Will the Indian liberal please stand up?

This survey removes media hype about all-pervasive liberal attitudes, write Sanjay Kumar and Yogendra Yadav.

Will the Indian liberal please stand up? You will want to shoot this question after reading the findings of the Hindustan Times, CNN-IBN State of the Nation Survey that quizzed over 15,000 Indians about their family values.

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This survey removes media hype about all-pervasive liberal attitudes. That may well be true of the metropolitan elite — a tiny clutch — obsessed with the self. But when you look at real India, as this survey does, the picture is very different.

In this India, only one-thirds manage to cross the matriculation barrier, only 22 per cent read newspapers every day and 8 per cent own four-wheelers (tractors included). In this India, modernity is not synonymous with liberal values. Unlike the West, there is no generation gulf, gender divide or a rural-urban schism, when it comes to family values. Sample these facts:

Three-fourths of Indians, cutting across caste lines, are opposed to inter-caste marriages. Even among the most highly-educated professionals, opponents of inter-caste marriages, outnumber those in favour of it.

Nearly the same proportion of Indians think that parents and not the boy and girl concerned should have the final say in decisions on marriage. A majority of the youth 59% urban and 67% rural also agrees with this proposition.

The youth is a little, but only a trifle, more daring about dating. In this survey, 42 per cent of urban men below 25 support the idea that unmarried boys and girls should be allowed to meet freely. But even among this most daring group, the majority supports restrictions on this freedom.

Three-fourth of the people inter viewed said sons should stay with parents rather than set up separate households. There is very little urban-rural, gender or generational difference on this question.

So, are we dealing with a traditional, conservative social order that never changes? Before you jump to conclusions, consider this response on the question of inheritance. Five out of the six Indians agreed that sons and daughters should have equal share of parental property.

No conservatism here. Nor is this response driven by religious sentiments. If anything, those who worship regularly are a little more likely to be liberal in their family values. An educated urban Indian is more likely to pray regularly than the uneducated person in the village.

Perhaps it is best to see this unusual mix as a very Indian kind of modernity, struggling to adapt the imported symbols without giving up some of the inherited values. As they say, we are like this only.