“Every action has an equal and opposite reaction”
Just as Newton stated the reaction to modernism in the world was postmodernism . It had different impact on different regions , in this section we are going to deal with the impact of postmodernism in India .
The lines “Postmodernism is a reaction to modernism . Where modernism was about objectivity , postmodernism was about subjectivity . Where modernism sought the singular truth , postmodernism sought the multiplicity of truths .”was coined by ludwig Miles Van der rohe, and for postmodernists "less was a bore " was coined by Rober Vinturi . modernism was actually influenced by world war one and postmodernism was influenced by the second one moderernism always believed in original things where as in postmodernism thing could always be created using things from the past in a conventional style. postmodernity has the following vital aspects : informational mode of develpment ,and cultural , social and economic change, from these aspects we conclude that postmodernism has come to India. As we all know India is a very vast and a diverse country.so we have postmodernism at different ways depending on the topography, cultural values and beliefs.
In the latest years India is taking modest steps towards postmodernism by strengthening its information and communication technology which is basically a core of postmodernism . many philosophers conclude that India is rapidly becoming a consumer society and the modes of consumption are reflected on styles of the clothing ,usage of luxury items , means of transport ,multiplex malls and many other things . rise of expectation by people of India led to postmodernisatipon.
The rise of the popular culture is another indicator of the postmodern society , it is most evident in the mass communication discourse in the country, its imprints are mostly found on advertisements ,TV serials and bollywood movies. India's transition from modernisation to postmodernisation has thrown many open challenges according to the surveys.
Initially Indian faced a dilemma to either clinging to their local or national 'Identity' or move ahead for attaining the greater heights of material gains. The following are few examples that's I have noticed based on my research.
We all must have observed that in a movie whenever the director wants to show a scene from for ex. 1982 he/she always uses really traditional Indian clothes to represent the characters , also he uses a bindi on the female lead’s forehead so as to make her look traditional we can observe this in the 1982 masterpiece Nadiya Ke Paar , also if we look at the 1994 movie Hum Aapke Hain Koun which was the remake of the same movie , we will be able to observe a drastic change in the costumes and sets that can be seen in the pictures below .
The image on the left is from the movie nadiya ke paar and the one on the right is one from hum aapke hain koun . As we can observe on the left we have simple indian outfits and a bullock cart but on the right one may observe fancy outfits and a catchy tiling .
The reason I mentioned this is because this is what has happened to India due to the help of postmodernism . Our culture has diversified a lot due to postmodernism . In 1970s even if a person secured 70% it was considered a decent score and thus the student would be called an extraordinary kid , whereas nowadays even if a student secures more than 90% he or she won’t be considered extraordinary unless and until the person does some other activity such as singing or dancing or painting etc. . The generation day by day is becoming more and more towards what we call all-rounder . Multitasking is increasing and so is the need for technology and the use of computers .
Before 1990 nobody knew that words such as liberalization, privatization and globalization existed but now most of the population knows about it .
India is rapidly moving towards a postmodern society as we could see in the pictures above rural areas are shifting towards urban areas and the internet and network has been improving a lot recently , number of Cyber cafes have been constructed in the country in the past few decades .
The country is shifting towards a consumer society and we can see the development of malls , supermarkets and multiplexes a lot in the past few years . The the rise of popular culture is another indicator of postmodern society in India. The popular culture is very much evident in the mass communication discourse in the country. Its imprints are found on advertisements, TV serials and Bollywood cinema etc. The emergence of popular culture in the contemporary Indian society indicates that country is fast becoming postmodern society.
The goods and supplies that were common and didn’t have much significance at some time have now become vintage to us due to the influence of postmodernism in our daily life for ex. The ripped jeans that is called cool today is something that only the beggars and underprivileged used to wear on the streets not because they wanted to but because they didn’t have much choice , the people these days including celebrities wear it nowadays by their own choice and it does not look odd as everyone wears it these days .
The food industry has also changed a lot due to postmodernism we can experience a wide variety of cuisines and flavors from different countries and areas and there have been a number of franchise of brands like Dominos and Pizza Hut .
The effect of Postmodernism on Bollywood has been a lot we can see that in the poster below .
We can observe the use of vivid colors so as they catch our eye and also the use of contrasting colors can be observed , this is something that still exists in Bollywood and Postmodernism has somehow influenced it a lot .
On one hand Postmodernism has really helped India’s economy but on the other we can observe that some people seem to be caught up riding in two boats; one global and the other radically local or national. On one hand, the global technological progression has catapulted the individuals to gain materialistic possession; on the other, local and nationalistic identities are compelling them for a collective violent outburst against the forces of globalization .
The flowchart above would help you understand better about how postmodernism has affected Media .
-Sanjeevani_20bdi026