Cultural Policy

Cultural Policy


Nepalese culture is under sustained attack

-Vijaya Chalise

It is unfortunate that most of our policymaker and politicians think culture is unproductive and therefore they do not bother to preserve our own precious cultural values. They never realize that the culture is our identity and the backbone of tourism industry. For this reason Nepal has yet to formulate a comprehensive cultural policy. Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Prithivi Subba Gurung in a public programme recently has accepted the fact and committed that the ministry soon would formulate a cultural policy to conserve cultural heritage of the country. He said since the country's countless cultural heritage are suffering from both the government and the community sector, the government has decided to formulate a strong policy, which will guide the overall development, conservation and use of culture and cultural heritages. Obviously, Nepal is a land of unity in diversity. We can see this in languages, religions or in priceless heritage of ancient times. However, all these national culture and heritage are being extinct by the craze of our westernization process. This can be seen in our costumes, rituals, and folk literature. The culture, a distinct of our national identity, is now fast disappearing and the cultural components are being overshadowed by the western and mainly American imitation.

Culture is all aspects of human life. It is the patterns of behavior and thinking that people living in social groups learn, create, and share. Culture distinguishes one human group from others. It also distinguishes humans from other animals. Thus, extinction of these all traits of indigenous culture is the extinction of national and ethnical identity of a man, which a nation and an ethnical community have earned in course of a long period of time. But however, in this age of globalization, the world's money, technology and markets are controlled and managed by gigantic global corporations run by economic powers of the world and a common consumer culture is unifying in a great pace. There is hostility in the world to cultural domination in which a single value system created elsewhere diminishes and degrades local cultures. This has made adverse effect on the indigenous cultures of the poor countries and communities like ours.

Nepal being a backward country in terms of physical development infrastructures, is in the cross road regarding to preserve its culture and civilizations. We are as well very much confused of modernization of culture and civilization in a sever pressure of westernization. We all are being absorbed by the cult of consumerism. Public arena has been deserted in order to seek comfort in the individual satisfactions. New generation is trying to escape to foreign lands in search of wealth and comfort instead of making contribution in their own country. The people who might have heroes and ideals in the past are being nowhere these days. Their status has been overtaken by the glamour and charisma of media stars, Showbiz-personalities and all the other showy representatives of wealth and power. These are now the icons of the new culture, the models of humanities offered to a new generation by modern day's communication media.

Nepalese culture, which is an ageless tradition, is under sustained attack from so many quarters- not only western values but equally the dark side of our own cast and creed systems. Many people of younger generation today do not even realize it is better to take the best of our Nepali values and combine with it the positive values of western thought. They usually forgot only culture can give our identity while in foreign land. They do not know, for this very reason many people living abroad are being aware these days of their own culture and are trying to maintain and preserve Nepali culture celebrating religious and social functions. It is not so much Nepal has changed, as the values have been overturned, and this brings to prominence different representatives of society, fresh models to emulate new models of human achievement.

There is hostility in the world to cultural domination in which a single value system created elsewhere diminishes and degrades local cultures. The underdeveloped countries like ours have witnessing the culture domination from not only neighboring culture but also from the western culture including the US coming through western media outlets. Some people say we can not talk of cultural relations without discussing cultural imperialism and presumption of cultural superiority. Obviously, Communication is not only playing a vital role of conversing culture but also making threats of cultural life being insolvent to the alien culture. Much of the people including journalists and social scientists, believe that the big media from the west has dangerously increased to control over our choices including culture. Due to the enormous production and distribution by various techniques and institutions, constant flows of message and images have served as stimuli. Thus, there is always the danger of cultural domination in the form of dependence on imported models of alien lifestyles and values. Like this the cultural identity is at risk by the adoption and assimilation of some national cultures, though these nations may be heirs to their own more ancient and richer countries.

In this circumstances no one can forget that the advent of the globalization era heightens the importance to preserve, develop and learn from uniqueness and diversity of various cultures as well to enhance the cultural symbiosis. Witnessing the westernization of our society, preserving our own fascinating combination of cultural values and priceless heritage is a great challenge. Learning through international experiences, it becomes a must these days to work for preservation of our arts and culture in a broad way. It is a great challenge of our time to preserve our festivals, music, dances, languages, including fine arts, folk songs and folklores, legends, mythology and the values of whole ancient culture to keep alive our connection with the past.

However, it is foolish to blame others. The question is how conscious are the people and the government to preserve and promote our national art and culture. Nepal's diverse cultures, being the sources of creation and priceless legacy of historical and traditional assets, should preserve and publicized. Unless and until there are national level efforts, one cannot expect any sort of development regarding preservation and development of Nepali culture. Therefore, the government and the organization concerned should come up with a concrete and desired policy and effective plan to this effect.

(Chalise is Editor-in-Chief of the Gorakhapatra Daily)