Biculturalism

Biculturalism is a word that is very widely defined. It changes its connotations from person to person and from culture to culture. Many times the words bicultural and biculturalismy have been used for denoting the same trend in society. The meaning of biculturalism, therefore, is often misunderstood. One can say that in the case of a society or state comprised of several cultures, both prominent and latent, with Many intercultural networks and orientation, the practitioners in the system for successful living conditions have to adopt what is called biculturalism, and with the passage of time the state has to lawfull ratify it for the welfare of larger numbers of population at a larger stage for a longer time.

The two cultures then flow side by side, and the citizens find themselves free to accommodate and adapt according to the patterns of both. Biculturalism can be applied to the aptitude and understanding of a person with relation to the two cultures in context, and to the policy of equal treatment for two cultures in any nation, as well. If one calls a person “bicultural,” it denotes the person's ability to accommodate two different cultures—not only culturally but also with regard to the value system and identification patterns, as appears to be the case with Indian Americans, Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, etc., living in the United States, who are acculturated in Indian, Chinese, and Japanese cultures respectively, along with being acculturated in American culture. On the other hand, biculturalism is also used to describe a condition in a country or geographic region in which two distinct cultures simultaneously become visible and flow seamlessly. Thus, it indicates the presence of two different cultures in the same region.

The word biculturalismy was officiall used for the first time in Canada on July 19, 1963, as a neologism, when the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, popularly known as the Bi and Bi Commission and the Laurendeau-Dunton Commission, was established by the then Canadian government under the premiership of Lester B. Pearson. The commission was appointed to “inquire into and report upon the existing state of bilingualism and biculturalism in Canada and to recommend what steps should be taken to develop the Canadian Confederation on the basis of an equal partnership between the two founding races, taking into account the contribution made by the other ethnic groups to the cultural enrichment of Canada and the measures that should be taken to safeguard that contribution.” The reference to “biculturalism” had been made earlier in 1929, when Graham Spry, a Quebecoise Canadian, used it in a speech to the Canadian Club of Quebec and focused on the “bicultural character of the Canadian nation.”

Later, the issue of biculturalism became popular in New Zealand in 1982 with reference to the issues of clash and reconciliation between two major cultural and ethnic groups—Maori and Pakeha New Zealanders. The term also gained momentum in Africa and Belgium with reference to the cultural clash of Anglophone white South Africans and the Boers in South Africa, and that between the Walloons and the Flemish in Belgium. The case of Parsis in India is also similar, as they manifest their heritage Parsi culture and collective Indian culture at the same time. The practitioners of biculturalism manifest the salient elements of their ancestral culture vis-à-vis identifying themselves in the other dominant culture of the political/geographical region, and make themselves distinct from the acculturated people. Sometimes this trend brings a new culture of integration. It is evident in Indian Hindu-Muslim culture popularly known as Ganga Jamuni Tehzeeb, manifesting the values and belief systems of the two.

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