The last few months, I have been coming to terms with the affinity that I have been developing for advocates of the Hindu civilizational identity. I was surprised to notice that some of their concerns resonated with me. The more I listened to some of these advocates, the more I found myself identifying with their sentiments. It is important for me to explore my own thoughts on cultural identity.
A secure identity is no doubt, a key component of psychological well-being. An identity is created through a journey in a socio-cultural context. It is therefore rooted in the soil of culture, and it cannot be alienated from its history. When I ask myself who I am and what my history has been, I can find within myself a cultural experience that was an eclectic mix of different values- some liberal, and some traditional. My liberal values allowed me to embrace diverse perspectives and relate to people whose beliefs were different from mine. They allowed me to be open-minded, and challenge my own beliefs. They allowed me to unlearn and retain a fresh outlook to life. But it was tradition that taught me to look at life as a moral and ethical dilemma, rather than as a logical dilemma. Very early in life, I empathized with fictional and real-life characters who found their way out of their moral dilemmas in the most ingenious ways. The conversation at home was also often about moral decisions. Morality was therefore a concept strongly ingrained in me. I started appreciating the merit of defining moral ideals in life. The concept of morality added a dimension to life that made it meaningful. It was morality that added character to our otherwise dull logical personalities. I learnt early in life that contexts introduced nuances into a dilemma, and these nuances demanded a moral outlook to life. Morality had the power to transform a defeat into a victory, deficiency into abundance. If you learnt to address the moral dilemma in your mind, then you could keep winning the battles in life.
I must say the books we read as children significantly influenced our moral development. They taught me to see the world as a beautiful place that was created with love and where every form of life was valuable. Stories invariably portrayed animals, birds, trees, and all the elements of nature as animated beings that were capable of feeling pain and joy. Their lives were not inferior or insignificant by any means. These stories brought them to visibility, and made them matter. Stories helped us identify with the nature of human interactions. We could see how an individual's life was intimately linked to the family structure and to the larger universe represented by the village or town where he/she dwelt. Today, when I look back at the perceptions created by these books, I realize that they introduced to us at an early age the concept of morality, or dharma. They instilled in us a social consciousness and a sense of duty. These books were our earliest lessons in social psychology- they taught us to identify with the larger universe and perceive ourselves as integral components of this universe. They taught us that our freedom and rights demanded of us certain duties. This is perhaps the point of conflict in these times- we demand rights and freedom, without being conscious of our duties, roles and responsibilities.
Because people chose to see life from a moral perspective, my life was filled with ordinary people who were extraordinary in their choices. In those days, people led difficult lives, but they defined their roles in terms of values that transformed the perception of adversity, and made life not only bearable, but worthwhile. People may have been poor, but they were invincible. The competence that frail, pious grandmothers demonstrated, and the confidence that they instilled in us, can put modern young women to shame. People took their roles seriously, and made themselves indispensable to their families and communities. We knew everybody not by their job titles, but by what they stood for. In MT Vasudevan Nair's Oru punchiri, we have a brilliant example of an elderly couple who choose to continue engaging with the roles that enable them to add value to the world, rather than settle into a life of comfort and dependence. Their physical limitations do not stop them from touching the lives of numerous people in the village. They see their roles as meaningful, and refuse to give them up. This is what we saw with our parents and grandparents. They never withdrew from their highly demanding roles because they believed that the integrity of the social structures they were serving, depended on their contributions. Today, we have switched from our social roles to our individual roles, and are therefore accountable for the collapse of the social structures that made our lives meaningful. We have destroyed the very culture that sustained us. We have no home to return to. Yet, we do not take responsibility.
The Hinduism that touched me, emphasized this delicate balance between our duties/responsibilities and our freedom/rights. The Hinduism that is in my memory, is not a religion, but a culture and a philosophy. It stood for simplicity, modesty, humility, honesty, integrity, and so much more. The Hinduism that I assimilated from my early life and from the beautiful Malayalam movies I watched, was my first textbook of psychology. It helped me understand why our modern identities are so fragile and confused, and why we are all anxious or depressed. Today, the Hinduism that I get to witness is far removed from what it truly stood for. Revival of temples as businesses cannot be the answer to revival of the Hindu principles of life. Unless these temples make a shift from merely being public places with social events, to being places that engage people in meaningful ways in their spiritual quest, I do not see any scope for transformation.
Why is it that we are so ashamed of our native identities? I am very proud of our native identity- of our culture, literature and works of art. It is this cultural wisdom that helped us build our identity as roles which added value to society. It is certainly heartening to witness a phenomenon where more young people are finally realizing the importance of engaging with their social environment. The depression and anxiety that we imported into this country, can only be warded off if we choose to build a social self, rather than a limited individual self.
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