Cultural Diversity in India

With a few exceptions (such as the Parsis, who are relative newcomers), cultural variations can be correlated only in a very general way with differences in genetic inheritance (or "race"). The different peoples coming into India from east and west at different times adapted to different social and physical environments, and their subsequent development was shaped by influences that varied greatly. In some respects, the correlation is greater between culture and language than between culture and race.

A hundred years ago cultural differences of all kinds were much greater than they are today. British rule caused changes that worked together toward increasing uniformity, and developments since independence have been in the same direction. Nevertheless, striking differences persist, and it is scarcely too much to say that a Punjabi peasant transported to a Bengal village, or to South India, would feel himself a stranger in a strange land.

Family and Marriages

In southern India, Dravidian-speaking peoples are thought to have preserved features of a way of life developed before the coming of the Indo-Aryan speakers into India. For example, large groups of people in what is now Kerala, in accordance with a custom believed to have been widespread in the south, still trace their descent in the maternal line, and the head of the household is not the father but the mother's brother, whose property is inherited by his sister's son. Throughout southern India marriage with the mother's brother's daughter is permissible or preferred, and marriage between a man and his sister's daughter occurs. 

A puberty ceremony held for girls in the south is unknown in the north. A pattern of village organization that exists in the south makes possible marriage within the village, whereas in the north the village is usually exogamous.

Villages

In some parts of India, the village settlement is a very compact unit, the houses standing close together, sometimes with adjoining walls, as in the Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. In Bengal the dwellings are more scattered, interspersed with trees, gardens, and ponds. In the southwest and here and there in other parts of the south, each household is spatially separate, and it is often hard to tell from the settlement pattern to which village, a particular household belongs. In the far north, in mountainous areas, houses are apt to be strung out along the ridge of a hill. Here the main building materials are stone and wood, whereas elsewhere in the north mud or brick is used. In Bengal, houses are sometimes constructed of woven bamboo and plastered with mud. Where it is available in the south, stone is used in building.

In the sub-Himalayan districts, the cultivated area consists of steep flights of terraces with retaining walls up to 8 feet (2.4 meters) or more in height. Some of the plots are too small for plow cultivation and here hoe-culture is practiced. It is not uncommon to find peoples and their flocks and herds moving with the season, to the valleys in winter and to the hills in summer. Along, the Tibetan border, before Tibet was annexed by China, groups of traders called Bhotias, with goats, sheep, and jibus (hybrid of yak and cow) as pack animals, moved back and forth across the high passes in the summer months and wintered in the Indian plains.

Religion

Particularly at the village level, there is a great deal of regional variation with respect to religious beliefs and practices. Concepts that are undeveloped in one area are often given a central place in the religious life of another. The snake-goddess Manasa, object of a cult in Bengal, is little more than a name elsewhere. The monkey-god Hanuman (or Maruti) is the most important village deity in the Deccan. Over much of the south, an elaborate festival is held to honor the major village goddess who is believed to cause and cure such diseases as smallpox and cholera. Reverence for ancestral spirits, especially in the paternal line, and periodic offerings to ensure their welfare are a part of present-day Hindu practice, although they probably preceded Hinduism in India. Certain peoples of South India, for example the Coorgs and the Nayars, have a greatly elaborated cult of ancestor worship, and ancestral spirits who are believed to punish wrongdoing are worshiped in household shrines and regularly propitiated.