To say India is diverse is stating the obvious.  There are thousands of dialects, each falling into a several different language families.  For each dialect, there is its own unique culture.  The food is different, the religious practices are different, heck the styles of song and dance are different.  As Indians from these groups move abroad, they bring with them their own rich, cultural heritage.  Oftentimes, they spawn cultural organizations based on their individual, cultural identities.  Yet at the end of the day, the Punjabis stick with the Punjabis, the Malayalees with the Malayalees, the Maharashtrians with the Maharashtrians, and so on and so forth.  There is TANA, there is FOKANA, there is (insert other Indian organization acronym of choice).  There is very little cross-talk, except perhaps among the younger generations.  Yet heaven forbid the South Indian child learns bhangra, or the North Indian child learns kuchipudi, or (even worse) if there is dating or (dare I say it) marriage across cultural lines…

Why are the individual Indian communities closed off from each other?  There are a few reasons:

1)  As Indian expatriates in a cultural environment completely different from the one left behind, people try to preserve the integrity of their own, individual, cultural identities.  In order to pass it on seamlessly to the next generation, some communities may feel that they need to keep to themselves to prevent the culture from being mixed with other Indian cultures.

2)  There is a certain degree of ego that exists among people in general, in this case, manifested by the “my culture is better than yours” attitude.

We are still “new” in terms of our presence in American, British, Australian, and other Western societies.  Inevitably there will be a greater intermixing of the individual Indian cultures, as well as with Indian culture as a whole and those of the Western societies with whom they coexist.  It happened with European immigrants to the United States, and it will happen with all the newer immigrant populations over the course of the next few decades.  Each passing generation becomes more alienated from their roots and clings more strongly to the society into which they are born.  That is just the way things go.

Indian-Americans (and Indian-Brits, Indo-Australians, etc.) are poised to be a powerful influence with if we can get past all these self-made boundaries.  The youth is already getting the ball rolling, embracing other Indians (and other people from other backgrounds) in spite of supposed cultural and language barriers.  In college, I had friends across all sorts of cultural lines.  We all participated in different activities with which we may have not been familiar with while growing up.  I am Malayalee but I was on the bhangra team.  In HSC (Hindu Student’s Council) we would sing bhajans (devotional songs) in a whole host of languages (Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, Sanskrit, etc.).  We are all Indians.  We are all Americans (or British…or Australian…etc.).  We are all people.  Now if only we can get the larger organizations to initiate some sort of dialogue across cultural lines.  It is only to our benefit.

There is beauty in our own individual cultural identities, but even more in learning about another’s.  For now, let’s all dance bhangra and eat dosa, or perhaps dance bharatnatyam and eat dhokla?  Maybe do the tango and eat pizza.  Whatever works!