Tradition, Terror, and the Cult of Conformity: How Societies Manufacture Obedience and Call It Culture

 

Tradition, Terror, and the Cult of Conformity: How Societies Manufacture Obedience and Call It Culture

As I was having a discussion with someone who is pro-BJP, she said something that made me pause — and then laugh, and then scream internally. She said, “I know you live abroad, but I hope you have given your family Hindu Sanskar.” That single sentence hit me harder than any political speech ever could. Not because I was shocked — but because I realized, in that moment, just how successfully the Sanskar Industrial Complex has hijacked the very idea of culture in India. It also made me wonder how far India has slid in the past ten years under Modi, and whether we even realize we’re voluntarily signing up for a spiritual surveillance state. So, I dove deep — and here’s what I found.

Have you noticed how people across the world love to weaponize the word “tradition”? In India, it’s Sanskar. In the Middle East, it’s Sharia. In the West, it’s “family values” — a charming term white evangelicals throw around while banning books and suppressing women’s rights. Wherever you go, the game is the same — obedience rebranded as cultural pride.

This isn’t culture. This is ancestral peer pressure served with a side of holy guilt.

Traditions, we are told, are the organic wisdom of our ancestors passed down lovingly through generations. Cute story — but largely false. Many so-called traditions were designed not to enlighten you, but to domesticate you. They tell you what to wear, what to eat, who to marry, how to pray, and most importantly — what not to think about. They are not culture. They are thought management systems with better branding.

And here’s the fun part — if you follow the script, you get a pat on the back and the honorary title of “a good child of the culture.” Step out of line, and suddenly you’re a threat — not just to your family, but to the whole damn civilization. Apparently, your refusal to wear a bindi or attend a temple ceremony could trigger the collapse of 5000 years of history. No pressure.

This is how cultural pride turns into cult programming.

It doesn’t matter if you’re in an Indian village, a Texan megachurch, or a conservative town in Iran — the manual is the same. Conform. Obey. Believe. And if you dare to question — congratulations, you’ve just been promoted to sinner, traitor, infidel, or anti-national, depending on your zip code.

Now, here’s where it gets truly hilarious — when governments join the cult. Most cults are run by self-anointed moral gatekeepers who think God personally emailed them the rules of civilization. But when democratically elected governments start moonlighting as religious PR firms, pushing Sanskar, purity, or moral policing instead of building hospitals, schools, or infrastructure, we’re no longer talking about governance. We’re talking about state-sponsored brainwashing with patriotic theme music.

This is exactly what we’re seeing now — not just in India, but everywhere. In Iran, the morality police pull women off the streets for showing hair. In America, religious zealots fight to control women’s wombs in the name of Jesus and “family values.” In India, Sanskar is paraded like a sacred cow while actual cows starve on garbage dumps and kids choke on toxic air. But sure — let’s build another temple. That’ll fix everything.

And the most sinister part of all this? It’s marketed as love. You’re not being controlled — you’re just being taught how to love your God, your ancestors, your nation. The chains are wrapped in devotion, so you thank them for shackling you. And when someone breaks free — eats the wrong meat, marries the wrong person, chooses science over superstition — they aren’t seen as individuals. They are seen as viruses. Infected minds that must be cleansed.

This isn’t some fringe theory. This is documented reality. This is the Saudi morality police. This is Iran’s hijab patrol. This is American evangelicals rewriting textbooks. This is India deciding that building temples matters more than fixing education, healthcare, or poverty. This is what happens when faith, culture, and politics merge into one ugly, unholy blob of manufactured obedience.

This is the Global Cult of Conformity, and guess what? You’re probably already a member — whether you know it or not.

The moment any government — especially a democracy — starts acting like the head priest of a religious order, you no longer have a government. You have a ritual enforcement squad with tax collection powers. They’re not here to govern. They’re here to grade your purity score. How well you follow the script becomes a measure of your patriotism. And if you score low — good luck.

Personal faith is personal. Cultural pride is personal. But the moment your faith or culture demands power over someone else’s choices, it is no longer faith. It is fascism with incense sticks.

If your culture can’t survive a question, it doesn’t deserve to survive at all.

So next time someone praises your Sanskar — don’t smile. Ask yourself, are they complimenting you? Or are they just celebrating the fact that you’ve been successfully tamed? Because the truth is, they’re not admiring you — they’re admiring the machine that processed you into one of them.

That’s not culture. That’s not faith. That’s a cult with state sponsorship.

And the ultimate strength of any culture isn’t in how obedient its people are — it’s in how boldly they can question it without fear. If obedience is the only thing holding your culture together, your culture is already a corpse dressed in tradition’s clothing.