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by padiyar83 3945 days ago
Jim you really don't get India, do you. The intelligent, educated and high tech India that you talk about and are surprised about has actually existed for ten thousand years now. It has nothing to do with modernity, its just that quest for knowledge is deep rooted in that culture. You mention India where phones don't work and traffic jams are commonplace, in other words, India where its inconvenient to lead a modern life, even thats existed for ten thousand years, even during the harshest days of starvation under British rule Indians were reasonably happy and not many people revolted for 250 years (they had to be prodded to do so for the last 50 years). In a way, they were ok with it and had accepted it as a way of life. What in western countries is a huge inconvenience, in India it feels like something that you will get used to eventually. The feeling of its ok to be inconvenienced and still be happy in life is deep rooted in the culture.If you notice, both these things, quest for knowledge and resilience towards inconvenience is needed in spiritual quests, something which India pioneered to the world. India is in every way consistent with what it should be if you look at it its whole existence and not just take a snapshot of its past 100 years and correlate it with what is happening in the world. And thats precisely the reason why I think India will thrive in the coming decades and centuries. It's quest for knowledge will propel it forward and its resiliency towards not being inconvenienced by petty things would keep the momentum intact.
1 comments

I agree.

As a bangladeshi I have watched privatization and IMF destroy my own country.

Its rich that someone who took a vacation in India somehow figured out all its problems and knows all its solutions.

Strong labour laws in India prevented Indian workers from being exploited by foreigners - Unlike in my own country where my people are slaves to american consumer demands via walmart.

India is exactly what you end up when you institute democratic rule over a real nation.

The idea of self-reliance is what allowed Indians to develop their own space mission, nuclear power, submarines and unique cryogenic rockets that even the american cannot get their hands on. And now the british use our rockets.

I went to a rural village in west bengal where they got their first light bulb. What is cool about it is not that its basic electricity but because it was powered using a nuclear plant.

Its embarrassing that in the UK the electricity is generated mostly by coal. Who is the backward nation again ?

Indians are not interested in your fancy iphones. They have no purpose when you think about it. India is completely happy to wait for technology to catch up rather than destroy and pillage their environment and water.

Unlike the americans the indians didn't have the luxury to rape and pillage an entire continent and another one. Resources are scares - water, food, land.

India is now developing thorium and is building power plants in the south. Sounds like they are doing perfectly fine. Slow,steady and sustainable progress.