Counter-Culture Movement: Reviving In India?

                                              By: Ashutosh Asthana

In one of his dialogue from the film ‘Oh My God’ Akshay Kumar told Paresh Rawal, “if you will try to take away the religion of people, then they will make you their religion!” Portraying the religious practices and culture of various religions in a contradicting form in the movie, ‘Oh My God’ encountered with a lot of censure primarily from the ‘so-called’ guardians of the religions. 

Paresh Rawal said in a dialogue that, a Hindu devotee instead of offering milk to God, he should feed a poor who is starving for food for days, a Muslim disciple instead of offering a ‘chadar’ in a mosque should give it to a peasant and similarly a Christian should lighten the house of a needy instead of lighting a candle in a church.

 In spite of facing bitter criticism, being dragged in the court of law and subjugating the creativity of the makers, the film did well and received a huge support from the liberal class who were mostly the urban youth. ‘Hash tags’ and Facebook pages related to supporting ‘OMG’ were made. A similar change in the social structure was seen recently with the release of the much awaited movie of Aamir Khan, ‘Pk’.

This film, just like ‘OMG’, questioned the predispositions which the orthodox society of our country possesses. A satire on the traditions of different religions, ‘Pk’ presented the audience something very serious in a rather non-serious way. From considering the idols of Hindu Gods as a mere ‘battery operated machine’ to making the priests of different religions as ‘managers’, ‘Pk’ in some way shattered the old traditions of people. 

Yet again, the result was the same, protest from religious institutions like Hindu Mahasabha, Bajrang Dal, outrage of people on road, accusing the film as ‘anti-religious’, criticism from religious activists like Baba Ramdev and Swaroopanand Saraswati and the claim for banning the movie from being showed in India. 

The constant production of such films in recent times and relentless protest against them raises a question of worthiness that, ‘is it the revival of counter-culture movement in India?’

Counter-culture movement started mainly after the Second World War during 1960s in United States, when the people of west began to question the customs, the traditions that were made in the society in the past. The movement later came to be known as the hippie culture and the ‘hipsters’ or ‘hippies’ (the followers of hippie culture) began to protest against the traditions.

 From demanding LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) rights to raising voice against the Vietnam War, from promoting drugs culture to encouraging ‘live-in relationships’, the counter-culture movement gave a severe blow to the ethnicities. Backing up the slogan, ‘If it feels good then do it’, the hippies brought a sexual revolution in the society and sexual concepts of various types accompanied with drugs and rock music were adopted by them as their new religion and customs.

The hippies reached India during the 70s by crossing Europe, Afghanistan and then India. They also crossed the India-Nepal Border and reached Nepal where they lived for some time. After being ignored in most of the parts of our country, hippies took refuge in Goa where they got continuous supply of their needs, be it weed, music or sexual freedom. 

Slowly and steadily the counter-culture movement spread in whole country. Hindi films of 70s and early 80s effectively showed the presence of hippie culture in our country with films like ‘Hare rama hare krishna’   which was released in 1971. Producer-Director of the film Dev Anand pitched the screenplay commendably without supporting the hippie culture but portraying it as it actually was. The impact of such films influenced the youth of the country deeply and the result was that the youth began to question the customs of Indian society.

 Marriage was no more the ultimate goal for lovers, being together while satisfying the physical needs became important. The concept of divorce became prominent in the Indian Society. Till the early 1970s divorce rate in India was 3.6 divorces per one thousand couples per year but later in the 70s divorce rate increased. The invention of birth control pills brought a new revolution and flared the growth of counter-culture movement. Sexual purity was no longer an issue for women. Women openly began to smoke and drink, partying and discoing became new trend for women. Later with time, the counter-culture movement reduced its significance and diluted in the society with ‘liberalisation’ and ‘westernisation’ taking its place.

 

With the advent of 21^st century, the perceptions in the minds of people related to society began to change. From ‘live-in relationships’, the society moved to ‘one-night stands’ and at the present juncture it has moved to ‘friends with benefits’ or ‘no strings attached’ relationships. The Indian society too is facing this change in recent times. These concepts of relationships, though related with relationship theories of the west, are now projecting in our society too. Earlier, during the time of counter-culture movement in India, people only questioned the customs, the rituals and the tradition related to religion or society but now they are questioning the religion and the society as a whole. It seems that the second phase of counter-culture movement is spreading its roots in Indian society.

The growth of campaigns challenging the religion and traditions like the ‘Kiss of Love’, ‘Love Jihad’ and legalising gay marriages and considering transgender as third gender in the society are steps which seems to be adding in the revival of this movement. The ‘Kiss of Love’ campaign which was against the moral policies of the traditional values became the breaking news of every news channel. 

 

All these campaigns and legal steps have divided the society into two different sections of thoughts. One is the orthodox group mostly consisting of the ‘flag bearers of religion’ the religious activists and social groups who protest such activities by citing reference of the thousand year old culture of the country, while the other is the liberal group who have mixture of both the feeling of westernisation and nationalism, who, by their taste, preferences and beliefs want to be western but they do not want to leave their ‘desi’ values in some respect. This section of the society is the most confused section because it does not know, which side to follow eventually. They are disguised in a hippie outlook with rebellious attitude towards every religious practice but ultimately they are bound by that same religion.

It is difficult to say which section out of the two is correct but with the growing ‘relippie’ (religion+hippie) section or the confused class, it is clear that the counter-culture movement is again being introduced in our country, this time in a transformed fashion. There is more to, let’s see, what happens next.