Indian Culture during the Contemporary Period

Indian Culture during the Contemporary Period,The social structural affiliation of the classical in the traditional Indian culture had been broadly linked with princes, priests, monks, munis, sadhus, scholars, guild masters and other prosperous groups. During the medieval period the relationship between the classical and the folk was not disturbed. In ancient India the classical tradition was linked not only to Sanskrit but there were also streams of the classical tradition associated with Pali and Tamil. Sanskrit was the bearer of the Hindu classical tradition and the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and some of the Jain science traditions as well. Pali was the vehicle of the Theravadi Buddhist tradition and Tamil was the bearer of the South Indian classical tradition.

My Trip Blog, During the modern period, the relationship between the classical represented by English and the vernacular folk traditions has broken down. Traditional equilibrium has been affected by different factors and processes of modernization. With the impact of modern social forces the relationship between the classical and the folk traditions has been disturbed. In the urban centres a new middle class has been growing and assuming the role of the bearer of the classical tradition. The middle class has a world view and outlook that is radically different from the bearers of the folk tradition. They are mostly the bearers of Western cultural values, norms, ideas, outlook and institutions, and English has become their dominant language. Throughout history, the folk and the tribal traditions have remained relatively unaffected by changes in political structures. The importance of classical traditions has been changing from time to time with changes in political power structure but the folk and the tribal traditions have remained consistently vibrant. The classical traditions in traditional India had always accepted the importance as well as given space to the folk and the tribal cultures. The bearers of modern Western classical cultural tradition, on the other hand, have on occasions shown less tolerance towards the folk and the tribal traditions. They usually brand the traditional culture as primitive, barbaric and superstitious in comparison to the modern culture. They try to modernize and westernize all the elements and streams of Indian culture. The processes of westernization, industrialisation, urbanisation, globalisation and democratisation are influencing various aspects of Indian culture today. These modernizing and secularizing forces, however, have not yet cut off contemporary Indian culture from the traditional and cultural roots of Indian culture. The traditional cultural media not only continue to survive today, but also some aspects of it have also been incorporated in novel ways into an emerging popular and, classical culture.