The too obvious need not be overemphasised… gl-obalisation is changing the world. These days, a giant-sized, moth-eaten face of Arnold Schw-arzenegger stares at us Bombaywallas from a billboard, heralding the release of a Hollywood blockbuster, Terminator III. I know the cultural wet blankets and challengers of globalisation would view this with unease or snootiness and call this ?creative extermination?. They will lament, saying that globalisation is a wandering monster, which is trampling on our culture and our ?cultural uniqueness?, and destroying our outlook to life and our very identity.
Those who lament about globalisation are not necessarily people who vandalise McDonald?s every time they are unhappy with the American gove-rnment. They are simple people from everyday life, like old cabbies who lament about why Bollywood music has become like American music, and ?concerned? citizens who blacken posters from Peshawar to Mumbai, because they are outraged at marketing strategies using skin to lure audiences towards products and cinema halls.
I think it?s time that we get some perspective on the benefits and the costs of globalisation within our cultural sphere. Let us also examine the question of how culture fares in a one world-one market situation. When I look back through the mist of time, I find that there has been a gale of creative destruction blowing through the very heart of the world market order.
Because of this gale our cultural landscapes underwent a metamorphosis. Coca-Cola, the drink from my childhood, which had disappeared, returned with a vengeance in my backyard, and is now available in places even where there may be no drinking water. McDonald?s, which was a landmark sight on the freeways of America, now says hello to you on the Mumbai-Pune highway. Multiplexes, which were phenomena of the developed world, are now opening up in places like far-flung Amravati, which is two hours away from Nagpur. Hollywood DVDs are easily available in Bulandshahar and Muradabad in UP, and MTV is consumed by the tribal population of Bastar.
Therefore, it?s hardly surprising that the critics who fear for the future of Indian culture are screaming from the rooftop that India is becoming one colossal shopping mall, causing the native manufacturer to totter in his artistic creativity. A friend of mine who makes a living out of the perfume trade recently told me that while other global countries are experimenting with the time-honoured Indian herbal and ayurvedic creations for beauty solutions, Estee Lauder, Elizabeth Arden, Nina Ricci, Yves Saint Laurent and Shiseido, among others, are increasingly commanding shelf space in swanky departmental stores in most Indian cities. A cosmetic surgeon, who is in the business of ?beautifying people?, says that with the opening of the Indian economy and the enormous impact of the ?entertainment? media on the people, India has become a money-making market for international skin care and toiletries manufacturers.
These days in small towns and suburbs, women from the weaker strata of society wait in line to ?improve? their looks because they are influenced by what they see on television. So deep is the penetration in rural areas, that when I visited the coastal region of Orissa after the devastating cyclone some years ago, I was flabbergasted to see ?Fair & Lovely? cream being sold in a small makeshift shop, even as the corpses had not yet been cleared off the roads!
There is no denying that trade is an emotionally charged issue, because, in addition to bringing in goods and services, it also shapes our sense of cultural self. No wonder almost all countries restrict immigration in part to preserve some notion of well-defined national culture. Pakistan?s apprehensions in opening its doors to a cultural invasion from Bollywood are understandable, because after Partition, they feel a need for a distinct and separate identity. Even France spends approximately $3 billion a year on cultural matters and employs 12,000 cultural bureaucrats, who are trying to nourish and preserve a uniquely French culture.
To put it simply, globalisation has intensified the clash between differing notions of freedom?the freedom to engage in marketplace exchange versus the ability to maintain a particular cultural identity. You cannot have one without the other. An ancient Greek sage said that ?when you step into a river, you change the river and the river changes you.? When you consume a product from alien shores, it alters you subtly but certainly, just as you influence them to tailor their products in the future to your needs.
If you glance through human history, you will find great deal of practical evidence which will demonstrate that culture is inherently dynamic and characteristically hybrid, with cultural genres and media in a state of constant alteration, with some growing and others falling into marginality and even oblivion. The purists who are ?Talibanising? Mumbai need to understand that Bollywood cannot lock horns with Hollywood without eroticising their products and marketing them provocatively. While they come to you with the unshackled images of the 21st century world, you expect the indigenous industry to be reined in by 19th century outdated morality. Loading an industry with superior competition and then expecting it to fight it with a handicap dating back two centuries is not only unbelievably stupid, but also unfair. If they are free to hold on to their non-existent indigenous heritage, I am also free…to embrace the cultural diversity of the human race.
The question is, whose freedom will have the final say? And at the end of the day, is it only our culture that has been perforated with another?s? I think not. Recently, when I was in London, I was delighted to see a picture of Aishwarya Rai on a bus advertising Bride and Prejudice. In the UK today, curry has become the national dish officially. That is a telling reflection of the huge change that the Indian population has made in that country. When I witnessed Diwali in London, and the noise of bursting crackers every second went on till well past midnight, I could have sworn I was in India! It makes me wonder…why are we so affronted by our changing landscapes? The world has changed, and not just for us. Whose culture is it anymore, anyway?
The writer is a Mumbai-based filmmaker