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A Dust Over India

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Re: A Dust Over India

#221

Post by [deleted] »

PakG1 wrote: post #205
ttrt wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming too much. It's not adequate shelter. You'd get sick living in a shack in an indian slum or in a hut in the amazon without modern medicine plus expensive and time consuming precautions--precautions a slum dweller can't take. Read up on public health in slums, particularly slums in the tropics. "many missionaries throughout history easily decided to go native" Err, no. Missionaries (as well as soldiers…

I'm not assuming anything. I'm questioning what is the definition of adequate here, because whatever is the definition will determine whether or not I agree with the original statement. Whether or not those housing conditions lend themselves to proper sanitation or not, missionaries decided to go native in spite of the high mortality, also knowing the mortality rate of their peers (until modern medicine came about to…

[deleted]

Re: A Dust Over India

#222

Post by [deleted] »

J3L2404 wrote: post #125
njharman wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When was the last time that happened in the US? 1960's. No hunger strikes AFAIK, the 99% occupiers are our cultural equiv.

The 99% occupiers are a form of cargo cult. Sans a clearly defined specific goal it resembles pantomime. Soak the rich is not sufficient.

[deleted]

Re: A Dust Over India

#223

Post by jhatax »

therandomguy wrote: post #116
sateesh wrote: post #96

The problem he outlines about India are real and are serious ones. But the article is a shallow one and the author makes grand sweeps of imagination to make some crass generalizations. Consider a few of these: Indian culture itself is quite disorienting. The people can be incredibly warm and hospitable, or cold and rude depending on the context and how they know you. The conclusion I eventually came to is that if the…

"Is this a specific Indian behavior ? You can find sycophants in any part of the world. It is not that Indian culture is wired to sycophancy." The problem is when majority of the population demonstrates this behavior. And with personal experience, I found this to be very true as well. I'm not saying this is scientific observation, just my personal, which matches with the author's.

I agree with a number of points made in the article and the general comments about corruption in India. I disagree with the assertion that Indians are out to thug you for your money, and that is not the case with businessmen in America.

Having recently bought a new car, I know full well how so-called, honest, American car dealers operate. Additionally, I am familiar with the "fair" and "transparent" lending practices of the bankers. How can you discount the eBay hood-winking, the mortgage crisis, medicare/Medicaid scams, identity theft, browser-cookie based tracking, etc. that all originated in the very United States of America that you consider so virtuous? Is profit not the motivation behind all of these immoral activities?

Please, get off your holier than thou perch and see the world for what it is: Everyone that owns a business is out to make a profit. Even the small business man inside of you that is looking for the best deal regardless of the impact it has on the business you are under-cutting. Once you see this reality, you will also realize that there has always been, and will always be, a tug of war between a consumer and a producer/supplier/business-owner. Except of course if you are dealing with a not-for-profit.

Re: A Dust Over India

#225

Post by darien »

statictype wrote: post #191
darien wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been explained to me that it is common for many indians to justify another person’s plight by believing that a condition of suffering is that person’s ‘karmic destiny.’ Therefore it would be ‘bad karma’ to help such a person.

Besides the point others have made that many Indians don't think like this anymore, I just want to point out that it is possible to believe in karmic destiny and not use that as an excuse to not help people. The 'therefore' part of your observation doesn't necessarily follow from the premise and is more of an excuse used by people to justify behavior.

I agree completely, my apologies if I made it sound like a mathematical postulate.

Re: A Dust Over India

#226

Post by jimgardener »

As someone who lived in south India for about 40 years, I can tell you that spiritual tourism is a good source of money.There are too many godmen and godwomen (some of them hugs people and some more sophisticated ones speak in the U.N... You will not find true Gurus here.True Gurus don't sell their wares in shops).

What you mentioned about dirty garbage strewn over the streets is true in most Indian cities and towns.If you wake up early enough,you will find women sweeping the area around their houses.They will not give a second thought before dumping that swill on the street.The same people will complain loudly about the local authourities not doing enough to reduce the garbage problem. Travel to Kochi by road.It is one of the fast developing cities in Kerala.Coming from Trissur side,the first thing you will notice is the huge dumps(about 3-4 mtrs high) of garbage on both sides. The people living in that area are definite candidates for cancer.I wouldn't wonder if another Plague epidemic happens in the near future.

Re: A Dust Over India

#227

Post by kamaal »

srean wrote: post #168
ashishgandhi wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SHORT REPLY Your theme throughout had been that there's variance in India. Of course! With any big country you would expect good amount of variance. I couldn't help but point out that although there is variance whatever the orignal blog post said was a very good reflection of the meidan. By citing the high variance you are making it sound like the OP has only seen the bad parts of India. That's not true. The OP has a…

This will need a longer debate, which I might join later tonight given the time I have. I agree that the median is bad, but disagree that it is as bad as the original post made it out to be, some amount of exaggeration is fine as a rhetoric device but overdone at the least it misinforms. EDIT: Given the downvotes I must have rubbed someone the wrong way. When you compare you do need to take into account all the axes,…

>>I cannot speak about your compulsions, but all I can say is that I have obtained a drivers license, a passport and renewed them with not a single paisa paid in bribe.

Generalizing individual experiences is never a good Idea.

>>In fact I had to think really hard to remember when did I bribe anyone at all

Which world do you live? You are either too rich or you living a too idealistic life impossible to the rest of India.

>>Main point is that in parts of the country you can do just fine without bribes, whereas in others its a part of life.

The main point is corruption is in India's DNA. The rich feel they can pay, get away and do anything because they can. The middle class hates to pay bribe, but is happy to receive it. The poor are always are at the receiving end of the stick.

For example to get a police verification certification, I had to pay no bribe in the police commissioners office. But I had to pay when the constable came home. And this is in Bangalore.

>>I havent been there in 3 years, but in my usual haunts in Kolkata garbage does get cleaned up. But again it will vary in the city as well.

The government can't clean up ever inch of land in India. As citizens we must learn to maintain the surroundings clean.

>>It bothers me deeply that now it has become so acceptable.

Because by now corruption is a part of our lifestyle. Like so many evil things. Like Caste system, dowry etc, corruption is wrong but its in deeply integrated into lives by now.

Re: A Dust Over India

#228

Post by kamaal »

cstross wrote: post #178
saket123 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With so many variances (I have seen most of them), I just wonder if India was suppose to be like Europe with smaller countries rather then one big country with all these variances.

India was a bunch of smaller countries before John Company came along and conquered it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company

This is the common ploy by the English to hide all their doings in the name of doing the 'greater good'.

Mainland India has been largely united throughout many 1000's of years throughout history.

Re: A Dust Over India

#229

Post by nagarch »

grandalf wrote: post #31

Because India is close to the equator, the environment has a greater carrying capacity than the kinds of first-world, northern nations that the author is used to. Thus, for this reason alone, India is likely to have a different ratio of people to development, since less development is required to sustain one person's resource utilization. Contrast this to the US where much of the country is snow covered for 1/3 of th…

What ever you said is right but author perspective is also right. Keep it clean, have personal responsibility. There is nothing wrong.

Re: A Dust Over India

#230

Post by nagarch »

ankit28595 wrote: post #57
Arun2009 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It will be much better. I'm from Kerala - things may be slightly better here than say Bihar but not by a whole lot.

Actually, there is strong feeling in at least in North India, that Kerala is where whole India should be. I am from Haryana and though Haryana is much more developed economically than Kerala, all my friends agree that Kerala is much better. And when comparing to Bihar, the state is way ahead. At least the statistics show that. Kerala has the cleanest railway stations, the best sex ratio, the most literate population,…

I have my friends who sits beside me.. he feels that lot of communal problems..
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