Are we really cultured?

Talk about being ethnocentric, we are the toughest competition to face across the world. Every single Indian, at some point of his life, brags about the Indian culture and its history and so called purity. We are the ones who claim to maintain a certain level of ‘civilised’ behaviour with the people around us. All religious scriptures irrespective of the religion ordain us to follow a certain code of conduct when it comes to our social behaviour, especially towards the ‘weaker’ sections of society like women, children and the older ones. We scream out loud proclaiming about such value systems and ideologies in our culture? Do we actually follow them?

If you are at least alive and awake in this ‘civilised’ society, you would have witnessed or heard of innumerous unfortunate events that have taken place in recent times. Latest such event is the brutal, inhuman and horrendous gang rape of a 23-year-old girl in Delhi. If ours is a society that’s so cultured and civilised, then why doesn’t a girl or a woman feel secure stepping out of her house? If men from our own societal setup commit such inhuman acts, can we still proclaim about our culture? Can we be called cultured when one section of our society treats the ‘less in number’ section of society as some commodity to satisfy their lust?

This might be a really small issue for most of us, given the fact that such cases and instances taken place every now and then. One thing that we need to understand is that standing up and screaming on the top of our voice about the so called greatness of our culture wouldn’t fetch us anything, neither respect nor growth. Self proclamation cannot hide the darkest of truths that lie in open in our socio-cultural set up. So, the next time you see someone proclaiming the cultured behaviour of our society just ask them to sit in silence for two minutes and introspect. Make them ask themselves a question – are we really cultured?