Ms_Indira

Globalisation at the Crossroads of Tradition and Modernity in Rural India Kirk Johnson This paper explores the ongoing structural and cultural changes in a number of mountain villages in Western India more than a decade since the liberalising of the economic markets, which opened the subcontinent even further to the globalising forces of consumerism and materialism. In addition to mass communication that includes television, other developments, such as transportation, agricultural systems and education, have all contributed significantly to a fundamental reorientation of village life in the past two decades. The present research suggests three central processes at work in rural India today. First, the ethos of consumerism has reached an all time high. Second, information technology and mass communication are connecting villagers to each other and to the global market of ideas and information. Third, while the impact of certain western notions of life and relationships as well as some aspirations and expectations are beginning to take hold, traditional agrarian society in this region remains resilient in the face of many modernising forces. Villagers appear to distinguish between modernity (improving quality of life) and westernisation (rejecting certain values, ideas and cultural practises). My first morning back in Panchgani, a small town in the mountains of Western India, proved to be an eye-opener. After my early morning run and hot cup of chai at the roadside stand, I walked through the bazaar greeting old friends. Shahir, the patil (village policeman) of a nearby village called Danawli, approached me with open arms, and we inquired about each other’s families. One of the most supportive during my doctoral fieldwork almost a decade earlier, Shahir works as a farmer in Danawli, travelling every morning to Panchgani to sell his milk. In addition to his work as patil and farmer, Shahir is known in the region for his singing of traditional bhajans and poetry. He tells me that he had written to me some time ago but did not have my mailing address. Then he proceeded to ask me a question that came to epitomise the change that has occurred over the past decade in this mountainous region of Western Maharashtra: ‘Why don’t you just give me your E-mail address; that SOCIOLOGICAL BULLETIN, 54 (1), January-April 2005, Pp. 40-58 Globalisation at the Crossroads of Tradition and Modernity in Rural India 41 would be easier'’ This man, who grew up in a village where cows are kept in an adjoining room in the house, where roofs are made of tin and thatch and floors of dried manure, where meals are cooked over a wood fire, and fields are ploughed using bullocks as in ages past, has had no difficulty understanding the concept of the Internet and global communication and uses it to his benefit. This was my introduction to rural India in the twenty-first century. In this paper, I attempt to capture the changes that have occurred in this part of South Asia more than a decade since the liberalising of the economic markets, which opened the subcontinent even further to the globalising forces of consumerism and materialism. This paper is an update of my ethnographic fieldwork that took place here in the mid-1990s on the influences of television in rural life (Johnson 2000).1 At that time, television had just taken hold in this region, and its influences were just beginning to be felt. It now appears that television, though an important tool of cultural influence, is only one among many media of mass communication and information technology that are permeating the material as well as the social and cultural fabric of rural society. Aided by other developments like roads, transportation, agricultural systems and education, village life has undergone a fundamental reorientation in the past two decades. The present research, based on in-depth interviews and observations during the monsoon months of 2003 in a number of small villages throughout the mountainside surrounding Panchgani2 in the state of Maharashtra, suggests three central processes at work in rural India. First, the ethos of consumerism has reached an all time high. Villagers are now more a part of the global market place than ever before. Second, infor-mation technology and mass communication are connecting villagers to each other and to the global market of ideas and information. Third, while the impact of certain western notions of life and relationships as well as some aspirations and expectations are beginning to take hold, traditional agrarian society in this region remains more resilient in the face of many modernising forces. The threat to regional cultures due to forces of globalisation remains complex, especially in terms of language survival. Villagers seem to welcome technology that can contribute in some real way to their quality of life, while adhering to the fundamental cultural norms, traditions and ways of life that define rural society in the ghat villages which surround Panchgani. Each of these processes is fundamentally interconnected, yet in this paper, I will explore each inde-pendently. 42 Kirk Johnson Methodology During July and August of 2003, I visited five small villages in Wai and Mahabaleshwar talukas in the Satara district of Maharashtra. I interviewed a total of twenty-three informants in these villages, with the average interview lasting approximately two hours. Several informants were interviewed three to four times. Gender distribution was even, and most respondents were farmers, with the exception of three who worked in the local towns and four who were retired or worked minimally. Most were of Maratha caste, and five were from the Neo-Buddhist community (or the scheduled caste). This region of Marahrashtra is a Maratha stronghold with the ancient capital of the Maratha people–Satara–only 50 km away. All but one of the five small villages was predominantly of Maratha caste with Rajpuri having a small ex-untouchable community of about thirty households. Interviews were open and unstructured, with the central question focusing on both structural and cultural changes that have occurred over the past two decades in the village community. Interviews took place mostly in people’s homes, but a few were conducted outside while people worked in the fields. Rarely were interviews conducted with only the respondent present; there were often children present and sometimes other adults who occasionally contributed to the interview, and this was treated as data as well. Quantitative data was gathered in terms of the level of technological advancement in each village, including such measures as the number of telephones and televisions as well as the timeline for the introduction of a variety of developments including roads and electricity. Most data, including interviews and observations, was qualitative in order to present a decentralised perspective that includes ‘deep descriptions’ (Geertz 1973) from local communities about their relationship to each other and to the world around them. The New Ethos of Consumerism in Modern India In 1995, on a wall outside the Department of Sociology at the University of Delhi, I read the following words in graffiti: ‘We don’t want Coke and MTV, we want jobs’. At that time, I had just come to India to begin studying the cultural impact of television in remote mountain villages in Maharashtra. I was struck by this phrase that said so much about what the realities of life in India were for a student at the University. In 1991, the India government began the process of opening up the markets to global trade and commerce. This liberalising process accelerated the interaction of the Indian people with global forces of consumption. Globalisation at the Crossroads of Tradition and Modernity in Rural India 43 Within a short time, Indians began to have increasing access to consumer goods that were once only dreamed of. At first, many of these foreign products were too expensive, but as they and competing local products became more readily available prices began to fall. A number of collaborations between multinationals and local corporations put in the marketplace affordable goods, from cars and mobile phones to televisions and computers. It was at this time that television became an important agent of cultural influence that contributed directly to the acceleration of consumption. Both radio and television are not new to the Indian landscape. Government control over both began very early with both media envisioned as a means by which the government could develop rural regions of India. However, with the launching of privately owned AsiaSat-1 in 19903 and the relaxing of government controls of the market, mass communication including radio and television (and later the Inter-net) became important sources of information to many Indians and acted as the primary portals of the global culture of consumerism. The process of consumerism, defined by Philip Salzman (1993: 7) as the ‘cathecting of consumption as an appropriate orientation’, has now permeated much of rural Maharashtra. Throughout the 1990s, as villages moved into more cash-based systems of production, consumer goods have become more accessible. Goods such as televisions, electric fans and irons, motorcycles, telephones, VCD and VHS players are becoming more common in village homes. Walking through the village today one would notice television antennae, satellite dishes, telephone connections and various transportation vehicles that were only ten years ago out of reach for most. The role of advertising is critical in promoting this new ethos of consumerism. Doordarshan’s4 airing of Hum Log in 1986 marked the first time the advertising community began to understand the potential of television as a medium to reach millions in India. This show ‘carried a message of modernity centring on the nuclear family, with two children, and aspirations for a better life through education and more consumer goods’ (Page and Crawley 2001: 154). Consumerism was beginning to be unleashed and, by the mid-1990s, it was roaring full speed ahead. Advertising had taken hold of television and was garnering a greater share of the audience. Today, Doordarshan, especially its Hindi and local satellite channels, is seen as the obvious choice due to its extensive reach to the nethermost regions of the subcontinent (Ibid.). More villagers are watching Doordarshan because of its modern focus on entertainment 44 Kirk Johnson fare, which it has had to adopt to stay competitive in the open market of satellite television. As India welcomed the modern forces of global capitalism, the local markets began to recognise the problem of capitalism in a much deeper way than ever before. For commodities to lead to profits they must go through the circuit of production, distribution and consumption. The problem of capitalism that Sut Jhally (1998) outlines is not of production, but of consumption. It is precisely because of the problem of consumption that the role of advertising in the modern world is so critical. Advertising is an industry that was invented to promote the consumption of goods and services. Hum Log and other such programmes present images and themes that promote consumption and advertisements continually complement those. Product placement within programmes has become standard fare. In fact, all the media systems, from radio and television to newspapers and magazines, are dominated by advertising messages. One hundred percent of television and radio revenues come from advertising. Magazines earn about 50 percent from advertising and 50 percent of subscriptions, while newspapers are about 80:20 in favour of advertising. Jhally (Ibid.) argues that we have turned our media systems into vehicles for selling goods and services. Therefore, to understand culture and cultural change, one must understand the role of media and thus advertising in our lives. However, it is not my purpose here to carry out an in-depth analysis of media advertising in modern India (see Rajagopal 1999; Mazzarella 2003) nor to critically theorise the impact of advertising on social change. I do feel it is important, however, to illustrate the fact that the rise in consumerism cannot be understood without understanding its linkage to advertising especially on television in rural India. The story of advertising is closely linked to the question of happiness. Every society has established stories about happiness. In this part of rural India, happiness has always been linked to one’s relationship to one’s family, to one’s faith, and to one’s work. Advertising tells a different story. It tells us that the only way to happiness is through the consump-tion of goods. Jhally (1998) has showed this to be true in the United States of America, and the same is to be found in the villages of Western Maharashtra. In fact, each ad on TV tells us that the only way to happi-ness and satisfaction is through the accumulation and consumption of objects. Drink a Coke and you will be happy. Wash your clothes with a particular detergent, and your husband will love you. From soap to alcohol, from hair removal cream to exercise equipment, the message is always the same: happiness is gained through the purchase and consumption of objects. ‘It is this story that happiness comes from the market, Globalisation at the Crossroads of Tradition and Modernity in Rural India 45 from economic growth, that is in fact the major motivating force for social change on a global scale as we head into the twenty-first century’ (Ibid.). Throughout my interviews, I continually heard two opposing responses in terms of advertising. Some believed that advertising informed them of things that the market can provide which can make them happy. You see Kirk Baba, sometimes we see things on TV and they are good. So I try sometimes to save and then when I have enough to purchase them. Like this Hero Honda motorcycle I have. My son loved the advertisements, and when we were thinking about getting one, he wanted the particular one he saw on TV. According to one woman: My children always see things they want on TV, so when I have enough money I go to Panchgani on Wednesdays (market day) and see if I can find it in the shops. Others believed that advertising and media in general were destroying traditional structures and relationships in the village community. These kids nowadays only want what they see on TV. I think this is not good, because we are poor, but they go to their friend’s house and watch TV. Then they come home and say they want this and that. I tell them we don’t have money to buy it, and they become sad. I feel bad and then try to find something for them. It is this desire to accumulate goods that drives the market in modern India, and it is this ethos of consumerism that is reshaping rural India. However, like Timothy Scrase (2002), I found that respondents did make certain distinctions between western ideas and modern ways of living. Modernity was linked to technological development and scientific advancement. This was seen as a positive thing by all, especially in terms of improving the quality of life. However, ‘western’ was associated with values and morality, and it was this that respondents often were unhappy about. The older generation was especially vocal about this process taking hold in rural areas. Promiscuity, alcohol consumption, disrespectful attitudes by some, and a general carefree and irresponsible behaviour toward work and family were among the most pressing social concerns that were linked to ‘westernisation’. 46 Kirk Johnson However, education has been a strong part of modern Maharashtrian history. This and its historic role under the British rule have made the population comfortable with embracing modernity. In fact, this state is probably the most modern in many respects, and the people work hard towards that end. This is why consumerism is not necessarily seen as a negative thing; it is often linked to modernity. However, when consumption is understood within the context of westernisation, village society becomes concerned. In brief, several factors have contributed to an acceleration of the level of consumption and consumerism at the village level. A move into a cash-based economy, privatisation of radio and TV that has led to advertising and product placement, and the role of education in making modernisation desirable have all contributed to the growth of the new ethos of consumerism in village India. Information Technology and Mass Communication The qualitative and quantitative changes that have occurred at the village level are ubiquitous. Shahir now drives his motorbike all the way to town instead of walking to Bhilar (6 km away) to catch public transport to Panchgani. He has been able to purchase another cow, which has increased his milk supply. He watches TV to relax in the evenings and on Sundays, and has use of a home telephone to make calls if he needs to instead of walking to Bhilar. All this has made his life easier at one level, which is an outcome of technology. However, what of the sociological impact of the past decade' What real socio-cultural changes are observed in the village communities in these mountains' Have the changes in the past ten years had any real sociological and cultural impact on the daily life of these people' The answer in the end was more complex than I anticipated. People are more connected to each other than ever before due to transportation and telephones, both mobile and land. Television has also had a significant impact in terms of connectivity from an ideological sense. Villagers see themselves as part of a larger whole. They see themselves as connected to villagers throughout the country. According to one man in his late-30s: I think what has changed in my life is that I am not only focused on my life here in Rajpuri. I see people just like me [villagers] in Orissa or Kerala struggling with life or with agriculture, and I feel that I and my family and my village are not alone. We have brothers and sisters all over India, and they are struggling with us. Globalisation at the Crossroads of Tradition and Modernity in Rural India 47 They see their own daily struggles as not limited to their own family or village, but something larger. In a sense, television has enabled these villagers to develop a ‘sociological imagination’ that C. Wright Mills (1959) spoke about half a century ago. They see their personal troubles as connected in some way to larger societal issues. One middle-age man from of the scheduled caste in Rajpuri said: These members of the panchayat are sometimes corrupt just like the Ministers in Mumbai or in Delhi. Our problems here in the village are not unique, they are the same problems that the nation is facing. Corruption is everywhere. On more than one occasion, villagers remembered the attacks on New York City’s World Trade Centre towers, and one commented that he was thinking and praying for my family in America. This 67-year old villager was aware of this international act of terrorism and had a deeper insight into its meaning: Before that, I thought we were the only ones who suffered, but now I know we suffer together. Transportation is another important factor that has contributed significantly to change in the daily lives of villagers. A village located 20 km outside Panchgani is now not as isolated as it once was. Improved roads and access to affordable and expanded transportation makes it much easier to get around. This together with the television and telephone connections that people are making locally as well as within the state and throughout the country are important factors that have contributed to a shift in the worldview of the average villager planting his rice on the remote mountainside out of touch with the larger global village he lives in. The following examples illustrate how mass communication and transportation have impacted the village, making the villagers’ life not only easier and more convenient than before but also more connected to the outside. Lila Bai had a phone installed in her modest home two months before I interviewed her. One morning, as I was talking to her the phone rang and it was a call from her son in Mumbai saying that he had been in an accident. She immediately made plans to travel to be with him. I gave her a ride back to town where she boarded a bus. From the moment she got the call to her arrival at her son’s bedside at the hospital in the city only lasted eight hours. In the past, it would have taken a great 48 Kirk Johnson deal more time and energy. It might have been days before she even knew about her son’s condition. Another example happened when my wife and I were invited one evening for a welcoming ceremony in Danawli. We arrived at about 7.00 p.m. and the villagers congregated for an evening of singing bhajans, dinner, and visiting. Late that evening it was pouring rain, and we managed to drive home safely in our rented jeep. The next morning I was summoned by our hotel’s manager telling me someone had come to see me. I went outside and saw that it was Shahir who had come to say that in the early morning hours the villagers had awoken to find a huge boulder, which had rolled down the mountainside and wedged itself onto the road. He rode his motorcycle into town to make sure we had arrived safely home, and he asked to use the phone to call his wife in the village to let her and everyone else know we were fine. Communication that would have taken hours and sometimes days is now almost immediate, and this has changed how villagers see themselves and their connection to the outside world. Television also plays a role in the transformation of the physical environment in the village. Informants commented on several occasions that television has influenced how they see their environment and their homes. It was not uncommon to see villagers growing roses outside their front door and manicuring their shrubs and flower gardens. Media messages have improved the sanitation in the villages; many villagers now have latrines next to their homes, eliminating the need to use the nearby fields. Many reported that women no longer give birth in the village but instead go to town to see a doctor. The village medicine man is now only used for minor sicknesses and ailments. Most village schools have improved equipment and better-trained teachers; one school in particular (Bhose village) has established a computer lab with fifteen terminals all with Internet access. This is unique in the area and is the result of a resident working with a non-governmental organisation to secure funds to purchase the terminals. The lab is financially selfsufficient and is primarily used by students in the village school. A central question in all my interviews centred on the change that has occurred in the lives of villagers. I often asked young men and women to reflect on how their lives are different from that of their parents. I was interested in exploring how the increase of technology and mass media in the village has impacted the villagers who are now more connected to the forces of globalisation and capitalism than ever before. According to one 20-year old man from Bhose village: Globalisation at the Crossroads of Tradition and Modernity in Rural India 49 My life is very different from my father’s in some ways. You see I have Internet access. I communicate with people all over the world from Mexico to Africa. I have a good job at this school, though I do help with the farming …. I have no desire to leave my village, I like my life here. I want to marry and have children… I do not watch a lot of TV, but what I do watch I like very much. I like watching the news and some serials. Sometimes movies are good. What I have in my life right now, how I see the world and what I want in life is not that much different from the past. Sure I have all these things that my father never had and they are good, but I am still living in Bhose, I still help with the agriculture on my family’s land, I still respect my elders, my parents, and my father will arrange for me to be married in a few years. I will raise my family here and my children will go to school here…. I will take care of my parents when they get old. What is different is that I see myself as part of something greater than Bhose, I know what is happening in the world, both the good and the bad. I like some things, like mobile phones and Internet, but do not like other things like the violence and crime that we see on TV. Bhose is a quiet place, and though some have to go to out to work (both locally and in cities like Mumbai and Pune) to support their families they would rather stay here. Village life is more peaceful. Another woman from Danawli commented: You see nowadays people have adopted some modern manners or customs. Like some clothing or some ideas, like love marriage. These are not so bad. What is bad is what television shows every night in the serials, when married people are having affairs or a young boy or girl is sharing a bed. When further probed about love marriage, this woman commented: You see love marriage is not our tradition. Arranged marriage is our custom. The parents find a girl for their son and the son respects their decision. But if they love each other that is even better. If the son says that he would rather have so and so, that is ok too. Maybe they already like each other. But the respect for the parents is there. Love is ok as long as the parents agree. Just last month Dilip married a girl that he met at the jatra [village fair] and they liked each other and he asked his parents to arrange it and it was good. In the age of telecommunications and mass media, village society is no longer isolated from the happenings around it. Roads and transportation have connected villagers to the economic markets beyond their immediate boundaries. However, with the introduction of television, telephone and the Internet, villagers’ worldviews are not limited to their immediate 50 Kirk Johnson concerns but are widened to include the struggles and realities of people all over the world. Globalisation and Traditional Peasant Society If politics is about who gets what, cultural politics focuses on who is who, and what he or she is worth at any given time (Rudolph 1992). In India, in the new millennium, cultural politics rests on issues of identity, esteem, honour and the fear of cultural extinction or homogenisation. Any sociological analysis of the new India must consider these issues and their roots. The telecommunications revolution that began in 1991 with the opening of the Indian markets raises questions about these issues. Two scenarios dominate the discourse on the cultural consequences of globalisation. The first centres on the fear of cultural homogenisation, and the second on the cultural fragmentation and intercultural conflicts, that can result from these modernising forces. Both scenarios are evident to some degree in the new India. First, people from Mumbai and Delhi, especially the burgeoning middle class, eat Maharaja Macs and Kentucky Fried Chicken, wear blue jeans and baseball caps, and enjoy the latest music and fashion from abroad. Dating and love marriage is becoming the norm among this group. The flip side of the cultural coin includes the rise of religious nationalism, ethnic and religious conflict and a backlash against the process of ‘westernisation’ that many see as threatening the traditions and values of ancient Indian culture. The rise to power of the conservative Bharatiya Janata Party government at the national level and the dominance of the Shiv Sena at the state level in Maharashtra during the 1990s are no coincidence in reaction to the liberalising trends in the subcontinent. However, how useful is this dichotomy to our understanding of the impact of globalisation on agrarian society in contemporary India' Historical processes are important variables in making sense of the present. India’s colonial past is a salient feature in the shaping of the country’s position in the global market and of national identity by a centralised apparatus. Many Asian societies, including India, are grappling with their own crises of identity in this globalised world of ideas and images. National broadcasters of both radio and television ‘have not only acted as custodians to national culture [in the past]; they have also seen it as their job to provide a universal service’ (Page and Crawley 2001: 28). Globalisation at the Crossroads of Tradition and Modernity in Rural India 51 The New Economic Policy in India marked a radical shift in 1991, ‘opening the national borders to international products, services, and capital flows, and allowing Indian companies to join in international competition’ (Singhal and Rogers 2001: 258). This international consumer culture has taken hold in India, first in the urban centres and now in the villages and hamlets scattered throughout the mountainside of the Western Ghats. Yet, through my interviews and my observations, I have found traditional agrarian society to be more vibrant and more resilient than ever. The two scenarios of cultural homogenisation and cultural conflict do not appear to hold true in rural India. In fact, in the face of globalisation and technological development, the exact opposite is occurring in the countryside. Scenario 1: Cultural Homogenisation vs. Traditional Resiliency Cultural homogenisation is not to be found in this part of rural India. Through the globalisation of ideas and ways of living, of information and customs, it is believed that a process of homogenisation will begin to occur. Benjamin Barber (1992) illustrates this process by using the catch phrases of ‘Jihad versus McWorld’. Within this argument, the culturally distinct societies of the world begin to be overrun by globally available goods, media, ideas and institutions. Many of these goods and images are produced in the West, and, therefore, globalisation is perceived in terms of westernisation, Americanisation, or what George Ritzer (1996) calls ‘the McDonaldisation of society’. Distinct cultures in the new global society begin to lose their uniqueness and mirror the cultural aspects of the more dominant cultures that are represented in the new universal market place. Traditional peasant society is resilient in this era of globalisation. In spite of villagers adopting such modern technologies as telephones and televisions as well as logging on to the Internet, villagers still identify themselves as villagers and farmers. In identifying agricultural practices as an example of the age-old traditions of village culture, one man, while standing in a rice paddy after a long hard day of work, said: Kirk Baba, no matter what is happening in the world, no matter who is at war with who, no matter how much money I make selling my strawberries, my family will always plant rice because this is how we live. You see even though the rains are not much this year and we have had to plant more potatoes than we would like, we have managed to redirect the water from the stream to the fields to plant rice. 52 Kirk Johnson When asked how his life has changed over the past decade, this man had this to say: We have a motorbike now. Last time you were here we only had a small moped, which was not very good. We have a bigger TV and I have put a satellite dish on my roof so we receive both national Doordarshan and metro Doordarshan clearer. My son is married now, and he has one girl, and they live with us. I have another cow now, which, with the other, two gives me a total of about 20 litres of milk each day. So some things are easier, some things are better, but my life is the same as it was 10 years ago. I get up every morning, I work in the fields, I go to Panchgani sometimes to do some police business, see some friends, come home for dinner and watch some TV and go to bed. For many peasants life is easier now than it was twenty or thirty years ago. However, many commented that from a socio-cultural standpoint not much has changed for them individually. According to one woman from Rajpuri, What has changed' I still work in the fields most of the day and cook for my family. My children go to school and work hard. She did agree, however, that some changes are taking place: Now girls go to school more than before and that is one change that is good. A very positive change that has occurred in the past decade is the rise in the number of girls being educated through high school and college. While education for girls is more important today than it once was, village girls still leave their parents’ home when they get married, and do not contribute to their parents’ future in any real way. Although the boy child is still prized, girls in rural areas are receiving more education than they had previously. In urban India, the girl child is becoming more valuable: Everywhere the idea is slowly dawning that a daughter is no longer unwanted baggage but a cherished member of the family… Against the bleak backdrop of foeticide, baby butchery and skewed sex ratios, it’s a quiet but relentless reformation sweeping through [] India. (The Times of India, Pune, 22 July 2003: 5). Globalisation at the Crossroads of Tradition and Modernity in Rural India 53 When I asked Madhav, a young married man with a one-year-old daughter, whether he wanted any more children he said, ‘No, that is enough’. I was shocked at his response and so I repeated my question and said, ‘You don’t want any more children’' Then he said, ‘No I don’t want any more daughters, but I will try again for a son’. Madhav, the youngest in his family, has a great responsibility since his older sister left after her marriage some years ago. He understands that he must take care of his parents and wants a son to do the same for him when he is older. A final area that demonstrates the resiliency of traditional culture in the face of globalisation forces is language. Culture is the way we make sense of, and give meaning to the world we live in. One of the central pillars of culture is language. We use language to identify ourselves in the world and relate to one another. Elsewhere, I have argued that the process of globalisation establishes shared meanings that people from diverse cultural backgrounds have for similar experiences and events. Therefore, globalisation allows distinct cultures to share meanings and outlines frameworks by which these meanings are then translated into shared experiences (Johnson 2001: 7). However, in the age of globalisation, those without power do not have their language and thus their meanings represented. In the words of Yogendra Singh, ‘the threats to local and smaller cultural identities [are] due to [the] massification and marketisation of culture’ in contemporary India (1995: 5). These smaller cultural groups then turn to dominant culture and language to understand and give meaning to their lives and to understand the world they live in. The dominant languages on television in Maharashtra are Hindi and English. In Maharashtra, the local language is Marathi, which is taught in public schools. Cable television has a Marathi channel, but most villages do not get cable and are thus left with Doordarshan, which is primarily in Hindi. Though one notices villagers adopting both Hindi and English phrases in their speech (like ‘love marriage’ and ‘birthday,’ for example), the Marathi language is still very much alive. There is, no doubt, that certain changes are occurring in the villages, but the data suggest that people are still holding tightly to traditional beliefs, language and cultural practices. Scenario 2: Cultural Fragmentation vs. Technological Appropriation The second scenario proposes that globalisation will result in cultural conflict and chaos. The assumption is that when a country like India opens to the forces of modernisation through globalisation it will begin to lose its traditions, its heritage and its culture, and thus there will 54 Kirk Johnson emerge a backlash, a reaction against these forces in an effort to try to hold on to the past. The state often regulates the level of foreign influence entering a country. The regulation against satellite television or western music is an example of fear that these forces will erode traditional culture and have dire consequences for society. Iran, for example, has laws prohibiting people from owning satellite dishes in an effort to keep western ideas, images and ways of living out of the living rooms and homes of the average Persian family. The Quebec government in Canada has strict regulations prohibiting the use of English on street signs or billboards in an effort to prevent the French language from being lost. Resistance can also be seen from other groups and sections of society other than government, such as the mass protests against the Miss World beauty contest in Bangalore some years ago. However, in the villages around Panchgani, instead of resistance and conflict, I witnessed people incorporating global influences and ideas into their daily lives. The anthropologist Marshall Sahlins (1990) argues that people often use foreign goods, images, and ideas to become more like themselves. This process of appropriation was made clear in these villages. Television ownership is becoming more widespread in rural India every year, as also as access to more channels. In the villages, television ownership is still a source of prestige and status. In a small tribal settlement on the outskirts of Wai, about 300 people live in very poor conditions in a makeshift tent community. They moved there about four years ago and have made it their home, working in town doing odd jobs and seeming barely to scrape by. This settlement does not have running water or electricity, but during my visit, I noticed that one tent had a television antenna coming out of its roof. I was confused as to how they had TV access without electricity. On further investigation, I discovered that the antenna is used as a status symbol even though there is no television connected to it. In other villages, I noticed that some homes had telephones prominently placed for everyone to see but no connection. Again, this was a status symbol. Often when I entered a village home the host would go over to the TV and turn it on (sometimes not even in the same room as we were), the TV would remain on while we visited or drank tea and even during interviews, which symbolised that this was no ordinary home but a home with global connections and entertainment. The appropriation of global goods and ideas can be seen in a variety of areas, and ‘the intentions of the producers (of goods or ideas) are changed by the people consuming them. This doesn’t mean that people are not affected in very deep ways by imports, they are, but it means we Globalisation at the Crossroads of Tradition and Modernity in Rural India 55 can’t be sure in which way’ (Breidenback and Zukrigl 1999: 2-3). In sum, traditional peasant society is both resilient and adaptive. In the age of globalisation the scenarios of cultural homogenisation and cultural conflict do not hold true in the study villages; instead, rural societies in these mountains are shown to hold on to traditional values while accepting and appropriating technological advances. Conclusion The summer months of 2003 were the driest in the past decade. People high and low alike were praying for rain and, by mid-June, it finally arrived. The monsoons in India are like the breath of life offered to a dying man. It turns the dried caked earth into a vibrant green sea. On the bus from Mumbai to Pune and then up to Panchgani I witnessed farmers in their rice patties (strips) transplanting and preparing their fields. Looking out of the window, not much had changed. Besides, the foreign-made automobiles and the occasional hotel up in the mountains, villagers still plant their rice the same way they have for centuries. Men plough the ground using bullocks as their forefathers did, while colourfully clad women, rice saplings in hand, move across the field, planting it with verdant lines of green. The contrasts in India have never been more stark than today. Tradition and modernity are both at crossroads. Nothing is out of reach for people in the new India. Whether it is Japanese cars, mobile phones or Swiss chocolates, US athletic gear, Internet connections or Italian shoes, Indians today have their choice of almost everything the global market can provide and at a discounted price. According to one affluent storeowner in a small mountain town not too far from the study villages: Television is the new Bible of India, making once taboo subjects now accepted norms which most aspire to…. Television in India has shifted from being a source of knowledge and information for development purposes into a living serpent in our family rooms and bedrooms… I for one have forbidden my family to watch the evening serials (soap operas). Villagers seem to embrace modern technology, but continue to hold on tightly to traditional values and kinship ties. Individualism is on the rise in terms of consumerism, but collectivist ideals remain strong in terms of family responsibility and kinship obligations. The full impact of modern technologies on rural culture and social structure remains uncertain. The full implication of the accelerated rate of the adoption of technology and mass communication in rural India 56 Kirk Johnson remains to be seen. The notion that forces of modernisation and globalisation continue to erode traditional cultural systems and ways of living is challenged by this research at this time in the study villages. Experience shows that culture adapts to change and struggles to hold on to what it perceives as salient in the face of conflicting values and new social relationships. As the great subcontinent of India forges its way into the new millennium and increasingly makes its mark on the world economic and cultural scene, the villagers on the mountain slopes of Western Maharashtra are themselves struggling to make sense of this new world. With the vast majority of Indians (750 million people) living in villages such as these, it seems justified and indeed necessary for scholars and practitioners alike to continue to pay special attention to the microcosm of rural India and the lived experiences of people who increasingly find themselves players and participants in the global arena of culture and change. Notes My special thanks are due to Tresa Cruz, Stephanie Mansfield, Julius Caesar Cena, Moses Francisco, Sarah Johnson and Prakash Dhabekar for their editorial and research assistance; and to the anonymous referee for her/his comments. 1. The origins of my work in these villages date back to my graduate school days at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. As a doctoral student striving to pinpoint a research topic that would not only be appropriate to my interests and talents but also timely, I hoped that I would engage in research that would be cutting-edge and in some real way have a positive impact on people. During one particularly cold and dark winter in Montreal, my advisor Dr Donald Von Eschen suggested that I chat with a visiting scholar from India. Since I was raised in India and had spent much time there, I wanted to branch out to a different part of the world like Africa or Latin America and, therefore, had consciously resisted research on topics related to the Indian subcontinent. However, I did go to meet with this India scholar and we immediately hit it off. I felt like I was back home and I had never felt more at ease with any other academic like I did with him. It turns out that he was from Maharashtra, the state where I am from and was very familiar with the particular mountain region where I lived. This man was Dr B.S. Baviskar. He impressed upon me the unique insights I might have by studying social change in this remote region of India as both an insider and an outsider. He pointed out that a process had begun in India that would revolutionise social life. He was referring to the liberalising of the economic markets in the early 1990s. He suggested that I return to my hometown, Panchgani, and begin studying the impact of mass communication and modern technology on village life. In particular, we discussed the role and influence of television. I took his advice and conducted an ethnographic study which was later published as Television and social change in rural India (Johnson 2000). This was a timely study and the first of its kind on rural India. Dr Baviskar visited me in the study village during my fieldwork, and encouraged and supported me as a mentor and a friend. I, like so many others, have gained so much from this humble, soft-spoken giant in Indian sociology Globalisation at the Crossroads of Tradition and Modernity in Rural India 57 and in the academy in general. Whether it was at a colloquium at a top university in North America, or as the invited speaker to address the plenary session of the British Sociological Association’s annual conference, or sitting on the floor of a village hut, Dr Baviskar is himself in every context and seems to touch everyone he comes into contact with. We are all better for knowing him and he continues to inspire and lead us all in his retirement. 2. The study villages included Danawli, Rajpuri, Dandeghar, Kingur and Bhilar. Interviews were also conducted with select individuals in Mahabaleshwar, Panchgani and Wai–larger towns that act as transportation and economic hubs for the smaller villages in the region. 3. This was the first broadcasting satellite to cover the large Asia Pacific region and was a product of private enterprise operating out of Hong Kong. Owned and operated by Mr Li Ka-Shing, the Satellite was available to both government and private broadcasters from Greece and Turkey in the West to Japan and the Philippines in the East. It was Mr Ka-Shing’s own broadcasting company that began the first broadcasting in the region in the form of Star (Satellite Television Asian Region) TV. 4. Doordarshan is the government owned and controlled television channel. Government initially used this for primarily developmental and educational purposes, but with modernisation and the rise of other competing channels, Doordarshan has had to compete in terms of its programming becoming more entertainment based which has lured more advertising revenue. Doordarshan still garners the largest reach in India due to its transponders throughout the subcontinent, which reach deep into the countryside. Most villagers still today have only DD1 and DD2. Satellite television is still less accessible than this government station. 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Salzman, Philip. 1993. ‘The electronic Trojan Horse: Television in the globalisation of para-modern cultures’, (Presented at the plenary session: Societies, evolution and globalisation, Thirteenth International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, Mexico City). Scrase, Timothy. 2002. ‘Television, the middle classes and the transformation of cultural identities in West Bengal, India’, Gazette: The international journal for communication studies, 64 (4): 323-42. Singh, Yogendra. 1995. ‘The significance of culture in the understanding of social change in contemporary India’, Sociological bulletin, 44 (1): 1-9. Singhal, Arvind and Everett Rogers. 2001. India’s communication revolution: From bullock carts to cyber marts. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Kirk Johnson, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Guam, UOG Station, Mangilao, GUAM – 96923 (Western Pacific). E-mail: