I am an Indian and I have noticed that Indians are way too proud of their country for some reason and at the same time lack any civic sense towards it, they are extremely loud and extremely proud. We feel like the world revolves around India and our culture is superior to that of others. Also, a considerable chunk of the population has been sold the “India is a world-leader” myth and they think India is somehow leading the world in innovation, science and technology, human development etc.,
Now, I know for a fact that this is not true, when I try to gauge the perception of Indians abroad on Twitter, I get pretty negative results, but Twitter has nothing good to say about any group of people, so… I kinda wanted to know what you people though of India, don’t base it upon the etnic Indians who might be your friends and are decent people, but base it upon the news you read, the stories you hear from those Indians, etc.
I really respect the area of Kerala and its commitment to their public. Very robust educational system, healthcare, and a focus on access to clean water. That’s just from stuff I’ve seen and read though, I’ve never been to India, I’m American.
I hope the best for India’s future, but it seems worrying from what I hear. I would hope for greater collaboration with China and an easing of tensions with Pakistan. India is a massively diverse place though, with multiple languages and even multiple writing scripts, so sometimes it’s amazing it’s a functional country at all.
Most of what I hear though is about India dominated by very right wing movements, but there’s a strong history of Indian working class movements as well. I’ll try to be optimistic about the future.
To be fair, every country believes their culture is superior in some way, partly because it’s beneficial for governments to instil a sense of nationalism in its citizens. India’s not alone in that.
I agree, but we have crossed a limit between self-love and self-obsession. It’s hindering progress because people in India are not even ready to acknowledge what’s wrong with our priorities, culture and way of living and are calling anyone who questions their way of life anti-national. Sometimes, it feels like I am living in Eritrea or something!
You see that everywhere. Even within countries that aren’t classed as developing nations. The UK massively shot itself in the foot with the disaster that was Brexit thanks to nationalistic propaganda and outright lies from campaigners, and US liberals have faced “anti-American” backlash for their views.
I can attest to that. I was born and brought up in India, and right now in the US for education. It’s kind of the same here as well, just expressed differently due to cultural differences. The fact that the US is actually the world leader at this time makes these people much more dangerous imo.
In any case, I’m more hopeful about my country after the last election. They seem to be rejecting religious fundamentalism to some degree. It’ll take time, but I think we’re finally starting to see through BJP’s lies. I hope I can go back to India soon enough. (It’s hard to get good jobs in my field there at the moment. Counting on it changing at some point.)
I’ve been working with many Indians remotely who were in India and on site in Sweden and Germany. None of them ever said anything like you describe, most of them were very humble and hard working. Sadly often they would just keep their head down and work into the wrong direction sometimes for a long time not reaching out to others.
But if I’m honest, the people from India were as diverse as any other group of people. From very religious from small villages to atheists from rich families. The division between them was bigger then between them as a individual and me a European. They didn’t even speak the same language and had to use English.
The things that come to my mind are
-The country has a set goal to improve in tech industry, aiming to rival big countries like China.
-The people definetly know their spices. While they use it a bit too much at times, it certainly works well.
-The country is overpopulated, leading to talented people having harder time to succeed.
-If you’re watching an Indian man’s tutorial on any topic, you can assume it’ll work well.
-It has a noticable split in religious beliefs.
-fuck the remote scammers operating from Kolkata. The people in India also hate these people.
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Can second the comment about tutorials. It’s amazing how your very very specific problem has a great tutorial, with the worst possible audio, that is perfectly solved by some random dude in his bedroom in India.
Can second the comment about tutorials. It’s amazing how your very very specific problem has a great tutorial, with the worst possible audio, that is perfectly solved by some random dude in his bedroom in India.
My general impression is that India are really good at scientific innovation and so on but only because the incredible inequality allows India to channel its resources so that it can be on par with other countries a fraction it’s size.
If they did the work required to lift the poor regions out of poverty, and sometimes just straight up feudalism, the country would become a proper superpower with far reaching cultural impact but right now India seem to slide further into Hindu nationalism so now it’s more of a worry for everyone else if India became another dictatorship like china.
- Biggest democracy in the world
- Wouldn’t consider it a world leader, to me it often seems more like they refuse to take a clear stance in world affairs, so they can continue positive relations with authoritarian countries like Russia
- Rapid development, but still a lot of extreme poverty and inequality
- Chaotic cities
- Great food, especially for vegetarians like me
- Religious extremism/conflicts seem prevalent
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Well, it’s not like you’re willing to cut ties with the West and align yourself with Russia either. Instead you’re trying to thread the middle ground by keeping your head down and keeping up trade with both. You’re not taking a stance, which is exactly why you’re not a political world leader.
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It’s pretty telling that you think these pictures would be triggering to me. I’m not a nationalist, I have no problem saying that the nazi regime was horrifying. I have no issue saying that the current government unconditionally supporting Israel is a bad thing either. I’d never pretend the place I live in is the best place ever, or morally superior. Can you do the same?
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We were saved by Russia’s intel.
No, you were saved by a Soviet intervention, led at that time by a Ukrainian man, by ships mostly made by Ukrainians.
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In 1971? I’m pretty sure it was the Soviet Union buddy, and Leonid Brezhnev was from Kamianske, Ukraine. As was a majority of Soviet cold war equipment.
I know that doesn’t fit your political preferences and deep seated need to excuse genocide, but facts don’t care about your feelings.
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You are the people comfortable about genocide of Russians and Ukrainians so you could continue to live a more lavish lifestyle in West.
I am very much not comfortable with the fact that Russia is mass deporting Ukrainians and taking their children.
India and China have similar stances on matters, as does Russia, to the point India and China are the only countries in the world to sign a pact of not using nukes first. Why do western nations never sign that pact? 1945 Japan vibes?
Not only has Russia not signed it, Russia is actively using chemical weapons right now, despite numerous treaties about it.
Russia also signed a treaty to leave Ukraine alone if it gave up it’s nuclear weapons, and look how they are respecting it.
Brezhnev was a leader in Russia, not Ukraine. His place of birth does not matter.
Oh boy. You really really need a course in history if you think all the parts were treated the same. It mattered a LOT.
How manipulative do you have to be to claim Soviet Union and Russia (core of USSR) are not the same,
Despite Russia’s best efforts, and post cold-war propaganda, they really aren’t. I think the continued fall from Soviet superpower into Russianpetro-olicharchy should be a big hint.
But, as with most people like you, it’s protection all the way down
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This thread is not the place for it.
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anti-communist propaganda about Russia
Anti-Communist? Russia has been a capitalist country since 1989, they’re not even claiming to be communist.
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United Russia is the ruling party since the fall of USSR and is absolutely conservative by any definition of the term. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation, their main political opponent, that is indeed communist, hasn’t been elected, ever.
The communist party of Russia is a minority party in opposition, it’s not governing at all. That’s United Russia, which holds over 70% of the seats of parliament. United Russia is not communist. You’re very confidently incorrect here.
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All of this is IMHO so keep that in mind.
Politically it’s pretty extremist from what I can tell. Not just that but support for that extreme political stance is also rather high. Neithe of which is a good thing in my book. Other news I get to know about also tend to paint a pretty grim picture when it comes to human rights, rich/ poor divide and acceptance of people who have different preferences. I also mostly remember having met people how you described in the opening.
To say how it is, my opinion is not exactly good. Primarily because of how they act a d their political choices. Though I chalk some of that up to a lack of education. And it’s also not so bad that I’d rather not deal with them. Just that I have a healthy dose of " oh no, not one of those guys again. This will get exhausting, isn’t it" whenever I see someone that fits the description.
bunch of daredevils that can somehow cross roads WHILE CARS ARE SPEEDING BY in expert fashion
I just show hand LOL. Also we never use Zebra Crossing
I feel called out!
LoL
My basic view of India is of a super diverse country with a fascinating history and cultures, and really great food. Politically I see a country that unfortunately is leaning in a more authoritarian direction as time goes one, and one that is getting increasingly unequal to its inhabitants. I really think India has so much potential but little will to actually improve.
Honestly, off the top of my head I often like the people who come to England but as far as the country itself I don’t really think about it much. First thoughts are that it’s a massive country that’s heavily polluted and kinda obsessed with making money without much care for how they do it, such as how much of the world is making sacrifices to stop buying gas from Russia but India’s just undermining their good intentions for profit. I think if Pakistan invaded they’d expect the whole world to rally around them.
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How did you come to the conclusion that Ukraine is affiliated with national socialism?
That’s been a common Russian talking point since the beginning of the invasion.
It was a talking point long before that, e.g. the 2018 article I posted
for good reason, there are people who (do support/and are) the Nazis . Hey, I know the attack on Ukraine was unjust, but you can’t ignore this
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First thoughts are that it’s a massive country that’s heavily polluted and kinda obsessed with making money without much care for how they do it
This is just business in general; it’s not peculiar to one nation.
such as how much of the world is making sacrifices to stop buying gas from Russia but India’s just undermining their good intentions for profit.
Why do you think the few countries that are stopping buying Russian gas are doing it? Coz it sounds like you’re saying they’re doing it out of moral reasons, which isn’t very plausible.
such as how much of the world is making sacrifices to stop buying gas from Russia but India’s just undermining their good intentions for profit
I might disagree with most things this government does, but I can’t deny the fact that’s something overwhelmingly popular with Indians (including me)
We literally have people suffering from malnutrition in this country, people who still die of hunger, you can’t expect us to not buy cheap oil from Russia. Sorry, we will buy oil from everyplace where it is cheap, we can alleviate suffering of our own people by money and we will try to do it as best as we can.
I really like the food, movies and most people I’ve met from India are extremely nice.
What I don’t like is the huge inequality, treatment of women and the lack of hygiene in the big cities.
It’s definitely a country that has been on it’s way up for a while now, things could be really good for India in the future.
I am myself Indian
I think most Indians don’t realise how large and diverse India is. Most Indians underestimate how foreign parts of thier own country are in terms of economy, culture, language, food etc.
At a risk of downvote oblivion, this is what comes to mind to me. Keep in mind that this is just what I perceive about India through all the media I’ve consumed so it can come across as a bit prejudiced. I’m sure there’s more nuance.
The good:
- Amazing food, rich culture
- Seemingly big into tech.
- Very colorful.
- People seem generally friendly.
The bad:
- So. Insanely. Chaotic.
- Basic sanitation and infrastructure seem stuck a few decades ago.
- Female emancipation is lacking as far as I can gather.
- A lot of inequality in general.
- The weather seems like hell to me.
- Even though they’re big into tech, it comes across to me that the government and general population is still stuck in the mid 90’s regarding devices (pc’s etc, smartphones excluded).
I feel combining this with @[email protected] likely creates a fairly accurate sense for the place.
India is, well…despite their historical advances in medicine and continued strong cultural fascination with academia, at some point they became nothing but call centers, distribution points, and scam centers. There is certainly more to India, though when I think of hacking, I think of China and Russia. When I think of scams, unfortunately India is top of the list.
Regional power with powerful neighbours, has nuclear weapons, struggles with impacts of climate change, (completely?) electrified railway recently, doesn’t take a stance on the war in Ukraine due to involvement with Russia, farmer’s protests, BJP/Modi won’t step down, religious conflicts.
My country’s media don’t report much about India, but occasionally they do features about specific topics.
- exceptional food
- cheap workforce (the next major factory of world after China is becoming “too expensive” and competitive)
- hinduism
- religious segration
- caste system
- extreme poverty and extreme wealth
- racist towards dark skinned people (also due to caste)
- anti-queer
- lots of potential, but also among world leaders in corruption
- hot
- noisy, polluted cities
- very influenced by external forces
I’d like to visit, but Thailand, Vietnam, Bali, and Japan look more enticing.
Vietnam is wonderful. You also poop directly onto the train tracks in Vietnam (someone else commented about that), but somehow it’s much cleaner than I imagine India is (though I’ve never been to India).
South East Asia is an awesome place to travel. Highly recommend Thailand.
