[lit-ideas] Re: India's fondness for America
- From: "Andreas Ramos" <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2006 23:41:19 -0800
From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
... one needs to consider who Daniel
Twining is and the nature of his article. He is a former advisor to Senator
John McCain, a fellow of the German Marshall fund of the U.S. based in
Oxford and New Delhi, and the Fulbright/Oxford Scholar at the University of
Oxford. I take that brief bio to imply that aside from being young, Twining
is privy to statistical and general information about India. Insofar as
generalizations can be made, he is in a position to be aware of them, and
that is what I see in his article.
As for me, I deal daily with a number of Indians, both here in Silicon Valley and in India.
As some of you may know, in May, we bought a company in Bangalore and it has grown to some
45 employees. I work with them constantly. We exchange dozens of emails daily and I am with
them on IM or Skype between 30 min to 90 min most days.
Along with all the work, we also chat quite a bit about books, movies, and so on. That's
where I hear the comments about Bush. A number of them think that the war was a bad idea;
but many others think it's a great idea and they support the war and Bush very much.
Nevertheless there are many reasons for the U.S. & India to grow more
closely together. Their stance against Militant Islam is one of them, but I
think India is more worried about China.
It would seem to me this should be the case; after all, India and China fought a war and
they compete against each other to see which will be the dominant country in the region.
Both are very large and growing fast.
Yet from the Indians and Chinese whom I know and work with, neither seems particularly
interested in the other. They are aware of the competition, they are aware of differences,
but both are confident that they will surpass the other. The Indians say that they speak
English and understand Western business, whereas they say the Chinese are too corrupt. The
Chinese point out India's serious (and severe) infrastructural problems (which keeps India
from growing faster) and are proud of their extremely high rate of growth.
However, Indians are obsessed with Pakistan, which is at worst an annoyance. It's a
religious conflict, similar to Northern Ireland or Israel/Palestine. Look into the issue of
Kashmir. That is an absured war over nothing. Tens of thousands have died.
The RSS and BJP provoke the Islam issue to create a cause. The Pakistani military also
creates "the threat of India" to direct national attention into conflict.
A good site for current news and attitudes in India is http://www.thehindu.com/ , which is
one of the major newspapers.
Pankaj Mishra's latest book "Temptations of the West" is a good description of attitudes in
India, Pakistan, Tibet, Nepal, and Afghanistan. He travelled in all of those countries and
wrote about the people and interviewed them. He is Indian and writes from an Indian point of
view, which like everything Indian, is complex.
More about him at
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00litlinks/pankajmishra/
yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
