Cultural  War

Culture as we know is the common practices of people living in a country. It is the collective identity of the people living in a region or country. Culture is everything that is part of society, that is dresses, language, festivals, food and family values( these family values must be common to larger section of the society).

Cultural war: Cultural war is a conflict between two social groups for the dominance of their values, beliefs and practices. It is like redesigning the social makeup of a society, in which new rituals and beliefs will take over the existing ones. This is one of the most debated topic throughout the world as people claim that western culture has replaced or is replacing the existing cultural practices, especially in countries located in Asia and Africa. Cultural war does not mean that one social group is directly forced to follow the rituals and practices of other social group, here thoughts and ideas of people are altered using education and other such means that can be used to change the ideas of the people. 

Is cultural war a reality?

Humans always want their ideas to be accepted and respected in the society and same applies to the culture as well. Culture was used as an administrative tool to alter the ideas and belief of the people and make them obey the practices that were followed by their political masters, so that the native people do not oppose the rule of a foreign ruler. During Mughal period Aurangzeb ruthlessly followed the policy of cultural war and tried to convert non Muslim population, many temples were turned into mosques to propagate the Muslim way of life. Britishers also tried to change the ideas and belief of the people living in India, so that Indians readily accept foreign rule as an act to civilize the uncivilized population of India and British can continue to rule as long as they want. At present cultural war is more related to defining the identity of a region or country, each social group wants their rituals and practices must be the identity of the entire nation.

Muslim civil war in Muslim countries like Syria and Afghanistan is actually a cultural war, where a group of people (terrorists) want to impose their ideology on others. Here we must understand that culture must be adopted, it should not be imposed on others.

Is current situation in India a cultural war?

Present situation in India, where Hindu groups claims to revive the Hindu culture cannot be called a cultural war, as the practices which these groups want to revive are already practiced by majority of the population, the efforts of Hindu groups are in the direction to preserve the Indian culture( as most of the practices in Indian culture are dominated by Hindu rituals). Hindu groups believe that Hindus must prevent the westernization and Islamification of Indian culture.

Here I want to request you all to preserve this rich culture of India, without this culture we will lose our unique identity. Our culture has the potential to be the spiritual Guru of this world, lets make it happen. We must not see the culture through the eyes of the religion.