The fundamental mistake that many Americans, Indian liberals, think tankis and South Asian Profs make about India is that they assume a plural, democratic, developed India will and should be the same as US with a curry. That’s never going to be so (1)
India will never be as capitalist, as Judeo Christian, as pursuit of happiness seeking, as individual self interest pursuing materialistic society as the US is. We will always be different. Integral humanism as espoused by Pandit Deedayal Upadhyay will exist and thrive (2)
India was not formed from scratch unlike the white US that eliminated the indigenous population and set “conquering the frontier” and “pursuit of happiness” as the goals. We have over 2500 years of recorded history and our ideas will stem from these passed down wisdoms (3)
And lived realities of the near past and the present. Trying to impose a western definition of liberal values and globalism as something universal, at best smacks of ignorance of richness of ancient civilisations and at worst perpetuates colonialism of thoughts. (4)
If we impose curfew on J&K post Art 360 its because we have lived the reality of armed insurgency & terrorism within our borders for at least the past 30 years. It is so easy to talk of open borders & societies when you have 2 large oceans on either side and Canada to north (5)
The US Congress, the Silicon Valley will never understand the society destroying effects that social media and cheap internet has had on many developing countries. It is well known that th organisations and authoritative capacity of states are important in developing nations (6)
And yet social media has continuously eroded the sovereignty of states over multiple domains and has deprived these societies of order that’s necessary when half the population is caught between illiteracy and huge information assymetry (7)
There is a Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for society too. India is still somewhere between security moving towards sustenance and growth phase. To put a self actualising tool like social media or absolute right to free expression as a given is putting the cart before the horse. (8)
