Globalisation and Indian culture

The first principle

Globalisation is the growing flow of goods, money, people, images and ideas across borders, which ties distant places into one web of exchange. Cultures do not simply absorb what arrives; they select, resist, translate and reshape it, so the outcome of contact is rarely a copy of the West. That is why globalisation in India produces two movements at once: a convergence of lifestyles and brands, and a sharper assertion of local language, faith and identity. Every argument about globalisation and culture is an argument about which of these two movements is stronger in a given sphere.

The core

What globalisation is

• Economic. Trade, foreign investment, global supply chains and finance; India's turning point was the 1991 crisis, after which the New Industrial Policy, rupee devaluation and tariff cuts under liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation (LPG) opened the economy.
• Cultural. Satellite television from 1991, the internet, cinema, music, food, fashion and English spread shared tastes across borders.
• Political. Membership of the World Trade Organization (1995), global norms on rights and climate, and transnational civil society shape national choices.

Three theories of cultural contact

• Homogenisation. The world becomes alike as Western, especially American, brands and values spread. George Ritzer called this McDonaldisation, the spread of efficiency, calculability, predictability and control from the fast food restaurant to all of society.
• Heterogenisation. Contact makes local cultures more conscious of themselves, so difference is defended and even sharpened.
• Glocalisation and hybridisation. Roland Robertson's term glocalisation describes global products adapted to local tastes, and hybridisation describes new mixed forms. McDonald's in India sells no beef and offers the McAloo Tikki; over the top (OTT) platforms such as Netflix and Amazon commission Tamil, Malayalam and Marathi series; Korean dramas are dubbed in Hindi; yoga and Ayurveda travel outward, with 21 June declared International Day of Yoga by the United Nations in 2014.

How globalisation strengthens cultural specificities

Although globalisation is said to make cultures uniform, in India it has often strengthened local cultures. Cheap smartphones and data made regional language content the fastest growing part of the internet, and Indian language users now far outnumber English users. Festivals such as Durga Puja (inscribed by UNESCO in 2021), Ganesh Chaturthi and Chhath have become larger, sponsored and broadcast to the diaspora. Regional cinema from Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada industries now reaches national and global audiences. Yogendra Singh argued that Indian tradition modernises selectively, keeping its core while absorbing new forms, and the threat of sameness itself makes people assert who they are, through food, dress, language and faith. The diaspora of over 35 million carries Indian culture abroad and sends back money and ideas.

Dimensions

• Language. English opens global jobs and is seen as the language of mobility, yet digital tools have revived writing and content in Indian languages; several tribal and small languages, however, face decline.
• Food and dress. Pizza and jeans have spread, while millets, regional cuisines and handloom have been revived as heritage and as fashion.
• Family and values. Individual choice, dating apps and nuclear households grow, yet arranged marriage and family obligation persist in modified form.
• Religion. Television, the internet and the diaspora have made religion more visible and organised, not less.
• Arts. Global platforms create markets for crafts and folk music, though often in commodified forms.

In practice

Are we losing local identity to a global identity?

Identity in India has never been single; people are at once members of a village, caste, region, nation and faith. Globalisation adds a global layer through English, brands, careers and social media, and urban youth especially feel part of a world culture. It does not, in most cases, replace the local layer, because people hold identities side by side and switch between them, a pattern seen in young professionals who wear jeans to the office and observe Karva Chauth or Onam at home. The losses are real at the margins: small languages lose speakers, craft communities lose markets to factory goods, and local foods and games fade among the urban young. The fair answer is that local identity is being renegotiated rather than lost, and the outcome depends on whether the local has the economic and digital means to compete.

Is diversity and pluralism under threat?

• Threats. Mass media and markets can flatten taste into a pan Indian or global norm, endangered languages decline (Census 2011 grouped 1,369 rationalised mother tongues into 121 languages, and many small ones have few speakers left), and corporate seeds and processed foods narrow agricultural and dietary diversity. A reaction against global culture can also fuel majoritarian or nativist assertion that is hostile to pluralism.
• Strengths. Global platforms have given minorities, Dalit writers, tribal artists and regional film makers a voice and an audience they never had; the idea of rights and dignity from global norms strengthens pluralism; and India's constitutional protections for languages and minorities remain intact.
• On balance, globalisation is less a threat to diversity in itself than a test of whether the state and society protect the weaker cultures within it.

Does globalisation produce only an aggressive consumer culture?

• The case for consumerism. Thorstein Veblen's conspicuous consumption is visible in brand display, lavish weddings and festival sales; advertising and easy credit drive buying, and household debt rose to about 42.9 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) by June 2024 according to the Reserve Bank of India's Financial Stability Report, with unsecured personal loans and buy now pay later rising fast. Waste and packaging also grow.
• The case against "only". Globalisation also brought access: cheaper phones, medicines and appliances improved lives, and consumption by poorer households is a sign of rising well being, not vanity. It brought jobs, information, rights consciousness and global civil society. Counter trends are visible too, from ethical and organic consumption to second hand fashion, minimalism and the Mission LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment) campaign that India launched in 2022.
• So consumer culture is one important outcome, but not the only one, and its aggressive form is shaped as much by domestic advertising, credit and status competition as by globalisation.

Why fast food grows despite health concerns

Fast food has grown quickly in India even as awareness of obesity and diabetes has risen, because the forces behind it are stronger than the warnings.

• Urbanisation and time. Long commutes and work hours leave little time to cook.
• Working women and nuclear families. With more women in paid work and fewer elders at home, cooked meals are replaced by ready food.
• Aspiration. Eating at global chains signals modernity, especially in Tier 2 towns.
• Price and taste engineering. Products are cheap and designed with salt, sugar and fat for craving.
• Advertising and delivery apps. Aggregators such as Swiggy and Zomato bring food to the door with discounts.
• Youth and peer culture. Students and single migrants eat out often.

The health cost is visible in the National Family Health Survey 5 (NFHS 5, 2019 to 2021), where 24 per cent of women and 22.9 per cent of men aged 15 to 49 were overweight or obese, up from 20.6 and 18.9 per cent in NFHS 4 (2015 to 2016).

The regulatory response

• The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), set up under the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 (Ministry of Health and Family Welfare), runs the Eat Right India movement (2018).
• Food Safety and Standards (Safe Food and Balanced Diets for Children in School) Regulations, 2020 restrict foods high in fat, salt and sugar in and within 50 metres of schools.
• Trans fat in oils and fats was capped at 2 per cent from January 2022.
• Front of pack labelling remains contested: the FSSAI proposed an Indian Nutrition Rating with stars in 2022, while health experts and the Supreme Court, in a 2025 hearing, pressed for clearer warning labels.

Issues and way forward

• Loss of small languages and crafts. Market pressure is the cause; the remedy is mother tongue education under the National Education Policy 2020, digitisation of languages through Bhashini, and Geographical Indication (GI) tags and markets for crafts.
• Debt driven consumption. Easy unsecured credit is the cause; the Reserve Bank of India raised risk weights on such loans in November 2023, and financial literacy must spread.
• Diet related disease. Cheap ultra processed food and advertising are the causes; warning labels, limits on advertising to children, and taxes on sugary drinks, which the World Health Organization recommends, are the remedies.
• Nativist backlash. Fear of losing identity is the cause; confident pluralism, which treats Indian culture as a living mix, is the answer.

Common confusions

• Globalisation and westernisation. Westernisation is the adoption of Western ways, which Srinivas traced to colonial times; globalisation is multidirectional, since yoga, Bollywood and Indian food also flow outward.
• Glocalisation and hybridisation. Glocalisation is a global product adapted to local taste; hybridisation is a genuinely new mixed form, such as Indo Western fusion music.
• Consumption and consumerism. Consumption is meeting needs; consumerism is the belief that buying more defines status and happiness.

For the exam

• Keyword bank: LPG reforms, homogenisation, McDonaldisation, heterogenisation, glocalisation, hybridisation, cultural revivalism, diaspora, multiple identities, conspicuous consumption, ethical consumption, Mission LiFE, ultra processed food, front of pack labelling, Eat Right India.
• Previous year questions: Practise the previous year questions on this topic →
• Use in an answer:
  • Introduction (data): Nearly one in four Indian adults aged 15 to 49 is now overweight or obese, according to NFHS 5, even as fast food sales keep rising.
  • Introduction (scholar): Roland Robertson's idea of glocalisation, visible in the McAloo Tikki and dubbed Korean dramas, shows that global culture is reshaped as it enters India.
  • Conclusion: Indian culture has absorbed waves of outside influence for millennia, and globalisation is the latest wave that it is translating rather than surrendering to.
  • Conclusion: The task is not to shut out global flows but to give local languages, crafts and diets the means to compete, so that choice, not pressure, decides what survives.