The Western societies (esp the cultural descendants of the British) are superior to the Indian ones in moral values. They are freer, fairer and value / protect criticism more than Indian ones do. They have better abstractions of institutions that correct various forms of error.
This is visible in the ethical standard of their societies and their ability to generate all kinds of knowledge at a faster rate than peers. Some guy in the US may have thought of a solution to a problem an Indian wouldn’t even know exists.
Exposure to this mode of social organisation can be and is often transformative for Indians. Many Indians I know who live abroad ‘change’. They do so because as Indians they are brought up as more receptive to accommodation compared to other places (like China or Pakistan etc)
This ability to accommodate* among other features makes Indians successful as an an immigrant group in the said Western societies. Low false positive rate of cultural assimilation. Follow the law. Model minority etc etc. So far so good.
[*] Why the accommodation mentality exists among Indians is a separate discussion and my views on this may be a little controversial. But a topic for another day maybe
So what is the problem if Indians are accommodationist, learn Western values well and have some good baseline qualities to deliver measurable and statistically significant value to their host socs? The problem is over-fitting. In short Indians pick up their noise as signal too
Fabian Socialism, Communism, Wokism, Social Justice War, understanding of religion in the Western / Biblical tradition etc were/are learnt wholesale. These are bad models in part because they aren’t general enough & in part because they’re bad explanations even in home contexts.
Indians over-learn and import error. This does not mean that they need to become more prickly and less accommodating, but more critical. They need to develop a good tradition of criticism & skepticism of their own. One which is tested and works on their home ground.
How does this feature look like - like the testicular fortitude to criticise your dad or overbearing neighbour or the local MP. This means saying uncomfortable stuff out loud. This means not knowing your station. And this means being able to take it as good as you give it.
Indians are getting better at this – never mind those who say Indian freedoms are under pressure. They always were, only reporting their lack has become better & the nature of that lack has shifted somewhat. Indians certainly are better than at any point of time in Indian history
But India is far from perfect. And Indians run a serious ji-huzur risk. Less in relative terms historically but more in absolute terms as information of which leader to do ji-huzuri to is now better correlated across a larger absolute number of followers in the Information Age.
Indian future is exciting but like all exciting things a complex & risky business and comes with no guarantees of success.
My advice to Indians of today is what I’ll tell my kids as they grow up: learn as much from others but take nobody’s word for it. Everyone makes mistakes.
My advice to Indians of today is what I’ll tell my kids as they grow up: learn as much from others but take nobody’s word for it. Everyone makes mistakes.
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