Thread by @sohinichat

I hear an inherent sneer when Indians, news orgs says: "Even Bangladesh's economy is doing better than India."
Why this "even"?
The polite way to see this "even" is that it is used because Bangladesh is a younger country, formed 24 years after India >>

https://twitter.com/HuffPostIndia/status/1318438592109215744

The real reason Indians say "even Bangladesh" is because this country is seen as a nation of maids and rickshaw drivers providing the dirt cheap labour that keeps New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Calcutta running.
The real reason is also poor, lungi-clad, dark-skinned Muslims >>

"Even" is also used for Pakistan, but less so that Bangladesh. Pakistanis are fair-skinned, taller, more aristocratic.
In the popular imagination constructed by Bollywood, India and Pakistan are blood brothers severed by Partition. Indians can abide fair-skinned Pakistan >>

not dirty, unwashed maid-country Bangladesh. This is why films about Partition in Bombay are always about Pakistan and Punjab. There was no Partition on the east, it seems. Even when Bengali films are remade in Bombay, for instance Srijit Mukherji's Rajkahini into Begum Jaan >>

Bangladesh and Bengal becomes Pakistan and Punjab. This is likely the pressure put by big Bombay producers and studios.
But Indians also say "even Pakistan" and "even Nepal". We don't dare say Sri Lanka, which outperforms India on every human development index that matters >>

I realised this callous contemptuousness in "even Pakistan is doing better than India" when I was doing my graduate studied and asked to question every word. Why "even Pakistan"? Because it is a "failed state" according to Indian and some American observers. Perhaps it it >>

But we need to check specific indicators we're comparing against before using "even Pakistan". For e.g, does India have more doctors per capita than Pakistan? According to the World Bank data for 2018, we have 0.857 doctors per 1000 of population >>
data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.M…

Pakistan, acoording to the World Bank data for 2018, has 0.98 physicians per thousand of population. Here is the link, do check >>

data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.M…

Bangladesh has for many years outperformed India on human development indices re: women + children. For now, it looks like it will outstrip India in economic growth over the next decade

As a Bengali, this is of great pride to me. Bengalis are bad at business, reportedly >>

Yet Bangladeshi capital, comprising solely of Bengali capital--no Marwari, Gujarati, Bohri business capital--is powering an entire economy comprising airlines, mobile telephony, and of course, textiles among others.
People laugh at Bangladesh Biman. But it's not like Indian >>

carriers' aircraft are made in India. Those too are bought from France and West Europe.

Think about it