Rajsthan and its Cultural Heritage

Set of Virtues

• One of the bravest communities of India. (I mean physical bravery)

• Extremely hardworking community (May be because of extreme weather conditions of desert, Water scarcity in desert, which make "mere survival" a big struggle)

• Business community (They had to migrate to the other parts of India due to survival struggle in Rajsthan itself. Hence they might have adopted the languages wherever they settled and got into a business mindset of selling their hardwork, art and skills to other parts of the country)

• Literal Richness (I mean moneywise, as evident from their palaces)

• Artistic Richness (As evident from their design of clothes, The carvings on the palaces)

• Spiritual and devotional Richness (As evident from the presence of Mirabai)

• Richness of value system (As evident from Johar of the Rajput ladies, It shows extreme loyalty towards family)

Set of Drawbacks

• Gender Discrimination: I will say it prevails in entire north India (Punjab and Haryana might be exceptions) . Not necessarily in Rajsthan. The only problem I see is, Rajsthan did not participate in the struggle against "gender discrimination", like in Maharashtra or Bengal. Rajsthani's just accepted the discrimination as it is. Perhaps they already had enough struggle in life, so they did not risk one more struggle of "removing discrimination".

• Feticide: It prevails throughout India, because of government's directions NOT to have more than two children. I think this is purely scientific. I really appreciate India and China both, who did not bring religion to meddle with scientific matters. China achieved its population control successfully. I am hoping that India will get its control soon. Things simply become more manageable at a family level as well as at country level, that way. And yes, when it comes to feticide of a girl child, that is very unfortunate and it is the result of Gender Discrimination. And it prevailed in entire India, not only in Rajsthan. It seems to have reduced because of government's and volunteers efforts. But not completely eliminated though!

• Infanticide: This used to be a terrifying ritual. It was associated with "blind faith" and "uneducation". Mostly prevailed in Interior/unreachable India, Not necessarily in Rajsthan.

• Social Custom of Sati: Unfortunately, Sati custom was associated with "woman's loyalty" towards family, which is a virtue. It took British thought, to separate out the importance of "life" over "loyalty". And I too think "sati" is a forceful suicide, which is banned even by Hinduism. 

• Violence against women: Domestic violence is pretty common not only in India, but throughout the world. However rape incidences are more in India, because woman do not give access to their bodies easily. So men are left with no choice but to rape or prostitution. The more hidden are the things (the woman's bodies), the more is the desire to access it (that is a natural human tendency) Whereas in Western culture, women do not hide their bodies excessively. So the less desire to access it. Along with that, Indian woman has quite an attitude against western women, about NOT "showing off" the body. The more pride and attitude, the more men feel like killing that attitude.

• Dowry: I do not know since when Dowry Concept sneak into Indian culture. Because as far as I know the Ancient Hindu epics had the concept of "swayamwara" for marriage, where a man had to prove his worth in front of other capable men in order to marry a woman. Any ways ...