Revision summary
Post-1991 markets, English work, and digital media have changed urban dress, food, and leisure. Regional languages, ritual calendars, and caste marriage still structure most lives. Change is uneven: strong in IT cities, weaker in the agrarian interior, now spreading by phone. Global tools also revive local culture, so the effect is hybrid, not only flattening. The core is influenced in degree, not replaced in kind.
Model answer
Flow diagram
flowchart TD G[Globalisation 1991 media migration] --> S[Brands English youth taste] G --> C[Family caste language faith] S --> H[Hybrid public culture] C --> H H --> D[Diversity bent not erased]
Conclusion
- Answer “to a significant but not total extent,” and split core (kinship, language, ritual) from periphery (dress, leisure, brands).
- Use 1991 and digital India as accelerators, not as the origin of all cultural mixing, which is older than satellite TV.
Globalisation has coloured the surface of Indian cultural life and has pressed on the family and the city, yet it has not dissolved the many languages, faiths, and marriage rules that make diversity. The extent is large in consumption and limited, though not zero, at the core.
Quick related
Students also ask
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"An essential condition to eradicate poverty is to liberate the poor from the process of deprivation." Substantiate this statement with suitable examples.
Next question in the 2016 paper (Q9). View answer →
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Has globalisation destroyed Indian cultural diversity?
No. It has standardised some consumption. Languages, rituals, and marriage rules remain plural, though under new pressure in cities.
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Is the change only among the rich?
It began among the urban middle class, but cheap phones and television carry global images into small towns. Depth of change still follows class and region.
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