Hypocritical enough?

A Desi's reaction to 'cultural theft'

Buys a 2000 INR organic, all-natural hair oil from the market

Proceeds to get stink-eyed.

Here’s to some food for thought.

Presenting

My pov on

‘The West is stealing our culture!!’

‘Scandinavian Scarves, ‘Chai Tea Latte,’ the turmeric craze….

Translation: dupattas, chai, and haldi.

Sounds familiar?

Basically, the Europeans have been ‘stealing’ our culture and claiming it as their own in order to gain popularity for it, because apparently all our culture, which has been around for ages, has been blowing up on social media right now.

But yet, even though it is OUR own culture, and we’ve had this opportunity on our hands for centuriesss, it still makes our blood boil when someone else actually does something to promote it.

Let’s be real, these duppattas, the chai, the lehengas… they’re an integral part of India, always were and always have been. But yet, all this while, instead of appreciating our own ethnicity, we were, or might I say, we still are, busy copying the West.

So much so, that we actually became embarrassed of where we came from. Anything, absolutely anything that gave even a hint of our origin, our country, our India, was hidden away, was seen as an embarrassment. It still is!

Our own national language doesn’t get the respect it deserves! In fact, as often as possible, we try to converse in English, in a rather sad attempt to appear more educated or just more well-versed than others.

We hid away our tikas, started using knives and forks, refused to wear traditionals…… which, by the way, is all TOTALLY FINE, but then why get so mad when someone else decides to adopt it?

The point is, while we were busy trying to hide away our culture and compete in this rat race to appear modern, the West accidentally discovered it, and guess what? They liked it.

All they really did, was package and rebrand the already existing ‘nuskas,’ glamorize them, and then promote them off to an eagerly waiting audience—the fellow companions in the rat race, others who too are busy trying to live up to the West.

Why are we so against this glamorization when we, ourselves, are the ones at fault? We’ve had this opportunity all along; we just never chose to see how green the grass already was in here.

Lemme give you an example,

So up until a few years ago, when yoga wasn’t ‘hot and happening,’ no one, not a single soul, gave it a second look, except, of course, the older generation, or ‘budhe log.’ Meditation, breathing exercises, pranayam—this was all seen as something that alll the ‘budhe’ log did, and hence, became something, that the younger generation ran away from.

We refused to see the benefits, the advantages, and straight up dismissed the idea.

But now, ever since those little Haryana-sized countries began indulging in this ‘power yoga,’ ever since they began chanting the ‘shlokas,’ we haven’t been quicker to indulge in allll this while simultaneously criticizing them for stealing something that’s ours.

Oh, and about the recent blast of kolhapuris in the Italian fashion week? For those who don’t know, Prada launched a pair of kolhapuris worth 1.2 LAKH as part of its spring/summer 2026 collection. Now these kolhapuris are the same ones we get for INR 200-400 at each and every local market, and they are made purely by hand, by our own artisans.

Prada hadn’t give any credit to these artisans, had no mention of the traditional indian kolhapuris anywhere, and only when they were confronted mentioned that they were ‘inspired’ by them… So eventually, this ‘theft’ led to a whole lot of bawal on social media recently.

But hey, what exactly did they do? Kolhapuris have always been around; we laughed at them for being too old-school, never valued them, and now, when Prada launches them ‘without the credit,’ they suddenly become a debate issue??

We weren’t exactly proud of them, until the WEST saw the worth. And as soon as they put a foreign price tag on it, we haven’t been faster to criticize them for ‘stealing’ something we never cared for.

Hypocritical enough?

While we spent our time obsessing over ‘korean skincare and haircare secrets,’ they saw value in OURS and developed ‘scalp exfoliating ayurvedic hair oils’ and ‘pre-wash rituals for voluminous hair.’

While we were busy terming our culture as ‘backward,’ they saw the worth in all the ashwagandha and the ‘ancient wellness nuskas’—old Indian secrets packaged and sold for $50 a bottle.

So yeah, if you still believe the West ‘stole’ our culture, maybe look into your ‘skincare fridge’ next time.

Because maybe it isn’t about them stealing our culture at all.

Because maybe,

Just maybe,

The real theft was how quickly we abandoned it ourselves…

Let’s make that an issue for debates next time.

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What do you think? Cultural theft or colonial hangover? Tell me in the comments below!!!

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P.S. You’re welcome to suggest any random topic you might want to hear my POV on!