Why are differing political opinions causing rifts in Indian families?

Isha Nagpal | Ashoka University, Sonepat

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Transforming into an adult can be a stressful phase in our lives and we often find ourselves at a crossroads trying to form opinions which are different from the ones our parents hold. Talking to my best friend one day about her fights with her parents was enough to open my eyes to the sad reality of widespread familial conflicts among generations in these times of political awareness in the country.

I realised that a similar story of quarrels was unfolding in every alternate household among the upper class, upper caste families of metropolitan India. Quarrels which begin with political opinions and often end with a lesson on values and beliefs. But why is it that we find ourselves in such conflicting situations due to political opinions now?

Sociologists and Social Scientists identify intergenerational conflicts in families as a product of ever-changing dynamic societies. The Indian society as we know of today has also gone through tumultuous changes and is still evolving. These changes have been boosted due to globalisation and an acceptance of the western cultures in the Indian lifestyle. These changes also contribute towards a change in beliefs and value systems of the generation that grew up post globalisation.

One paper by James Patole (2018) looks at ‘The Impact of Globalisation on the New Middle-Class Family in India’. He says that the Indian family is going through unprecedented changes which have never been seen before with one major change being an increase in conflict among parents and children (Patole, 2018). This suggests that more individualistic ideologies are now finding ways to fit into the traditionally collectivistic Indian culture causing an inevitable drift between belief systems of different generations.

This conflict also manifests itself in other situations in our lives. Especially when it comes to concepts like dating which are much more foreign to our parents than they are to us. This is a consequence of the cultural exchanges that this generation is constantly surrounded with. Shah and colleagues (2016), in their paper consisting of case reports, have also written about how the Indian value system has traditionally considered ‘dating’ a taboo and such attitudes still persist in a lot of families, especially among the older generation. Their children, on the other hand, are exposed to a wide array of western values through social media and have now come to accept and follow those when it comes to dating (Shah, et. Al., 2016). This is a fitting example of how globalisation is augmenting these disputes.

Developmental Psychologists have also written about such intergenerational relations by looking at different facets. The aspect of conflict stands out among them as it is the most interesting and the least intensively researched. One book by Datan, Greene and Reese (2014) titled ‘Life-Span Developmental Psychology: Intergenerational Relations’ looks at this in detail. They discuss a number of theories to understand this conflict, one of which is functionalism and it says that the core of this conflict lies in friction between the ‘developmental goals’ that parents and children have. In all ages, people are expected to complete certain developmental goals to reach psychological maturity, a theory on which much of psychology rests. Adults and their adolescent kids have goals which are often contradictory to one another. While adults attempt to raise children who fit into the society like they did, teenagers are evolving individual identities through the process of socialisation and stronger peer relations. This, in turn, leads to an inevitable conflict.

Most teenagers today find themselves in a situation where their parents have strong opinions about issues going on in the country. On the other hand, we are surrounded by information through the media and other sources that strongly nudges us towards a different opinion. Having different channels of information is one possible explanation for this divide. This then gives way to a much dreaded conversation where both parties try to change the other’s opinion, but in vain.

From a social psychological perspective one possible reason for this can be that, more often than not, these political opinions are based on emotions rather than reasoning. And multiple studies on such attitudes suggest that affectively-based attitudes (beliefs linked to emotions) affect behaviour much more than cognitively-based attitudes (beliefs linked to the properties of an object) (Zhou et.al., 2013). This makes it difficult to change these opinions and the conflict only increases without any end in sight.

However, it is interesting to note that developmental psychologists don’t necessarily consider these conflicts an issue. While these conflicts may cause deep-rooted grudges between different generations of a family in some cases, such quarrels have always been seen as an important part of adolescent life and crucial to one’s growing-up. In-fact, some researchers have hypothesised that such conflicts can only arise when the two parties are in frequent contact and share an emotional bond (Szydlik, 2008).

So, I guess if you often find yourself in these conflicts like me it's best to just let them happen and not expect to change the other person’s opinion. It is crucial to our relationships to make space for arguments and also accept differences. Families are the first of the many institutions that shape us and define who we become. This process of growing up and forming opinions can teach us skills that we will carry with us for life. Our memories of these relationships later will largely depend on how we look at them now and what we take away from these disagreements.

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References

1. Datan, N., Greene, A. L., & Reese, H. W. (2009). Life-span developmental psychology: intergenerational relations. New York: Psychology Press.

2. Patole, J. (2018). The Impact of Globalization on the New Middle Class Family in India.

3. Shah, R., Chauhan, N., Gupta, A. K., & Sen, M. S. (2016). Adolescent-parent conflict in the age of social media: Case reports from India. Asian Journal of Psychiatry, 23, 24–26. doi: 10.1016/j.ajp.2016.07.002

4. Szydlik, M. (2008). Intergenerational Solidarity and Conflict. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 39(1), 97-114. Retrieved June 8, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/41604202

5. Zhou, J., Dovidio, J., & Wang, E. (2013). How affectively-based and cognitively-based attitudes drive intergroup behaviours: the moderating role of affective-cognitive consistency. PloS one, 8(11), e82150. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0082150