Creative role for Kashmiri Associations

Prof. T.N. Madan

Being ‘modern’ or becoming ‘modern’ has been known to be the ambition of every society or community in the last two centuries or so. In effect, this has meant being like Western Society- borrowing its institutions, imitating its life-style, acknowledging the superiority of its value orientations, and making use of its science and technology.

Whether we like it or not ‘moder-nisation’ has been attributed to the obstructive role of its own culture. The loss of political independence and economic exploitation, which were the most visible parts of Western colonialism, did not, perhaps, corrode the human spirit and creativity as much as had been effected by the erosion of cultural traditions round the world- languages, arts, festivals, crafts all suffered grievous damage. In many parts of the world the subordinated countries and communities came to look upon their own cultural traditions with a sense of shame if not also of guilt. Thus when Western scholars said that Indian art and architecture were monstrous, many educated Indians concurred.

The death knell of Western colonialism in the 1940s and 1950s, ending political dependence and seeking economic reconstruction was not immediately accompanied by the recovery of cultural pride. The ‘old’ societies were judged to be in need of drastic sociocultural change to transform them into ‘new’ states. Asian, African and Latin American cultural traditions were generally dubbed as ‘premodern’ and efforts were set afoot to modernize them. In other words, the ending of political and economic dependence hastened rather than terminated cultural imperialism. The newly independent nations went in for massive educational and cultural innovation programmes which aimed at world-wide diffusion of a universal modern culture within the boundaries of nation-states.

Within these states, subnational cultural traditions came to be looked upon with suspicion as internal threats to the newly won independence. One recalls in this context the resistance to the linguistic reorganisation of states in India. Complaints began to be voiced that ‘Indians’ were the most pitiable minority in India pitted against the proponets of regional cultures, whether the Assamese or the Bengalis or the Punjabis or whosoever.

Gradually, however, the value and power of cultural traditions has begun to be recognised. The emergence of Bangladesh was a major success for those seeking the legitimacy of diverse cultural traditions and protesting against political domination and cultural monism. This process was hastened by the worsening of the internal crisis in the Western civilization, characterized by a runaway consumerism, a mindless materialism and the pervasion of science and technology.

In such a context, the efforts of a community like the Kashmiri Pandits to try to preserve their cultural traditions in and outside the Valley must be seen as a healthy trend about which no one need be apologetic. But the many Kashmiri Associations that have sprung up all over the country and abroad must realize that the task they face is difficult because the preservation of a culture away from its historical habitat is not easy. It is also difficult for it could isolate the Kashmiris from their new cultural settings. Thus a community of Kashmiris in Calcutta which fails to establish a creative dialogue with Bengali culture would in the end only impoverish itself.

Not everything in a cultural tradition is worth preserving, least of all exclusivism and hubris. We must, therefore, seek to not only preserve Kashmiri culture but also learn to be innovative and also to live in creative cultural intercourse with other communities. The Kashmiri community must also learn to recognise the richness of its own internal cultural variety and also the limitations of this cultural heritage. Confidence and humility do indeed go well together and are much needed to achieve the constructive tasks ahead of us.

*The author is a renounced Sociologist of international repute.