I received another letter from an Indian, this time from a low caste Indian woman. She is highly intelligent, and I really enjoyed this missive. As you can see, not everyone in this country is a bad person. But the culture is basically evil, and a culture like that will warp and twist the best of men. The culture is the hands and the people are the clay. The quality of the clay matters little in the hands of a master potter.
I think this woman is a very good person though. I have met some other basically good Indians. They start off with the usual bluster about “India the greatest country on Earth,” and then pretty soon, it’s, “Hey Bob, do you think you could get me into the US somehow. I will do anything to get out of this Hellhole.” It is nearly as sad as it is humorous.
I learned some interesting things from this article. One of them is what a total scumbag Mahatma Gandhi was! Vowing to hunger fast to the death if lower caste Indians were allowed high positions in the colonial government. My God, what a monster this man was!
My name is [removed], and I am an Indian female. I read your article, India Is a Shithole and found it very true. My English is not very good; I hope you understand what I am trying to say. There is no doubt that living in India is a complete nightmare, but the problem is one lone person cannot change the whole country. When Indians fought for their freedom, their intentions were just to rule over the country and not think about the welfare of its people.
Three important things you are missing in your article:
First is casteism. People are extremely snide here, and they want any damn shitty reason so they can prove they are superior to their neighbors. It has been centuries since this caste practice started and still it is so prevalent in society.
If law-makers had not introduced a quota system for lower caste people, then upper caste people would have never let them do any jobs. Imagine a country where half of the population is living and treated as slaves. Even pre-independence when Britishers tried to introduce lower caste leaders in their administrative system, leaders like M K Gandhi vowed to fast til death to annul this rule.
I belong to one of the lowest caste, the Chamars, and my parents (born 50 years ago around 1960) told me how they struggled to get food, education and jobs where people always judged them and mistreated them because of their caste eg. teachers refused to teach them. In almost the whole country, inter-caste marriages are not accepted, and honor-killing is rampant. Though casteism is pronounced illegal in the Constitution, it is widespread. Upper caste people consider lower-caste people untouchable and refuse to even drink water from the same tap as their lessers. Though this practice is slowly fading, it has a long way to go.
Second is religion. Though India boasts about ‘unity in diversity’, the truth there are more threats from internal elements than from outside countries. The Babri Masjid riot in Ayodhya, Godhra riots etc an indication of perennial conflicts between Hindu-Muslims. Both religions are extremely supercilious and teach hatred for other religions, though on the surface people of respective religions deny that this is true. All of the ugly things and illegal activities here happen in the name of religion and not just illiterate but even educated people believe in them. There is hardly any difference between illiterate and literate people here – each is as stupid as the other.
You will be shocked to know what stupid things people do here in the name of religion and culture. People are very intolerant towards anything against their religion. Politicians make sure this religion and caste difference never goes away so they can divide and rule easily. You will see people uniting and fighting against anything they consider an insult to their religion, but they will never unite and stand against issues like corruption.
Third is the oppression of women. If I try to described the condition of women here, words will fall short. Since childhood, a girl’s self-respect is destroyed, she is taught to bear everything from assault to incest to beatings to honor-killing just because she is born a female. I have seen how men do not have the tiniest respect or concern for women, not even as another human.
Abuses such as bride-burning (killing for dowry), rape, ruining a woman’s face by acid tossing, etc. are very common here. No one goes after the attackers; instead the victim is seen as a disgrace and she is blamed with the accusation that her character is not good. Because of so much social stigma against women, women do not come forward and raise their voices. Out here men only see a woman as an animal not even as a human, and it’s everywhere – there is no difference between educated and illiterate men on the Woman Question.
Although men out here are crazy towards White women. If you just type ‘women abuse in India’ in Google, you will know what I am talking about. This gender difference is lesser among the higher classes, but the majority of population here is poor and illiterate.
There are many people like me who want to get out of here and lead a respectful life, but maybe it’s our bad luck that we born here. That is why rich people are leaving the country and settling in developed countries. So, please do not generalize that here everyone is same.
Robert, those people who have been abusing you in their comments and trying to make you wrong, they also know that if given a chance to settle down in a developed country, they won’t hesitate to take it. The problem is they are too cowardly and stubborn to accept the facts and do not want to raise even a finger to change the existing conditions.
