{"id":1666,"date":"2020-05-03T14:17:15","date_gmt":"2020-05-03T14:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/?p=1666"},"modified":"2020-05-08T15:57:18","modified_gmt":"2020-05-08T15:57:18","slug":"cultures-of-consumption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/2020\/05\/03\/cultures-of-consumption\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultures of Consumption"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Ritika Soun<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The colonial rule has left the Indian soil decades ago; however, we can still feel reminiscence of\nit in our surroundings. This is reflected through artworks, architecture and is even visible in our\ncities and towns. Whenever the ground is opened for discussion on \u2018culture\u2019 <\/em> we all have our\nsubjective understandings of it. For some, it is associated with beliefs, religion and morals; for\nsome, it shapes an individual\u2019s personality, while some even go to the extent to affiliate \u2018culture\u2019<\/em>\nwith food, caste, and ethnolinguistic identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

India, since time immemorial, has had a mixture of syncretism which it has experienced\nthroughout the ages and, the process of acculturation \u2013 which is also a major part of our present\n\u2018unity in diversity\u2019 and an integral part of our everyday lives. When seeing our glorious past we\ndo not find it cryptic, rather we tend to believe it as very simple and linear. However, with a deep\nanalysis \u2013 what we get to know is the fact that \u2013 it is all an aerial view. It requires more\nabsorption into this topic. One of (the many) factors or elements that we can focus on is the\n\u2018Colonial consumption of the Indian culture.<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This element caters via artworks, architecture \u2013 urban spaces particularly and buildings in its\nbroader sense. The Indian cultural context during the colonial period majorly consisted of\n\u2018segregation<\/em>\u2019, which did not just mean spatial segregation of population, but also physical,\npsychological, caste-based, as well as ethnic and religious segregation. It was visible through the\ndesign of the cities and towns, as planned by the colonials. However, it cannot be negated that\nthis colonial phenomenon was also experienced by other British colonies. The major distinction\nwas between the \u2018rural<\/em>\u2019 and \u2018urban<\/em>\u2019. The central factors influencing these preconceived notions\nare \u2013 demography, geography and politico-economic conditions, which also affected other minor\nand associated factors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the British map for the planning of towns and cities, the common feature was the\nsegregation between the \u2018black<\/em>\u2019 and \u2018white<\/em>\u2019 towns. These hierarchies were defined by class and\noccupation, which in part replicated the colonizer\u2014colonized racial boundaries. These were\nmaintained across space through bodily regulations. For instance, they were deployed in the\nname of sanitation and public health to contain labouring and sexualized bodies within certain\nspaces of the city. While on the other hand, the housing or residential areas of highly paid\ncolonial governors were located near or closer to the government centres or administration\ncomplexes. This \u2018spatial segregation<\/em>\u2019 can also be witnessed in the present context through\ndifferent localities that are present \u2013 some are posh areas, comprising of the big-shots (mainly) of\nthe society; some are defined by the occupation\/ profession, like the governmental bungalows or\nhousing complexes; while some areas project outright poverty, like; slums and local bastis on the\nperipheries and borderlines, while others, like sub-city areas\/ cities, shelter the working- class.\nThis spatial segregation does not end here; it is further extended to the type of urban houses\/\ncomplexes. For instance, it could be a single-roomed flat, or a double \u2013 roomed flat and\nsometimes with servant quarters\/rooms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The colonial housing made provisions for their officials or governors, but they did not provide an\noutlet for domestic help. This forced them (domestic help) to arrange for their shelter nearby \u2013\nwhich gradually would have converted to slum or local bastis or unauthorized colonies (as we\nknow it now) over the centuries. This was because colonial cities inscribed social and economic\nhierarchies upon expanding urban terrain, turning the urban areas into centers of economic\ndomination. This also turned the urban cities into spaces of \u2018control<\/em>\u2019 and \u2018autonomy<\/em>\u2019.

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This brings us to another factor \u2013 \u2018public<\/em>\u2019 and \u2018private<\/em>\u2019 space. The public spaces are the ones\nwhich make the cities in terms of its architecture and administrative functions. On the other hand\nprivate spaces have been the core of reflecting the patterns of public into the private households –\ngiving entry to colonial cultures to consume from the private space as well. However, there was\nfluidity between the two in the past in comparison to the present. This fluidity allowed the\ncolonial domination over the Indian cities and hence could be inferred that it was the British or\ncolonial culture that consumed the native culture. Due to the British occupation of the cities, it\nbrought some changes which were also evident in the \u2018urban lifestyles<\/em>\u2019. Moreover, many cities\nturned to the arts, cultural and creative sectors to sustain their economies, de-industrializing sites\nand creating new lifestyle opportunities for residents. This came with the issue of \u2018high culture<\/em>\u2019\nand \u2018low culture<\/em>\u2019. In our case, high culture equates to the colonial and, the low culture with the\nnative Indians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In contrast, the rural households remained self-sufficient for much longer, and the mode of\nconsumption in rural areas shifted slowly and only as a result of their increasing involvement in\ncommercialized agriculture, which allowed households to earn money to spend on textile yarn or\nready-made cloth. E.g. The Indian handicraft industries and textile industries were shut-down,\naffecting the Indian market worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, the consumption of Indian culture can also be viewed through the ways the\ncolonizers conducted themselves in public spaces. For instance, the \u2018Dilli Darbar of 1911<\/b><\/em>\u2019 was to\ncommemorate the coronation of George V and Mary of Teck in Great Britain and announce their\nproclamation as Emperor and Empress of India. It was an Indian imperial style mass assembly\norganized by the British, similar to the Mughal Darbars that were held in the past. This was also\nan attempt to acquire social and political legitimacy from the Indian masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, European consumerism (at the cultural level) also laid emphasis upon the non-\nEuropean aspect where the colonizers would routinely exhibit the colony – in our case in point,\nIndia, under a special category of \u2018exotic<\/em>\u2019. This was to exhibit India (along with the physical\nreliefs<\/em>) to the people of London. These printed images stereotyped the Orient as an enchanted,\nexuberant, ambiguously Mughal locale of luxury and royalty. However, this whole thesis of\nconsumption could also be viewed through the lens of \u2018nostalgia<\/em>\u2019, which could be seen through\ntheir exhibitions of Indian colonies in Britain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hence, the consumption of culture could be understood as a two-way road rather than as\ndomination of any one culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Consumption can have different meanings, for different people and in different
\ncontexts. Also interesting is the still lingering shadow and influence on the cultures of
\nconsumption in India. Read here to know more about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1673,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1025,640,1016,1026,1027,1018,1013,91,1024,381,18,1017,1021,1023,1019,1015,1020,1022,1014],"class_list":["post-1666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-quote","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-british-colonies","tag-british-empire","tag-classism","tag-colonial-housing","tag-colonial-india-artwork","tag-colonialism","tag-consumption","tag-culture","tag-edward-said-orientalism","tag-indian-architecture","tag-indian-culture","tag-marx","tag-orientalism","tag-post-colonial-era","tag-public-and-private-spaces","tag-segregation-in-british-india","tag-spatial-segregation","tag-unity-in-diversity","tag-white-and-black-town-during-british-era","post_format-post-format-quote"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1666"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1712,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1666\/revisions\/1712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisaras.org\/projectdhaara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}