Filtering ideas from a foreign culture

The idea of coming in as an outsider and changing local people's perspectives never sat easily with me. The legacy of colonialism always haunts me and I am fully aware that development is often tagged as neocolonialism. However, I'm also careful not to be completely culturally relativistic; all aspects of a local culture are not always good for the people, especially in modern, globalised times. Culture changes as one's environment changes, and even in conservative Jodhpur, things are changing.

When "outsiders" attempt to change local people's belief systems, the ideas they introduce are not indigenous to the target culture, and so a process of assimilation needs to occur in order for the new concept to be beneficial to society. This process of assimilation needs to be driven by the local peoples themselves, but I believe it is filtered through different sections of society until they finally reach the "local" people.

In the case of women's empowerment:

"Local" people are usually poorer Indians who either reside in villages or have recently migrated from the rural areas into the city. Their beliefs are that sons are more valuable than women; women will eventually be given away to another household (their husband's). Thus all resources should be diverted away from the women and to the son, who will produce a greater return on investment. Women are just trained to be good wives; the man is responsible for providing for the household.

Others--Westerners, people from a higher caste or different part of the city--see that women are more than that.

Indians from a higher caste say that they believe women and men should be treated equally. However, women from a higher caste still adhere to traditional women's roles: they stay in the house, take care of the children, busy themselves with household chores and with their job, if they have one. My host mother cooks all the food from scratch every day when she gets home from work; she leaves the house at 6:30am and returns at 4pm.

Westerners see that women and men are just as valuable. Women should be given the same opportunities--which includes freedoms--as men. However, if this were suddenly the case--if the dowry system, which I think is the root cause of son preference, were abolished--and all women really insisted they studied and not cook, marry later, and choose their husbands, I think Indian society would be dismantled very quickly. Such quick disintegration is usually destructive.

The middle class Indians, I think, will get it eventually. Since they come into close contact with the lower class Indians and are more similar to them culturally than Westerners, it will be their influence that ultimately catalyses change in the lower, more conservative sectors of society. I think I initially viewed the middle class's actions with impatience; women say they are empowered but they still voluntarily submit to the prevailing culture. Now I'm beginning to see that this is necessary for the society to evolve and progress.