The Mono Cultured Thorns

On the third day of the ICC field camp I had an opportunity to be at the media presentation by Dr Tarun Chabhra of Toda Nalavalvu Sangam, briefing about various aspects of conservations mechanisms that are entwined in the Toda culture & knowledge base, on the discourse he coined a phrase which compelled me to write this post “the mono culturing the cultural diversity of this world”

Across various civilizations and communities there are intricate practices, accrued knowledge base which has helped them adapt to certain kind of environment and livelihood needs which is inculcated in their cultural fabric as well, thus bringing about the uniqueness among various communities, in the current scenarios the free market driven conglomerates are clinically modifying the social & cultural fabric (even more so the demographic landscape) of every country, if this is the age of global villages with multi faceted culture dotted with Cokes, MacDonald & Pizza Huts fine but these are the prime indicators of mono culturing of our cultural diversity. This macro cultural engineering will lead to broad based dilution of culture in turn gradually affecting the knowledge base and indigenous practices which where organic and sustainable.

A classic example of how the mono culture has intruded in to our system can be seen in the rural farmlands, the farmers where encouraged to use the big conglomerates inorganic chemical fertilizers, pesticides and growth inducers. Conditioning them to move away from traditional farming methods that suited the particular environment (the knowledge base) now the same farmer is reluctant to go back to organic ways.           

PS – after giving makeover to my blog I am some how got hooked on to posting black & white images, will last for awhile I guess.