• sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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    19 days ago

    It’s honestly not very unified today. Their national languages are Hindi and English, yet only 55% of the population consider Hindi to be their first or second language. In fact, I asked my coworker from S. India where Hindi is pretty rare, and he said he’d use English if he traveled around India because he’s not very comfortable w/ Hindi (despite studying it in school), though he could use Hindi if he had to.

    Somehow the government holds things together. I guess people see themselves as Indian despite the extreme differences between regions. So I guess that’s something the Brits somehow got right, though they completely screwed up Pakistan (many Indians believe Pakistan and India should be the same country, despite their fierce rivalry).

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      From what I’ve heard about Modi it’s pretty much the opposite…

      It’s not a unified system where everyone gets along, it’s a rigid caste system (I think technically outlawed but not enforced) where people with power are ok with it because they’re not on the bottom, and the people on the bottom don’t have enough power to change anything.

      There’s a reasons Modi’s friends are trump, putin, and kim.

        • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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          19 days ago

          But somehow Modi has a high approval rating,

          Because 50%+ of India that votes benefits from it…

          I think we’re just using different definitions of “hold things together”

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            19 days ago

            I thought Modi’s policies were generally bad for the populace at large. I haven’t been tracking it very well though, so I could be mistaken.

            Trump’s policies tend to be bad for the population at large (basically triggered the massive inflation we had), and so are Putin’s (triggered a ton of sanctions w/ his stupid war), so if his policies are anything like either of those two, then I would assume they’d be bad for average Indians.

            • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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              19 days ago

              I thought Modi’s policies were generally bad for the populace at large

              But it gets worse the further down the ladder you go.

              trump will be bad for his white voters, but he’ll treat the people they view as below them even worse

              Some people compare themselves to others to judge their worth, so they’ll settle for less if others get nothing.

        • shawn1122@lemm.ee
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          19 days ago

          The reason for Modi’s approval is very similar to Trumps. He’s very good at blaming the other (in this case Muslims and several other groups).

          He’s also in power at a time when India was inevitably going to grow stronger economically and people can feel that. GDP is growing at 7-8% annually which is massive for a country of India’s size, even if GDP per capita leaves a lot to be desired.

          Though India is developing at a steady pace now and is on a trajectory to be a developed nation in two decades, I don’t think I’d rush to give Modi credit for that. It’s a relatively untapped market that constitutes a fifth of humanity. It was bound to grow barring war, natural disaster, crippling geopolitical / trade tensions etc. He’s just at the right place at the right time and had the right type of divisive rhetoric that seems to be hot all over the world right now.