divided into pure and impure. A new Prime Minister is sworn in only after a Brahmin priest fixes an “auspicious” time .During the rahu kala nothing should be performed. India became independent at the stroke of midnight (Aug, 14, 1947) because the Brahmin priests found no other “auspicious time” for such a historic event. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. G. Ramachandran’s plane’s arrival (he was returning from a treatment in USA) in Madras was delayed (1987) by 15 minutes to avoid the Rahu kala. (2001:13-14).

How the same Brahminical binaries divide space, objects and even people into two categories. For instances, the spatial dimension of the development of a city or town into pure areas and the cheri, the dirty slum where the Untouchables live, is a clear case of determining one’s living experience in terms of pure space and impure space. Similarly, how food habits and even colours are divided into pure and impure in Indian culture to privilege the Brahmins. For Instance, how vegetarianism is popularized as something pure and meat eating as something impure. This division is not just confined to things and time, but extends into a classification of human beings.

Myths, stories and puranas have established the belief that a Brahmin is sacred and holy so he alone can be in the sanctum of a temple. Many temples in India still deny entry to Dalits and non-Hindus. How Jagjivanram was not allowed to unveil the statue of Sampurnanda because he was a Dalit and was considered impure. The culture of Hinduism with its religious practices, myths and puranas are obsessed with the binary of purity and pollution. To expose this hypocritical classification, we know that the Ganga, the purifier has dead bodies floating in it.

Hinduism has taken over the control of cultural production in India and thus, in a way, has given Hinduism control over politics and economic too. We can explain the relationship between cultural production and power relations:

This division of things into “pure” and “impure” gives enormous power to those who divide. Who can divide things into pure and impure? Only the Brahmin So he becomes the most sacred and hence the most powerful. (2001:14)

Once culture sanctifies Brahmin as pure, the presence of Brahmin is legitimized in all cultural institutions like religion, marriage, birth ceremony and the rituals related to death. The dominant Hindu culture degrades Dalits so systematically that even a rich Dalit feels inferior before a poor Brahmin. The poverty of the Untouchables in India is a byproduct of the cultural hegemony. “If the Untouchables are poor, it is the by-product of their cultural degradation being classified as impure. As long as this purity and pollution notion is allowed to run riot how can there be human rights? “(1988:15). while analyzing the cultural context of India, we know that how marriages and food habits in India are controlled by casteism. We know that how the people of upper caste create strong cultural barriers among the people.

Endogamy bans inter-caste marriage. Caste bans inter-dining, religious conversion and all other forms of intercourse making India a country of “meritless” people. The upper castes of India want us to “love the land” .But what is the use of loving the land without loving its people? ((2001:16)

We know that casteism, intolerance, biased Brahminism and inequality as the features of Indian dominant culture which are then circulated in the society with the help of TV serials such as the Ramanayana, print media and education system. This process in culture as a sanskritization and he explains:

The air that you breathe, the water that you drink, the paper that you read, the book you study in classes, the cinema and TV that you see, the god that you worship everything is engaged in spreading this “dominant culture. ((2001:23)

Hinduism and its dominant culture combine to form a cultural aggression. Tribal have already started their cultural onslaught by initiating anti-Aryan movements. The press and other media that have become the custodian of dominant culture.

The Aryan “dominant culture” is losing its battle. That is why it is taking a more and more violent turn and using the state itself to suppress the “sons of the soil”. The country’s “national press” is working as the watchdog of this “dominant culture”. So also its law courts, bureaucrats. The police and military are being increasingly used to destroy any individual or movement that will work against this “dominant culture. ((2001:25)

The concept of Hindu Rashtra propagated by such parties is extremely dangerous for the multilingual, multi-religious and multi-ethnic fabric of Indian culture. The culture as a site wherein various native religious practices are manifested. We analyze, the History of Indian culture to show how the privileged Aryan notion of religion has wiped out other religious practices of Indian culture. We remember a time when India had different religious practices of native origin.How such practices were maligned by Brahmins, stealing the native of their Gods and Goddesses.

Language is also a significant element of culture. A dominant language exercises a cultural hegemony over other minor languages. This theory of linguistic domination. How Hindi and Devnagari script have obliterated many native languages.

Though UP, Bihar, Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh had several languages like Ardha-Magadi, khadiboli, Mundari, Hariyanvi, Brijbhasha, Rajasthani etc. all of them have been swallowed and the area was called “Hindi belt”. ((2001:36)

Ethnicity is another aspect of culture. It is also a significant component of cultural identity of its community. Stuaurt Hall explains the concept of cultural identity in terms of the collective experiences of the past. We consider memory, desires and narratives as the agencies of cultural identity. This paradigm can be applied in the context of Aggression on Indian Culture.

History is not merely a record of the events of the past, new historicists like Stephen Greenblatt and Clifford Geertz considers history as a cultural material. They also look at history as a narrative and as a form of representation that privileges the interest of certain groups. Thus, in New Historicism, history marks a point of intersection between culture and politics. history is very compatible with the new historicist views. Indian historians have been favouring Aryan Brahminical cultural invasions of Dalits. How history has been hijacked by the dominant culture in India. We can examine closely various cultural institutions like religion, language and art which operate under Hinduism. This paper also shows how Hinduism creates a kind of cultural hegemony that destroys the cultural identity of Dalits. In fact, all the argument in this study are strongly political as they try to plead for the Dalit causes.

The efforts of casteism and the plight of Dalits in India, the known facts for Indian he also wants to bring the attention of international agencies such as U.N.O. and International Human Rights Commission on the issues of Dalits. It seems to bring discussion and debate on the atrocities committed against Dalits at an international level, trying to bring the issues of Dalits to the level of issues of the Blacks all over the world. This study also seems to be the one of bringing forth an international awareness and consciousness for the issues such as culture, religion and languages of Dalits.

References:

1. Rajshekar, V.T. Aggression on Indian Culture. Bangalore: Dalit Sahitya Academy, 2001.
2. Ambedkar, B.R: Annihilation of Caste. Nagpur: Samata Prakashan, 1944
3. Ambedkar, B.R.: Who were the Shudras? Nagpur: Kaushalya Prakashan, edition 2003.
4. Ambedkar, B.R.: Caste in India. Mumbai: Pratap Prakashan, 1996.
5. Keer, Dhananjay, Ambedkar: Life And Mission.Mumbai: Popular Prakashan, 2002.
6. Limbale, Sharankumar .Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit Literature: History, Controversies and Considerations.Trans. Alok Mukherjee. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2007.

About Author: Author is Head & Associate Professor, Department of English, B.K. Birla College, (Autonomous) Kalyan (Affiliated to University of Mumbai) E-Mail: grishmak09@gmail.com