Why India can’t escape its neighborhood?

[Honor]

@chinarocks:we will become a permanent member in unsc,because we dont have the word 'can't' in our dictionary

India is still a 2nd league power! Until she reaches the P5 level then she's able to command that respect to be admitted.

India always say "will". We heard many times you guys say that!

 

[Kambojaric]

When a country starts performing well, its people feel good about themselves and become more nationalistic. This is a fact. And when reach some point of development, the nationalistic feeling tones down. I am sure the Chinese have grown more nationalistic with their growth much before us. If their forums were in English we would know better. That said, I wish Indians are more modest and we will become when we reach where China is today.

The topic here is about India and its unstable neighbors and not about China. Wish people do not drag China into this.

Or it can be the other way around e.g. the popularity rise of the Nazis in Germany. Initially in 20s under the reasonable rule of the Wiemar republic (especially Stresseman) the Nazi party was a small, insignificant party drawing supporters mainly from Bavaria. Come then the financial crises and wall street crash and boom, all of a sudden Nazi popularity soars to such an extent that by the early 30s they are strongest party in the whole of Germany.

Or you dont need to go back so much, just look at the current financial crises and see how the popularity of right wing groups is rising (BNP in UK, Wilder guy in Netherlands, Sweden just got its first right wing nationalist party in Parliment this year)

So basically to say that nationalist feelings rise when a nation is doing good is flawed. It will especially rise when a nation is doing badly because then it needs some other outsider to blame its problems on (e.g. immigrants in Europe nowadays)

 

[jayron]

Or it can be the other way around e.g. the popularity rise of the Nazis in Germany. Initially in 20s under the reasonable rule of the Wiemar republic (especially Stresseman) the Nazi party was a small, insignificant party drawing supporters mainly from Bavaria. Come then the financial crises and wall street crash and boom, all of a sudden Nazi popularity soars to such an extent that by the early 30s they are strongest party in the whole of Germany.

Or you dont need to go back so much, just look at the current financial crises and see how the popularity of right wing groups is rising (BNP in UK, Wilder guy in Netherlands, Sweden just got its first right wing nationalist party in Parliment this year)

So basically to say that nationalist feelings rise when a nation is doing good is flawed. It will especially rise when a nation is doing badly because then it needs some other outsider to blame its problems on (e.g. immigrants in Europe nowadays)

I am not talking about the feeling of desperation and anger that Pakistanis have towards their government Due to the problems faced by the country but the pride and even arrogance at times by Indians because their country is doing well.

 

[Jade]

India is still a 2nd league power! Until she reaches the P5 level then she's able to command that respect to be admitted.

India always say "will". We heard many times you guys say that!

What do you mean by "P5 level"?

 

[jayron]

China is more nationalist in the 70s. However, we are more confidence when we prosper.

Yeah tell me about it! I have seen some videos of cultural revolution there and it looked crazy. India was the worst place to be during the 70's. We had around 2% growth and the rigid socialistic policy was hindering growth.

 

[SMC]

Typical Indian Arrogant Attitude.Thinking of themselves as a country without any problem while they have more poor people then whole Africa poor's combined.

That's absolutely true. In the last 10 odd years or so, so many Indian have some deluded themselves into thinking that 10 years of growth has made their problems gone away or substantially decrease. All they take about is the urban India. They act like Pakistan is some Somalia-like country where India has reached the level of countries with per capita GDP of around 20,000, when the reality is that their GDP per capita is only slightly higher than that of Pakistan.. Here's a good article on this.


A reality check for India's middle class


The Delhi Games fiasco is a long-overdue reminder of the country's true state.

THE delusional and self-satisfied antics of the Indian middle class have been brutally ripped apart and exposed - like some of the Games facilities - by the farce of the Commonwealth Games being played out in the Indian capital. It's been a curious derangement. Reasonably educated and moderately affluent people confused wishful thinking with reality as though merely wishing for something was sufficient to bring it about.

For years, the dinner-table talk in middle-class homes has been of India's new image in the world, its rightful desire to play a bigger role on the world stage, and its legitimate aspiration for a seat on the United Nations Security Council. Fantastic rates of economic growth and a new prosperity, so the smug talk went, had finally laid to rest the old painful images of India's immemorial poverty.

Seduced by their new gleaming shopping malls, mobile phones, plasma TVs, trendy wine bars and luxury cars, the middle class smirked at having abolished the memory of those monstrously hateful words of V. S. Naipaul in Area of Darkness: "Indians defecate everywhere. They defecate, mostly, beside the railway tracks. They defecate on the beaches; they defecate on the hills; they defecate on the river banks; they defecate on the streets … The truth is that Indians do not see these squatters and might even, with complete sincerity, deny that they exist.''

What the Indian middle class has been busy denying for a decade is the reality of India's poverty: that 830 million Indians make less than 20 rupees (A50&#162 a day; that if you drive 30 minutes outside the big cities, you confront living conditions in the villages that are almost mediaeval; and that while the scourge of starvation may no longer haunt India, millions, including 2000 to 3000 children every day, die a slow death from malnutrition.

Indian statistics on health, infant mortality, malnutrition and income are worse than those for sub-Saharan Africa. Indians lack basic necessities - clean homes, clean drinking water, toilets, medicines.

The rich, who travel first class, have to pick their way through families sleeping on the ground and, from the train, they can see slum dwellers relieving themselves on the tracks because they have nowhere else to go.

Yes, some Indians had convinced themselves that, in the popular slogan, India was ''shining''. Merely because the economy was booming and the stockmarket soaring, the country was poised on the threshold of superpowerdom.

It was these delusional fantasies that made the middle class think its bumbling ''babus'' (bureaucrats) and corrupt politicians could organise a successful international sports event.

Again, they ignored the reality around them. Every day, the same Indians visit government offices where they see the same squalid sight: rooms that have not been painted for a decade, where the walls are splattered with the dirty orange-brown stains left by the ''paan'' (betel nut) spat out by its masticators, ******* furniture, leaking taps, dirty windows, dust, and fetid toilets with wet floors where the stink makes you gag.

What made them think the same men and women who live and work in such conditions possessed the standards and project managements skills necessary to create world class structures and organise a sports event of the magnitude of the Commonwealth Games? A ludicrous sense of superiority.

It was the same superiority complex that had some Indians frothing at the mouth at Slumdog Millionaire's success. "Why does the West have to show our slums?" they harrumphed, as though India's slums, where millions live out their entire lives without a shred of dignity or comfort, were a thing of the past.

The men in charge of the Games - Organising Committee secretary-general Lalit Bhanot and chairman Suresh Kalmadi - display the same self-satisfaction. In an interview a year ago with Bhanot in his office, I was appalled at the hubris oozing from every pore as I asked him about the country's preparedness.

His body language and the expression on his face were that of a feudal lord who could not be questioned.

Kalmadi is no better. Various countries offered him their expertise in arranging the Games but he flicked the offers aside contemptuously, despite the fact that the last time India arranged such a gigantic event was the Asian Games in 1982. No, thank you, we Indians are far too clever to need any help.

It sounds mean, but there is a touch of divine justice in the shame felt by many middle class Indians over the Games fiasco. When they were prospering and leaving their fellow citizens far behind, they never spared a thought for them and their daily humiliations.

Nor did they ever spare a thought for the rural labourers who slaved in the searing heat to build the stadiums, bridges, flyovers, and Games village to make middle class Indians proud, while living themselves in tents next to sewers infested with mosquitoes. Now they know the sting of humiliation.

Amrit Dhillon is a Dehli-based freelance writer.

A reality check for India's middle class

 

[ajay26]

does it really matter who refused ? the point is india still not on the un 5 members security coucil

Because your talking rubbish no1 has refused India a seat, many countries have backed India's seat in P5 but these things are not easy to obtain don't forget many other nations like Brazil, Japan and I feel at least one African nation like South Africa also want a seat in P5 so the whole body must be reformed and it will take time for this to happen.

Yes China is not India, China is miles ahead in terms of its economy GDP and its FR holdings but Indian stock market over the last 12 months had performed better and more investors are saying India has better potential to make money compared to China. Do not forget India started dismantling its licence Raj in 1991 compared to the economic reforms in the early 80's in China, so there was a headstart but now India is for the first time in many years set to overtake China and become the fastest growing economy in the world which is a great achievment but India still has a long way to go it must improve it's social and physical infrastructure to mirror China in the future.