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It would not be controversial to say that India is a nation afflicted by poverty, inequality, religious conflict, sharp class and caste divisions, bad infrastructure and an utter lack of women's rights. It is estimated that it 68% of India's 1.2 billion live under $2 a day. I trust that all of you are familiar with the caste system, the treatment of servants and the high levels of sexual assault. India also has dozens of languages and several major religions in its 28 states, which makes it hard to govern. Due to cramped living conditions and poor sanitation, diseases eliminated elsewhere in the world like cholera and even bubonic plague have made a comeback. Child labor is not an uncommon practice, and slavery is not unusual. Is it possible to solve these without forcible secularization, changes to culture, industrialization and redistribution of land and economic wealth? Or is India already successfully improving under the existing Indian political structure equipped to handle the challenges before it, if it could only stop corruption? One question I'm very interested in is whether the cultural/religious ideas of Caste will need to be eliminated from public consciousness before any progress can be made. Edit: Lest it seem I'm picking on India unfairly, I realize rape and class are global problems and not unique to India, and I'm also well aware of the effects of colonialism. But I'd like to know what India can do now to fix its own particular mix of problems. Somebody fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Mar 11, 2014 |
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Mar 11, 2014 03:31
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Plastic_Gargoyle posted:What makes you assume that it is even possible to "erase something from the public consciousness"? This has been tried over and over in many places throughout history and it's failed virtually every single time. I don't know about that -- I think the "divine right of kings" and the "great chain of being" were considered common sense or just facts of life by the vast majority of people in Medieval Europe, but nowadays such ideas are considered laughable. What changes did it take to accomplish that, or to introduce and cement the now-common idea that slavery is never acceptable? Plastic_Gargoyle posted:And regardless of how lovely the caste system is, ultimately you're arguing from a stance of cultural superiority here, aren't you? Perhaps, but I think the morality of things like slavery, women's equality and classicism are universal and apply to every culture equally. I'm certainly not willing to treat those issues as though they're morally relative and culturally dependent. OwlBot 2000 fucked around with this message at 03:52 on Mar 11, 2014 |
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Mar 11, 2014 03:49
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Captain Oblivious posted:Colonialism is a helluva drug, it takes time to catch up. That's absolutely true, but I don't know that some form of colonialism can't be part of a solution in theory -- I don't trust America or anyone else to do it in reality. But suppose some invader came into a country, banned all discrimination against LGBT people, but didn't reap any financial reward for it or do anything else really. That would be some kind of colonialism, maybe, but I'd still support it if the end result were good.
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Mar 11, 2014 03:54
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"Erase from memory" was the wrong phrase to use, I guess I mean "make so abhorrent to the average person that nobody would ever propose it again." And I think democratic revolutions and subsequent control over the narrative and narration made "Divine Right" seem phony, and the Civil War and the abolition movement put chattel slavery in the grave in the Western public consciousness.
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Mar 11, 2014 03:57
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Plastic_Gargoyle posted:History's greatest crimes were committed in the hope that "the end result was good." I think equal and even greater crimes have been a result of inaction. I'm not proposing any kind of invasion of India, just strong guidance from other countries on key issues backed by the threat of sanctions. Is that colonialism? Of course, but if it's in connection to women's rights issues, poverty reduction, or public health I'm all for it.
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Mar 11, 2014 03:59
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computer parts posted:The idea of Caste is present among many cultures (including the West) and it is a complementary component to capitalism so I don't see why or how it would be erased in the near future. No disagreement here, but at least there's the myth of class mobility and the idea that it isn't supposed to be set in stone and predetermined; even if that is the case under American capitalism I think people would be horrified by it if they really knew rather than all think that it is divinely ordained as a result of Karma. Even in the USA there's a strong "just world" impulse but I don't think it is nearly as conscious or so deeply ingrained as it is in South Asia.
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Mar 11, 2014 04:02
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I imagine the slums will get larger and larger and these problems will get worse as urbanization continues and agriculture shrinks. But I don't see a real alternative to greater urbanization. On a purely theoretical level, how advisable would an intensive industrialization program be if accompanied by sufficient food imports and infrastructure development? I'm picturing Stalinism minus Stalin, and also with food. It's interesting that the right-wing explanation (not anyone's here) for why a given third-world country isn't doing well is "corruption." Yes, it's there and prevalent, but that seems more like an effect than a cause -- and surely there isn't quite enough of it to explain the massive shortfalls between a country's results and its potential. OwlBot 2000 fucked around with this message at 04:12 on Mar 11, 2014 |
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Mar 11, 2014 04:07
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Here's what I mean: strong separation of 'church' and state, abolition of laws that enforce religious practices, no religion taught in schools or religious schools, and.. that's about it. At least in Europe, doing that plus raising standards of living makes fundamentalism decline greatly.
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Mar 11, 2014 04:14
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Silver2195 posted:I'm pretty sure India already has most of those things. It's raising standards of living that's the hard part. In practice Hindu Law and Sharia courts administer much of the 'justice' in parallel legal systems. When there are issues of abuse, exploitation and so on that strengthens local religious leaders and helps further the oppression of women. Interestingly some Muslim women are trying to make 'women-only' Shariat: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Sharia-courts-for-Muslim-women-soon/articleshow/21075650.cms
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Mar 11, 2014 04:19
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Badger of Basra posted:Do you currently own or have you ever owned a pith helmet? I've no use for your pithy remarks. Main Paineframe posted:The only way things can disappear from a culture is if the people themselves decide to abandon those things. An outsider coming in by force and trying to eliminate parts of the native culture in order to fit the invader's view of how society should be doesn't work. Even if the invader's intentions are genuinely good and pure and moral according to their own standards (remember, the colonialists often imposed cultural changes that fit medieval Europe's view of what was good and pure and moral), the people aren't going to change their ways just because some jackass outsiders with a lot of money or guns say so. I don't think the last point is true at all. Iranians are no longer mostly Zoroastrian, Germanic and Slavic peoples don't worship Odin and Perun, and Latin Americans are Catholic even though each of these groups preserves some echoes of the former culture.
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Mar 11, 2014 06:14
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I made a joke or two in GBS but decided I wanted to actually learn what is being done or should be done because India is really that bad. Is there any chance of India becoming a superpower absent some miracle / competent dictator or is it too fragmented and too late to the race?
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Mar 11, 2014 06:28
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ronya posted:"What is to be done" presupposes a unified decisionmaker that can act with minimal constraints. Which/Whom I think will ultimately be necessary if things are to improve in the near (or even distant) future. What part of Indian economic history do you wish to discuss? The landlord class, empowered by the British to collect taxes, were historically very important and many families remain in power post-independence. OwlBot 2000 fucked around with this message at 06:51 on Mar 11, 2014 |
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Mar 11, 2014 06:48
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ronya posted:If it continues 8% growth, I think India would already be improving as well can be reasonably wished. Do you have good reason to believe that growth won't stall in the near future due to competition, internal problems or a bad international economic climate? BBC posted:India's economic growth rate slowed down in the most recent quarter, according to official figures. The economy expanded at an annual rate of 4.7% in the three months to December, down from 4.8% in the previous quarter. The figure was lower than analysts had been expecting.Asia's third-largest economy has been weighed down by various factors, such as high inflation, a weak currency and a drop in foreign investment. http://www.bbc.com/news/business-26385545
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Mar 11, 2014 06:54
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ronya posted:See, that's the thing. Economics is not a morality play - you don't create prosperity in the present by hunting down past injustices and correcting them. If you are interested in material prosperity, growth, and the epidemiological/religious/cultural transition to modernity, then reviving decades-old grievances is counterproductive. This is stuff for a truth and reconciliation committee, not the industry planning department. If one group possesses disproportionate control over resources, political power and wealth, and it is not to everyone's benefit, then that issue should be addressed regardless of who wronged whom in the past -- especially if that group will likely be intransigent in the face of reform. Morality doesn't enter into it. OwlBot 2000 fucked around with this message at 06:59 on Mar 11, 2014 |
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Mar 11, 2014 06:57
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Yiggy posted:The British didn't create the zamindar system, the Mughals did. Duly noted, thanks for the correction. In any case, the British used them and had some sway over land taxes and so forth and could therefore force people into manufacturing by making farming too expensive.
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Mar 11, 2014 07:01
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The two aren't mutually exclusive at all, though? You could easily make the average person and the poorest people in the United States (or the world) richer by making the top 5% a little less rich. The combined GDPs of all countries is about 48 trillion dollars, and right now 85 people get more than 3.5 billion other people do. That is not a precondition for alleviating poverty, and as such making me 'choose' between a poor, equal country and a rich, unequal country is absurd when I could have a rich, equal country. Re: capital growth is exponential, ownership of and benefit from that capital needn't only go to a few dozen people. OwlBot 2000 fucked around with this message at 07:08 on Mar 11, 2014 |
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Mar 11, 2014 07:03
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Yiggy posted:Forgive me but I'm not sure which direction you're going with this. To clarify my thinking I'm responding to the notion that power should be wrested from these families because the British gave it to them (please correct me at any point, I'm not going for gotchas or anything). No, not because the British gave it to them, (that would be moralizing) but because it's harmful to India and affords them an undemocratic amount of political control and also gives them resources that could be better spent alleviating the worst poverty in India. quote:There are not really many good ways to address that issue, because while it is in many ways unhappy, it is a valid result of a democratic process. If that is the outcome of a valid democratic process then there's something wrong with the process or its starting conditions; in my opinion the democratic process is in India (as it is elsewhere) very easy to manipulate through control of capital, and these same groups are able to rig democratic processes in their favor. How valid is that?
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Mar 11, 2014 07:22
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ronya posted:These are especially relevant because naively redistributive policy can trap developing countries in a terrible situation. Take land reform, the eternal hobgoblin of the third-world socialist party. Land reform is not, in itself, bad: Taiwan and South Korea both did it, to great effect. However, land redistribution creates a large class of small farmers. This is undesirable for crafting a political coalition when the eventual industrialization involves eliminating almost all small farmers and replacing them with, once again, large-scale industrial agriculture by a handful of concentrated owners, with small farms only contributing boutique crops (with the main difference being that most of the population should no longer be farmers). The main reasons to carry out land redistribution nonetheless is to (1) create savings in the short term that can be used to fund industrialization, and (2) avoid famine in the short term. That is to say, the land reform must be conducted in the knowledge that, ultimately, the eventual goal will roll back the land reform and re-consolidate land ownership. If you empower too many small farmers in a system that conditions their voice on remaining small farmers, they will oppose any continued industrialization. Then you're stuck. No disagreements here; you'll remember I proposed something in completely the opposite direction, an intensive pro-urban, pro-industrial program, State Capitalism (attracting foreign growth if anything), and addressing the major poverty problems. I think land-reform in India wouldn't get you very far. Yiggy posted:but if your solution is just redistribution you are naive to certain realities of Indian history and cultural life. Not mere redistribution, and it's not naive if you're of the opinion that cultural mores and attitudes are largely products of economic realities and express themselves differently depending upon material circumstances. OwlBot 2000 fucked around with this message at 07:39 on Mar 11, 2014 |
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Mar 11, 2014 07:36
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ronya posted:Then I refer you to the problems I noted on page 1. I'm not even super enthusiastic about the importance of workers democracy in India right now, given how dire the situation is. Good-old fashioned State Capitalism would do the trick well enough. But once again, whither corruption? Are certain cultures just naturally corrupt, or is there something else which can encourage people to be more or less corrupt?
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Mar 11, 2014 08:12
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computer parts posted:Which is why after the collapse of the Soviet Union everyone remained atheists instead of immediately converting to Russian Orthodox Christianity. Actually many, many, many did. Church attendance is about 3-4% by some estimates, but of course the shock therapy eroding all social life and economic collapse makes nationalism in the guise of religion common. And even though Hoxha was only around for a generation, Albania has the highest numbers of Muslims calling religion 'not important'. Note: the way in which they did this was unconscionable. "Today, Gallup Global Reports 2010 shows that religion plays a role in the lives of only 39% of Albanians, and ranks Albania the thirteenth least religious country in the world". Tatum Girlparts posted:Seriously all this 'well what if we remove power from the landlord class' won't actually DO anything. The problem is India is pretty much universally gripped by several social systems that are just objectively backwards and regressive. Those are what need to be fixed and some magic not-dictator can't actually make those changes. Agreed on the first part, and that's part of what I meant by "forcible secularization" though I really should have said de-feudalization and de-tribalization. Any institutions which work to oppress women in those ways need to be dismantled, and there's some precedence for this in Burkina Faso under Sankara. "Improving women's status was one of Sankara's explicit goals, and his government included a large number of women, an unprecedented policy priority in West Africa. His government banned female genital mutilation, forced marriages and polygamy; while appointing females to high governmental positions and encouraging them to work outside the home and stay in school even if pregnant. Sankara also promoted contraception and encouraged husbands to go to market and prepare meals to experience for themselves the conditions faced by women. Furthermore, Sankara was the first African leader to appoint women to major cabinet positions and to recruit them actively for the military." .... "The government suppressed many of the powers held by tribal chiefs such as their right to receive tribute payment and obligatory labour" OwlBot 2000 fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Mar 11, 2014 |
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Mar 11, 2014 20:30
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Tatum Girlparts posted:There are some cultures that are objectively wrong. A culture where a woman has decent odds of being raped as punishment if she reports a rape is most likely one of those. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a way to agree with this without being accused of White Man's Burden-ism (which is of course not a charge levied at anyone who wants to give medical technology to African nations) because it involved "cultural issues" -- but cultural and women's rights issues are no less serious, and are just as much a product of past colonialism and current capital ownership patterns as third-world poverty is. I define Imperialism in such a way that it requires some kind of economic or military benefit for the occupying nation, so I don't think that simply encouraging the abandonment and/or obliteration of certain social problems would even qualify as Imperialism from a Left perspective. OwlBot 2000 fucked around with this message at 01:30 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 01:28
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Doc Neutral posted:I think the problem is that what you're going for is that part of the culture that is misogynistic or perpetrates misgyny like for the example the analogue you made with a female sexual assualt victim seeking help while I think the notion he was going for that the culture as whole(everything from history, language, cuisine etc.) can't collectively be decided as being inferior, no one here is arguing that the misogyno perpetrated in that specific culture is somehow better than a more equal culture. Obviously we can't change history, and there's no reason I can think of to change cuisine or even language (except in some very rural areas) so it's pretty clear people are talking about backwards religious and cultural practices with respect to women's position in society when they say there's problems with Indian culture. Doc Neutral posted:Indeed and it isn't so much who is better but who's less worse in that regard. Of course, and almost everyone here sees cases like Steubenville and realizes that "Western" culture has a long way to go, and India's problems aren't an excuse for our own. But this thread is about the specific mix of problems that hold India back.
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Mar 12, 2014 02:11
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computer parts posted:Anti-vaccination is popular in some parts of this country, would you say American culture endorses it? I think it's a very fringe viewpoint here and doesn't make a large impact in most cases, not that it shouldn't be addressed. According to this survey it looks as though only 39% of Indian women think real changes need to be made to address gender equality issues -- most think everything is as it should be. Keep in mind that the poll in India was "disproportionately urban" so I don't relish the thought of what people in the countryside have to say.  Look how well even China is doing by comparison, despite its litany of well known problems. India is Africa-tier when it comes to this stuff. OwlBot 2000 fucked around with this message at 04:12 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 04:06
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ronya posted:Traditional family structures do not propagate themselves because their proponents are simply waiting for a Westerner to peel the scales off their eyes through sufficiently progressive Bollywood movies, they propagate themselves because the senior members of the family must pass it on to the next generation or lose everything Which is why the economic structure must be changed so that they have other options for themselves and their children, because simply removing the family structure and not replacing it with anything leaves them in no better position; similarly just addressing economic issues will not in the short term fix the social ones (though I think it would over three or four generations). I can see an argument for creating a good social safety net, resources for women, and better housing and healthcare guarantees before conducting an all-out assault on "traditional values" as they relate to women's empowerment so they aren't left high and dry when the backlash from their parents, husbands, and religious leaders occurs -- they will absolutely fight back when losing influence, as the Soviets saw in Afghanistan. OwlBot 2000 fucked around with this message at 04:34 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 04:31
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Wanamingo posted:Yeah, I'd agree with that. Likewise, and I think everyone who wants change in India would also support addressing the vaccine. Personally I'd suppress any and all anti-vaccination literature as threats to public health and make vaccinations mandatory, regardless of parental consent, but that's just me.
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Mar 12, 2014 04:41
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ronya posted:They're not inherent to the culture, they will re-emerge promptly whenever the material conditions reappear. It's not something you can 'fix' by spamming them with Westernized media and values. This is easy to see with the Eastern Bloc; as soon as social welfare collapsed, privatization took over, and a new culture of cutthroat competition emerged people started reverting to some very ugly practices and ideas. There's also been a very strong negative correlation between superstitious/religious social conservatism and material wealth at least in Europe and East Asia, but we won't know if the trend will continue in Africa, South Asia and the Middle East until they stop being so miserably poor and dysfunctional. You sound like a Marxist here, Ronya, but I guess this is just well supported from every angle.
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Mar 12, 2014 05:17
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Sounding like a broken record here, but aggressively attracting manufacturing and IT services, lowering wages but making up for it with food, housing, education and medical subsidies. That way you'd both raise the level of capital within India while also improving living standards.
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Mar 12, 2014 05:24
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ronya posted:And how do you propose to subordinate every village, every panchayat to the Westernized secular way of life in the cities, given that - this being India instead of the West - the rural villagers outnumber you? And have the national populist mythos of the Gandhian revolution and the self-determining sovereign village behind them? Lots of leaders have handled similar situations, though they often needed to be harsh when the situation called for it. And the rural population won't outnumber the urban for much longer.
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Mar 12, 2014 05:25
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FizFashizzle posted:All the big software/accounting firms are already looking to move away from India as well. But, but markets and free trade must bring things up, up, up no matter what! ronya posted:Seriously. Try it in another federated, decentralized, populist society close to home. America, say. How do you think that advocating that the great cities of the Eastern and Western seaboards should dictate public morality and family law in conservativesville would be received? Cursorily we could say that popular election of sheriffs and prosecutors and judges was always dumb, and that all of these posts should be filled by central appointment, but do you think this would be easy to implement in America? I'm not joking about Indian Stalin half as much as people think I am. (But with better food management). I'm really not seeing how such a fragmented, incoherent country filled with infighting and rural backwardsness is going to get anywhere otherwise, given the hand it's been dealt over the past few centuries.
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Mar 12, 2014 05:29
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ronya posted:I'll put that in the agenda, below "defeat Naxalite insurgency". At this point wouldn't the reverse be better? Unfortunately they've got too much a focus on small farmers but liberal capitalism seems to have stagnated.
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Mar 12, 2014 05:43
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FizFashizzle posted:Good god no. Those people are monsters, unless you want to replace institutionalized rape with institutionalized blowing up schools and burning people alive. That does sound bad. But I think that's stuff people do when they're losing, not when they've already won.
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Mar 12, 2014 05:46
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Sounds like they're in urgent need of a purge.
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Mar 12, 2014 05:58
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Ardennes posted:So purge all of Indian culture by gunpoint, kill off all the Naxalites, education funding and attaching advanced manufacturing what next? Do all of that while maintaining India's natural environment and adapting to the threats of climate change and peak oil.
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Mar 12, 2014 06:02
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I'm in. Let's hope the right people are reincarnated within a reasonable time frame. So is the consensus that India is 100% broken and not improving absent some really scary and dramatic change, or will it imperceptibly improve over a century or two until they point that all of a sudden, it's a livable place with a future? I'd really like some honest but optimistic perspectives on India. I can't help but compare it, quite unfavorably, to China. China has homogeneity and history going for it, but I think the revolution and strong state control has made it less awful than it would have been otherwise or given a simple independence movement rather than a total reset. OwlBot 2000 fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 06:10
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This is tiredness speaking, but it's very interesting to watch almost every country and culture converge upon urbanization and centralization despite being very different on the surface. Almost makes Hegelian conceptions of history seem plausible. With that often comes greater income inequality, urban poverty, and a corresponding push back from the workers and the poor followed by... ? Edit: but some nations will get more or less 'stuck' without outside help due to material or historical factors.
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Mar 12, 2014 06:27
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I'm speaking more broadly and long-term about the worldwide movement of people to urban centers, and what kind of effect that might have on social pressures and political situations -- especially if accompanied by wage (near) parity across all countries in the distant future. We're seeing hints of this as wages decline in the West and rise slightly elsewhere, but it will be a very slow transition.
OwlBot 2000 fucked around with this message at 06:40 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 06:37
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down with slavery posted:All cultures have things that are "objectively wrong" And there are lots of threads in which those problems are discussed. I don't see why there can't be a thread devoting to talking about India's problems and discussing what impact their culture has or has had on their social ills. I would have loved some replies telling me, "no, it's not all that bad here!" but there's one of that. That tells you India has some very serious problems that merit analysis, beyond any suggestion that we're unfairly singling out one group when "we've got our share of problems, too!"
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Mar 12, 2014 07:44
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down with slavery posted:I disagree and think that you've fell victim to a few too many Facebook forwards. I'm excited to learn more. Tell me where I'm wrong.
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Mar 12, 2014 07:46
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down with slavery posted:You posted a thread called "What should be done about India" when you live in a country that has more than it's own fair share of problems and then proceeded to trumpet your ignorance when called out on it. quote:Really? You want to know where you went wrong? If you wanted to learn about India you should read Wikipedia, not make "fix-em-up" threads in D&D for countries where the most you know is that "nobody has defended India". It's not even that nobody defended India, it's that nobody said my description of India's current problems in the OP was hyperbolic when I intentionally tried to overstate my case. That did not happen in five pages. Aside from my provocative thread title, is there any reason there shouldn't be a discussion of Indian poverty, violence and corruption? down with slavery posted:Also fyi for as much hate as the "caste" system gets in this thread, America basically has the same thing, it just manifests itself in a different way. Humans are capital here too and it can be difficult or impossible to improve your social status due to reasons outside of your control. I've made lots of posts about income inequality and economic mobility in the US. It's not at all the same as a caste system. Am I not allowed to discuss problems in other countries until I solve all of ours?
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Mar 12, 2014 07:55
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Plastic_Gargoyle posted:I doubt Owlbot's ideal government would be in any way transparent, seeing as he seems to think Stalinism is a workable form of governance that could deal with the many and varied problems facing India. I think a similar intensive program of centralization, de-agrarianization and industrial capital formation is exactly what India needs, as well as very strong state to undermine and remove any traditional/religious power structures which negatively impact gender equality. There the similarities to any other leader end.
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Mar 13, 2014 00:31
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