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  • Originally posted by Oracle View Post
    Yeah, a Ram Rajya where rivers turn red with blood. And what a valiant King/God he was. Being a God he couldn't see if his wife (Sita) was violated (read as having sex) by Ravana, and she (Sita) had to walk through fire to prove her chastity. LOL.

    Ram, Rama = King of Ayodhya, 7th avatar of the Hindu God Vishnu.

    Comment


    • Originally posted by commander View Post
      In all honesty there is a lot of discontent with the Indian populace on how it was looted and was made beggars by the colonial empires, we were once at our peak of civilization until the greedy a**holes from the west started to find their way to our country for it's vast wealth. Even Though things might be improving I doubt if we can ever go back to the glorious past of ours. I know we had and still have our faults , but hey which country doesn't .. So whenever we see or hear how the UK or any of the colonial empires used us to fulfil their needs or used us as a pawn, some of us feel enraged about it and want to shove the middle finger up their arse. It is just the wishful thinking that how things could have changed but without realizing the other side is not so greener than the one that we were in.

      Nobody in India with their true sense of mind would want a Hitlers regime or an Imperial Japanese empire ruling us, trust me no one would. We were a country who never sent an army across trying to conquer, we were and still are a peace loving nation. It is just the wishful thinking that by going the other way we will be able to take revenge on them. Kind of like saying F*** You !!!

      The other colonial countries had moved past from the posts here I guess for eg: BF but our democracy is only half of what Australia's is so it will take sometime for the scar to fade away from the Indian psyche. The only way for that to happen is to concentrate in development and increasing the quality of life. We still loathe them because unlike other colony countries we didn't start with nothing, we already had everything (not technologically, but I guess you get what I am trying to say) and that was stolen from us. THe country that once fed many countries was hit with famine and many died. These had deep implications. This is just my honest opinion anyway.
      This is the WORLD AFFAIRS BOARD populated not by Indians but by people around the world. We call bullshit when we see it and SB is piling it high and wide. His attempt here is trying to say Modi was paying homage to a Japanese war hero. That is complete bullshit. The man is no Japanese War hero. When challenged to find proof that this man is in fact respected as a war hero, all he put up was Bose.

      Well, that is your National Myth and I understand why it is your National Myth but that does not pass the mustard here. I am not going into the Bose thing again. The reality and the facts are there for all to see. India may choose to ignore them but don't try to push it down our throats. We ain't swallowing one bit of it.

      I understand your hatre of the British. Hell, the start of the Quit India Movement should have been a court challenge. Ghandi was jailed for making a speech. That speech was protected under British Indian Law at the time. And within 24 hours, the Gestapo and the KGB would marvel at such efficency.

      None of this explains why 2.5 million families sent their sons to war. SB's idiotic answer is easily disproven but Antimony's answer also does not explain things. The BIA at the start of the war was only 200,000 strong. 2.3 million men joined because their livelihoods depended on the Raj? This is war. 2.3 million families were risking their bread winners.

      But I have a simpler answer other than patriotism. The Japanese pissed off these men. The ferocity between the BIA and IJA was only matched by that between the Soviets and the Nazis. Quaters was neither asked nor given. The BIA did not surrender and did not take prisoners after they learned what happenned to their comrades.

      In other words, these men clearly saw the monster they were killing. They may loathe the British but no way in hell were they going to let the Japanese take over.

      If you have another name for the BIA, then I will use it but it's a term everyone recognize but by no means was this a British Army. It was an Indian Army through and through.
      Chimo

      Comment


      • I wish the Chinese develops a port n Tripura. The inland waterways connecting it to the Bay of Bengal through Bangladesh. That would be the shortest route for trade with Burma, Thailand and also ease up the congestion in other ports. Business in the North-East would get a fillip.

        If wishes were horses, I'd also like to see a nuclear power plant being built somewhere in Mizoram that takes care of the electricity needs of the entire NE region.
        Last edited by Oracle; 14 Sep 14,, 06:17.
        Politicians are elected to serve...far too many don't see it that way - Albany Rifles! || Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it - Mark Twain! || I am a far left millennial!

        Comment


        • Originally posted by Oracle View Post
          Yeah, a Ram Rajya where rivers turn red with blood. And what a valiant King/God he was. Being a God he couldn't see if his wife (Sita) was violated (read as having sex) by Ravana, and she (Sita) had to walk through fire to prove her chastity. LOL.

          Ram, Rama = King of Ayodhya, 7th avatar of the Hindu God Vishnu.
          Yeah, trial by fir and he still banished her based on some town gossip. Some justice

          Originally posted by Oracle View Post
          Anyway, here is what the Chinese have come up with. China to invest $100 billion in India over 5 years
          I see a lot of numbers with zeroes thrown around, I will be impressed if a fraction of that actually gets invested. Also, I hope whoever is throwing all this money monitors the heck out of it.
          "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" ~ Epicurus

          Comment


          • Originally posted by antimony View Post
            Yeah, trial by fir and he still banished her based on some town gossip. Some justice
            Stupid mythology is one of the reasons why men behave the way they do in India. I've had colleagues who marry for dowry and some who want a virgin as their bride. I've also had colleagues, who on a visit to Batam from Singapore (sex tourism), requested for a virgin girl in a brothel. These are all educated folks. Educated, but limited with their prejudice.

            Originally posted by antimony View Post
            I see a lot of numbers with zeroes thrown around, I will be impressed if a fraction of that actually gets invested. Also, I hope whoever is throwing all this money monitors the heck out of it.
            For that the archaic laws need to get booted out first. Accountability is a big issue, and till now I've not heard of the BJP government addressing that issue. They, I fear, would not, afterall everybody needs to make some money out of it.
            Politicians are elected to serve...far too many don't see it that way - Albany Rifles! || Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it - Mark Twain! || I am a far left millennial!

            Comment


            • Originally posted by commander View Post
              In all honesty there is a lot of discontent with the Indian populace on how it was looted and was made beggars by the colonial empires, we were once at our peak of civilization until the greedy a**holes from the west started to find their way to our country for it's vast wealth. Even Though things might be improving I doubt if we can ever go back to the glorious past of ours. I know we had and still have our faults , but hey which country doesn't ..
              It is perfectly reasonable to be unhappy about aspects of history and take pride in others, but it is important not to overdo it. None of the things the British did happened to anyone here, and most of the worst happened before anyone on this earth can remember. The past is the past. Similarly it is important not to overstate the 'glorious future denied' aspect. There are no guarantees. History is littered with great civilizations that failed to adapt to a changing world. Even without European invasion there is no guarantee that the glorious past would have led to a glorious future. Perhaps India would have become the nation you think it would have, perhaps not.

              So whenever we see or hear how the UK or any of the colonial empires used us to fulfil their needs or used us as a pawn, some of us feel enraged about it and want to shove the middle finger up their arse. It is just the wishful thinking that how things could have changed but without realizing the other side is not so greener than the one that we were in.

              Nobody in India with their true sense of mind would want a Hitlers regime or an Imperial Japanese empire ruling us, trust me no one would. We were a country who never sent an army across trying to conquer, we were and still are a peace loving nation. It is just the wishful thinking that by going the other way we will be able to take revenge on them. Kind of like saying F*** You !!!
              Good observations. Occupied peoples don't always have good choices and I understand why 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' is sometimes necessary. However, there is usually a worse option. I think India avoided one.

              Speaking as the inheritor of a people who continue to fight over events centuries in the past my advice is to restrict the emotion to events within the lifespans of the people you know and especially to your own life. That is how history exists in the real world.

              The other colonial countries had moved past from the posts here I guess for eg: BF but our democracy is only half of what Australia's is so it will take sometime for the scar to fade away from the Indian psyche. The only way for that to happen is to concentrate in development and increasing the quality of life. We still loathe them because unlike other colony countries we didn't start with nothing, we already had everything (not technologically, but I guess you get what I am trying to say) and that was stolen from us. THe country that once fed many countries was hit with famine and many died. These had deep implications. This is just my honest opinion anyway.
              As I said Commander, be careful not to overstate the past or make questionable comparisons. Most colonized peoples had successful civilizations, some the equal or superior to yours. Britain didn't steal your civilization. You still have it. They changed its future. Much of that was negative, but not all. It never is. You weren't reduced to nothing and you didn't have to start from scratch. That doesn't make what the British did OK, but lets not pretend it was like the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

              Your democracy (one positive British legacy) is doing just fine given what it has to deal with. My perspective is that India has a bright future provided people don't treat its great diversity as a negative rather than a positive. It frequently amuses me that the people who most loudly shout about India being unique sometimes seem the most keen to turn it into a European or East Asian nation based on ethno-nationalism or authoritarianism. It is a curious irony that the British legacy I mentioned might actually prove to be the best basis for a nation with India's unique characteristics.
              sigpic

              Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

              Comment


              • Originally posted by Officer of Engineers View Post
                This is the WORLD AFFAIRS BOARD populated not by Indians but by people around the world. We call bullshit when we see it and SB is piling it high and wide. His attempt here is trying to say Modi was paying homage to a Japanese war hero. That is complete bullshit. The man is no Japanese War hero. When challenged to find proof that this man is in fact respected as a war hero, all he put up was Bose.

                Well, that is your National Myth and I understand why it is your National Myth but that does not pass the mustard here. I am not going into the Bose thing again. The reality and the facts are there for all to see. India may choose to ignore them but don't try to push it down our throats. We ain't swallowing one bit of it.

                I understand your hatre of the British. Hell, the start of the Quit India Movement should have been a court challenge. Ghandi was jailed for making a speech. That speech was protected under British Indian Law at the time. And within 24 hours, the Gestapo and the KGB would marvel at such efficency.

                None of this explains why 2.5 million families sent their sons to war. SB's idiotic answer is easily disproven but Antimony's answer also does not explain things. The BIA at the start of the war was only 200,000 strong. 2.3 million men joined because their livelihoods depended on the Raj? This is war. 2.3 million families were risking their bread winners.

                But I have a simpler answer other than patriotism. The Japanese pissed off these men. The ferocity between the BIA and IJA was only matched by that between the Soviets and the Nazis. Quaters was neither asked nor given. The BIA did not surrender and did not take prisoners after they learned what happenned to their comrades.

                In other words, these men clearly saw the monster they were killing. They may loathe the British but no way in hell were they going to let the Japanese take over.

                If you have another name for the BIA, then I will use it but it's a term everyone recognize but by no means was this a British Army. It was an Indian Army through and through.
                I wasn't defending SB but just pointed out how we viewed the west and WW1 and 2 from a different POV. I have never asked you or anyone else to take my or anyone's opinion but just pointing out how we see our hero's from a different perspective. But I get what you are saying. I was only arguing about how both the men needs to be remembered equally, we can debate all year long but the bottom line was they wanted the same thing, Freedom for India. I equally respect the courage shown by the men on both sides, because I know it is for their efforts I am now talking about democracy.

                About why so many men volunteered for the BIA, I don't have an answer. Like I said we were used as pawns for the British to win their war and we don't really like to bask in that glory. What could have happened to India if Britain had fallen in that war is a debate for another day. But I can certainly say it was never for the love towards the British our men volunteered. The Indian populace were not all educated at the time and we were never involved in a global scale of things, India was just another colony for the British that provided them with manpower and wealth. For all we know the British could have threatened their families had they not joined. I am just speculating and this a strong possibility. What could a farmer with shovels do against a British military with firepower anyway. It was the time when peace protests were at it's peak and any organized violent protests before that were very minimal and were nipped in the bud by the British. The protests, before shaped to be bigger came someone like Gandhi (BTW your spelling for Gandhi ji is wrong) leading it upfront. Whatever you said are possibilities too but not necessarily the actual picture. Had we fought a war like the USA to attain our freedom things could have been much different. Like you said what could have the British done had many Indian men took arms against the British.

                The government that ruled us so far (which is still favoured by many in this forum) had done a good job of wiping the memory of India of all these brave men and their sacrifices. All we know of are only a handful political leaders but never the foot soldiers, I know it is not possible to honor and remember every one of them but you know what I am saying. Heck I dont even know there was something called BIA until I came across this forum and I hold a masters degree . You can assume how it will be for every other citizen who is struggling to earn 2$ or 3$ a day to keep his family afloat. Right from the school History & Civics are considered as just another subject that you need to pass to get through school and they are not a requirement in colleges unless you chose it.

                Every country has hard core right wingers which up to a certain level are tolerable and is necessary but not the extremists. India is in bad need for a dose of nationalism at the moment and when we see someone who can give us that we rejoice. Hence you see why there are so many Modi bhakts (followers). If Indians themselves feel sorry about them all the time and don't care about their nation how will others respect us and that is the state that now opposition Congress has done to us. Which Modi is trying hard to change, but anything he does is criticised by the so called secular mind of India. You need healthy criticism but too much of anything is dangerous. Congress started the vote bank politics by appeasements and whatnot which further divided the country and the rest joined their bandwagon to survive. But Modi is someone who is different and after being ruled by a puppet PM who rarely speaks for about 10 years anything Modi does to improve the country is celebrated by many. A recent example is the Independence day speech where after I don't know how long a Indian PM spoke without bullet proof vests and walls. We needed a PM like that and we got someone who is bold enough. If Modi even fails to achieve most of his promises it wont matter to many of us because we are proud we had a PM with balls enough. Not saying he shouldn't do anything though. I am hoping you get what I am trying to say.

                Comment


                • Originally posted by Oracle View Post
                  Stupid mythology is one of the reasons why men behave the way they do in India.

                  Stupid mythology is everywhere in every religion, I can point out many but I know better. It is not the religion but the interpretation by the humans that changes things.

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by Bigfella View Post
                    It is perfectly reasonable to be unhappy about aspects of history and take pride in others, but it is important not to overdo it. None of the things the British did happened to anyone here, and most of the worst happened before anyone on this earth can remember. The past is the past. Similarly it is important not to overstate the 'glorious future denied' aspect. There are no guarantees. History is littered with great civilizations that failed to adapt to a changing world.
                    Considering the state that we are in now what we were pre-colonization is certainly glorious to me and many others in India. You you might feel I am overstating but that's my POV anyway.

                    Even without European invasion there is no guarantee that the glorious past would have led to a glorious future. Perhaps India would have become the nation you think it would have, perhaps not.
                    I would have certainly loved for us to decide our future and not others. We might have been more successful or things could have gone wrong, but atleast we got no one else to blame than ourselves right.

                    Good observations. Occupied peoples don't always have good choices and I understand why 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' is sometimes necessary. However, there is usually a worse option. I think India avoided one.

                    Speaking as the inheritor of a people who continue to fight over events centuries in the past my advice is to restrict the emotion to events within the lifespans of the people you know and especially to your own life. That is how history exists in the real world.
                    Who wouldn't love to move past the 'past' ? History sometimes provides you the energy to go ahead no matter the hurdles. Emotion wise yes, too much of emotion is not good even for the body let alone the country. But you can't help feeling being proud or enraged sometimes and emotions take control. Hopefully it is for the better of my country.

                    As I said Commander, be careful not to overstate the past or make questionable comparisons. Most colonized peoples had successful civilizations, some the equal or superior to yours. Britain didn't steal your civilization. You still have it. They changed its future. Much of that was negative, but not all. It never is. You weren't reduced to nothing and you didn't have to start from scratch. That doesn't make what the British did OK, but lets not pretend it was like the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
                    I was not talking about the civilization or culture. I was talking about the wealth that was stolen from us.

                    Your democracy (one positive British legacy) is doing just fine given what it has to deal with. My perspective is that India has a bright future provided people don't treat its great diversity as a negative rather than a positive. It frequently amuses me that the people who most loudly shout about India being unique sometimes seem the most keen to turn it into a European or East Asian nation based on ethno-nationalism or authoritarianism. It is a curious irony that the British legacy I mentioned might actually prove to be the best basis for a nation with India's unique characteristics.
                    I have never denied the positive side of the British rule in India and I have pointed out in some other threads too.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by commander View Post
                      Stupid mythology is everywhere in every religion, I can point out many but I know better. It is not the religion but the interpretation by the humans that changes things.
                      Religion is interpretation of of the natural and the supernatural by generations of humans, to get a sense of their place in the world. Allah (if he exists) did not create Islam, Muhammad and his followers did. The same is true for other religions and belief systems. And people die over them, over some belief systems that other people came up with. Sickening all around.
                      "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" ~ Epicurus

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by Officer of Engineers View Post
                        None of this explains why 2.5 million families sent their sons to war. SB's idiotic answer is easily disproven but Antimony's answer also does not explain things. The BIA at the start of the war was only 200,000 strong. 2.3 million men joined because their livelihoods depended on the Raj? This is war. 2.3 million families were risking their bread winners.
                        Col.,

                        I am not sure where you are getting the 200K figure but will take your word for it.

                        I cannot explain the motives of the 2.3 but I will say this: the war did not capture the attention of the the Indian populace. As kids in school, most of the history around that time focused on the Independence Movement and subsequently on Partition. We had enough troubles back home. WW2 was taught briefly but I remember being more enthused by the fact that the Germans kicked British ass, than by the holocaust. Japan did not even come up. I distinctly remember admiring Hitler by the way he took a weak and impoverished Germany to one of the most powerful nations on earth. It was only much later, when I read up on the 3rd Reich, did I properly appreciate how horrible the nazis were.

                        If that sounds like selective history to you, let me tell you this. Most of the literature from around that time also focuses on the freedom struggle. Even the generation that volunteered as soldiers seemed rather disinterested. My own grandfather was a teacher in East Bengal (now Bangladesh) when he went and joined the Corps of Electrical & Mechanical Engineers (EME). When I quizzed him about it, he said that he spent the those days in Burma, following the war in papers. Not sure if was being completely candid, and I have no way of asking him now (he left us in '98).

                        All in all, regardless of the number of Indians who joined the war efforts, it does not seem an important part of India history. Maybe it should be, given the sacrifices of our soldiers, but till now it has not been.
                        "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" ~ Epicurus

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by antimony View Post
                          Religion is interpretation of of the natural and the supernatural by generations of humans, to get a sense of their place in the world. Allah (if he exists) did not create Islam, Muhammad and his followers did. The same is true for other religions and belief systems. And people die over them, over some belief systems that other people came up with. Sickening all around.
                          It's so easy to "boil down" various religious doctrines to fit one's agenda, or even one's "season". This is aside from the fact that many people follow because they want/need some social interaction, or they want to feel "inspired". Anyone who did "E.S.T." training (or the Forum, I did twice) knows how much people want answers. I'm a jolly, respectful skeptic, and Darwin fanboy to the bone, but I do remember all that. I go to church once a month, even though I'm at least agnostic -- but my wife knows I'll never be Baptist, even though that's the church I go to. The thing is, she gets inspiration from the occasional service, even though she halfway believes in evolution, and that's sweet. I actually envy her acceptance, it seems to make her happy. But the occasional service, holding hands with my wife, singing whatever the church teleprompter reads? I can deal with that, especially since pizza, or Indian food is often the next thing to happen.....
                          Last edited by Goatboy; 14 Sep 14,, 08:27.

                          Comment


                          • For all the disagreements over the course of religion and identity in a massively diverse country like India (much of which is overblown on both sides IMO- Modi is clearly not a fascist and the attempt to portray him as one spectacularly backfired, while the Hindu right refuses to acknowledge the discomfiture and fear that groups like the VHP/Bajrang Dal cause ), political paradigms are always determined by macroeconomic fundamentals. For hundreds of millions people living in abject poverty words like 'communal' and 'secular' have little meaning- this is what Modi's campaign team them picked up on and which many Western and Indian elite commentators simply missed. There is a reason he became what David Cameron called 'the man with most votes in the known universe' (or something to that effect IIRC). His immense popularity derives purely from his developmental track record. Incidentally, it is that same poverty which causes such resentment for the British Empire in India, although Indian politicians need to take the lion's share of the blame for poverty post 1947. While I admit the crimes of the Japanese were horrific, why did the occupying authority- the US- not try to make more effort to force the Japanese to confront their actions, as was the case with Germany? That may have contributed to the lack of historical awareness by younger Japanese on why they are feared and hated today.

                            On the main topic of this thread, by getting promises of $29bn in annual investment from Japan, China, UK and France with more possibly coming from the US, the Modi gov is steadily squeezing political space for his already decimated opponents, while increasing development in India. The geopolitical development this promises is interesting to watch. IMO, this path may take India into a path akin to Bismarck's Germany in the late 19th century: not necessarily the largest state but the most crucial swing power, between China and the West and Japan and China.

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by Duellist View Post
                              On the main topic of this thread, by getting promises of $29bn in annual investment from Japan, China, UK and France with more possibly coming from the US, the Modi gov is steadily squeezing political space for his already decimated opponents, while increasing development in India. The geopolitical development this promises is interesting to watch. IMO, this path may take India into a path akin to Bismarck's Germany in the late 19th century: not necessarily the largest state but the most crucial swing power, between China and the West and Japan and China.
                              China - $ 100 billion - 5 years
                              Japan - $ 35 billion - 5 years
                              -----------------------------
                              Total - $ 27 billion/annually.

                              I have not heard anything about investments from UK/France/US till date.
                              Politicians are elected to serve...far too many don't see it that way - Albany Rifles! || Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it - Mark Twain! || I am a far left millennial!

                              Comment


                              • Oracle,

                                Both the UK and France have opened $1bn dollar credit lines for investment into the country. My apologies, the French credit line is over 3 years.

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