Haryana: moving towards modernity

By

Amar Nath Wadehra & Randeep Wadehra

If we look at history we find that a state or region’s prosperity results from multidimensional and multidisciplinary contributions from indigenous as well as outsider individuals and institutions. However, the initial and major effort has to be from within. This has been true of Haryana too. Before 1966, it had remained an economically underdeveloped region. After becoming a full-fledged state of the Union of India Haryana took fast and vast strides towards not just economic self-sufficiency but a truly prosperous state that now matches the per capita incomes in the West. Apart from the visionary political leadership, national as well as international talent and institutions have facilitated this progress.

Today, Haryana is moving towards becoming a cosmopolitan entity. People from other parts of the country, as well as the world, have immigrated to its ultramodern townships as well as older towns and even rural areas. Their reasons have been varied, viz., some have come as students while others as teachers; similarly, investors, entrepreneurs, highly skilled workers and managers, scientists, engineers and other technocrats not to mention builders and other agents of development have made Haryana their home, whether temporary or permanent. This demographic enrichment poses challenges as well as opportunities.

Challenges

Challenges come in the form of socio-cultural adjustments. For example, in the Northeastern states women have been traditionally more emancipated than their sisters in Haryana have ever been. Consequently, the patriarchal attitudes prevalent locally come into conflict with the more liberal ethos of those who have moved in from Mizoram and other states, occasionally with tragic results. This is where the Haryana young men need to be sensitized to the cultural mores of people in the Northeast – a task cut out for the state’s social scientists and opinion makers, with law enforcing agencies playing a pivotal role. This also applies to people who have immigrated from Western and Southeast Asian countries where liberal social cultures prevail.

However, this is not about mere conflict in the social space. It is also about the environment in the workplace. The work ethics of people from Western and Southeast Asian countries are quite different from those existing in India. We need to learn a lot from them in order to update our attitudes towards quality enhancement and maintenance – be it in the production sector or the services offered. On the other hand there is a need to acquaint the foreigners with our cultural practices so that there may not be any conflict arising out of avoidable misunderstandings.

This is where political and administrative classes, educational institutions as well as NGOs can contribute by inculcating positive impulses among the people so that retrogressive attitudes yield to the progressive ones. Indeed, one of the litmus tests of a vibrant polity relates to ascertaining whether its members live in the past or in the future. After all, that which does not advance, invariably retrogrades. In fact the economic scenario at the global as well as national level is changing so fast that the Haryanvi society will have to become dynamic enough to ensure that the time lag between perception of the dynamics of national and international socio-economic scenarios and the action required to recalibrate to such dynamics should be minimum possible.

Opportunities

The prosperity has brought with it many opportunities for the people of Haryana. They have been able to gain access to various vistas of progress in different fields of endeavors. Technology has enabled us to reach to any individual or institution in any part of the world. Therefore, access to world-class health and education facilities has become affordable. Employment opportunities for the state’s educated youth too have multiplied and would be growing at a reasonable rate in the future too, thanks to the sound industrial and agricultural bases of the state’s economy.

Another opportunity lies in the state’s cultural sphere. On the one hand, thanks to technology, it has become possible to retrieve and enhance traditional art forms in pottery, embroidery, paintings etc and, on the other it is possible to sell various traditional works of craft to a wider market. More importantly it has now become possible to present the performing arts like Swang, music like Raginis and various dance forms like Ratvai, Phag, Dhamaal etc in a more sophisticated manner. Moreover, there are greater opportunities in enriching the state’s culture – especially in the art of storytelling.

Haryana lags behind other states like West Bengal, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Kerala in publishing works of literature. Similarly, the local theatre too is languishing and even cinema has not yet come of age. Today, in fact, cinema affords a great platform for storytelling that can reach out to national as well as global audiences. Given Haryana’s history it is possible to come up with riveting narratives. Local talent needs to be encouraged and exposed to more sophisticated and progressive creative influences emanating from other parts of the country as well as the state. While traditional narratives like Phool Badan and Chandrawal etc have been locally popular they have gone largely unnoticed outside the region. Obviously, there is a need for upgrading the cinema’s production values as well as its content – something that can be done today.

The Haryanvi society is undergoing seismic changes in social and economic spheres. Urbanization is taking place at a fast clip. Farmers are becoming increasingly prosperous and their offspring are moving to different fields of business and vocations, taking them to urban areas in India and abroad. Obviously, such transformation impacts the individuals’ psyches as well as the traditional social structures. This affords great scope for coming with contemporary narratives that could be articulated through books, theatre and cinema, lifting the state’s storytelling art form to more sophisticated levels. It is possible to explore the mindscapes of today’s Haryanvi who is trying to cope with the various social, cultural and economic changes around him that, in turn, affect his family and lifestyle in a manner that he had never ever imagined. As we all know, literature and performing arts are not mere facilitators for storytelling. In fact these help evolve the mind – make it more liberal in its worldview, more tolerant of various differences and digressions, even delinquencies, vis-à-vis societal norms, develop a more progressive attitude towards social changes and sensitive towards women and other vulnerable sections of the society. This enrichment of Haryana’s culture will pave the way towards its journey to greatness.  

Today we have the opportunity to becoming not just a rich or powerful society but also a great society. All that is required is the will and the vision.