Revisiting Cultured and Uncultured: The Context of Climate Change in Contemporary India

Abstract

This paper seeks to revisit notions of cultured/uncultured contextualizing them within climate change in contemporary India. The paper will pursue a case study of Swachh Bharat Mission to define various dimensions of policies, laws, rights, citizenship, urban and rural inhabitants and more to elaborate upon a larger idea of construction and destruction of climate in India. It has commonly been observed that often individuals throwing garbage on road, accessing river water to wash clothes (making it dirty) and more are labeled as uncultured and often easily accused for destructing the climate. These are the normative uncultured individuals. Digging deeper into this, it can be argued that these uncultured do not have access to better facilities. The sad fact is that labeling of uncultured often points towards larger notions of caste, class, gender and beyond. The normative cultured individuals visit malls, theatres, throw garbage in the dustbin and not on roads, use cars, have air conditioners at home, better access to food and other domains of livelihood. This paper moves towards a major and urgent argument that besides a discussion on caste, class and gender, the notion of ‘beyond’ is also in existence where normative uncultured and normative cultured individuals and notions intersect and overlap with each other. These intersections and overlapping are often ignored due to caste and class factors and more. For example, the resident areas of lower caste individuals are often labeled as dirty or unclean. Discussing class often brings the notion of power and seems to turn uncultured into cultured, uneducated into educated. The notion of ‘beyond’ also brings up the factor of education and educated/ uneducated individuals, wherein education is not merely literacy but an overall development of an individual. However, educated is loosely related with literate and uneducated with illiterate, defying the original context of the terms in normative conversations between individuals. In this context, this paper seeks to explore few central questions – How do caste and class factors affect climate change? Does cultured/uncultured function independent of each other, or are gendered, through which women/men of various societies are discriminated, in specific women here? Does the burden of defining cultured/uncultured impose upon women in particular? Does the category of cultured and uncultured here, label some as positive and others as negative, irrespective of their actions/positions in society? Have certain bodies been categorized and objectified as ‘uncultured’ always for reasons beyond socio-political norms? Do they point towards a larger problem of social inclusion and exclusion which is not just physical but also psychological and beyond? How has governance and policy making in India dealt with climate change which is also contextual within the notions of caste, class, gender and beyond?