The Shadows of Culture Extinction

Saurabh Thapa

‘Who is he and what is he playing?’ asked a small Nepali boy to his mother pointing towards a ‘Gaine’ or a ‘Sarangi player’ in a busy market place. It is sad to know that many of the young generation teens have very little knowledge about their rich cultural heritage. Cultural homogeneity, an effect of Globalization have disrupted and confused many of the younger generations regarding their cultures around the world. But excluding these cultural effects, the rise in the standards of living has also a great role to play in leading many of the cultures towards the verge of extinction.

A Gaine, (by the profession) in the district of Darjeeling, has a lot of concerns regarding this context. He explains that it is very hard to live a decent livelihood only with the help of his occupation in the modern standards of living. The constant rise in the prices of daily needed commodities has made it very difficult for his line of work to cope-up with the harsh and expensive world. He worries that the youngsters of his community are slowly leaving their profession and are opting for other jobs for a better life. In this pace whole of their community would be extinct in a matter of time.

Media, specially the television and internet, has a great dominance over the recent world. These mediums of communications are empowered with the great power of persuasion. Therefore, it does what it’s meant to do, act as a powerful tool of globalization and sow the seeds of some influential cultures upon other communities. Better known as ‘Mass culture’ and ‘Pop culture’, these are widely accepted by a huge heterogeneous mass on the planet. Many of the cultures are dying because of the massive adaptation of Mass culture by not only the youngsters but also their parents. Adaptation of mass or the pop culture not only mean to adopt the most accepted culture and trends of the world but it also means to let go of their long held and accepted ethnic culture and rituals.

It can be witnessed in the district of Darjeeling and the state of Sikkim (even in many north-eastern parts of India) that a huge number of teens have been greatly influenced by the Korean culture. They mostly watch Korean movies and T.V shows and even dress like them. Some have even started learning Korean language and we can see a lot of names changed into Korean names in their Facebook profiles. Though these acts may seem harmless but in a context it is slowly ‘deterritorializing’ the regional culture and is ‘reterritorialized’ by the Korean one. But no one can say whether this is a temporary or a permanent process. Though it can be rightfully said, that in the coming future the persuasiveness of Korean culture may be instantly replaced by another popular culture. These can be seen as an evidence that our culture is slowly losing its grip on the young generation teens. However, this is only one of the examples prevalent in these parts. Other cultures such as Hiphop culture, Heavy metal culture, etc, has also slowly started its influence within the youths of the region.

The ignorance or the negligence by the people of any community towards their culture may result in the total disappearance of what portrays their identity, their rich culture.  A culture not only signifies the long held belief, customs, rituals etc, but it truly helps to identify and give identity to any specific community within the world. But with a very high rate of mass culture adaptation, communities are now slowly merging with each other. The uniqueness that once differentiated one culture from another is slowly fading away.

Evolution is a part of human characteristic and like everything else, the world now is experiencing cultural change in the name of cultural evolution. But when we talk about evolution, need or the requirement to do so plays an important part to justify it. There is always a reason and necessity, which is normally for the survival for anything to evolve in the planet we live in. Keeping this in mind the question arises, Is there any need for cultural change regarding the context of human survival? Or is the change necessary in-order to walk in the footsteps of modernization?

The ongoing traditions and cultures that have been passed from generations to generations seems more like a silhouette in the modern world. Every thing’s changed in the name of modernity. Not only in the perspective of culture but the so called modern world has led the people to leave their ancestral settlements and move to bigger cities. As a proof of the persuasive and very influential power of the media, it can be seen that the life styles advertised by the big media houses have been very successful in changing the livelihood of more than half of the population of the world, in some way or the other. These changes may be both good as well as bad but it is all upto the people to recognize and act accordingly. It totally depends upon what you adapt and what you let go of. The main challenge here is to maintain a balance between the inherited culture and the new culture adapted. The adaptation of new culture may not always be harmful but to let go of the culture passed on from generation to generation by our ancestors may prove to be very devastating in some context.   

(Published at Sikkim Express newspaper on 29th august,2012)