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Who said India is a super power?

I can't figure out the multi-quote feature as yet, so I will just respond the old fashioned way...

When you will have added to the multi-quote by selecting a section by clicking on the "Quote" button you will be able to insert that section from a list that will appears just below the edit box through clicking a button called "Insert quotes". In that list you can also adjust the ordering of the quotes you want to add by dragging the dashes button up or down.

@jamahir - This rot is what the present dispensation keeps talking about when asked about their own performance. For me as far as politics goes, 'the more things change, the more they remain the same'

Well, if the founders of the country, reasonably sensible though most were, had adopted Socialism in full and aimed for Communism at some point, India by now would have been an evolved country politically, socio-economically and with technology being in harmony with society and things like an Indian base on Mars by now.
 
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It doesn't matter. It was the headline news on your largest newspaper, and your countrymen repeated it day after day.
Fair enough. I have never denied this narrative exists. Media is complicit and I consider the current bunch to be totally sold out. So it does not surprise me if they participate.

My post is not so much about the existence of this belief, but the magnitude. Indians visible on social media are by default going to be opinionated. Indians on PDF or on forums where content critical of India exists, will by default attract the reactionary kind of Indian. This is not a representative sample because it is not randomly picked. The countrymen who 'repeated it day after day' are picked from the same type of sample. My view is based on ground realities and I interact with a wide cross section of Indians living in India
 
Fair enough. I have never denied this narrative exists. Media is complicit and I consider the current bunch to be totally sold out. So it does not surprise me if they participate.

My post is not so much about the existence of this belief, but the magnitude. Indians visible on social media are by default going to be opinionated. Indians on PDF or on forums where content critical of India exists, will by default attract the reactionary kind of Indian. This is not a representative sample because it is not randomly picked. The countrymen who 'repeated it day after day' are picked from the same type of sample. My view is based on ground realities and I interact with a wide cross section of Indians living in India


Good point. So you answered your own question already for that you created this thread.
 
I can't figure out the multi-quote feature as yet, so I will just respond the old fashioned way...

@jamahir - This rot is what the present dispensation keeps talking about when asked about their own performance. For me as far as politics goes, 'the more things change, the more they remain the same'

@Areesh , @Dungeness - Dr Kalam was an old school romanticist and I respect him hugely. His comment was probably motivational considering that he was addressing students. He was also mainly a science man and probably viewed achievements from that perspective.

@Cookie Monster - This is why I qualified my post with 'face-to-face' and 'online Indians'. Always good to have an escape route :)
"Face to face" vs "online" debate...
...well 2 things come to mind.

1) with "face to face" u r limiting ur exposure...and basically relying on anecdotal evidence. How many ppl can u hope to meet? Even if a few thousand...that's a very tiny fraction of India's population. So whatever it is u r trying to gauge...u end up with a very small sample size...and may even introduce a bias.
...a bias like for example if u r studying in some university in Bangalore...most likely ppl u will be meeting...they will either be students...or professors..etc. This group will have a very different way of thinking as compared to a farmer in Assam.

2) with "online" u get a much larger and varied sample size. However a kind of downside there is that with anonymity over the internet ppl have a very different way of carrying/expressing themselves...something they might not say in person to someone's face...they have no qualms expressing it online. Though it is not necessarily a downside...one could say it means more honesty...where a person might filter himself/herself in real life...online they speak truly what they believe.

In any case...I'm not too interested in this debate. I just popped in for some fun...bcuz let's face it...this thread is a bit amusing.
 
Just search "India superpower" on YouTube. All of those videos irrespective of the nationality of the uploader has a target audience... The Internet Indian. The word superpower for some reason has embedded itself in to the Indian psyche. Whenever they believe they are excelling in a certain field, they think they have become a superpower in that field

Here of all the video titles BBC could have chosen, they chose this:
 
nobody says this accept in PDF.
we are what we are
ancient civilisation with a fast growing economy expected to be the 3rd largest universally by 2035 or even before
with it will.come military might and political influence
culturally we are already a super power
You were economic power under Muslims for 1100 then you were slaved by Brits lol 😂
 
nobody says this accept in PDF.
we are what we are
ancient civilisation with a fast growing economy expected to be the 3rd largest universally by 2035 or even before
with it will.come military might and political influence
culturally we are already a super power
JUST AS WELL that the first 5 REGIMENTS of the S400 are arriving in Nov/Dec ie about 6 weeks time
JUST as well that these babys have arrived
View attachment 784713

And that india has deployed more of these

Air Power Asia – Everything Aviation & Military

ITS NOT QUITE THE DESPERATION you are trying to predict
India is a regional Super power with very strong capable military by any standards
No such thing as regional super power
either regional power or super power

but the constant need to put super power next to your beloved shows the reality
 
nobody says this accept in PDF.
we are what we are
ancient civilisation with a fast growing economy expected to be the 3rd largest universally by 2035 or even before
with it will.come military might and political influence
culturally we are already a super power

ranking 101 in global hunger index, 30 place behind Burma, which has years of unrest and western sanctions, supa powa?

culturally aleady a supa powa? :rofl: what a moron, lying cheating honorless Indians, culture supa powa?
 
Ok, the title may be click-baitish, but this is not a rhetorical question. It is a real question, in the sense that I am enquiring, when and by whom did India start being called a 'superpower'. The use of this word in the Indian context generates a range of emotions - ridicule, sarcasm, surprise, pride and bravado.

In my entire existence I have never interacted with an Indian (face to face) who has said that we are a superpower. Online Indians are a different category and I believe they feel compelled to defend a narrative that has been strung around their neck. Back in my teens and early 20s, only the US and Soviet Union were considered superpowers. Somewhere in the early 2000s, international publications and think tanks started using this word for China and India by adding the prefix 'emerging' to it.

Initially for me, the image of a super power was purely based on military aspects. I would imagine huge ballistic missiles, bombers, destroyers and heavily armed soldiers when I thought of super power. Therefore even when the Soviet Union collapsed, I considered Russia to be a super power. When I started reading in magazines that India is an emerging super power, I thought they were being very generous and even patronizing, a typical exoticization of the poor. Nothing around me in the real world suggested that we are remotely close to being a super power even in the next 40 years. Even right wing Hindus were not peddling this narrative.

Meanwhile a collection of entities - credit rating agencies, investment advisory firms, business consultants, writers and media houses started focusing their attention to the east, and this word acquired common usage. Some Indians started believing this hype but were outwardly more realistic and continued to be critical of the slow pace of reforms and decision making. It was when social media became a monster that this delusion started compounding, both organically and by design. Super power became a casual, all-encompassing word, just like 'awesome' and 'amazing' are used to describe pretty much everything.

Even Indian politicians do not use the word super power for India. It may be uttered in their presence, for example when a gora chief guest at a conference after being garlanded and lighting diyas will describe India as a super power in his/her inaugural address, and some neta will clap and acknowledge the compliment. People living in the rural areas, who constitute about two-thirds of the population aren't even aware of the concept, let alone understand the word. Now you will say that it is not people in the rural areas who construct narratives. This is true and precisely my point.

Super power is not a technical or official word, like say, credit rating. It does not automatically attract investment or scare your neighbours into submission. The reality is what it is. Business people are aware of it, so are politicians. So why are so many Indians claiming they are a super power? Or are they? Or is it just a bait being thrown at them to draw them into a fight?

Non-Indians on the forum will be surprised that the average person in India does not care for the super power tag even remotely. There is perhaps some truth in the argument that there is an over compensation for the years of underestimation that Indians have been prone to about themselves, and with some people this manifests in an unrealistic way. Right wing Hindus will say that this underestimation was a deliberate strategy by the Congress to nurture a 'maai-baap' culture and they are only doing a recalibration. The problem is that for some people this recalibration has no limits and has become an escapist fantasy.

For manipulators this works well, because by declaring India as a super power, they have created a 'single window clearance' for all thorny issues. Did we win in Galwan? Of course we did. Why? Superpower. Will Americans come begging to us? Yes they will. Why? Superpower. Did we mismanage Covid crisis? Absolutely not. Why? Superpower. Can we ever make mistakes? You got to be kidding me. Why? Superpower.

To be fair, super power believers can be skeptics too, but it takes so much convincing and evidence to change their opinion that it is at best a lot of hard work, and at worst, not worth it. There are many sitting on the fence types who will turn believers if poked by an outsider and go back to the fence after the skirmish is over. It is also important to realise that people who are on social media regularly are a small minority of the total population, and among them, those who engage with strangers actively in a troll fest are still smaller. One needs to have a sense of proportion of what they are dealing with when they encounter such people.

Personally, I am neither a blind critic nor a bhakt. I am proud of my country and people on many accounts, and not on some. One thing I can say unambiguously is that we have underperformed by a huge margin historically and continue to do so. Some Indians advocate patience on the grounds that 70 years of rot cannot be undone in 5 years. People who advocate this line of thinking are only destined to be disappointed because they believe that government is the solution to everything.
You said it there yourself, it is indeed "just a bait being thrown at them to draw them into a fight"

Indians know better than anyone (duh) what our country is and where it lacks. I recall reading a funny piece on the expression "lag raha hai India mein hai hi nahi"

Gurgaon (now Gurugram lol) ki cyber city ja kar log boltey hain.. "waah, singapore style banaya hai.. lag raha hai India mein hai hi nahi"

Andamans mein "wah, hawaii aa gaye hain.. lag raha hai India mein hai hi nahi"

Some fancy brands showroom area.. "wah, [insert country/city here] jaisa dikhta hai.. lag raha hai India mein hai hi nahi"

you get the point.

Personally I'm yet to have ever met anyone who has these "superpower" delusions about the country, whichever side of the political divide they sit on. A lot many of us are passionate about our politics but there isn't a sense of grandiosity or anything.. politicians will say their things, corporates will make adds trying to cash in on popular national sentiment but the grand truth is that nobody really gives a fvck beyond their own wants and needs being met , wherever on earth they may be, India, Pakistan or Mongolia..whatever

Online is pretty much where this kind of thing gets talked about, people have no filter, they like getting in fights.. "bhadaas nikalo" type of thing. it gets pretty toxic and pretty boring very quickly.

Anywho.. very well written piece there @DrJekyll

It'd be nice everyone could just get along and let the politicians, corporates and militaries of the world do whatever they do, wouldn't it ?

This forum (and the internet in general) can be a real downer sometimes.. wtf kind of glee or pleasure can anyone derive from death ? Oh, so our country's army guys killed 5 of theirs in an arty barrage exchange ? There's nothing to cheer there.

and for sure, government is NEVER the solution but it is a necessary evil, and the current lot governing India aren't half, heck, 1/10th as bad as some people say they are.. which is why they're probably here to stay for at least a few more terms at the centre or...


...at least until we become a superpower. :smokin:
 
nobody says this accept in PDF.
we are what we are
ancient civilisation with a fast growing economy expected to be the 3rd largest universally by 2035 or even before
with it will.come military might and political influence
culturally we are already a super power

You're spot on rami. All 600K google results are from PDF, including this one:

Unntitled.jpg
 
Indian state dictation beyond territory controlled by her colonial army makes India a superpower in the region.
 
I am not denying that there are people who claim this title. But it is nowhere as rampant as it is made out to be.

what happened in last few years? is bubble bursting and reality setting in?
where have all PDF Indian gone in last two years? This forum used to be infested with Indians and now I have to write something really really outrageous so I can find one Indian reply.
 
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Indian state dictation beyond territory controlled by her colonial army makes India a superpower in the region.
Superpowers are overrated anyway. India should now aspire to become a hyperpower
 
Ok, the title may be click-baitish, but this is not a rhetorical question. It is a real question, in the sense that I am enquiring, when and by whom did India start being called a 'superpower'. The use of this word in the Indian context generates a range of emotions - ridicule, sarcasm, surprise, pride and bravado.

In my entire existence I have never interacted with an Indian (face to face) who has said that we are a superpower. Online Indians are a different category and I believe they feel compelled to defend a narrative that has been strung around their neck. Back in my teens and early 20s, only the US and Soviet Union were considered superpowers. Somewhere in the early 2000s, international publications and think tanks started using this word for China and India by adding the prefix 'emerging' to it.

Initially for me, the image of a super power was purely based on military aspects. I would imagine huge ballistic missiles, bombers, destroyers and heavily armed soldiers when I thought of super power. Therefore even when the Soviet Union collapsed, I considered Russia to be a super power. When I started reading in magazines that India is an emerging super power, I thought they were being very generous and even patronizing, a typical exoticization of the poor. Nothing around me in the real world suggested that we are remotely close to being a super power even in the next 40 years. Even right wing Hindus were not peddling this narrative.

Meanwhile a collection of entities - credit rating agencies, investment advisory firms, business consultants, writers and media houses started focusing their attention to the east, and this word acquired common usage. Some Indians started believing this hype but were outwardly more realistic and continued to be critical of the slow pace of reforms and decision making. It was when social media became a monster that this delusion started compounding, both organically and by design. Super power became a casual, all-encompassing word, just like 'awesome' and 'amazing' are used to describe pretty much everything.

Even Indian politicians do not use the word super power for India. It may be uttered in their presence, for example when a gora chief guest at a conference after being garlanded and lighting diyas will describe India as a super power in his/her inaugural address, and some neta will clap and acknowledge the compliment. People living in the rural areas, who constitute about two-thirds of the population aren't even aware of the concept, let alone understand the word. Now you will say that it is not people in the rural areas who construct narratives. This is true and precisely my point.

Super power is not a technical or official word, like say, credit rating. It does not automatically attract investment or scare your neighbours into submission. The reality is what it is. Business people are aware of it, so are politicians. So why are so many Indians claiming they are a super power? Or are they? Or is it just a bait being thrown at them to draw them into a fight?

Non-Indians on the forum will be surprised that the average person in India does not care for the super power tag even remotely. There is perhaps some truth in the argument that there is an over compensation for the years of underestimation that Indians have been prone to about themselves, and with some people this manifests in an unrealistic way. Right wing Hindus will say that this underestimation was a deliberate strategy by the Congress to nurture a 'maai-baap' culture and they are only doing a recalibration. The problem is that for some people this recalibration has no limits and has become an escapist fantasy.

For manipulators this works well, because by declaring India as a super power, they have created a 'single window clearance' for all thorny issues. Did we win in Galwan? Of course we did. Why? Superpower. Will Americans come begging to us? Yes they will. Why? Superpower. Did we mismanage Covid crisis? Absolutely not. Why? Superpower. Can we ever make mistakes? You got to be kidding me. Why? Superpower.

To be fair, super power believers can be skeptics too, but it takes so much convincing and evidence to change their opinion that it is at best a lot of hard work, and at worst, not worth it. There are many sitting on the fence types who will turn believers if poked by an outsider and go back to the fence after the skirmish is over. It is also important to realise that people who are on social media regularly are a small minority of the total population, and among them, those who engage with strangers actively in a troll fest are still smaller. One needs to have a sense of proportion of what they are dealing with when they encounter such people.

Personally, I am neither a blind critic nor a bhakt. I am proud of my country and people on many accounts, and not on some. One thing I can say unambiguously is that we have underperformed by a huge margin historically and continue to do so. Some Indians advocate patience on the grounds that 70 years of rot cannot be undone in 5 years. People who advocate this line of thinking are only destined to be disappointed because they believe that government is the solution to everything.

all pdf Indians except a few

just look above posts, endia already a supa powa culturally, claimed by ur fellow Indian :rofl:

But Indeed, supa powa in rape and hunger
 

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