The unique problem with India is that, a decade ago, it had a small but highly educated, privileged urban population, spread across a handful of cities, who are the most vocal in national media and social media. This was the situation when SV companies made inroads to India.
Then came the mobile revolution and the availability of smartphones coupled with dead cheap internet. The rural population jumped on the bandwagon. Then social media saw a lot of voices being raised against perceived in-sensitivity of liberals (I too agree that there is a disproportionate bias in news, towards one political leaning) or portrayal of India in international arena.
This is when SV started complaining.
And when the population speaks against SM, the elected representatives will act.
Take the most recent case of raids against Twitter. Twitter did a major mistake by labeling a piece of content "mis-information", while there was an active investigation was underway by the highest investigative authority in India on the same content. That is blatantly illegal. It should have said something like "these facts are being investigated" or something like that.
When an investigation is going on, media is not supposed to pass judgements. Twitter fumbled and India govt. took the opportunity.
Now you have Twitter agreeing, in writing, that it will follow the law of the land.
Silicon Valley is pushing limits. India, as a developing country with a mass of gullible rural population and culturally sensitive to perceived dominance of foreign culture, has ample number of politicians who will make use of every opportunity to gather followers.
I tend to agree. I've worked in SV a long time, and a majority of non-US-born coworkers remain Indian. I see no evidence of this changing, so I find it implausible that slate has it's finger on the pulse of tech and is detecting a weakening of the role of Indian programmers, nor have I observed any decline in the quality or usefulness of Indian programmers, which is ultimately what matters.
I take the "influence" of India to be the pipeline of labor to SV. Those can be work-visa holders or those working in Indian offices, to me these two categories go hand-in-hand.
Modi and his fan club have spent so much time and energy pissing off so many people that the moment they show weakness there will be major repercussions. So its a trap. All this "taming" SV narrative is their only move. The more control they have, the more people they piss off, the deeper the hole they dig themselves into gets. Sooner or later no one will help them out of the hole. And they can stay there and chant about their delusions of control.
Given the incompetence they have displayed its fascinating how anyone can have faith that such a govt can "tame", leave alone control SV.
The current government came into power riding on a wave of popularity, largely driven by their "IT cells". Now comfortably in power, they are probably dismantling the path, to avoid others who might try to follow.
The government is not just in a stand-off with big-tech companies. It continues to view its own citizens as adversaries with frequent internet shutdowns [1].
Can we stop with all this IT cell bullshit? Modi got in because he was more competent than the rajputra of the Nehru dynasty. My family are from Gujarat. We’ve known about Modi since he was governor. We moved out of our ancestral village several generations ago but still return on special occasions because our kuladevi is there. The area is semi-desert. Modi got water from the Narmada dam piped in. Now cash crops can be irrigated and the kids don’t die of dysentery any more. We used to have to stop at a larger town and walk a couple of miles down a dirt track to get there. Modi got a road built and regular bus service to the nearest city. That’s why he is popular. That area was staunchly Congress since 1947 and still is but you won’t find anyone with a bad word to say about Narendra Modi. He got things done and that’s what counts. The Hindu nationalism is just icing on the cake. (Remember there was a time when Congress also used to brag about how e.g Sardar Patel rebuilt Somanath.)
Now with the latest missteps such as demonetization and the COVID response etc. the bloom is off the rose a little but he is still genuinely popular and more importantly there isn’t anyone on the national scene “who might be trying to follow.”
He also led pogroms, segregated living areas by religion and promoted rioters and terrorists. Gujarats gdp per capita is only slightly above the median.
And IT cell is a reality that has been exposed several times over. Identical copy paste tweets and interviews with ex-it cell employees.
Speaking of copy paste, what happened of the toolkit row?
Whether the objective was good or bad, should the people actively trying to trend things be called "IT cell for XYZ"?
It feels a bit hypocritical
I gave you actual examples of improvements I’ve seen with my own two eyes. People can’t drink gdp.
I don’t doubt there could be an IT cell. What I was reacting to was the idea that it is a major reason for Modi’s success. Like “Russian collusion” this is just cope by people who can’t accept that it is they who are the unpopular ones.
People don’t understand that propaganda like hypnotism only works on people who are already primed to believe it. Why does anyone listen to this BJP IT cell? Do you know?
I actually know Muslim friends in ahmedabad that cannot buy or rent a house in normal housing societies and have been ghettoized into Muslim enclaves with non existent municipal services.
I am glad that I live in the United states where nobody asks me for my religion or caste before renting or selling a home. United states is never going to be "dharmic", it got rid of its "dharmic" tendencies with the civil rights movement.
Edit: The dharmic comment was in response to another poster talking about United states becoming "dharmic".
The village I’m referring to (in Rajkot district) is less than 5% Muslim and those are Ismaili, Vohra etc. Even for them what happens to Sunnis in Ahmedabad might as well be on Mars as far as they care. What the RSS think about Hinduism is also irrelevant. Modi is revered for one reason and one reason only; what he actually did to make those peoples lives better. I mentioned in my original post that his popularity has not translated into popularity for the BJP in the area. That too is for local reasons.
LOL my “screed reads like an apologia for Hitler.” You are getting too emotional. I’m explaining why Modi is popular. Don’t think about it if it upsets you but don’t shoot the messenger in any case.
I suggest learning more about what the word dharmic actually means. It seems clear to me that you are using some non-standard interpretation of its meaning.
However, he didn't win elections because of them. His win in 2014 was a reaction to a government lead by the Congress, where the Congress party leaders were intent on defaming and destroying their own Prime Minister.
And the 2019 success was a result of the focus on base infrastructure, economic, diplomatic and defense policy in the first term (the government made genuine and very noticeable improvements in terms of sanitation, electrification and water access across the country).
They also made some epic economic blunders, however, that pain is truly being felt several years later (besides the immediate pain which they were able to explain away by promising long term benefits, but as those benefits don't materialize, they are losing trust), and appear to have given up on economic and social development, and appear to be focused on purely extending their rule through policies of hatred.
It remains to be seen how successful their strategy will be, but the initial results seem to indicate that they are greatly underperforming local elections. And most of these were conducted before the impact of teh devastating 2nd COVID wave, which the government didn't just mishandle, but were probably responsible for, became apparent.
Modi government is competent at marketing everything as his contribution, he is highly egoistic, doesn't accept any mistakes, or tries to push the blame to the Nehru Dynasty, Opposition etc. BJP IT Cell is one the most active proponent in pushing the image of Narendra Modi as the savior, whereas in reality, literally any leader who would have listened to experts instead of the election gurus, would have taken more sensible steps.
Modi government is full of yes man, and due to his popularity, the BJP party has itself become smaller than Modi, as elections are won in the name of the Prime Minister instead of the actual leader.
The government is also known for buying elected people post elections using money or power(CBI,ED intimidation) and known for manipulative numbers (they even changed the definition of GDP to make the numbers more attractive).
Modi actually follows Trump modulus of operandi, where instead of calling his opposition/critical news reports as fake news, he more conveniently calls them anti-national or pro-pakistani or western influences.
Anyways this stupid notion of no national alternative was also propogated the BJP IT Cell and BJP owned Media Houses only. Sadly a lot of Indians, including the commenter above have actually bought into it. If you actually look at numbers, India was falling behind on almost everything(jobs, economy etc) even before covid started.
Factually speaking, the worst term of UPA(2009-2014) was actually better than the modi government's first term in lot of matrices. Here is a one such study, you can find several others by googling - (please be aware of pro-BJP sources such as https://www.opindia.com, Republic TV etc)
https://www.livemint.com/politics/policy/manmohan-singh-vs-n...
Because that’s where his political enemies are? Most politicians don’t have very deep reasons for why they act.
The set of people who worry about the state of the internet does not overlap very much with the set of people who worry if they have water and the set of people who worry about Hinduism is separate yet. In a democracy whoever can cobble together enough of these different groups (and many more) to make majority will win. If he cannot he will lose. It’s as simple as that.
he is popular because of the propaganda, by that logic hitler was also very popular. You are cherry picking data to suit your needs. Two examples at personal level do not balance the screw ups he has done at the national level. You are speaking as if no development work was done during earlier regimes. All the development started only after 2014. Stats speak another story about the development but then that is not what you want to hear.
Since you are still defending him, you must be blind to all other things seeing them as international conspiracy to defame your great leader.
> there isn’t anyone on the national scene
At this stage anyone, literally anyone, would be better than him
Uh Hitler was very popular. (To be precise he was more popular than the other guys.). The problem people have with Hitler isn’t that he was unpopular.
Really the amount of projection in some of these replies is incredible. All I’ve done is explain why one group of people have warm feelings for Modi (and FYI no development work was done in that area by prior Congress or BJP governments.) I’ve even acknowledged that he has made serious missteps. But as in parts of the US, in parts of India ORANGE MAN BAD is the only acceptable response it seems. Just a different shade of orange that’s all ;-)
> At this stage anyone, literally anyone, would be better than him.
If you say so. In the real world there actually has to be a person. That person has to actually have a platform, preferably something more than HES HITLER YOU GUYZ, and has to appeal to a vast an diverse electorate who will be driven primarily by parochial concerns. That’s how democracy works.
This is a theme that will apply in a variety of different areas, well beyond Silicon Valley. There was a sense in the late couple of decades that India will become a faithful follower of US practices (if not policies) with its easily accessible population for everything from movies to ecommerce, food chains to apparel brands and more. The implied sense was that the rapidly growing middle-class would want to mimic (or at least, consume) American lifestyle and values. This did hold when the numbers were small. When this number becomes a few hundred million it is absolutely unsurprising that this mass of users will have their own views and not blindly adopt what others say.
Clearly the changing political landscape has a role to play, but then the cause and effect are usually reversed. The reasons why the political landscape changed, why the current party came to power, are the more fundamental reasons why things are changing.
As India finds its own voice, as a substantial economy, market and an independent identity lots of companies and countries will have to rebevaluate heir views. Good or bad, who knows, but the change is inevitable.
Given the timelines involved, I'd say it's more likely that not that Modi is following in the footsteps of Xi Jinping. In fact most of Asia is in the hands of some kind of ethno-nationalist leader, from Duterte in the Phillipines to Suga in Japan, Xi in China or Jae-In in S. Korea. Modi is not really exceptional when viewed on the scale of other asian leaders. But Asia has always had a much more ethno-nationalist bent, so it may be surprising to people who compare Indian politics to those of Western Europe. Even western darlings like Aung San Suu Kyi, once in power, turned out to be of a strong ethno-nationalist bent, which I'm sure shocked a lot of her supporters in the West.
It's a sad attempt to rescue the reputation of a modern nationalist movement the poster sympathises with by imbuing it with the moral righteousness of the independence movements of the 20th century.
Search for "pseudo liberals India" and you will find a lot of articles talking about this topic. To be clear I'm not talking about any of them being right or wrong, just that that's the term which has historically been used.
> Nehru and Jinnah led India and Pakistan to independence as the brown-skinned Westerners Thomas Macaulay had envisioned a century earlier. South Asian in appearance and pedigree, the leaders of these two nations nevertheless personified a fundamental truth about the Western orientation of the new Asian states.
We had the same in Bangladesh. Westernized university-educated people like my dad trying to impose secular democracy on a deeply Muslim country. Didn’t last.
Considering that these brown sahib had been voted in by the same masses previously, I am not sure what point are you making.
Populist/fascist leaders like ones in India's regime come and go. Trump isn't the president still. If you think BJP will be in power for the next 50 years, then I'd say you should check up on fascist history.
That's a really interesting take. History must have had a role to play here, although I wonder in what way that could've influenced the current outlook and mindset of the peoples.
Wait, do you really think president Moon of S. Korea is ethno-nationalist of all things? You have no idea what you're talking about - he's just your run-of-the-mill liberal.
You really need to be careful generalizing the whole Asia region to fit your narrative. S. Korea was already a bit culturally ethno-nationalist not because of reasons like 'racism' or something like Western populist politics, but because of the more complex history of being colonized and almost assimilated by Japan. And diplomatically S. Korea's has always been pro-US for pragmatic reasons (military protection) and would probably stay that way for some time. (That doesn't mean there isn't any anti-US sentiment among citizens, it's just that it hasn't been materialized into anything significant in actual global relations.)
You're overestimating Trump. India under Modi is in the process of trying to build an authoritarian Hindu nation-state with a completely alternative model compared to the secular, western-inspired mode it has run on up until now.
Trump, despite tricking a few LARPers into thinking he had some kind of great agenda was just a TV show host. He was about as likely to rebuild the US in some kind of new image as a televangelist is in bringing the kingdom of god to earth.
India has always been run on a far more authoritarian model than the U.S. Yes, it's a true democracy but freedom and democracy are not the same thing, and the legacy of the former colonizers is very much there still. Modi is just pushing the overall authoritarian stance of Indian institutions in a different direction that anyways provides him with a lot of shallow, surface popularity.
I’d say it is less by Modi directly and more by the nazi inspired organization called the RSS that’s shaping up India lately. The only difference is that they won’t be repeating the hubris/mistakes of a Fuhrer style set up with a single point of failure.
All other things aside, Modi’s first term started in 2014, Trump’s in 2016. Even assuming that one is similar to the other, it raises the question of who’s following whom...
Well to be fair even if India wants to play by different rules, it's important to be consistent when making policies. Social media isn't a new thing in India and the recent clampdown suggests that the government no longer has the most influential voice in social media channels. I also don't think Twitter cares too much about India because the moderation is pretty awful, but when it does moderate some powerful politicians, all hell breaks loose. A similar thing happened in Nigeria, where Twitter censoring the President caused the government to block the platform. It's inconsistent and makes the government look weak.
The recent intermediary rules are vague and broad enough that even independent news publishers appear to be targeted. The rules are probably unenforceable too, going by current law. Similarly, e-commerce rules that apparently target Amazon to "help" small traders don't seem to apply to domestic e-commerce marketplaces.
India somehow had stumbled and took a turn towards the Hindu right wing majoritarianism/ultra nationalism. It has certainly caused long term effects, the pace of reforms has slowed down considerably. Major policy decisions seems to be stuck in limbo for years, for example regarding Walmart: atleast for 10 years Walmart trying to start retail operations in India, but government hasn't given clarity on policy. Similarly in many many other fields and subjects there has been policy paralysis for last 10 years if not for more.
Not to mension the amount of repression etc the present ruling party indulges in..
15 years ago India looked like it would evolve into a country and society with liberal western values, but it hasn't made progress in recent years, but rather it has regressed.
It comes from Christianity for sure but a Western youth culture interpretation of it, heavily influenced by foreign actors from the USSR (see the Mitrokhin papers proving their psyop influence campaigns on Western academia) and Maoist China (via the Gang of Four campaign to "Destroy the Four Olds" of China's traditional heritage, which was hugely influential in Western youth culture). The West used to be acknowledged as a promoter of freedom before the 1960s and 1970s. We should expect that "dharmic" traditions will be twisted in a similar way by future radical movements, such as the "Pure Land" buddhist movement of Japan.
Sure, we've often failed to live up to our values.
One of the baddest-ass diplomatic moments in modern history was in the 50s when India's UN ambassador read the US Declaration of Independence in protest of its support for colonial regimes in the name of anti-Communism.
But the hypocrisy of the west in applying those values doesn't mean they aren't worthwhile or worth fighting for.
This post is an example of the wild fantasies indulged by the followers of hindutva where India is forever on the precipice of taking over the world intellectually and to an extent territorially. In this future liberalism will be consigned to the garbage can and ethno nationalism and fascism centered on Hinduism will reign supreme.
The popularity of yoga is hilariously touted as a precursor of things to come. The prime minister has created an "international" yoga day. They assume this will be followed by international adoption of ayurveda, cow "science", cow worship, renaming of several mathematical and scientific discoveries after Indian gurus who supposedly discovered everything originally in the veda.
The don't seem to be aware that modern yoga practised in the west is a modern invention by an Indian fitness instructor who was attempting to capture a portion of the American fitness market jumpstarted by eugen sandow. Most of the so called asanas have been incorporated into yoga from modern gymnastics.
> ethno nationalism and fascism centered on Hinduism will reign supreme.
Hey, if nationalism and fascism (ethnic or otherwise) are going to reign supreme anyway in this "Brave New World" of Fake News Media and Fake Social Media, I'll gladly root for the Hindu version over others. I'd rather worship actual cows than the newfangled "sacred cows" that are being pushed by some parts of the West.
Isn't being "dharmic" a reference to performing your caste duties irrespective of whether you will be rewarded in this life. The reward comes next time in the form of a caste upgrade.
They are verses that specify that one must perform ones caste duties ("dharma") no matter what even if you are better at other things. Why on earth would United states turn dharmic?
I'm also very troubled by the misuse of the term dharmic in this thread.
Westerners misusing Indian terms to suit their own desires should be pushed back on. It sometimes seems like a deliberate strategy to confuse and therefore hide the philosophy conveyed by those terms even though much of that philosophy is universal and nonsecular.
Also, in reading threads on this forum over the years, it is quite clear that many fall into the classic trap of confusing ethnicity with religion. Leaders that call for extremist measures are usually promoting the interests of some subset of their community - not promoting the ideals called for by their religion - but many of their followers don't understand religion well enough to realize that. This is just as applicable to the west as it is to other places.
More knowledge from Prabhupada. Click on the video to hear him explain clearly.
"The word dharma is used. Dharma means occupational duty. Dharma does not mean some religious sentiment. No. Natural division and the occupational duty."
"The shudras are the only section of society allowed to accept another’s employment"
As I am an employee now, as are many of my brahmin friends, are we shudras now? If I start teaching the holy books, do I become a brahmin?
What the hell does duties according to ones nature mean? Who decides ones "nature"? A single person can be an employee, warrior, priest or businessman. What is the point of forcing people into categories?
What does it mean to perform your caste duties and nothing else, even if I am better at something else? How does that jive with "duties according to ines nature". If I am an employee, can't I have a side business.
Why is there so much worry about marriage across caste lines? Why fret about varna sankara? It is obvious that you get your caste by birth, not by your acts. If you perform your caste duties without asking questions you get an upgrade to a higher caste in the next birth. Ultimately, becoming a brahman. You can cross check with any guru in a temple you like, instead of arguing with me.
Examples of shudras becoming brahmins are pre-bhagavata gita. After the gita, such a caste transition is only possible via the cycle of death and rebirth.
> As I am an employee now, as are many of my brahmin friends, are we shudras now? If I start teaching the holy books, do I become a brahmin?
Yes that is right, if you become a teacher, lawyer, guru or advisor, you become a brahmin as intended. You need to be guided by the guidelines meant for a brahmin, do not be driven by wealth or power or accumulation of land.
Birth based assignment of varna has always been debated as wrong interpretation most famously in the Mahabaratha.
Unfortunately, it is human nature to assign birth based privileges. Most famously by projecting Rahul Gandhi as the only viable opposition leader, by birth privileges.
Ironic considering Modi the son of a tea seller is demonised.
Aside from his criminal activities, sadhguru is not a guru of Hinduism. I will be surprised if he even understands sanskrit. With Logan paul, he claimed no connection with religion. In India, he hints in a different direction. Why would you want Hinduism to be connected with a charlatan?
Yeah, western countries are known for having about 50% of their population relegated to an untouchable status without any chance of social mobility or partaking in the benefits and rituals of the other 50% - and not only in this life, it's for eternity.
Untouchable status is flat-out illegal in India, and the Indian government has gone to huge lengths to help former pariahs/untouchables (now properly called Dalit) improve their education and social status. To the point where the formerly privileged non-Dalit are now complaining that they don't get anywhere like the same attention from government and are at risk of being left by the wayside. These complaints might be overblown for sure, but the underlying efforts to redress these wrongs cannot be denied.
This was not to say that those things were left unattended or no effort has been made, it was in the context of the parent comment - dharmic definitions, and ideas, are fallible as everything else and can be corrupted and lead to the same or worse outcomes and they can mingle good ideas (Vegetarianism) with bad ideas (Casts).
Untouchability was never a dharmic definition or idea. The Vedic texts talk about there being four proper "callings" in life but make no mention of any social outcaste status, and the elaborate system of caste was a result of unrelated developments, similar to the ones which created the rigid social systems of the West in the Middle-Ages.
The class system or castas was very much part of Europe.
The monopoly of the church on God and crown was precisely why it was imported into India by the British to consolidate their power.
"Caste" is often used to white wash the Islamic and Christian colonization of India that lasted for a 1000 years, that reduced the richest nation to one of the poorest.
This poverty creation machine that the British colonization is not merely an effect of exploitation or greed, it was very much driven by the same racist and Christian supremacy that drove the nazis.
The "dalits" are very much the biggest victims of colonization.
> that reduced the richest nation to one of the poorest.
Very good point, BTW. You're not going to find a rigid social stratification system in a rich society. Stratification takes over as an outcome of societal collapse, as people are reduced to fighting over scraps of their former wealth and will cling to any form of seeming stability, however damaging in the long term. This is exactly what occurred in the West of late antiquity and the dark ages, culminating in the early middle ages.
This seems to not have any resemblance to the historical decline of the "Vedic Culture" way before any "colonising" by the "west".
If the guys writing the history didn't mess it up, wasn't buddha himself against the caste system? That seems way before there was even a Church in the West to begin with.
The Mongolic ("Islamic") invasions from Central Asia starting in the late middle ages were quite comparable in their violence. And they still count as "west" from an Indian POV since Central Asia is directly west of the Indian subcontinent. (Note that these Mongolic invaders were, by and large, merely converts to Islam, and that a very comparable dynamic also caused the end of the Golden Age of Islam, around that same time.)
Gautama Buddha was against any rigid interpretation of the varnas, but he was not unusual in that - this was close to Hindu orthodoxy even at the time.
What an absolutely shocking misrepresentation of the Buddha !
The Buddha rejected the authority of the Vedas entirely and this infuriated the Brahmins of that time. He had both philosophical and pragmatic objections to the theistic stance of Brahminical groups, along with a total rejection of their focus on mass animal slaughter in the name of rituals.
From the original Pali canon, this discourse captures the Buddha's position:
And, Adi Sankara wrote an entire polemic trashing the Buddha as an insignificant man who should be shunned by everybody. Here is a passage straight from the Vedanta Sutras written by Sankara:
Moreover, Buddha by propounding the three mutually contradictory systems, teaching respectively the reality of the external world, the reality of ideas only, and general nothingness, has himself made it clear either that he was a man given to make incoherent assertions, or else that hatred of all beings induced him to propound absurd doctrines by accepting which they would become thoroughly confused.--So that--and this the Sutra means to indicate--Buddha's doctrine has to be entirely disregarded by all those who have a regard for their own happiness.
This obsession with trying to somehow make the Buddha and his teaching as a branch of Hinduism falls flat on its face when you look at his teaching even cursorily. The central tenet of the Buddha's position was his exposition of anatta (not-self), which is directly opposed to all Hindu doctrines which preach that finding one's 'true self' is the goal of existence. Instead, the Buddha taught that the search for a 'true self' (including God, Brahman etc.) is futile and pointless. This is an irreconcilable cleavage between Buddhism and Hinduism.
You really need to look into the Buddha's teaching properly before trying to appropriate it to fit your agenda.
For me Hinduism is an ecosystem as is for millions of Hindus.
A Hindu will feel very comfortable in a Buddhist temple and practice and vice versa. Hindus themselves have extremely diverse traditions.
I see where we have diverging views. My Swedish landlords who happens to be a Christian once asked we where is your holy book.
In her mind not having a one-one equivalent with Christianity delegitimises the religion.
In trying to intellectualise the debate, you have taken the limited view of a Christian.
The vast majority of the Hindus are open to the ideas of Buddhism as well as 1000s of tribal/rural/regional gods and rituals. Not only is there no conflict, there is perhaps no clear boundaries.
You define Hinduism as an ecosystem of ideas, with no clear boundaries, sometimes adopting ideas from Buddhism as well as other tribal rituals.
In another comment you said that casteism was brought by the West to India. (I do not agree with this but lets go with for now). So it clearly follows that Hindus (Hinduism) adopted casteism from somewhere externally. This is not for debate because we have seen and continue to see Hindus practicing casteism for whatever reason.
Hinduism can be simultaneously extolled for adopting "good" ideas from Buddhism but is also beyond criticism for adopting casteism from the west?
You arbitrarily laid the boundary for Hinduism at "caste" arguing that it was brought externally and hence not an inherent Hindu feature, yet somehow you take pride in Hinduism being a religion that does adopt external ideas. Which one is it?
If you have been under Islamic and xtian occupation for a 1000 years, there isn't a lot of options.
Some communities are driven to extreme poverty and it becomes a dog eat dog world.
Considering Islam in Perssia completely wiped out the culture in 50 years.
And it took only 150 years for xtianity to wipe out pagan culture in Europe or the Americas.
Caste as a system was clearly used by the British to separate communities at different levels of destitution coopting some as native informants.
Even in current day USA people are divided on their political, regional, occupational lines. Dems and Reps each consider themselves superior and the other one dumb. Inspite of public schools there is a big impact of family background even in politics.
The neo-Hindu view of the Buddha is indeed misrepresentation. Buddha couldn’t have been a Hindu because “Hinduism” as they understand it simply didn’t exist at that time. But your view isn’t any better.
1. There is no reason to believe the Pali Tripitaka represents the authentic words or teachings of the Buddha. He would have spoken Magadhi as his mother tongue. Pali was a Western Prakrit and moreover a trade and literary language not a popular one. Also the Pali Tripitaka was composed and edited by the Hinayanists several centuries after the Buddha’s life and expresses doctrinal developments that would be anachronistic in that era.
2. There is no particular reason to believe that Buddha and early Buddhism was against caste except in the general sense that they are against worldly behaviors of any type. You won’t find anything about it in the Aryan eightfold path (Aryashtangamarga) for instance. (Aryan is usually translated as “noble” in this case. Did you ever wonder why?). The ten major disciples of the Buddha were all either Brahmanas or his royal relatives. The first major historical Buddhist ruler Ashoka in his rock edicts exhorts his subjects to respect both “Brahmanas and Shramanas”. The Ashokavadana, the earliest Buddhist hagiography (and canonical in Theravada) states that a Buddha can only be born in a Brahmana or Kshatriya womb.
3. Buddhism is against karma and holds that liberation is from Jnana only. Animal sacrifices are mentioned a lot because they are particularly vivid examples of the negative consequences of karma but the Buddhist critique applies just as readily to lighting a ghee lamp for worldly reasons. The Jains were more consistently for non-violence than the Buddhists. (No predominantly Buddhist culture is predominantly vegetarian). Jnana only is the position of Advaita Vedanta too. The difference is Smarta Hinduism developed a modus vivendi where karma was acceptable for householders. There was no lay Buddhism during its Indian phase only the sangha so the question could be put aside.
4. Yes Astika philosophers and saints contended against Buddhist counterparts (and each other) but it is anachronistic to bring those disputes back to the time of the Buddha himself. By the time of Shankaracharya there were several mutually antagonistic Buddhist sects. (Actually three is generous. Traditionally there are said to be eighteen.). That is what he is referring to. They can’t all be “the true teaching of the Buddha” unless he was incoherent.
The Pali Canon contains the kernel of the Buddha's Teaching. It is not difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff and arrive at the essence of what the Buddha taught. A guide on how to approach the discourses:
Sujato addresses several claims in his essay, and has some helpful hints on the historical placement of the Buddhadhamma.
The Buddha was not a social reformer - his teaching was about total renunciation of the world. But there are plenty of discourses that reject the birth-based caste system and instead establishes that deeds and actions are the sole criteria for judging a person.
You are mistaken about Karma (Pali: Kamma). Kamma is a central pillar in the Buddha's Teaching. It is, arguably, one of the most important aspects, since Nibbana is described as the cessation of kamma.
Adi Sankara's rejection of the Buddha's Teaching was not a simplicistic dismissal based on sectarian divisions. His rejection was based on philosophical differences - the Vedanta Sutras make that very clear.
In any case, my main point was that it is nonsensical to call the Buddha as a Hindu.
The Pali canon contains one sects idea of the kernel of Buddha’s teaching. It so happens that sect has survived to this day while many of its competitors did not. That does not make its claims any more valid. The site you quote itself says that it began to be redacted around 300+ years after Buddhas demise. By contrast the books of the New Testament were composed 40-100 years after Jesus’s death and even then scholars hotly contest how much were his actual words. All the prominent figures in late stage Indian Buddhism were Mahayanists of various stripes. They would certainly disagree that Pali texts were the kernel of the Buddhas teaching.
I am mystified as to what you think I’ve got wrong about karma. As you say Nirvana involves the cessation of karma. Jnana alone is its cause. This is the same as Advaita Vedanta (and several other darshanas.). The point of difference is what pragmatic concessions are to be given to those who cannot become monks. To be a Buddhist in ancient India was to be a monk. There were lay people who donated to the monks but they otherwise carried on their ancestral traditions. There was no specifically Buddhist way to be a layman until after the religion left India. In Smartism, to learn Advaita Vedanta and give up karma and become a monk is the highest goal but if you can’t, rituals and worldly life still have some positive worth. Vaishnavism, Shaivism, and Tantra were even more this-world oriented and in actual practice more egalitarian and accessible than Buddhism nevermind whatever rhetoric was put forth.
I don’t understand the distinction you are trying to make between sectarian division and philosophical difference. A philosophical difference is what makes a sect a sect no?
We agree that Buddha was not a Hindu. For exactly the same reasons we must say Buddha was not not a Hindu. The whole question anachronistically projects latter day concerns and concepts too far into the past. But was Buddhism (or is or could it be) Hinduism? That’s the real bone of contention anyway and its a much more ambiguous question. We could mention how Buddha is an avatar of Vishnu or Yoga borrows concepts from Mahayana or the wholesale adoption of Shaiva tantric concepts in Vajrayana. I personally like to compare with Jainism. It is just as old as Buddhism, heretical to Astikas for exactly the same reasons as Buddhism and yet thoroughly integrated into social structures, modes of worship, and literary traditions to the extent that the man in the street is not even aware that Jainism is anything more than another Hindu sect. I think that would have been the fate of Buddhism if it had survived to this day. And that’s the key. It went extinct a long time ago. So the correct answer to my question is: “we don’t know.”
Liberation in Advaita Vedanta is attaining the realization that one's individual self is identical with Brahman, posited as Higher Self. This is diametrically at odds with the anatta (not-self) doctrine of the Buddha. There is simply no common ground here - I am sorry, but you are washing away key doctrinal differences with a sweep. When Adi Sankara himself condemned Buddhadhamma as incomprehensible heresy, and yet you claim that Advaita Vedanta is the same as Buddhadhamma - I doubt that there can be any further discussion.
It is troubling to see how the current wave of jingoism coupled with religious fervor is trying to reduce the Buddha to a mere pawn in an imaginary, all-encompassing Hindu pantheon. Maybe you are not deliberately trying to do this, but the muddled and confused efforts of numerous foot-soldiers expose the sad trend all the same.
They are the same in the sense that both privilege jnana over karma for liberation that is all. They are different in that Advaita Vedanta gives some scope to karma (Indian) Buddhism gave none.
Buddhists themselves reduced the historical Shakyamuni to one member of a pantheon long ago. This was a clear trend in Mahayana and Vajrayana before Allauddin Khilji came and settled the issue once and for all.
> Liberation in Advaita Vedanta is attaining the realization that one's individual self is identical with Brahman, posited as Higher Self. This is diametrically at odds with the anatta (not-self) doctrine of the Buddha.
This is not true, there's no conflict. The Buddha was not interested in abstract doctrines but only in what was most pragmatically useful for attaining stream entry, enlightenment and liberation from craving and desire. People who are actually pursuing these goals, even in modern times (with very compelling results, though obviously any claims to arhat status will always be viewed skeptically by most) have clarified how anatta is entirely compatible with a Higher Self as with Brahman.
Your assertion that there is no doctrinal difference between Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta is ludicrous and downright silly. Even Wikipedia clarifies this.
He also explained the key difference between Hinduism and Buddhism, stating that Hinduism asserts "Atman (Soul, Self) exists", while Buddhism asserts that there is "no Soul, no Self".
I didn't say that no doctrinal difference exists, only that Anatta is highly compatible with the truth of a Higher Atman. You only mentioned Higher Atman in your previous comment, not common, individualistic meaning of Atman.
For that matter, even Shankara's description of the Atman is entirely in the negative, stating what the Atman is not. So even while accepting the existence of the Atman, he's clearly tending towards a universalist description that, again, is quite compatible with a practical understanding of the Buddhist doctrine of not-Atman.
As for the new narrative being heavily pushed these days that the caste system is a remnant of British colonial times, a few words from an Untouchable girl can correct it - written in the year 1855. From the essay:
Earlier, Gokhale, Apate, Trimkaji, Andhala, Pansara, Kale, Behre, etc [all Brahman surnames], who showed their bravery by killing rats in their homes, persecuted us, not sparing even pregnant women, without any rhyme or reason. This has stopped now. Harassment and torture of Mahars and Mangs, common during the rule of Peshwas in Pune, have stopped. Now, human sacrifice for the foundation of forts and mansions has stopped – now, nobody buries us alive. Now, our population is growing in numbers. Earlier, if any Mahar or Mang wore fine clothes, they would say that only Brahmans should wear such clothes. Seen in fine clothes, we were earlier accused of stealing such clothes. Their religion was in danger of being polluted when Untouchables put clothes around their bodies; they would tie them to a tree and punish them. But, under British rule, anybody with money can buy and wear clothes. Earlier, punishment for any wrongdoing against the upper castes was to behead the guilty Untouchable— now, it has stopped. Excessive and exploitative tax has stopped. The practice of untouchability has stopped in some places. Killing has stopped on the playground. Now, we can even visit the marketplace.
Imagine having a mind that is so saturated with hatred and propaganda that a young girl's cry of despair from 1855, protesting against centuries upon centuries of oppression and brutality, is blithely discarded as 'atrocity literature'. For all the warbling about 'dharmic' culture, basic humanity and a desire to develop an inner yardstick for truth is utterly missing from your absurd screeds.
Kind of hard to make that argument and simultaneously argue that the soul transfers to a new body at death and is confined to Earth (or worse) until the soul reaches a stage of enlightenment sufficient to move to heaven. Its arguable whether caste applies even in this life - and definitely does not between lifetimes as even the highest type of body on this planet (human) is not assured.
There were in fact many such incidents of persecution and even outright massacres, including in post-revolutionary France, early-20th-century Mexico, and still later in North Korea, Albania and Khmer-Rouge Cambodia. Contrary to common misconceptions, atheism is not inherently more rational or freedom-oriented than any other religious stances.
From his comment history, search for Pakistan. It's a flagged post. He is openly racist and hates Muslims. "Muslims have always been the perpetrators of unwarranted violence," This is why he votes for modi.
Development of gujarat under modi is a fig leaf for the underlying reason for voting for modi. The motivations are right wing religious ethno fascism. The others in this case are muslims, with Christians and Sikhs being discriminated on a more opportunistic basis. Their vote for modi is in the hopes of building a hindu religious ethno state along Nazi principles with the muslims playing the role of German Jews. This idea is being heavily propagandize through social media, primarily WhatsApps encrypted channels.
The religious frenzy being built up in the country is absolutely unreal. Well educated software engineers have also been completely absorbed into this fold, as you can observe from the comments.
I distrust Islam just like the vast majority of the world. Muslims are victims of Islam, especially Indian Muslims because it was never their choice.
There isn't a single muslim country to the west of India that has any minority rights.
An overwhelming 87% of Indian Muslim voted for the Muslim league and hence the creation of Pakistan.
That is political Islam and it has killed millions of Hindus in the past 70 years.
One big problem with Muslims is that they always think of themselves as victims but seem to have no remorse for the millions of kafirs they have killed.
I do not want India to turn into a Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria.
> Muslims have always been the perpetrators of unwarranted violence
That was in response to your mention of Gujarat. The whole incident started when Muslim mobs burnt alive 59 Hindu pilgrims including children.
Clearly they had planned for violence and were sufficiently armed.
This has always been the case with Muslims around the world. Start the violence and cry victim.
Funny you say that, most of them are namesake secular.
Filter out countries that have had large scale ethnic cleansing or genocide in the last 70 years.
Filter out those countries which have 99% muslims.
Filter out those which do not have some form of sharia imposed.
Even though both muslims and Hindus in India want a better future for themselves and their children.
Muslims have shown their willingness to engage in arson, destruction of public property and stopping economic activity or progress to push their own Islamic politics at every opportunity.
You must be really blind to not have observed this.
There are more, but I will let you do the research. Maybe you will find an example in a secular muslim majority state where the prime minister hand picks a terrorist under trial (whose phone and vehicle were used to bomb a church/temple) as a candidate for election.
The relevant word there is obviously "Hindu", but the Permit Raj system in India is more than 70 years old. Is there really a national alternative to the BJP that's less authoritarian/corporatist/fascist and more freedom oriented, in a way that would meaningfully benefit the average Indian?
Virtually any party would be less authoritarian and fascist. Manmohan Singh was the last prime minister. The average Indian would benefit from a better economy, employment opportunities, fearlessness from cow and other vigilantes, sedition charges for expressing political opinions. Muslims in kashmir, lakshwadeep and Sikhs would feel safer.
BJP losing would boost national pride. Right now Indians are considered a joke. I have been personally asked to go drink cow piss on various forums. Plastering cow dung all over the body and ridiculous statements about gold in cow milk will be stripped from text books. Money invested in ayush ministry and central vista will be used in health spending.
> fearlessness from cow and other vigilantes ... Muslims in kashmir, lakshwadeep and Sikhs would feel safer.
This is perhaps your most compelling point. It's also cherrypicked however since radicalism and violence are coming from both the Hindu and Muslim sides. Picking one side over the other is just not what good government is about, this goes for Hindus obviously but also Muslims.
The root issue is that there are entities that profit (mostly in retaining their relevance/power) when two group of people are pitched against one another. Because such entities can proclaim themselves to be the protectors of the group that is the majority from the other group that could be a minority group.
So you have to understand that once all Muslims are driven out, such entities will pitch two classes within Hindus itself. And in all probability, this could be what happening in places with Muslim majority.
So the real solution is not to drive a group of people away, or declare a "Hindu Rashtra" but to recognise such entities that are profiting from these conflicts, and render that tactic toothless. You will magically see the killings stop.
India has been a secular state for 70 years, and it is not becoming Islamic. We can stay secular or become a Hindu theocratic state. Becoming an Islamic theocratic state is not at all a possibility.
If you really think there's a chance, i am willing to bet on it. Free money for me.
I don't agree with any of the posters in this thread advocating that India become a Hindu state.
But your viewpoint is also troubling for me. Do you not think there is an undercurrent of theocracy in Islam? Do you think that there is nothing wrong with the countries in that list? India is still far more diverse, liberal, accepting than any of those countries. You can't simultaneously think that India is horrible for minorities but these muslim majority countries are not.
Of course Islamic countries can be fairly theocratic. India was liberal pre-2014. Now all parties feel compelled to sport some form of Hindutva-lite.
But you are fooling yourself if you think India is liberal or secular today. How many Muslim majority countries will you find where lynching is commonplace and a terror accused is specially picked as a candidate, because the act of terror was a blast in a mosque. Outside Israel, Saudi Arabia, Russia this will be a hard sell.
The concerns around Modi or Erdogan is the change from a secular state to a. theocratic state.
Stoning to death is pretty common in Islamic countries.
You actually believe life in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria or Iraq is safer?
India is always meant to be a Hindu state. The word secular was introduced by Indira Gandhi in her brief dictatorship.
Only 3 European countries do not have a state religion. All 56 or so Muslim majority countries clearly back a specific denomination.
Recently you have had a rally of 5 million Sunnis calling for the death Shias in Pakistan.
Stop making the false claim that India is dangerous for Muslims, it is the Muslims who are dangerous for India as you would never know when they are going to stab you in the back.
We have seen this many times over since independence, 2.4 million Hindus killed in Bangladesh in 1971.
Half a million Kashmiri Hindus ethnically cleansed from their ancestorsal homeland.
You have been spouting easily refuted fake news all over this thread. I am not going to fall into the trap of refuting false statement you make.
Only 3 European countries lack a state religion! Great going! The number of muslim kashmiris killed by state forces is several orders of magnitude higher than the Hindus killed - a couple of hundred in 1989-90. I will stop here, because you will simply respond with a barrage of lies.
You are just a brainwashed islamist cherry picking facts.
Pakistan exports terrorism to Afghanistan, Iran and India. Security forces kill terrorists.
Ethnic cleansing is about driving out people.
Bangladesh claims the 2.4 million Hindus killed.
You do not need a research report to prove the ethnic cleansing I Islamic dominated regiins, Pakistan as well as Kashmir has 99% muslim population. Please explain.
Western Liberal democracy is basically vanquished in Asia, right at the time that Asia seems to be poised to dominate economically and demographically. Liberal democracy isn't making any inroads in Africa and Russia has certainly given it a firm no, with the Vysehrad states in Eastern Europe also turning away. Basically only Latin America is up for grabs at the moment and the results there seem mixed at best. We could well face a situation where this is a phenomena reserved for Western Europe and North America, with the rest of the world following the Chinese model. People forget that the U.S. beat the USSR in the cold war because of economic, not ideological, superiority. But it appears that the connection between democracy and economic outperformance is looking strained.
But what is perhaps more sobering is realizing that North America and Western Europe themselves look to be more interested in following the Chinese model, basically a surveillance state led by an anti-democratic elite that has no qualms about using violence and extra-judicial mechanisms of social control to supress popular movements like the Yellow Vests in France. In that case, the big difference between the Chinese model and the Western model would be that in the West, popular movements can be crushed as long as the big corps are OK with it, whereas in China the big corps are firmly under the thumb of the government.
I think those worried about authoritarianism should be much more concerned about the power of tech and big corps to control the public square than having the "wrong" people win elections, because the defending the process is much more important than the worrying about the outcome.
The pandemic and the gvt handouts are the only thing that crushed the yellow vests.
Demographic dividends are a thing. Liberal, socialist democracies use them better other systems.
I think in 20 years, when the demographic transition end in India, the regrets will be high and if there's no support from other economies, the effects will be 100 times worse than ex USSR countries, Portugal, Spain or Greece (European countries that missed on quite a few dividends).
I am from one of the Visegrad states. Our democracy is mostly in the same flawed state, with a recent addition of Twitter outrages over culture war topics.
This is no surprise; a flawed democracy is precisely what the original Austria-Hungary once was, more flawed in Hungary, less flawed in Austria.
One could say the actual flawed state is a huge step forward from the flawed state of 30 years ago. When we cherry pick examples to compare to, we tend to miss a lot...
>I think those worried about authoritarianism should be much more concerned about the power of tech and big corps to control the public square than having the "wrong" people win elections, because the defending the process is much more important than the worrying about the outcome.
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, because the "wrong" people winning elections is - in part - exactly how the process gets destroyed. Once in power, they twist the system to stay there - that's the pattern.
After the tech giants' activities in the 2020 US election, damn right the Indians should be muscling in. These companies are basically foreign media companies deeply integrating with the population in a way never before seen. They will eventually move against conservative governments politically.
If anything, the Indian government doesn't understand the threat being posed to them.
> When US will learn that only Europe can be considered their ally in this world?
For Europe China is now largest trading partner. And European politicians will forever remember that private US companies banned acting president of the USA from the platform. Europe is also taking steps to get rid of Facebook, Twitter, Google and other SV darlings.
> Europe is also taking steps to get rid of Facebook, Twitter, Google and other SV darlings.
As a European. This is a big lol.
Just because the EU, German and French bureaucrats occasionally go on a powertrip and make a big huha about some service or another doesn't mean they are actually going to get rid of it. And just because politicians often bluster about some service or another, often spurned on by local lobbyists doesn't mean they will replace it, rather that they might invest a couple of million into a replacement that then instantly fizzles.
The German press lead by Springer spent years and year mobilizing their politicians against 'Google News' and the laws that came out of that were 10x worse for Users then anything Google would ever do. In the end Google News is still there and even if it wasn't, its hardly a relevant service.
So if it takes a decade of blustering and legal battles to maybe get few cent out of google for google news, how long do you think it would take to 'get rid of' them.
I want to call out that while the implication in the title might be true, nothing in the article provides any proof. By proof, I mean something like a quote from a big tech honcho to the effect of 'I don't see a future in India'. The article just spouts recent tech happenings in the last 3 years or so (chronologically beginning with Facebook's troubles pushing Free Basics on the Indian market, rightfully rejected)
As US gets deeper and deeper into its Cultural Revolution more and more countries with strong cultural identity do not follow and become more and more selective in adopting US model - China, Iran, Russia, India, Europe...
I'd rather see the culture that gave us the Ramayana, Mahabharata, Vedas, Upanishads, Algebra and many more outstanding creations have it's own way of doing capitalism, or whatever the heck they end up with, than having a another copy of the US, with more curry and funny accents.
This new Americanism seems like the cultural incarnation of entropy, whose sole purpose is desertify culture itself.
That culture has been long gone for thousands of years. The current culture of anti-intellectualism, pseudo-nationalism and hatemongering will not take India to any forefront of world leadership.
The sooner we Indians stop living in the past and live in the present - and work for our future, the better.
Most people fail to realize this. The culture that had Ashoka as an Emperor, hosted Buddha in its soil, made breakthroughs in Mathematics and astronomy is long gone and disrupted. The condition of ower caste people were always horrible, and women were always oppressed.
But that society was also open to sex, gender identities, open, free-flowing debate, LGBTQ, alcohol, etc. that are now carnal sins in modern Hindu narrative.
> PARIS — The threat is said to be existential. It fuels secessionism. Gnaws at national unity. Abets Islamism. Attacks France’s intellectual and cultural heritage.
> The threat? “Certain social science theories entirely imported from the United States,’’ said President Emmanuel Macron.
Seems like US tech companies were exporting US politics and values to India (whether by design or by simply forgetting that not all the world is US) and the government decided that doesn't fit their own goals. I see more of this starting to show up as US citizens demand that tech companies take active part in political censorship which will inevitably lead to clashes with cultures who don't fully agree with currently popular stances.
This goes double for more authariatiran right-wing governmenments. After all, even previous US administration lashed out at tech companies when it decided it didn't like content removal and fact checking.
Your comparison is flawed. The article explains that Twitter's 'censorship' came only after its India-based employees were threatened with imprisonment by Indian authorities after not complying with an earlier censorship request. Your comparison of a tiny subset of internet users demanding 'censorship' in about a thousand different directions isn't the same thing as state violence.
This isn't just the government though. There's enough backing to the idea that Twitter especially applies very flawed moderation, suspension standards to voices on its platform. In the early days Twitter was a place for debate and discussion and hearing alternative viewpoints. That's eroded away and hence the outburst. Also I think Indians still hold the view that a corporate with its black box policies can't and shouldn't suppress the voices of democratically elected representatives. I think that's a recipe for disaster.
I don't like the crazy Hindu nationalism of current India at all. But the premise of this article is wrong and arrogant. India is a sovereign country and it has every right to define what is legal political discourse and what is not. The idea that the authority on this are some US companies or another outside force is absurd.
Media and free speech is regulated all over the world including in the USA. Outright racism will be banned within seconds on US social media, and you guys even banned your former president. As an outsider I might disagree with this from a theoretical perspective but I have no say in it, the formulation of these limits lies with the nation state, in USA as in India.
I'm no lover of these tech giants, but I think you're missing the point if you think there's no difference between Twitter banning Trump and succumbing to pressure from Modi after he threatened their entire Indian staff with arrest.
Sure when the us authorities want something from big tech, they can just ask nicely. Whereas if other countries wants something similar, they have to ask more forcefully (how forcefully depends on where on the totem pole of civilized nations they are).
@throwaway4good The Hindu nationalism narrative espoused by mainstream media (who are extremely Left and psuedo-secular) is a false one. In the contrary, Hinduism is unfortunately dying a death by thousand cuts. The country is suffering from numerous atrocities by Islam (forced conversations, rapes, temple vandalism etc.). These are just a few (and not all) atrocities by Muslims just in the past week
The above is in a Hindu majority nation. Imagine the sheer number of crimes/atrocities Muslims would commit if they were the majority (like they did in Pakistan, Bangladesh and other Muslim majority nations).
The currently ruling party, BJP, were democratically elected. They can barely be classified a Centre party or a Centre-right party and even appeal to Christian and Muslim voters in a few Indian states. The old ruling party, Indian National Congress (INC) is an extremely corrupt, inept and psuedo-secular minority appeasing party leader by an incompetent leader (Rahul Gandhi). They've ruled India since 1947 independence and have caused irreparable economic and cultural damage to the country through their policies. The country and Hinduism will be in dire straits if they're re-elected.
> I don't like the crazy Hindu nationalism of current India at all.
This needs to be understood in the context of a cultural onslaught of American values. More than just social media, services like Netflix, Prime, Disney are streaming live into millions of households in India.
India has its own authentic identity that is under severe threat. If you look at China / East Asia - it is culturally and aesthetically like the West, mostly America, other than language and deference to authority.
India has been traditionally liberal through the ages, it has more diverse cultures embedded in society and has fought much fewer internal wars than any ancient civilization. Few other cultures have outright pacifist icons such as Buddha or Gandhi. It has been able to absorb external influences gradually while maintaining its own distinct identity.
The backlash we see is not as harsh as China or the Islamic world, but India will need its own gradual pace to accept changes. It is more than this core liberalism that connects India to the West. While India and America are not geopolitically aligned, Indians in America have formed deep cultural roots that connect the two cultures. Technology leaders like Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella are role models for every child in India, so is American VP Kamala Harris.
The article in my view is not wrong, but takes a very narrow view of things. Other than the few 100 posts that Indian authorities have removed, there are 100s of thousands of critical posts that are still widely circulated. The government inadvertently makes "own goals" and add fuel to fire when it does stupid things like this. The farmer's protest blew up in their face and this is not the end.
There is a lot more to be hopeful about India rather than expect it to follow narrow nationalism of China or fierce capitalism of America.
I had to laugh at this one. I'm neither a fan of social media nor the current Indian government, but this article is either ridiculously out-of-touch, or is aimed towards an ivory-tower audience nicely cosseted within universities far away from the country they're writing about.
There might've been an idealistic Silicon Valley in the 1990s-2000s, but if it ever existed, it's gone now, replaced by high-growth corporations whose goal is the same as all high-growth corporations, ie money and growth at the expense of everything else. The way they will make the most money is by amplification of whatever ideas governments and companies will pay money to amplify. The valley is not against the Indian government, it is with the people who will pay it the most / will amplify it's use the most. Political discussion will keep people within the social website bubble for longer times, so such discussions is what people will see. Administrative or legal action are side effects, and just fun-and-games as usual for both the SV companies as well as the customers (not users!) of the products, to ensure that they get a better deal for their side, in ways they've mostly always used throughout history.
The author also seems to neglect mentioning that every major SV company has fairly sizable employee presence across India and recruits heavily from India's best education institutes. These employees are some of the highest-paid in the country. A lot of people at upper levels of these companies' headquarters in the valley are of Indian origin. They know how the country works; they know how fiercely angry the people get at things they perceive as slights to their identity; they know what kind of leadership the BJP has, and they definitely knew what kind of person Modi is. If they still got in bed with him, it's due to their greed and lack of respect of the same values they seem to identify with.
> ...TikTok ban came into play, that the app had become an easy-to-use arena for conscientious citizens to counter mainstream media censorship, spread the word about protests, and give voice to Indians of different castes, gender and sexual identifications, and ethnicities, many of whom found themselves under attack from the BJP’s Hindu nationalist government
This is ridiculous. Anyone who used TikTok even for a minute in India knows that the app was far away from what this author seems to describe. It was nothing but people dancing around and making goofy videos. I am not sure how the app's design would have helped to do anything as serious as "spreading word about protests" in a consistent way.
I'm all for serious discussion of autocracy, of stifling free speech or spread of inflammatory rhetoric, but this is the flimsiest article I've read about it. It seems to side with the people responsible for amplifying these issues in the first place, and mindlessly bashes what it feels as working against those companies. IMO banning FB's Free Basics was unequivocally a good thing. Banning TikTok has almost no losers other than TikTok and some influencers.
Social media was supposed to be a way to keep touch with family and upload cat photos. If it got used for something far more sinister at global scale, it should expect some sort of pushback, regardless of the people doing the pushback are right or not.
> There might've been an idealistic Silicon Valley in the 1990s-2000s, but if it ever existed, it's gone now, replaced by high-growth corporations
1990s Silicon Valley was "idealistic"? That's news to me, IIRC they were all about "high growth" ventures like pets.com. Idealistic tendencies on the Internet are not altogether unknown of course, but I'm pretty sure you've always had to look for them outside the commercialized SV bubble. And modern day Fake Social Media is highly commercialized as you rightly point out. TikTok even more strongly so if anything.
I believe Tik Tok just gathers datasets for CCP to train AI models about foreign face features, voice etc. to improve surveillance etc and could even be used in a war to target foreigners using autonomous drones.
> replaced by high-growth corporations whose goal is the same as all high-growth corporations, ie money and growth at the expense of everything else.
Why do people say this? It's not insightful, I guess it's like some kind of ingroup signaling?
It's also, you know, not true. The growing companies like Amazon and Uber don't make money, and the money making companies don't do things "at the expense of everything else", or else they wouldn't be in their current markets. They would be selling heroin.
and neither do the corporate owners, since the same retirement funds own all the companies that are competing with each other, and so they don't really try that hard:
We are just so addicted in America to these platforms we just can't collectively even start to imagine how the whole world does not want the same addiction.
I'm a bit skeptical. I'd imagine SV thought India was one country out of the 200+ their services are available in and if one of those 200 changing governments pass bad laws then whatevs, a developing countries manager can do a press release or something.
The sad part of this is that we've know these kinds of trends were going to happen since the advent of the computer and automation. Computing and automation leave the average physical and intellectual ability behind. Someone born in the last 20 years could be forgiven for thinking that Science Fiction is only about dystopian stories of despair. Why? Because one cornerstone of SciFi is that the average IQ is worth less every day and is being replaced by technology. Those left behind will revolt. This easily explains Trump's appeal. Average people are feeling more irrelevant ever day. Trump is proof that even the worst of con men can tap into that despair. Andrew Yang ran his Presidential campaign in part on this theme, but UBI does nothing for helping people feel relevant or in control of their lives. The title of this article could have easily been, "Silicon Valley thought the US was its future, now things have changed." The disaffected are only becoming more disaffected every day because those in the technological advancement industries don't care.
>But this quickly disintegrated, and the bargain tech execs drove in embracing an already-notorious figure like Modi became much harder. In 2016, India blocked Facebook’s “Free Basics” initiative, an attempt by the company to offer free internet access through a network of Facebook-approved sites, out of concern that the program would have created unfair tiers for internet access;
I wonder why author thinks that "free basics" was a great idea that was crushed by Modi.
"Windbags when it comes to fine speeches, skillfully balanced resolutions and legalistic castles in the air, the Hindus are real experts" --Sir Winston Churchill (b. 1874)
https://archive.is/XlOXf
The unique problem with India is that, a decade ago, it had a small but highly educated, privileged urban population, spread across a handful of cities, who are the most vocal in national media and social media. This was the situation when SV companies made inroads to India.
Then came the mobile revolution and the availability of smartphones coupled with dead cheap internet. The rural population jumped on the bandwagon. Then social media saw a lot of voices being raised against perceived in-sensitivity of liberals (I too agree that there is a disproportionate bias in news, towards one political leaning) or portrayal of India in international arena.
This is when SV started complaining.
And when the population speaks against SM, the elected representatives will act.
Take the most recent case of raids against Twitter. Twitter did a major mistake by labeling a piece of content "mis-information", while there was an active investigation was underway by the highest investigative authority in India on the same content. That is blatantly illegal. It should have said something like "these facts are being investigated" or something like that.
When an investigation is going on, media is not supposed to pass judgements. Twitter fumbled and India govt. took the opportunity.
Now you have Twitter agreeing, in writing, that it will follow the law of the land.
Silicon Valley is pushing limits. India, as a developing country with a mass of gullible rural population and culturally sensitive to perceived dominance of foreign culture, has ample number of politicians who will make use of every opportunity to gather followers.
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