Don’t do it! It’s not part of your culture- Why Indian millennials are going through a cultural crisis
“Culture tends to argue that it forbids only that which is unnatural. But from a biological perspective, nothing is unnatural. Whatever is possible is by definition also natural. A truly unnatural behavior, one that goes against the laws of nature, simply cannot exist, so it would need no prohibition.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
They call us the connected generation. With the advancement of technology and access to megabytes of data at our fingertips, we are consuming far more information than ever. We are curious, we are asking questions, and we are constantly finding our meaning. In a world where science is making a humongous leap from resurrecting extinct mammoths to creating robot citizens, we are still expected to follow the unexplained idiosyncrasies of our traditions, customs and lovely myths that don’t add up.
This Valentine’s day I had the most romantic evening with my boyfriend in France. A candlelight dinner, soft music, flowers, and chocolates. And then I saw it- a news broadcast in French showing how couples in Bandstand, Mumbai were beaten up by some Bajrang Dal for celebrating love. Because Valentine’s day is not part of our culture, because Love is not part of our culture? I am only one amongst the 400 million young Indian millennials who have felt the sharp blow of the cultural propaganda. According to World Economic Forum, India is about to leapfrog UK and France- and become the world’s fifth largest economy. While as an economy, we have grown, as a society our notions and beliefs have stayed archaic.
Take for reference our obsession with big fat Indian weddings. While One-fifth of Indian population is struggling with poverty, the rest is busy spending their wealth on weddings. Millions of Indians are currently under wedding loan debts. Rohit Sen- NIRA’s co-founder, puts it aptly, “Weddings are the single biggest value destroyer.” A decade ago a huge ass wedding made sense to everybody. As millennials become financially wiser, they don’t want to repeat the same mistakes. Apurva Lohia, a 26-year-old bride to be from Delhi says,“I’d rather have an FD and accumulate wealth over time rather than spend it all on a big fat wedding in just three short days.”
While Apurva struggles with her views on marriage, Prajwal, a 27-year-old from Bangalore struggles with the secrecy of his relationship. You see Prajwal, is in love with a girl who he has been dating for the past two years. Since they both were working in a new city, they decided to save cost and rent an apartment together. It felt like the natural thing to do. However, Prajwal cannot help but feel guilty because he knows he can never explain this move to his parents and has to live an alternate life just to keep the peace. I bet he is not the only one who feels this way.
According to HT-MaRS youth survey, 49% of Indian youngster in metros are in a relationship. 62% working millennials have partners, and 59% agree that premarital sex is no longer a taboo. Yet most have to keep their relationships a secret from their families.
Let’s not forget the pressure of getting married early at the “right age.” Well, what is this right age? This what Google has to say:
What? 22 years old is the average age! While as per UNICEF, child marriage has significantly decreased from 47 percent (2006) to 27 percent (2016) yet many still face the societal pressure of getting married early. At least now I understand why mothers start pestering us about marriage right from the age of 18. The real heroes are the ones who have managed to endure this pressure through their 30s. But that comes at the cost of constant evaluation. Megha, a 28-year-old graduate of ISB and a successful marketer, has chosen a path of independence. She has always prioritized her career. But after attending her best friend’s engagement, she can feel the pressure increase. Rohit on the other hand is going through a similar yet slightly different problem. You see, Rohit is a 32-year-old manager at Wipro. He has enjoyed a successful career and now wants to progress even further. He feels that an MBA from a top college should be his next step but his family does not support this. Why? Because it’s time to get married and that should be his priority.
Rohit’s story is also very close to my own story. I am 25, and I want to pursue higher studies. When I expressed this desire to my mother, I met resistance. Upon hearing my wish, she quietly said to me, “If you study more, how will you find a suitable husband? Nobody wants an over-educated wife”. My family is a somewhat liberal family, and when I hear statements like these from my own mother, I can’t help but wonder the struggles young women go through in the more conservative households. No wonder 84% of women drop out of the workforce after graduation in India. While the leadership gender gap continues to widen.
“We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller, we say to girls, You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful, otherwise you would threaten the man.”
When Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie spoke these words, at TedxEuston, they hit me right at the center of my core. She was speaking for Nigerian women, but I could relate to every word as they hold just as true for women in India.
Mitali Garg, a 23-year-old student from Rajiv Gandhi college of law recalls:
I was attending a wedding party with my boyfriend and this gorgeous, well-meaning woman (a close family friend of the bf) walks over to us and starts making some conversation. It started with exchanging pleasantries and gradually moved on to more pertinent topics of discussion. Such as, what did we want to do once we graduated college? When we stated that both of us wanted to become litigating lawyers, there was a particular scrunch of the eyebrows and pat came the response “Both persons of the same house can’t be in litigation, it is such a taxing job, how will you make time for the family?”
It seemed like a general observation. However, it was more inclined towards me. It shocked me momentarily, and then I came to a realization, actually, two realizations-
A. People are all in about women education. However, in their heads, the roles of women in society at large, remain the same. I could study at an Ivy league college, make more money than most people do but the measure of my worth as a woman remains on how round my chapatis are or how diligently can I keep my home in order.
B. The roles of women in a marriage are so set in some ways that they are by-default expected to shoulder more responsibilities in the relationship. Doing laundry becomes my job, feeding the husband becomes my job, buying the grocery becomes my job. Why?
Mitali’s predicament is not unique. It’s become the modern Indian woman’s common dilemma. This is not to say that India has not progressed. In many ways, we have come a long way as a society. Our parents are now open to inter-caste and love marriages, they are open to dialogues about dating before marriage, and the lines of gender biases are blurring. Unlike the previous generation, millennials have more freedom of career and lifestyle choices. As Mitali says, “Indian population has definitely embraced the changing times with open arms, so what if they look a little confused while doing that.”
I can’t help but feel her optimism sweep in. The change has begun. As millennials enter the workforce, they are not just driving the economic growth but also propagating their own belief systems. They are making bolder choices and leading a wave of change. Cultures take centuries to form, but generations are wiped out in years. As these young millennials will go on to be prime economic and social levers of the nation, I envision a new India. A Nation free of its social and gender paradoxes.
While these changes have started, they are by no means assured. Until that time, Indian millennials must be self-aware enough to ensure that their life choices are not dictated by “culture”. Until that time, they must follow what feels right and natural to them. Until that time, they must pay heed to Yuval Harari’s words: whatever is possible by definition is also natural.
