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Westernization of India

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Westernization of India
Over the years the civilizations of the world have adopted many of the West’s styles and ways of life. This “Westernization” has started a downward spiral in destroying the cultural diversity of the world. As one of the oldest nations in the sense of tradition and culture, India has been a land of sages, saints and various renowned scholars. Countless religious temples and shrines built in different parts of the nation expose the devotion to religion and family that dwells within all aspects of India’s culture. Everything was steady for India until a few decades back. Most of the people were farmers and survived on their pieces of land. They were satisfied with their earning and hardly had any time to think further. As a result tradition was in touch and people were in harmony with the Indian tradition. Mahatmas Gandhi understood the importance of these traditions and recognized the greatest hope for the continuation of them rely in the villages. Mahatma Gandhi was a champion of 'swadeshi', or home economy. People outside India know of Gandhi's campaigns to end British colonialism, but this was only a small part of his struggle. The greater part of Gandhi's work was to renew India's vitality and regenerate its culture. Gandhi was not interested simply in exchanging rule by white sahibs for rule by brown sahibs; he wanted the government to surrender much of its power to local villages. As the time passed by and India got independence, the scenario started changing slowly and gradually. Westernization started attracting the Indian citizens towards it like a magnet. The desires of the western world engrossed the masses of Indians striving to mimic the lifestyle and comforts of the “rich life”. The intoxication of westernization was so powerful that people started to get carried away with it. The things were new, tempting, and foreign to the people, yet blind to their desires they failed to see that these things might become their habit some day and deviate them from


Cited: 1. Gandhi, M. K. Ghandi: an Autobiography: the Story of My Experiments with Truth. Boston: Beacon, 1957. Print. 2. Gandhi, Mahatma. The Essential Gandhi: an Anthology of His Writings on His Life, Work and Ideas. Ed. Louis Fischer. New York: Vintage, 2002. Print. 3. Harrison, Paul. Inside the Third World: the Anatomy of Poverty. London: Penguin, 1993. Print.

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