Cross-cultural Interaction: Various Responses

In our story of the tribal region of Lohiana State, the tribal people who got free elementary education from IIM adopted new aspects of dress culture before the rest of tribal people. They imitated the students of IIM more than other tribal men in their dressing and other culture. Since they had continuous interactions during their stay in the campus. A good number of tribal youth who often visited the market, where IIM students roamed around in the evening, also adopted new dressing patterns. Continuous interaction with the students of IIM in the market and youths' passion for novel things prompted them to adopt changes in their life style. However, the elder people of the tribal area who mainly depended on agricultural labours and hunting and gathering in forest were more traditional in life. Elder people had limited or little interaction with the students of IIM. Therefore changes had little effect among this portion of tribal population.

These new changes which were more fascinating for the youth among their friend circles were not similarly welcomed by their parents. Many of them defended these changes as they feared that such changes might cause fury of their deities and awkward results in their life. They directed their children to stick to their old customs, traditions and way of life. It created tensions and problems in their society. However, changes had been getting ground among local population although in a medium pace.

Such processes of cross-cultural interaction are common to every time and place. Each community living in a particular geographical area comes in contact with another community by various means. In our example ‘new educational institution’ is a mean for bringing cross-cultural interaction in practice. Similarly trade interactions, migrations, missionary activities etc worked as means for cross-cultural Interaction. 

Cross-Cultural Interactions and Cultural Change

A new educational institute known as international institute of management (IIM)  was started last year in a tribal region of Lohiana State. People living in this tribal area never wore upper garments such as shirts nor they were used to wear chappals. Students of IIM belonged to distant urban areas where they followed western way of dressing. During the evenings students wandered around tribal areas and enjoyed the wonderful sights of nature including small jungles, various types of birds and animals. They were also fascinated by the natural water streams and wonderful weather of that area. Above all they were attracted by simplicity and hearty love which they could observe in tribal population.  

Gradually a small town developed around this institute. There were two coffee shops, one restaurant, two stationery shops and one crockery. Students of IIM included major chunk of customers or these shops. Students had sound economic background and being from affluent families they had a lavish life. Day by day the market developed. Two new big shops, one with readymade clothes and textiles and another with bags,shoes and chappals were inaugurated with great pomp and advertisements. 

Gradually tribal population also depended this market for their daily necessities. 

Now the tribal population living around the institute had been accustomed with the culture of students living in the campus. Some tribal people got elementary education through free programmes conducted by the institute. Some tribal students started to wear chappals and shirts imitating the fashion of IIM students. 

Managers of textiles and chappals who got management education from modern institutions in urban areas were very much cunning. They offered 80 percentage off on normal chappals and garments. Many of tribal population bought garments and chappals because they perceived it as part of the culture educated and high status people such as inmates of IIM. Therefore  they considered it as a novel and good attribute to their culture.

The above mentioned story is a simple example for cross-cultural interaction. It explains how culture of particular community receives changes through interaction with the people who belong to another distinct culture. 

Our Culture is Our Heritage

A discussion on culture is very interesting because it is connected to the life of every common and educated man. Culture simply refers to the people's way of life. It includes our behaviour, way of thoughts, attitudes, food habits, dress etc. Who is not interested in discussing his own behaviour, thoughts, food and dressing style? And who does not boast in wellness and supremacy of his own styles and habits?

We boast in the supremacy of our culture because it is our heritage. It is the style which we inherited from our forefathers. We are eating the food which is peculiar to our region. We speak more in our local language. we observe religious ceremonies the way our fathers and grand fathers observed. Our manners of according welcome even for strangers is our heritage. In this way everything we own in our life out of genetic control is inherited from our forefathers. 

But a discourse is now on stage. If heritage is our culture then man will be primitive in all period of time. Man will always follow obsolete systems and way of life. Before many generations our forefathers only covered their private parts. They were hunters and gatherers. They bred cattle and considered it as their main source of life. They considered water and cow as pure and sacred. But depending on these things for our daily life is not possible in modern times. We can respect cow and water but we want changes in our patterns of earning livelihood. We want to make use of modern ways of enjoyment. We want to enjoy modern ways of cooking. We go on picnic on holidays. We dress modern to match with the customs and traditions which fascinate modern people.  

Yes, culture is our heritage. But we respect our heritage and we follow a modern way of life. 

We would like to form a middle path between modernity and heritage. Everybody agrees that we need changes in our way of life. Why do we reject good things which are beneficial for our life. using computer makes our life easy. Using mobile makes communication very faster. These facilities bring unimaginable changes in our day to day programs and we can perform big jobs with less efforts. Nobody will reject these changes in their personal life. Technical innovations are borrowed by man from his fellow beings without any hesitation. 
But there is another question of morality or cultural values. Many technical innovations affect cultural values of various communities. Internet and mobile phone application promotes western culture such as western dressing style and western style of greeting. There are many cultural aspects which are admired by modern educated population living in India. many such cultural aspects are being borrowed by the local population. For instance wearing pants, jeans and T-shirts became common being influenced by western media which is circulated via internet and mobile applications. Many of Indian women wore loose robes during the medieval period. They considered wearing tight jeans and T-shirts as a cultural deviance in early times. Only elder generation who advocate heritage of India wear loose robes in modern times. At last we conclude that the foreign elements of culture also transformed as part of our cultural over a period of time. But constituent elements of our culture which were part of the culture of our forefathers is our heritage. The rest is foreign and accommodated by one portion of native population and rejected by another portion. However, culture is changing over time through cultural diffusion or interaction with people who belong to another culture. 

Being A South Indian Muslim

Being an Indian, every citizen of India has a separate identity. Every Indian is part of great India, a large multicultural nation. In India we respect every religion and every citizen although he belongs to a different religion. Muslims contain a good share of Indian population. India is not only a multi-religious nation but also it is multi-linguistic, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural. People belonging to same religion also speak different language and dress differently.

Muslims of India include Muslim populations which speak Urdu, , Kashmiri, PanjabiTamil, Malayalam and Bengali languages. All of them have different cultural patterns regarding their dressing style, food habits, marriage and funeral rites etc.

So being a South Indian Muslim, a member of Muslim community in South India shares many cultural traits such as dressing style, religious ceremonies and food habits with his/her fellow community members. This blog will discuss many interesting cultural issues related to the culture of Muslims in South India.