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Comment by edderly | Hacker News Reader

Before the elites in India consider themselves comparable to America, I would hope they address the swingeing poverty and piss poor literacy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_India

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_r...

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I think this is one way in which India is decidedly unAmerican (sorry for borrowing an O'Reillyism). Whereas you or I would gape in horror at the kind of poverty that permeates modern India, most "elite" Indians are quite desensitized to the situation. After all, you don't have much of a choice when you see that sort of thing on a daily basis.

Also, people in India are more likely to take a relative view of things, given that they see things from an historical perspective as well. As it states here[0], the literacy rate last year was 75%, which is an enormous improvement over the 12% at the end of British rule.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_India

I think your comment about elite desensitisation is fascinating: I gape in horror (I'm a north-western european these days) when I'm in San Francisco and people casually walk around people sleeping on the sidewalk near their front doors.

1) Literacy The problem with the 75 % literacy is that many of those uneducated people are old and can not be taught now. The literacy of youth is about 85% which is still bad, but the number is gaining exponentially and should be near American levels in 15 years. That is less than a generation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_India

2) Poverty

India has been free for 65 years. This was after 200 years of Britain stripmining India of its resources. Our politicians were at fault to go into a socialistic cocoon for nearly 45 years before liberating India's potential. And look at progress that has been made in the last 20 years. The poverty has fallen by 10 percentage points, while the population has increased by ~ 30 percentage points.

I don't necessarily agree with the writer's views, it looked more like an anecdote than an actual analysis / story.

But to quote numbers without actually analysing them is just plain bad.

I don't think the "resource strip-mining" probably wasn't that big a factor.

The big problem was, they used "divide and conquer". The British were masters at it - find a minority in a region, and give them guns and military assistance. The minorities can now be relied on to keep the rest of the population under control, and they can't rebel against the British for fear of a reprisal from the majority.

The problem is, it leaves a real mess when the Brits leave.

No, resource strip-mining was a HUGE problem, and was compounded by the fact that India missed the Industrial Revolution at least partially because the British willfully sabotaged Indian attempts to gain technology.

(It was in the interests of the British to force India to sell them raw materials at low prices, feed it to industries in Britan, and sell it back to India as a finished product. In those days, gold was money, and India had a lot of gold.)

I take those literacy and poverty numbers with a grain of salt -- they're manufactured by the govt to make itself look good. While literacy and poverty have both been addressed somewhat, it's a far cry from the official numbers. And frankly I'm worried that the population is growing faster than people are falling out of poverty.

These are issues that aren't going to be addressed overnight, no matter Indian elites wishes for or not. These will take years or even decades to be addressed because of the socio-economic differences here and complex to understand cultural issues. There should be steps taken to rapidize the process and main problem which is preventing it in my opinion is the another big elephant in the room - corruption. But in the same time, I'm really happy with whatever progress we've made from 1980s (when i was born) till now. I grew up with it and live between 2 worlds still. But not everyone had the same opportunity I had and definitely it will take decades to address everyone with the huge population we have. Poverty less or fully literate India is most probably not possible in your or my lifetime.

I agree it's difficult, but how about let us think that it is possible and important? I would hope technology can help, we already see that cell phones throughout some of the poorest parts of the world have become the default form of non-local communication. If we can hook this kind of connectivity to the education system the opportunities are boundless.

Not sure if you're Indian or not. But if you're not, your reply seems mean-spirited and misses the point of the article. And as an American, I want to distance myself from this attitude. Each country has its issues that it is dealing with. It's hardly for the elites on this site to tell the elites in India what to do.

I'm not American. I think it's pretty fair to hold the successful to account for environment in which their success exists.

“A Nation’s Greatness is Measured By How It Treats Its Weakest Members.” Mahatma Gandhi

You seem to imply that none of the "elites" in India have sought to improve the situation with regard to poverty and literacy. This is an unfair position. There may be corruption, apathy and so on, which impede progress along these lines. But there were similar problems in London, New York and Chicago not too long ago (and in American cities there still are such problems). So it would a double standard to say the least to criticize Indians in this connection on one hand and, implicitly, to rest satisfied with one's own government, on the other. If you are criticizing both them and your own society simultaneously (assuming you're not Indian), this hardly provides support for what seems to be your point that Indians aren't doing enough. And India, not being an authoritarian society, cannot simply decree literacy. There is that messy problem of democratic governance.

Everyone on this site should be considered an "elite" for the purposes of this discussion.

I don't imply that there is no charity in India, but I suggest that when the country habors one third of the worlds poor that there is a way to go.

I find your argument strange if you don't recognize the magnitude of India's poverty compared to the U.S. and Western Europe. My beef with the article is that it in no ways recognizes this problem.

India harbors a large percentage of the world's population; it's not surprising that it has many of the world's poor people. That India is poorer than the US and western Europe cannot be denied. I've been there, and I've seen the poverty. But the challenges it's dealing with are huge. And I don't think criticism from the bleachers will do much to improve the situation.

I think you'll find that India still receives foreign aid from 'the bleachers'.

bleachers, n., "Usually, bleachers. a typically roofless section of inexpensive and unreserved seats in tiers, especially at an open-air athletic stadium."

I am a first generation American, my family owned a farm in Gujurat, India. I am grateful to have been molded by two cultures that both value Universal Compassion and Scientific Method. Not all members practice it, but the ideals were passed down at least and the future of both nations will depend upon how seriously they practice their founding ideals.

"Be not afraid, for all great power throughout the history of humanity has been with the people. From out of their ranks have come all the greatest geniuses of the world, and history can only repeat itself. Be not afraid of anything. You will do marvelous work." - Swami Vivekananda, a founding father of modern India

It would be interesting to know what the elites of America would do if it was easy for a poor person to board a flight and land in the US. I guess stop them at the door by not allowing visas.

poverty and human suffering is a burden that must be shared by everyone who is aware of it. Americans owe their prosperity to many historic factors, including a near virgin land and colonising a native population, apart from the American spirit.

Having said there is no doubt Indian elites must do more.

Let's not forget the slave trade.

Yes, because if there's two things American elites care deeply about, it's literacy and poverty.

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