Indian Slavery
I`ve been disturbed by the attempts to promote India to Superpower status by those in our government. I`ve never had any solid basis to oppose this, but have just felt something was amiss. Aussiegirl has given us one example of disturbing behavior which make us want to rethink our advocacy for India.
Keep in mind that India was never friendly to us during the Cold War, and that Indians used to burn wives to death along with their deceased husband`s bodies. We may regret this decision down the road.
Keep in mind that India was never friendly to us during the Cold War, and that Indians used to burn wives to death along with their deceased husband`s bodies. We may regret this decision down the road.
posted by Timothy Birdnow | 6:00 PM
2 Comments:
I have to disagree with your posting about the threat of India.
Our closer relations to India has far more to do with our fear of China. India and China are competing nuclear powers, but China is clearly on the ascendant militarily. Their fleet of submarines is becoming a threat to our Pacific fleet, not to mention the fact that they can field a very large army. It is Communist China (to whom we have stupidly exported most of our industrial secrets and manufacturing facilities) that is the real threat to us, not India. China and India had a war with each other in the early 1960s that threatened to go nuclear, so there is always tension between them. Hence our using India as a balance against China.
India has a backward peasant society made up of many nationalities which are hard to govern. In contrast to China, India is a real democracy, but reform comes slowly, not by diktat. The caste system is being slowly broken down. The practice of burning widows that you mentioned was banned by the British in the 19th century, and if it happens at all anymore, it is very rare. However, it is true that in the lower classese of India, women are often treated very badly--ten years ago, there were a lot of Indian women burned to death by unscrupulous men who married a succession of women for their dowries.
India has a growing middle class that is highly educated, especially in computer and other sciences. They have a very large number of mathematical scientists that compete extremely well against Western ones, and many Indians now teach in American universities in the sciences. This large cadre of educated Indians and India's modernization and growing industrialization is already making them an economic and political power to watch. This will happen whether we have anything to do with it or not.
Educated Indian businessmen and academics have set up communities in many places around the world, such as South Africa, America, UK, Trinidad etc. These are generally law-abiding folks who contribute a great deal to their host country.
Scribe, you may be right, and India may become a great ally in the future. I am merely on the side of cautious; we have made the mistake of supporting the wrong nation before, and I`d HATE to see us create another superpower enemy. (Had we not supported the Soviet Union during WWII, we would never have had the Cold War.)
There are, indeed, many encouraging signs in India, but there are many things which should give us pause. China is a bad egg, and radical Islam surrounds India, so it seems logical to support them. I`m not so sure supporting them means helping them to the extent that we seem to be doing. Still, Hindus, Buddhists, and Sikhs are generally more peaceable then the alternative. So you may be right.
I just fear this could blow up in our faces. History has shown this happens more often than not.
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