Cultural Profile of India
The term Culture refers to a state of intellectual development or Manners. The Indian culture is unique and varied. The culture of India is one of the oldest and unique. In India, there is amazing cultural diversity throughout the country. The South, North, and Northeast have their own distinct cultures and almost every state has carved out its own cultural niche.
There is hardly any culture in the world that is as varied and unique as India. India is a vast country, having variety of Geographical features and climatic conditions. India is home to some of the most ancient Civilizations, including four major World Religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism.
Indian culture is rich and diverse and as a result unique in its very own way. Our manners, way of communicating with one another, etc are one of the important components of our culture. Even though we have accepted modern means of living, improved our lifestyle, our values and beliefs still remain unchanged. A person can change his way of clothing, way of eating and living but the rich values in a person always remains unchanged because they are deeply rooted within our hearts, mind, body and soul which we receive from our culture.
Indian culture treats guests as god and serves them and takes care of them as if they are a part and parcel of the family itself. Even though we don’t have anything to eat, the guests are never left hungry and are always looked after by the members of the family.
Elders and the respect for elders is a major component in Indian culture. Elders are the driving force for any family and hence the love and respect for elders comes from within and is not artificial. An individual takes blessings from his elders by touching their feet. Elders drill and pass on the Indian culture within us as we grow.
“Respect one another” is another lesson that is taught from the books of Indian culture. All people are alike and respecting one another is ones duty.
Helpful nature is another striking feature in our Indian culture. Right from our early days of childhood we are taught to help one another in need of help and distress. If not monetary then at least in kind or non – monetary ways.
Indian culture tells us to multiply and distribute joy and happiness and share sadness and pain. It tells us that by all this we can develop co – operation and better living amongst ourselves and subsequently make this world a better place to live in.
A combination of these factors has resulted into an exclusive culture- Indian culture. Indian culture is a composite mixture of varying styles and influences. In the matter of Cuisine, for instance, the North and the South are totally different. Festivals in India are characterized by Color, Gaiety, Enthusiasm, Prayers and Rituals. In the realm of Music, there are varieties of Folk, Popular, Pop, and Classical Music. The classical tradition of music in India includes the Carnatic and the Hindustani music.
India has a rich and unique Cultural Heritage, and has managed to preserve its established traditions throughout history whilst absorbing Customs, Traditions and Ideas from both invaders and immigrants. Many Cultural Practices, Languages, Customs and Monuments are examples of this co – mingling over centuries. Famous monuments, such as the Taj Mahal and other examples of Islamic – inspired architecture have been inherited from the Mughal dynasty. These are the result of a syncretic tradition that combined elements from all parts of the country.
Indian music is represented in a wide variety of forms. The two main forms of classical music are Carnatic from South India, and Hindustani from North India, each of which has several popular sub classes. Popular forms of music also prevail, the most notable being Filmi music. In addition to this are the diverse traditions of folk music from different parts of the country. Many classical dance forms exist, including the Bharatanatyam, Kathakali, Kathak, Kuchipudi, Odissi, and Manipuri. They often have a narrative form and are usually infused with devotional and spiritual elements.
The earliest literary traditions in India were mostly oral, and were later transcribed. Most of these are represented by sacred works like the Vedas and the epics of the Mahabharata and Ramayana. Sangam literature from Tamil Nadu represents some of India’s oldest traditions. There have been many notable modern Indian writers, both in Indian languages and in English.
Millions of ancient handwritten manuscripts have been identified and classified. India’s only Nobel laureate in literature was the Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore. India is the third largest newspaper market in Asia with an estimated circulation of at least 66 million copies daily in 2003.
The nation also produces the world’s second largest number of motion pictures every year. The most recognizable face is that of cinema production based in Mumbai, which produces mainly commercial Hindi films, often referred to as “Bollywood”. There are also strong cinema industries based on the Bengali, Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu languages.
Religious practices of various faiths are an integral part of everyday life in Society. Religion in India is a very public affair, with many practices imbued with pomp and vitality accompanying their underlying Spiritual Qualities. Education is highly regarded by members of every Socio – Economic stratum. Traditional Indian family values are highly respected, and considered sacred, although Urban families have grown to prefer a Nuclear Family System, owing to the Socio – Economic constraints imposed by the Traditional Joint family system.
The Cuisine of India is diverse, as Ingredients, Spices and Cooking methods vary from region to region. Rice and wheat are the staple foods in the country. The country is notable for its wide variety of Vegetarian and Non – Vegetarian Cuisine. Spicy food and sweets are popular in India. Traditional dress in India greatly varies across the regions in its Colours and Styles, and depend on various factors, including climate. Popular styles of dress include the traditional sari for women and the traditional dhoti for men.
India’s national sport is field Hockey, although cricket is now the de facto National game. In some states, particularly in the northeast, Football ( Soccer ) is the most popular sport and is widely watched. In recent times, tennis has gained popularity in India. Chess is also gaining popularity with the rise of the number of recognised grandmasters. The most commonly held view is that chess originated in India. Traditional indigenous sports include Kabaddi, Kho Kho and Gilli – danda, which are played in most parts of the country.
India is also known as a land of Festivals. A melting pot of many Religions, India has a rich diversity of Festivals, many of which are celebrated irrespective of caste and creed. The most widely known and popular celebrations include the Hindu festivals of Diwali, Holi, Pongal and Dussehra and the Muslim celebration of Eid. A number of festivals are common to most parts of India.
However, they may be called by different names in the various parts of the country or may be celebrated in a different fashion and style.
History of India : India’s extraordinary history is intimately tied to its geography. A meeting ground between the East and the West, it has always been an invader’s paradise, while at the same time its natural isolation and magnetic religions allowed it to adapt to and absorb many of the peoples who penetrated its mountain passes. No matter how many Persians, Greeks, Chinese nomads, Arabs, Portuguese, British and other raiders had their way with the land, local Hindu kingdoms invariably survived their depradations, living out their own sagas of conquest and collapse. All the while, these local dynasties built upon the roots of a culture well established since the time of the first invaders, the Aryans. In short, India has always been simply too big, too complicated, and too culturally subtle to let any one empire dominate it for long. True to the haphazard ambiance of the country, the discovery of India’s most ancient civilization literally happened by accident. British engineers in the mid-1800′s, busy constructing a railway line between Karachi and Punjab, found ancient, kiln-baked bricks along the path of the track. This discovery was treated at the time as little more than a curiosity, but archaeologists later revisited the site in the 1920′s and determined that the bricks were over 5000 years old. Soon afterward, two important cities were discovered: Harappa on the Ravi river, and Mohenjodaro on the Indus.
The civilization that laid the bricks, one of the world’s oldest, was known as the Indus. They had a written language and were highly sophisticated. Dating back to 3000 BC, they originated in the south and moved north, building complex, mathematically-planned cities. Some of these towns were almost three miles in diameter and contained as many as 30,000 residents. These ancient municipalities had granaries, citadels, and even household toilets. In Mohenjodaro, a mile-long canal connected the city to the sea, and trading ships sailed as far as Mesopotamia. At its height, the Indus civilization extended over half a million square miles across the Indus river valley, and though it existed at the same time as the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Sumer, it far outlasted them. The first group to invade India were the Aryans, who came out of the north in about 1500 BC. The Aryans brought with them strong cultural traditions that, miraculously, still remain in force today. They spoke and wrote in a language called Sanskrit, which was later used in the first documentation of the Vedas. Though warriors and conquerors, the Aryans lived alongside Indus, introducing them to the caste system and establishing the basis of the Indian religions. The Aryans inhabited the northern regions for about 700 years, then moved further south and east when they developed iron tools and weapons. They eventually settled the Ganges valley and built large kingdoms throughout much of northern India.
The second great invasion into India occurred around 500 BC, when the Persian kings Cyrus and Darius, pushing their empire eastward, conquered the ever-prized Indus Valley. Compared to the Aryans, the Persian influence was marginal, perhaps because they were only able to occupy the region for a relatively brief period of about 150 years. The Persians were in turn conquered by the Greeks under Alexander the Great, who swept through the country as far as the Beas River, where he defeated king Porus and an army of 200 elephants in 326 BC. The tireless, charismatic conqueror wanted to extend his empire even further eastward, but his own troops (undoubtedly exhausted) refused to continue. Alexander returned home, leaving behind garrisons to keep the trade routes open.
While the Persians and Greeks subdued the Indus Valley and the northwest, Aryan-based kingdoms continued developing in the East. In the 5th century BC, Siddhartha Gautama founded the religion of Buddhism, a profoundly influential work of human thought still espoused by much of the world. As the overextended Hellenistic sphere declined, a king known as Chandragupta swept back through the country from Magadha (Bihar) and conquered his way well into Afghanistan. This was the beginning of one India’s greatest dynasties, the Maurya. Under the great king Ashoka (268-31 BC), the Mauryan empire conquered nearly the entire subcontinent, extending itself as far south as Mysore. When Ashoka conquered Orissa, however, his army shed so much blood that the repentant king gave up warfare forever and converted to Buddhism. Proving to be as tireless a missionary as he had been as conqueror, Asoka brought Buddhism to much of central Asia. His rule marked the height of the Maurya empire, and it collapsed only 100 years after his death.
After the demise of the Maurya dynasty, the regions it had conquered fragmented into a mosaic of kingdoms and smaller dynasties. The Greeks returned briefly in 150 BC and conquered the Punjab, and by this time Buddhism was becoming so influential that the Greek king Menander forsook the Hellenistic pantheon and became a Buddhist himself. The local kingdoms enjoyed relative autonomy for the next few hundred years, occasionally fighting (and often losing to) invaders from the north and China, who seemed to come and go like the monsoons. Unlike the Greeks, the Romans never made it to India, preferring to expand west instead.
In AD 319, Chandragupta II founded the Imperial Guptas dynasty, which conquered and consolidated the entire north and extended as far south as the Vindya mountains. When the Guptas diminished, a golden age of six thriving and separate kingdoms ensued, and at this time some of the most incredible temples in India were constructed in Bhubaneshwar, Konarak, and Khahurajo. It was time of relative stability, and cultural developments progressed on all fronts for hundreds of years, until the dawn of the Muslim era. Arab traders had visited the western coast since 712, but it wasn’t until 1001 that the Muslim world began to make itself keenly felt. In that year, Arab armies swept down the Khyber pass and hit like a storm. Led by Mahmud of Ghazi, they raided just about every other year for 26 years straight. They returned home each time, leaving behind them ruined cities, decimated armies, and probably a very edgy native population. Then they more or less vanished behind the mountains again for nearly 150 years, and India once again went on its way.
But the Muslims knew India was still there, waiting with all its riches. They returned in 1192 under Mohammed of Ghor, and this time they meant to stay. Ghor’s armies laid waste to the Buddhist temples of Bihar, and by 1202 he had conquered the most powerful Hindu kingdoms along the Ganges. When Ghor died in 1206, one of his generals, Qutb-ud-din, ruled the far north from the Sultanate of Delhi, while the southern majority of India was free from the invaders. Turkish kings ruled the Muslim acquisition until 1397, when the Mongols invaded under Timur Lang (Tamerlane) and ravaged the entire region. One historian wrote that the lightning speed with which Tamerlane’s armies struck Delhi was prompted by their desire to escape the stench of rotting corpses they were leaving behind them.
Islamic India fragmented after the brutal devastation Timur Lang left in Delhi, and it was every Muslim strongman for himself. This would change in 1527, however, when the Mughal (Persian for Mongol) monarch Babur came into power. Babur was a complicated, enlightened ruler from Kabul who loved poetry, gardening, and books. He even wrote cultural treatises on the Hindus he conquered, and took notes on local flora and fauna. Afghan princes in India asked for his help in 1526, and he conquered the Punjab and quickly asserted his own claim over them by taking Delhi. This was the foundation of the Mughal dynasty, whose six emperors would comprise most influential of all the Muslim dynasties in India.
Babur died in 1530, leaving behind a harried and ineffective son, Humayun. Humayun’s own son, Akbar, however, would be the greatest Mughal ruler of all. Unlike his grandfather, Akbar was more warrior than scholar, and he extended the empire as far south as the Krishna river. Akbar tolerated local religions and married a Hindu princess, establishing a tradition of cultural acceptance that would contribute greatly to the success of the Mughal rule. In 1605, Akbar was succeed by his son Jahangir, who passed the expanding empire along to his own son Shah Jahan in 1627.
Though he spent much of his time subduing Hindu kingdoms to the south, Shah Jahan left behind the colossal monuments of the Mughal empire, including the Taj Majal (his favorite wife’s tomb), the Pearl Mosque, the Royal Mosque, and the Red Fort. Jahan’s campaigns in the south and his flare for extravagant architecture necessitated increased taxes and distressed his subjects, and under this scenario his son Aurungzebe imprisoned him, seeking power for himself in 1658.
Unlike his predecessors, Aurungzebe wished to eradicate indigenous traditions, and his intolerance prompted fierce local resistance. Though he expanded the empire to include nearly the entire subcontinent, he could never totally subdue the Mahrattas of the Deccan, who resisted him until his death in 1707. Out of the Mahrattas’ doggedness arose the legendary figure of Shivagi, a symbol Hindu resistance and nationalism. Aurungzebe’s three sons disputed over succession, and the Mughal empire crumbled, just as the Europeans were beginning to flex their own imperialistic muscles.
The Portuguese had traded in Goa as early as 1510, and later founded three other colonies on the west coast in Diu, Bassein, and Mangalore. In 1610, the British chased away a Portuguese naval squadron, and the East India Company created its own outpost at Surat. This small outpost marked the beginning of a remarkable presence that would last over 300 years and eventually dominate the entire subcontinent. Once in India, the British began to compete with the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the French. Through a combination of outright combat and deft alliances with local princes, the East India Company gained control of all European trade in India by 1769. How a tiny island nation, thousands of miles away, came to administer a huge territory of 300 million people is one of history’s great spectacles. A seemingly impossible task, it was done through a highly effective and organized system called the Raj. Treaties and agreements were signed with native princes, and the Company gradually increased its role in local affairs. The Raj helped build infrastructure and trained natives for its own military, though in theory they were for India’s own defense. In 1784, after financial scandals in the Company alarmed British politicians, the Crown assumed half-control of the Company, beginning the transfer of power to royal hands.
In 1858, a rumor spread among Hindu soldiers that the British were greasing their bullets with the fat of cows and pigs, the former sacred animals to Hindus and the latter unclean animals to Muslims. A year-long rebellion against the British ensued. Although the Indian Mutiny was unsuccessful, it prompted the Britishgovernment to seize total control of all British interests in India in 1858, finally establishing a seamless imperialism. Claiming to be only interested in trade, the Raj steadily expanded its influence until the princes ruled in name only.
The Raj’s demise was partially a result of its remarkable success. It had gained control of the country by viewing it as a source of profit. Infrastructure had been developed, administration established, and an entire structure of governance erected. India had become a profitable venture, and the British were loath to allow the Indian population any power in a system that they viewed as their own accomplishment. The Indians didn’t appreciate this much, and as the 20th century dawned there were increasing movements towards self-rule.
Along with the desire for independence, tensions between Hindus and Muslims had also been developing over the years. The Muslims had always been a minority, and the prospect of an exclusively Hindu government made them wary of independence; they were as inclined to mistrust Hindu rule as they were to resist the Raj. In 1915, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi came onto the scene, calling for unity between the two groups in an astonishing display of leadership that would eventually lead the country to independence.
The profound impact Gandhi had on India and his ability to gain independence through a totally non-violent mass movement made him one of the most remarkable leaders the world has ever known. He led by example, wearing homespun clothes to weaken the British textile industry and orchestrating a march to the sea, where demonstrators proceeded to make their own salt in protest against the British monopoly. Indians gave him the name Mahatma, or Great Soul. The British promised that they would leave India by 1947.
Independence came at great cost. While Gandhi was leading a largely Hindu movement, Mohammed Ali Jinnah was fronting a Muslim one through a group called the Muslim League. Jinnah advocated the division of India into two separate states: Muslim and Hindu, and he was able to achieve his goal. When the British left, they created the separate states of Pakistan and Bangladesh (known at that time as East Pakistan), and violence erupted when stranded Muslims and Hindu minorities in the areas fled in opposite directions. Within a few weeks, half a million people had died in the course of the greatest migration of human beings in the world’s history. The aging Gandhi vowed to fast until the violence stopped, which it did when his health was seriously threatened. At the same time, the British returned and helped restore order. Excepting Kashmir, which is still a disputed area (and currently unsafe for tourists), the division reached stability. India’s history since independence has been marked by disunity and intermittent periods of virtual chaos. In 1948, on the eve of independence, Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic. His right-hand man, Jawarhalal Nehru, became India’s first Prime Minister. Nehru was a successful leader, steering the young nation through a period of peace that was contrasted by the rule of Lal Bahadur Shastri, who fought Pakistan after it invaded two regions of India. Shastri died in 1966 after only 20 months in power, and he was succeeded by Nehru’s daughter, Indira Gandhi.
With the name Gandhi (though no relation to Mahatma), Indira was a powerful, unchallenged leader, and opposition remained negligible until she abused her power by trying to suppress the press. When the rising opposition began to threaten her power, she called a state of emergency and continued to reform the nation, actually making some positive economic and political changes despite her questionable tactics. Her most unpopular policy was forced sterilization, and she was eventually defeated at the polls in 1977 by Morarji Desai of the Jenata party. She won back power in ’79, however, but was later assassinated in 1984 by a Sikh terrorist. Although India’s political climate remains divisive, the country has attained apparent stability in recent years. Today, India seems poised to realize its potential as an international economic power.
Role of Politics in India
For most of its independent history, India has been ruled by the Indian National Congress. The party enjoyed a parliamentary majority barring two brief periods during the 1970s and late 1980s. This rule was interrupted between 1977 to 1980, when the Janata Party coalition won the election owing to public discontent with the “Emergency” declared by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The Janata Dal won elections in 1989, but its government managed to hold on to power for only two years.
Between 1996 and 1998, there was a period of political flux with the government being formed first by the right – of – centre, Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP ) followed by a left – leaning United Front coalition. In 1998, the BJP formed the National Democratic Alliance ( NDA ) with smaller regional parties, and became the first non – Congress and coalition government to complete a full five – year term.
The 2004 Indian elections saw the left – leaning Congress party winning the largest number of seats to form a government by leading the United Progressive Alliance, and supported by communist parties and those opposed to the BJP.
Since independence, India has maintained cordial relationships with most nations. It took a lead in the 1950s in advocating the independence of European colonies in Africa and Asia. During the Cold War, India tried to maintain its neutrality and was one of the founding members of the Non – Aligned Movement. After the Sino – Indian War and the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, India’s relationship with the Soviet Union warmed at the expense of ties with the United States and continued to remain so until the end of the Cold War.
India has consistently refused to sign the CTBT and the NPT to maintain sovereignty over its nuclear program despite criticism and military sanctions. Recent overtures by the Indian government have strengthened India’s relations with United States, China and Pakistan.
In the economic sphere, India has close relationships with other developing nations of South America, Asia and Africa. In recent years, India has played an influential role in the SAARC. India has been a long time supporter of the United Nations, with over 55,000 Indian military and police personnel having served in 35 UN peace keeping operations over four continents [ 5 ]. Since the 1990s, India has been considered a great or major power on the global stage, meaning it has considerable influence on international affairs.
Geography India
The territory of India constitutes a major portion of the Indian subcontinent, situated on the Indian Plate, the northerly portion of the Indo – Australian Plate, in southern Asia. India’s northern and northeastern states are partially situated in the Himalayan Mountain Range.
The rest of northern, central and eastern India consists of the fertile Indo-Gangetic plain. In the west, bordering southeast Pakistan, lies the Thar Desert.
The southern Indian Peninsula is almost entirely composed of the Deccan plateau, which is flanked by two hilly coastal ranges, the Western Ghats and Eastern Ghats.
India is home to several major rivers, including the Ganga, Brahmaputra, Yamuna, Godavari, Kaveri, Narmada, and Krishna. India has three archipelagos – Lakshadweep off the southwest coast, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands-volcanic island chain to the southeast, and the Sunderbans in the Gangetic delta in West Bengal.
Climate in India varies from tropical in the south to more temperate in the Himalayan north, with elevated regions in the north receiving sustained snowfall in winters. India’s climate is strongly influenced by the Himalayas and the Thar Desert.
The Himalayas, along with the Hindu Kush mountains in Pakistan, provide a barrier to the cold winds from Central Asia. This keeps most of the Indian subcontinent warmer than most locations in similar latitudes.
The Thar Desert is responsible for attracting the moisture laden southwest monsoon winds that provide most of India’s rainfall between June and September.
Economy of India :
Economy of India is the
fourth largest in the world as measured by purchasing power parity (
PPP ), with a GDP of US $3.63 trillion. When measured in USD exchange
– rate terms, it is the twelfth largest in the world, with a GDP of
$785.47 billion or 
35,34,615
crore in 2005, as calculated by the World Bank. [ 6 ] India is the
second fastest growing major economy in the world, with a GDP growth
rate of 9.1%, as of the first quarter of 2006. Wealth distribution in
India, a developing country, is fairly uneven, with the top 10% of
income groups earning 33% of all income.[7] India’s per capita
income ( PPP ) of US$ 3,400 [ 8 ] is ranked 122nd in the world.
For most of its independent history, India adhered to a quasi – socialist approach, with strict government control over private sector participation, foreign trade, and foreign direct investment. Starting from 1991, India has gradually opened up its markets through economic reforms by reducing government controls on foreign trade and investment. Privatisation of public-owned industries and some sectors to private and foreign players has continued amid political debate.
India has a labour force of 496.4 million of which 60% is employed in agriculture or agriculture – related industries which contributes to only about 22% of the GDP, 17% in mainstream industry and 23% in service industries. India’s agricultural produce includes rice, wheat, oilseed, cotton, jute, tea, sugarcane, potatoes. Major industries include textiles, chemicals, food processing, steel, transportation equipment, cement, mining, petroleum and machinery
India’s large English speaking middle – class has contributed to the country’s growth in Business Process Outsourcing ( BPO ). It is becoming a major base for US tech companies for future targeted research & development, including the likes of Google, IBM, and Microsoft. All this has helped the services sector to increase its share of the economy to approximately 50%.
India is also a major exporter of financial, research and technology services. India’s most important trading partners are the United States, China, UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland and Belgium.
Family structure and marriage
Main articles: Arranged marriage in India and Women in India
A bride during a traditional Hindu wedding ceremony in Punjab.
India's family structure, and cultural traditions within its family structure, has been a subject of numerous studies
In India's history, and currently in certain regions, a joint family plays a significant role in the Indian culture. For generations, India has had a prevailing tradition of the joint family system. It is a system under which extended members of a family – parents, children, the children’s spouses and their offspring, etc. – live together. Usually, the oldest male member is the head in the joint Indian family system. He makes all important decisions and rules, and other family members abide by them.
In a 1966 study, Orenstein and Micklin analyzed India's population data and family structure. Their studies suggest that Indian household sizes had remained similar over 1911 to 1951 period. Thereafter, with urbanization and economic development, India has witnessed a break up of traditional joint family into nuclear families.
Sinha, in his book, after summarizing the numerous sociological studies done on Indian family, notes that over the last 60 years, the cultural trend in most parts of India has been an accelerated change from joint family to nuclear families, much like population trends in other parts of the world. The traditional large joint family in India, in the 1990s, accounted for a small percent of Indian households, and on average had lower per capita household income. He finds that joint family still persists in some areas and in certain conditions, in part due to cultural traditions and in part due to practical factors.
Arranged Marriage
A bride in India.
For centuries, arranged marriages have been the tradition in Indian society though men and women have always had the choice of who they want to marry. Even today, the majority of Indians have their marriages planned by their parents and other respected family-members, with the consent of the bride and groom.
In most marriages the bride's family provide a dowry to the bride to safe guard herself and her children in the event of her husband passing prematurely.[citation needed] Historically, in most families the inheritance of family estates passed down the male line. Since 1956, Indian laws treat males and females as equal in matters of inheritance without a legal will. Indians are increasingly using a legal will for inheritance and property succession, with about 20 percent using a legal will by 2004.
In India, the divorce rate is low — 1% compared with about 40% in the United States. These statistics do not reflect a complete picture, though. There is a dearth of scientific surveys or studies on Indian marriages, where the perspectives of both husbands and wives were solicited in-depth. Sample surveys suggest the issues with marriages in India are similar to trends observed elsewhere in the world. The divorce rates are rising in India. Urban divorce rates are much higher. Women initiate about 80 percent of divorces in India.
"Opinion is divided over what the phenomenon means: for traditionalists the rising numbers portend the breakdown of society while, for some modernists, they speak of a healthy new empowerment for women."
Recent studies suggest that Indian culture is trending away from traditional arranged marriages. Banerji et al. surveyed 41,554 households across 33 states and union territories in India in 2005. They find that the marriage trends in India are similar to trends observed over last 40 years in China, Japan and other nations.[33] Fewer marriages are purely arranged without consent. The study found that majority of surveyed Indian marriages were arranged with consent. The percentage of self-arranged marriages (called love marriages in India) were also increasing, particularly in the urban parts of India. A 2006 article reported that between 10 and 20 percent of marriages in urban India were self-arranged.[34]