[abhiminator]

It's also partly cultural, imo. Most Indians believe in reincarnation [1] and also believe that the current state one is in is because of "mistakes" from one's "previous life." (aka karma)

That gives rise to extreme apathy, zero sympathy for folks on the lowest rungs of society, and a general lack of credence in effecting change.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reincarnation#Hinduism

[nsenifty]

This is a straight up propaganda from Christian organizations I grew up reading in India.

Very simply put, the concepts of Good and Evil in Christianity is not externalized in Hindu philosophy and instead explained through the principle of cause and effect known as Karma. Hinduism views suffering is an integral part of life. Selfish desire causes suffering, controlling your senses lets you achieve selflessness and eventual liberation from the cycle of suffering. All this "suffering" refers to your mental state, not the material reality such as wealth and status.

There is apathy, but IMO it's mostly due to desensitization by how much of it is out there and constantly having to watch your back from some people willing to take advantage of you the moment they notice how charitable you are.

[saiya-jin]

> There is apathy

Thats a massive understatement from western point of view. I have only personal anecdotes, but tons of them due to backpacking all over India for 6 months. Generally the poorer the people, the better the character, with exceptions (which is maybe universal human trait).

Utter ignorance of plight or suffering of dalits you see everywhere (simply because there is 300 million of them). They will never get a fair chance in life like rest of wealthier society. The mostly IT folks you will meet in west (or on call support call) are never from this caste, they just can't escape the vicious circle of poverty.

Seeing young women not giving a nano-fraction of a f*ck about dog dying in the middle of the street from horrible wounds sustained from being hit by a car (literally stepping over it like it was some dirty rag, I sat there crying my eyes out and the memory is still strong in me even after 10 years).

When talking to young brahmin couple, educated, visited west, very nice, soft-spoken and polite, and they considered its perfectly fine that 5-year old kids of poor have to work in firework factory and will never go to school (and they are 1 mistake away from ending up as finger-less beggars for rest of the life). 'At least they bring home some money' was their mantra. I had strong urge to ask them if they would be OK for their daughter to walk the same path but didn't want to be nasty for their generosity (they gave me a ride when hitchhiking in Yamunotri).

The treatment of leprosy (or more precisely lack of it due to religion, aka kiss of god).

I could go on and on, 6 months gives you a bit of perspective especially when you cover a lot (mostly north, west and south, not much east) from such a massive and diverse country.

It is probably still the best country in the world to do backpacking, it can change your perspective on the world and life, but boy sometimes it was too much.

[nsenifty]

See my point about desensitization. If you live in India and want to remain sane, you have to develop a barrier. Kind of the barrier you develop in the west pretending to not know where or how your hamburger was made.

[ovi256]

>Kind of the barrier you develop in the west pretending to not know where or how your hamburger was made.

Is there any data about how widespread this issue is ? I know plenty of people who know perfectly well from where their meat comes from, and are not bothered by it. Some even want to know, think Ron from Parks and Recs, who refuses to eat anonymous animals. On the other hand, I'm totally ok if other people do not want to have to think about it. A succesful society should provide for both needs.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

Widespread enough that people find it shocking how poorly food animals are often treated when they bother to look.

[calvinbhai]

This is the same kind of sensitization one needs to live in San Francisco. I lived in SF for a few weeks. The barrier I developed in India was no use.

[lake99]

> The mostly IT folks you will meet in west (or on call support call) are never from this caste

And how the heck do you know this? With very few exceptions, I don't know the caste of most of my colleagues. FYI, the government already has enforced quotas in schools, colleges, and government jobs for most of the traditionally "backward" castes. In private industry, we people don't go around announcing our castes to colleagues, suppliers, or customers, and no one cares.

[Tsubasachan]

Everyone in the West should spend some time in places like India. Paying 21%VAT on everything doesn't feel so bad anymore!

[dennisgorelik]

> 'At least they bring home some money'

This is a valid argument. What would you prefer 5 years old child to do: work at a factory or die from starvation?

These are sometimes quite real choices in poor countries.

[dmode]

Oh boy. This is such a naive Western POV and sounds incredibly condescending.

[looeee]

Are you sure you're not just reacting in anger because someone criticised your country?

I love India, but from the couple of months I spent there it's clear that there is a huge amount of apathy and resistance to very much needed social change. This criticism is valid. Just look at the attitude to rubbish and pollution - complete apathy and desensitization. The sacred cows do not eat grass, they eat plastic mixed with food waste. Literally. And as far as I can tell, nobody cares about this, or about the obvious poverty everywhere, the disfigured beggars and starving child workers, because they have become desensitized to it, just as I did after a couple of weeks.

[woodandsteel]

When someone is entirely critical of a comment but doesn't explain what the truth is, I assume it is probably because they know the comment was true but don't want to admit it.

[dmode]

His comment is self evident. Indians = heartless. Westerner = savior. That movie has been played hundreds of times. I don’t have time to debate such useless conclusions.

[orwin]

Whether it's karmic reincarnation or an afterlife, the morality type it generate is the same. Nietzsche seriously need to be taught/explained early so people stop with this "slave" mentality (i'm paraphrasing here).

And maybe more didactic consciouness philosophers could be taught as well, for even in non-materialist theory, monism (that did not need "god hypothesis" unlike most dualism) seems to be mainstream. And perhaps people (esp those interested in psychology, neurosciences and/or IA) could be lured into materialist illusionism (insert maniac laugh here).

[HNLurker2]

Be it N (the philosopher) or other criticism on Hinduism. Buddhism still is the answer for people who believe in Hindu (that is why it was created to begin with).

Most people answer like a personal attack if they have been hurt because of this mentality they have in India. I assume that something like that happened to you.

[wehadfun]

Christianity does not teach reincarnation.

[inapis]

Most of it is not due to religion but the sheer overwhelm that you just shut off your senses. You can keep on giving and giving and giving and giving and giving. It will not stop.

Most people, I know, middle class Indians who are doing decent financially and career wise have tried to help a lot - financially, volunteering, advising etc etc - and quite a bit of them have just found their lives, senses and mental health overrun. At that point you just develop a barrier which, seen from a western perspective, looks like apathy.

And there’s still a lot more to this complex issue. Ascribing it to a belief in religion is grossly simplifying the ground reality - which is very convenient for the purpose of discourse but completely misses the iceberg for its tip.

[0815test]

> Most of it is not due to religion but the sheer overwhelm that you just shut off your senses. You can keep on giving and giving and giving and giving and giving. It will not stop.

This is why the article is so focused on strategic, effective giving/philanthropy - it's the only way to really make a dent in these overwhelming issues. We should be careful not to discount the big successes that effective giving has already led to, even in fairly recent times. Smallpox has been totally eradicated throughout the world, and polio is almost there-- additionally, the most common vaccinations are being implemented all over the developing world, resulting in sizeable improvements for global health and development. And good progress is being made right now on malaria, as well as "neglected" tropical diseases. All of this was achieved by donors contributing to these causes.

Yes, market-driven economic development is still the most powerful force by far, rescuing hundreds of millions from poverty in India, China and Southeast Asia-- but it's absolutely wrong to conclude that giving for effective charity "won't do anything"!

[rygxqpbsngav]

Wrong interpretation.

Let me tell you an Indian story from mahabharatha (an Indian epic). There is Arjuna and Karna (Karna, known for his dana guna - virtue of giving away & charity). On an occasion, Arjuna has so much money and wanted to give it away to poor to gain some punya(good fortune). He expresses his intention to Krishna, and Krishna says, go a head. So, he does that, he partitions his wealth, and starts giving it away to poor one-by-one personally. In the end, he comes to know he hasn't accumulated anything (no punya/good fortune). he goes to Krishna again and asks, why haven't I accumulated anything? I did a good thing, I should accumulate good karma for my coming lives, right?

Krishna smiled and took him to karna in disguise to show him something. He went to Karna in disguise and said he was poor and asked for help. Karna gave away everything he got with him without any second thoughts. And he forgot about it instantly and moved on. Krishna turned to arjuna and said, you wanted to accumulate good karma/fortune, and hence you did gave away something of yours(keeping something for yourself) and kept claiming it everywhere you go and you even came to me asking why you haven't got anything in return. Karna, on the other hand, simply gave away everything he has and never even thought about it or boasted about it elsewhere. He just helped a poor and moved on. And thats how dana works. There are so many people in India who were never heard of and in disguise giving away and doing charity without even claiming it anywhere. Thats called 'guptha dana'. Charity in disguise. The first rule of charity according to Indian scriptures is, do it because you can. You wont't get anything in return because you are doing it. That's not how it works.

The above applies in the other way too, someone did something bad in their previous life so they were born wealthy and miss all the simple happy and emotional things poor and joint families can enjoy, instead they merely work hard to multiply their wealth like a machine. The wisdom in Indian literature is very deep and one have to understand it properly and muse over it to benefit from it. If any one is interested, I strongly recommend Devdutt Pattanaik 's show on Netflix. Very entertaining.

[anonymous_i]

Err!! You are not right. Here's why.

If you think there is a cultural reason for people acting the way they are acting- i.e., not being generous.

There is also something called Dana- Donation or Generosity. Dana is one of the biggest virtues in Hinduism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C4%81na

India as a society is split into microscopic tribes. Its hard to identify a common fabric that underlies the system and everyone ascribes value to it. There's nothing like it. Why? I do not know.

[kamaal]

Dana these days doesn't exactly work like it was originally intended to.

Most religious organizations in India today sit on donations which rival budgets of small countries. Indian religious trusts aren't exactly poor by any definition.

However there is a tendency to be rich. Which mean wanting to receive more, but spend less. The usual spending for these trusts is basically a small time engineering college, or a hospital. Or once in a year mass lunch. This passes for charity and benevolence because the alternative is nothing.

[shripadk]

This is where you and most get it wrong. This apathy is one that was created by the political class in India rather than the religious trusts/organizations.

Let me break it down for you:

Did you know that most of these Hindu temples and religious trusts that you find sitting on huge donations come under the Endowment Department? Because of which, these trusts have no say on how those funds are utilized. The ridiculous reasoning behind bringing temples under endowment was to prevent Priests from swindling donations. There are few cases where this has happened and I concede to that but that is not as widespread as it was made out to be. On the contrary, this wasn't reason enough for bringing temples under Government control. All that was needed was to file criminal cases against the offending Priests. However, the political class wanted to (and still wants to) keep complete control over the Temple as they can siphon off those huge donations at will. Take a look at what is happening today in Tirupati with the ruling Government brazenly looting the Temple coffers: http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/andhra-pradesh/2018/m...

Now instead we have Government servants swindling donations. There is a movement on to free Hindu temples from the clutches of the Government for precisely this reason.

On the contrary, Christian churches and Islamic mosques don't come under the Government control. If this isn't discriminating I don't know what is.

There is a petition seeking for removal of Government control over Hindu temples: https://www.change.org/p/temple-money-for-temples-only/u/164...

Article explaining the corruption by politicians and bureaucrats and subsequent court cases filed to free Temples from Government control: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/freeing-temples-from-st...

Quoting from the article linked above:

"What is scandalous is the corruption after the takeover of temples as politicians and officials loot the temple’s wealth and land, and divert donations of devotees to non-religious purposes The Supreme Court delivered a landmark judgment on January 6, 2013, allowing my Special Leave Petition that sought the quashing of the Tamil Nadu Government’s G.O. of 2006 which had mandated the government takeover of the hallowed Sri Sabhanayagar Temple (popularly known as the Nataraja temple)."

[drieddust]

I don't think you have the right understanding of Karma. Those who do not treat others with kindness would end up accumulating bad Karma and then they will be the one born as mice and bugs.

Edit: correct typos

[anoncake]

Isnt that and

> The reason why recipients are insatiable is because, they view the wealth accumulated by these people is thru' non-legit means.

a bit of a contradiction?

[rjf72]

Just emphasizing how important a point this is around the world. I've seen many in the US idealize Buddhism which has a similar view as in Hinduism that good actions in this life lead to a better place in the next [reincarnated] life. And indeed this seems like a really awesome baseline tenet for a religion, but in practice it ends up distorted just as all other 'divine imperatives' do.

As one example among many, a family I've lived with is what I'd describe as friendly, intelligent, and perfectly reasonable. They were also Buddhist. But they had some views I initially didn't understand. In one instance they found an individual with a crippling disability (leading to a sort of very awkward bow-legged walk) absolutely hilarious. In other they found people working in some really atrocious conditions at a fishery as comparably humorous. The issue is that they ultimately felt these individuals must have deserved such fates due to bad actions in a past life. After all, if they did good in their past life they would not have ended up in such positions in this life. So they viewed it as people getting what they deserved.

Never give people a divine righteousness, whether it be in religion or social belief held in a fashion otherwise indistinguishable from religion. They will find a way to screw it up no matter how unimaginably benevolent and harmless it sounds.

[helloindia]

"So they viewed it as people getting what they deserved." . As a Buddhist, quite baffling to read about this "friendly, intelligent, and perfectly reasonable" buddhist family.

In Mahayana Buddhism, which I follow and practice, special stress is given upon practice of compassion which requires seeing all sentient beings as your mother. So having a view similar to the family you referenced would be considered so un-buddhist.