Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Importance of India

alexkolchinski.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 178 posts

Re: The Importance of India

#51

Post by virattara »

ezVoodoo wrote: post #15

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…

India is striding away from these practices. The ground reality is quite different today, unfortunately, the outside world has this impression from historic books or articles about India which are largely outdated now. There is very little information on the internet regarding the improvements and the shift of the young generation here in India away from such practices.

Re: The Importance of India

#52

Post by sand_castles »

adventured wrote: post #31
sand_castles wrote: post #8

Demographics is not destiny, if it were true, Pakistan would be more powerful than Russia. How you organize your society matters much more, Japan/SK has fraction of the global population, and somehow maintain their economic importance. India has all the problems of a democracy without much of the benefit. It's more likely that India becomes a CCP style country than stays a democracy. If India was so great it's smalle…

> where the state department can just overthrow the govt of a major country if it likes That's an extraordinary exaggeration. The state dept does not have that power at all, not even close. Show me all the examples of this happening to a major country, much less a major democracy, in the last 50 years. It's incredibly difficult - nearly impossible - for the state dept to overthrow the government of a major country. T…

Indonesia, Brazil, Guatemala, Argentina, Chile, Iran, KSA, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Panama, El Salvador ...

https://www.amazon.com/Jakarta-Method-Washingtons-Anticommun...

Re: The Importance of India

#53

Post by gdsdfe »

> If China rises to heights of power that eclipse the US completely, only India may be strong enough to speak for liberal democracy

right, both countries are systemically killing, displacing and putting muslims in imprisonment camps

Re: The Importance of India

#54

Post by [deleted] »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #35

India's been leaning right for a while from what I've seen, I'd rather the EU decouple itself from U.S. foreign policy and be an independent, serious counterbalance to China, India, Russia and the U.S. But I suspect the possibility of that happening is rather slim, sadly.

[deleted]

Re: The Importance of India

#55

Post by [deleted] »

joekunin wrote: post #45
vijaybritto wrote: post #26

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.

[deleted]

Re: The Importance of India

#56

Post by TriNetra »

sand_castles wrote: post #8

Demographics is not destiny, if it were true, Pakistan would be more powerful than Russia. How you organize your society matters much more, Japan/SK has fraction of the global population, and somehow maintain their economic importance. India has all the problems of a democracy without much of the benefit. It's more likely that India becomes a CCP style country than stays a democracy. If India was so great it's smalle…

> If India was so great it's smaller immediate neighbor wouldn't be so hostile towards it, and friendly to CCP.

I'm assuming by small country you meant Pakistan. If so, this couldn't be further from truth. Pakistan isn't hostile toward India because India isn't great; the reason is in the reason of its creation and a relentless need to justify that reason. Pakistan came into existence based on an idea that Muslims couldn't survive in a democratic nation with majority Hindu population as Hindus would be a de-facto rulers. (Although this argument has turned out to be a completely false as in India the population of Muslims have grown from 8% to 14%+ after independence. On the other hand, minority population - Hindus/etc. - have declined considerably in Pakistan.) Be it culture, history or language, Pakistan has most things common with India. If there's piece between both, people would soon start questioning reason to stay separate - together both can be a great powerful nation on the world. Many outside interests (read super-powers) wouldn't like this to happen so they keep fueling aggressive elements. Similarly, rulers of Pakistan can't allow this to happen for obvious reason. Till date, you can hear their leaders justifying separation from India in their speeches by highlighting some stray incident happened with some Muslim in India.

Re: The Importance of India

#57

Post by naravara »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #49
naravara wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

My point is, they consider it true because of the country's political cohesion. If the country wasn't politically cohesive, the ethnic identity wouldn't be either. The unified identity is explained by the political homogeneity as much as it explains it.

Re: The Importance of India

#58

Post by dev_throw »

ezVoodoo wrote: post #15

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…

Sorry, but this is an irresponsible conclusion. Today's "untouchables" are largely due to socioeconomic class differences rather than systemic caste oppression, which has been outlawed for a while.

The same inequality is growing quickly in the USA when you consider the percentage of wealth the 1% has.

Re: The Importance of India

#59

Post by ra7 »

sand_castles wrote: post #40
ra7 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> India has all the problems of a democracy without much of the benefit. It's more likely that India becomes a CCP style country than stays a democracy. What is the basis for this? People have been predicting fall of democracy in India for decades (especially in the West), but nothing of that sort has happened. The closest incident was the state of emergency under Indira Gandhi in 1975-1977. India successfully recove…

Having one-party rule for 60 years is no democracy. You don't have a democracy when the state controls all the TV media. > What is the basis for this The basis for this is the level of grinding poverty in India, live in a Indian slum for a year and then come back to me, and spew the virtues of "democracy" vs economic freedom and rights. Poverty is organic propaganda for extremism and communism.

> Having one-party rule for 60 years is no democracy.

Er, what? Democracy means people can choose the government. There were several political parties in those 60 years of Congress rule. They just weren't big enough to win elections. In any case, you just have to look at the last 20+ years to see how government has alternated between political parties.

> You don't have a democracy when the state controls all the TV media.

[citation needed]

> The basis for this is the level of grinding poverty in India

270 million lifted out of poverty just in a decade (2006-2016), second only to China. Existence of poverty means democracy is not the right form governing? You make no sense. What is the alternative?

> live in a Indian slum for a year and then come back to me, and spew the virtues of "democracy" vs economic freedom and rights

I have lived in India for better part of two decades. I don't need lessons from you on what poverty looks like, thanks.

Re: The Importance of India

#60

Post by praveen9920 »

virattara wrote: post #51
ezVoodoo wrote: post #15

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…

India is striding away from these practices. The ground reality is quite different today, unfortunately, the outside world has this impression from historic books or articles about India which are largely outdated now. There is very little information on the internet regarding the improvements and the shift of the young generation here in India away from such practices.

Im not sure if this is the case. India is transforming the caste system into modern form rather than striding away. There is still systemic discrimination happening across India based on caste. It is predominant in rural india than urban.

For ex: caste based marriages and honour killings are best example for these instances.

Indian urban liberals try their best but they don't know the reality on ground

Post reply on HN