Cultural imperialism is rather widespread in Bangladesh. Rather than being proud of our own culture and heritage, nowadays, Bangladeshis are more prone to either adopting or blindly following foreign culture. This is common among the younger generation of our country. Earlier, Bangladeshis were greatly influenced by the western culture. Now, the dominance of Indian culture in our society is very much evident with introduction of satellite television in Bangladesh back in the early 90s. Bangladesh took a 360-degree turn from their previous first choice of western culture to a totally new and rather prominent culture.
The media is an effective way of influencing people. But unfortunately, in Bangladesh, always the negative side of all good things seems to influence people the most
Bangladesh Television, which actually aired really good US TV serials, the Bangladeshi people soon began to become addicted to the Indian culture. They ate, drank, walked, talked, shopped, and slept like Indian people. They still do. As days passed, the number of Indian channels began to increase. Now there are more channels than there were channels on a TV set back in the 90s.
The strongest influence of this culture is on children and women. There was a time when teenage boys never watched a single Hindi movie. Nowadays, from child to men all watch Hindi programmes including movies.This success is not for the Bangladeshi culture, but for Indian culture.
Indian culture is eating up the creativity and productivity of many talented Bangladeshi individuals. Rather than expressing their own thoughts and ideas, they prefer to copy the Indian culture. The influence of Indian culture is uncontrolled everywhere. Even Bangladeshi weddings are the victim of hindi serials culture. Now there are Indian rituals involved with our weddings. Earlier when Bangladeshi weddings were limited to two holuds, a wedding and, a reception or maybe engagement ceremonies at times, now some people have wedding ceremonies which last for at least seven to ten days. There is a Sangeet ceremony, a mehendi ceremony, and some more such ceremonies.
The Indian culture has mixed with our blood. Children who have been growing up watching these Hindi programmes fail to understand the true value of our culture. They talk and dress like the Indian TV stars. Tailor shops are continuously getting orders to make dresses worn by some Indian actress. Same goes for beauty salons. Many people visit these places to want to get a haircut or a look like some actress. The once popular Benarasi saree is becoming nearly dead because Bangladeshi women want to buy Indian sarees which are worn by Hindi serial actresses. They do not want to buy these traditional sarees anymore.
