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Saturday, November 9, 2024

Declination of Newari Culture

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Rajan Phelu

The quest for self-identity is ever an inquisitive issue in human study. Yet it consists of its own novelty. It is a universally accepted phenomenon which brings about the realization in self of exploring one’s status in the society in relation to race, ethnicity, culture etc. The global trend of recent time has introduced several critical disputes among the people who are continuously in a struggle to restore their identity as they find themselves being tremendously impacted by the diffusion system, migration, cultural division and several other reasons resulting to their self-crisis.

Identity of a person cannot be defined properly if s/he does not belong to any culture permanently. It means culture and identity are interrelated with each other. People, of late, are facing the problem of cultural identity and belongingness, and as a result, they feel sort of identity crisis. Cultural values have been transferred to other cultural groups and the cultural loss appears to be a dominant problem among people. Likewise, nations are communities, which provide a sense of belonging through the individual’s feeling of connectedness to his or her fellow men. In other words, individuals think that they are a part of one collective body, namely, a community known as nation, which is in fact an idea, defined by Benedict Anderson in Imagined Communities as “an imagined political community”. Furthermore, nations also provide people with a sense of belonging, connectedness and identity through a shared territory.

This article is an endeavor to manifest on how once the culturally rich Newar community and people living in such community are victimized as displaced citizens resulting in gradual deterioration of cultures in terms of their social practices, language and the traditional occupations that once made them famous for their uniqueness in social functions. Since time immemorial, Newar community and the Newars have always enriched themselves in ancient art and culture. However, the fact that there is a constant declination of such traditional values in the most recent modern days of twenty-first century is undeniable. Cultural identity of every individual is on the verge of declination as it is dynamic and multifaceted concept which with the change in the time becomes revolutionary. Socio-cultural aspects comprising of language, festivals and musical instruments which we believe are the most integral entities of an ethnical being. Challenging the ideology of cultural identity, we see exquisite Newari cultural values are degrading owing to the advancement in life standard, modern science and technology, globalization as the most influencing factor.

“Newah jhi Newah He Jui” – We the Newars will always be Newars. This is the main theme on which the Newar people are grounded in belief, are uniting and preserving their traditional culture. Though they have maintained their traditional values and beliefs throughout those difficult situations, however, are assimilating knowingly or unknowingly to other cultures. Over the years, numerous factors of modernization have caused changes to their way of living. Nevertheless, the traditional social organization “Guthi”, one of the integral elements of Newar society, is taken as a symbolic representation of their ethnic indigenous identity. Gopal Singh Nepali in The Newars writes: “The entire net-work of social relations in the Newar community is kept strong through the feast and festivals under the auspices of the various guthis.” In the current situation, as a matter of fact, degenerating trends have been witnessed regarding such organizations and has been overshadowed by modernization. The influence of Western culture is high in developing countries like Nepal. In addition, the dominant Indian culture and similar cultures of mainstream population are influencing the indigenous populations like the Newar heavily. Among the indigenous nationalities in the country, Newars are regarded as one of the strongest in terms of their culture and traditions. The group is regarded as one of the most culturally rich and religious groups of Nepal.

Moreover, English and the mainstream Nepali language have been dominant over indigenous languages; a Newar child doesn’t know his own native language but learns English from the age of 3. Education system has also played a vital role as the language used for education in schools and colleges are either English or Nepali. So, the only place remained for a Newar child to learn his native language is home, which unfortunately is in influence of western rituals as internet and dish homes together bring global popular culture under their feet these days and thus, parents don’t want their children to speak Newari; mostly feeling that it will hamper them learn official schooling languages Nepali and English. Furthermore, in this era of competition, most of the people are busy in their own works, allowing them very little time to think about their tradition and culture. There are numerous other factors affecting the society to maintain its traditional culture: to name few, emigration of the Newars to different countries for education and work, inter-caste marriages resulting into diffusion of cultures etc.

Traditional Newari music and dances are famous all over the country. Again, the traditional dances are thematically representatives of the rituals and religion. Various kinds of traditional dances are performed according to the occasions. Most of the dances are related with Hindu deities. A very famous Lakhe dance is performed everyday from the festival of Gaijatra to Krishna Janmashtami. Traditional music and the instruments can also be categorized according to the rituals and festivals. Some instruments are mandatory for some special rituals. For example, Ka: Baja and Nya: Baja are important for performing the death rituals; in which these instruments lead the funeral procession. The most popular category of traditional musical instrument is Basuri Baja and Dhime Baja which is important for most of the festivals. Basuri Baja is also played during wedding ceremonies, but it is optional for such occasions. The uniqueness of having faith in Buddhism and Hinduism simultaneously can be regarded as important cultural aspect of Newars. The presence of idols of Lord Buddha of spectacular dimensions in most of the Hindu shrines and also the presence of idols of Hindu deities in the Buddhist monasteries provide strong evidence of coexistence in such belief. In addition, the festivals related with Buddhism are also celebrated by the Newars as they do for Hindu festivals. Another important aspect of the Newari Culture is the socio-religious organizations that Newar societies possess, which binds the society together. A Newar person is bound to the social organization by birth. The social organization is termed as “Guthi” and it has various types according to its functionality. Basically, Guthi is a socio-religious organization of the Newars and moreover it is an integral part of Newari culture, which has added a character for their identification as a distinct group. Even it is said that without understanding the Guthi system, the caste and familial organization of the Newars cannot be fully understood. But it is so unpleasant to get that new generations in Newar community are quite indifferent to their native tradition, culture, festival, musical instrument, language etc. 

Newars have their own language termed as Nepal Bhasha which belongs to the Tibeto-Burman language family. Even among those who speak Newari language, only negligible amount of population can write and understand the Newari Script called Ranjana Lipi. The reason behind is, Ranjana Lipi is quite different from the Devanagari Lipi of Nepali language and the script is not included in curriculum of school education; except few institutions which carry out special courses for teaching this script. A group of people who speak their own language (1st language), contact with another group, because of education, business, service, work, marriage, media (TV, movie, music) etc., they learn another language (2nd language). At that time, they become bilingual. In this situation people compare these two languages; which language is better or has economic benefits. In most of the cases, they choose second language. It is a world trend that if there is no any economical profit, they leave it; they don’t teach and encourage their children to learn their own first language. As a result, children cannot speak and understand the language. When aged people die, they also take their language. In Language Death,  David Crystal opines “a language dies when nobody speaks it any more”. Language death describes the disappearance of a language. When a language is no longer used for communication, the last speakers become merely living archives. If a language has just a few speakers left, and nobody is trying to pass the language on to the children, then that language may be expected to die soon.

Most of the people in Newar community have been influenced by modern amenities; they use Nepali and English at school and for official purpose, and watch movies and listen to songs in Hindi, English or Nepali. If a child is fluent in his or her mother tongue, the main problem with regard to acquisition of the second language is intonation. Since, in educational institutes, a majority of students and teachers speak Nepali, they sometimes bully or tease someone who speaks with a different intonation. Moreover, such a person’s chances of getting a job in media like radio, TV or acting is very low. Consequently, parents and children do not teach and learn their mother language anymore. Newari is usually used at home and for business with the same group in spoken form only. The main cause for the disappearance of a language is that speakers abandon it. If the present trend towards abandoning Newari continues, 30 years from now, nobody will speak this language. The declining motivation among youths towards using Newari indicates that it is endangered. 

It is quite relevant to bring the reference of an interview taken with Century Man, Satya Mohan Joshi by Srizu Bajracharya, a journalist of the Kathmandu Post daily, on 7 Jan 2020. In the question related to the significance of learning mother tongue and the view that education should be given in one’s native language, Satya Mohan Joshi answered, “Today, there aren’t any schools that teach in indigenous languages…But over time, if people don’t speak in their mother tongue, even when works of literature I n their language are being produced, the language will be as dead, just like Sanskrit or Pali. You can find rich literature in Sanskrit and Pali but who is going to read it?”

To conclude, minority people like Newar set their mind that learning and teaching their mother tongue has no any advantage to find and secure job and other economic fields due to social, political, economic environment developed in the last few centuries. Older people encourage their children to learn Nepali or English rather than their ethnic language. Our family and relatives also could not escape from this trend. As a result, family members under 20 can speak Nepali and English but not Newari. Being bilingual or having knowledge and capability to communicate in more languages broadens personal thinking, idea, skills; however, problem raised here is that they are in a gradual process of boycotting Newari customs. If this tendency continues to flourish in our society, after 30-40 years later nobody speaks this language. Folklores and tales which we were told, games which we enjoyed will undoubtedly disappear. The story and history of our civilization, method of agriculture, cure of diseases by local material and herbs, their experiences and knowledge about environment shall be withered and gone. If we lose our language, we lose our identity. So, we need to preserve it for future. The first and the wisest thing to be done in order to ensure its conservation would be practicing these cultures at our own home, neighborhood and the community. Educated fraternity, the state, the national language policy and the national level education system should clearly explain about the vitality to preserve their language and encourage and motivate them to use it.

[Rajan Phelu, M.Phil in English is a lecturer at Bagiswori College, Bhaktapur]

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