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The Importance of India

alexkolchinski.com

41–50 of 178 posts

Re: The Importance of India

#41
post #39
post #3

>India currently punches below its weight on the world stage due to slow economic development: 30 years ago, its GDP per capita was similar to China’s, but is now 5x lower. However, if India were to enter a period of similarly high growth over the next 30 years as China has for the past 30, it would quickly become one of the most powerful countries in the world thanks to the scaling factor of its immense population.…

May I know how many years your grandmother was kept as a slave and abused ? Indian experienced it for 200+ years. People (Americans dare I say ?) have no problems accepting blacks are behind whites on most development indices EVEN TODAY because of slavery and oppression, but somehow can't extend the same logic to former colonial countries like India. Recent economic hardships of a particular class has threatened demo…

I was just replying to the text I quoted, buddy.

Additionally, blaming all of today's problems of India on "slavery", just like they do with blacks in America, is baseless and patronising.

Re: The Importance of India

#42
post #2

India being "a counterweight to the rise of authoritarianism in the 21st century" while Modi and BJP are in power. This is so misguided its funny.

Don't conflate encouraging cult-like following and at times divisive politics with authoritarianism. There are free and fair elections in India. In fact, Modi (and BJP) have lost several recent state elections and handed power over to the opposition. There are a ton of political parties, especially regional, that give BJP a run for their money a.k.a political pluralism.

The reason Modi is running away with national elections is because of the absolute incompetence of the main opposition, the Congress party. Their decades of mind boggling corruption has finally caught up to them and their reluctance to look beyond the Gandhi family for leadership is costing them dearly. That combined with BJP's election machinery (which Modi has built) means that opposition has to raise their game spectacularly, which they are not able to do.

Re: The Importance of India

#43
post #3

>India currently punches below its weight on the world stage due to slow economic development: 30 years ago, its GDP per capita was similar to China’s, but is now 5x lower. However, if India were to enter a period of similarly high growth over the next 30 years as China has for the past 30, it would quickly become one of the most powerful countries in the world thanks to the scaling factor of its immense population.…

Yeah, any comparison to China needs to acknowledge that China is largely ethnically homogenous and has an authoritarian government that has relatively consistent goals top-to-bottom. India is nothing like that and I don't see it becoming like that anytime soon.

> China is largely ethnically homogenous

This is a fiction that was created by Chinese nationalists [1] [2] [3] over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries.

"Dialects" between provinces can be very different and mutually unintelligible verbally. In many other contexts they would have been considered different languages, but since the imperial bureaucracy and the Chinese writing system helped maintain a sense of unity in spite of it we don't.

All this isn't to say Han identity is any less real than any other identity. The idea of "ethnic identity" is fundamentally constructed and imaginary across the board. That's also why it's not a great explanatory factor for much of anything. These categories aren't primordial, they're usually reflective of the very thing for which you're trying to use it as an explanation.

[1] https://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/chinesestudies/2016/09/23/863... [2] https://www.jstor.org/stable/20025378?seq=1 [3] https://escholarship.org/uc/item/07s1h1rf

Re: The Importance of India

#44
post #21
post #2

India being "a counterweight to the rise of authoritarianism in the 21st century" while Modi and BJP are in power. This is so misguided its funny.

Wasn’t Modi democratically elected — twice?

Exactly! People seem to conflate anti authoritarianism with being pro democracy. It absolutely doesn't have to be the case and India is a great example of it.

Re: The Importance of India

#45

But India is still a Semi Slavery society. The untouchables, anyone? The Hindu caste/social grouping system tells millions of people that they are contaminated and their fate is doomed upon birth. This is the most powerful racist/slavery/brain-washing machine that the human being has ever made, no? It is so hard to believe such brutal system still exist in human society. Yet, the country enforcing this claims to be t…

This. This is so true. India can never be a superpower until we are born inequal at birth! There will be growth only in a society which has some sort of equality. Anyone can look at the amount of upper castes in positions of power, land ownership share and executive positions in the country. You have to compare it with the population distribution among castes and you'll see the inequality immediately. The main proble…

I wonder if this was also part of the reason Buddhism didn't become the predominant belief system in India.

Re: The Importance of India

#46
post #41
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I know how many years your grandmother was kept as a slave and abused ? Indian experienced it for 200+ years. People (Americans dare I say ?) have no problems accepting blacks are behind whites on most development indices EVEN TODAY because of slavery and oppression, but somehow can't extend the same logic to former colonial countries like India. Recent economic hardships of a particular class has threatened demo…

I was just replying to the text I quoted, buddy. Additionally, blaming all of today's problems of India on "slavery", just like they do with blacks in America, is baseless and patronising.

Churchill killed over a million Bengalis. This history isn't that old.

Re: The Importance of India

#47

It's wishful thinking to believe India can compete with China on the world stage. China can pivot on a dime, whereas you can flatter an Indian by describing their country as "organized chaos". Comparing the responses to COVID-19 should be indicative. As somewhat of an metric, I'll let you look up the smallest semiconductor node India can produce natively.

Why is this downvoted? OP is blunt but makes great points.

Re: The Importance of India

#48
post #11

> If China rises to heights of power that eclipse the US completely, only India may be strong enough to speak for liberal democracy. With recent history in mind, I doubt the emphasized part. India is not actually a beacon of a liberal or a constitutional democracy, as has been shown in the last six years by the party in power in the central government. If anything, India is regressing and ignoring constitutional prot…

Your doubt is typical Indian opposition viewpoint right now. They are so just for the sake of opposition.

Re: The Importance of India

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, any comparison to China needs to acknowledge that China is largely ethnically homogenous and has an authoritarian government that has relatively consistent goals top-to-bottom. India is nothing like that and I don't see it becoming like that anytime soon.

> China is largely ethnically homogenous This is a fiction that was created by Chinese nationalists [1] [2] [3] over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries. "Dialects" between provinces can be very different and mutually unintelligible verbally. In many other contexts they would have been considered different languages, but since the imperial bureaucracy and the Chinese writing system helped maintain a sense of un…

Yeah, I'm aware of that, however, most Chinese still consider themselves Han Chinese. So even if it is somewhat of a fiction, most people within China consider it true, which is what is relevant for the purposes of having a national identity.

Re: The Importance of India

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. This is so true. India can never be a superpower until we are born inequal at birth! There will be growth only in a society which has some sort of equality. Anyone can look at the amount of upper castes in positions of power, land ownership share and executive positions in the country. You have to compare it with the population distribution among castes and you'll see the inequality immediately. The main proble…

I wonder if this was also part of the reason Buddhism didn't become the predominant belief system in India.

It was, for a time. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_Buddhism_in_the_I...
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