Indian Culture and Tradition
Introduction: The fabric of Indian culture is woven with customs and tradition. Tradition, if followed in the right perspective can never be a hindrance to progress unless orthodoxy creeps in and a person is shackled with obstinacy.
High degree of spirituality and honor: Traditional and customary practices are an important part of Indian culture. Tradition is also an approach followed over the years and handed down from generation to generation, ensuring that it leads to a high degree of spirituality and honor.
Indians are proud of its culture. In our country it is traditional to respect elders, be truthful and honest and also to help out others in need. It is also considered traditional to celebrate our cultural festivals and religious activities with the family and neighbors. Tradition leads to the right approach to marriage and death in the family, as has been followed over centuries.
Joint Family Tradition: We still retain the tradition of joint family system in our society as part of our culture. This tradition, where the eldest in the family lays down rules, which are followed by all members of the family, is the reason that the family life is not chaotic.
Advantages of Joint Family system: A joint family system, as per tradition, has a lot of advantages. All family members are specifically delegated responsibilities which lead to sharing and no one is burdened. At the time of crisis or when in need of advice, all the family members can sit together and the final solution, as a result of this discussion, is more often than not the right one.
This traditional approach results in the younger members learning from the experience of their seniors and also respecting them due to it.
The other aspect of traditional joint family is that strength lies in numbers. Even if a family member is ill or goes out of station to work, he has the mental confidence of his family being looked after and being safe, the prime factor today.
Disintegration of Joint Families in India: One can imagine the state of affairs where each individual member of the family takes his own decision regardless of the difficulty of others. It certainly would lead to chaos and disrupt peace of mind and it is not traditional to do so.
The latter is the reason for the disintegration of joint family systems in our society and even brothers prefer to live apart after getting married.
Religious activities: Religious activities are deeply engrossed in Indian culture. These activities are lavish household affairs with everyone contributing their mite. These traditional activities result in persons learning about their heritage, religion and other spiritualities in the company of seniors. There are several rituals in any such religious functions which is difficult to understand in the right perspective and the present generation, moving away from tradition, try to be sarcastic about them. However, if tried to understand logically and learning from experience, we discover the nuances which are thoroughly scientific and meant for purification of the body and soul.
Horoscope matching for marriages: Our marriages, which are generally arranged by elders, are mostly settled on the basis of horoscopes. This is our tradition, but the logic is that people the world over believe in stars and their effect on them. Our marriages are also performed according to specific rites, which are very logical, due to which couples believe that it is a lifelong union. The percentage of separation and divorce is thus comparatively low among Indian communities.
Many Religions: In India, tradition has always been to welcome different streams of thought. This is why, Indian culture has witnessesed so many religions intermingling and prospering over the ages without bias.
Hinduism, Jainism, Islam, Buddhism, the Khalsa Panth, and Christianity, to name a few, have been in India over the centuries and it is a part of our tradition that we have not tried to enforce any specific religion on the masses. Our culture teaches tolerance and we have progressed not in spite of it but due to it.
