What has Democracy solve for India? Lesson for us.

[BUILDING7']

democracy under cloak of captalism = fraud greed lies and more bloodshed

 

[huzihaidao12]

You got a point there. Democracy without uniform economic development cannot sustain; that is why you see movements like Naxalism in India. With economic development comes literacy which is the bedrock of democracy. In fact democracies which have gone down economically are those which are most prone to failure.It is still an enigma to me how India survived the last 50 years when we were not doing so well economically.

Maybe I can find the reason.

Although the India racial system is a clear discrimination and unfair, but it is also a long history, India people have accepted this system, so the lack of the spirit of resistance.

 

[huzihaidao12]

However, it certainly will not happen all the time effects. With more open and economic development, the effect will be reduced. China has a saying "you need to worry about the unfair distribution, but do not worry about that if you are average, even if all poverty."

 

[Indian Gurkha]

Maybe...

It's worth noting that there are no active armed insurgencies in China.

While there is some unrest in the Western provinces, the vast majority of the Chinese population are connected by a common sense of Chinese identity. This has been the case for a long time.

One of the reasons why there are no active armed insurgencies in China
is because your government can deal with them with a heavy hand without worrying about HR advocates unlike in India. Another reason is that China's growth has been more inclusive and insurgencies are generally fuelled by economic deprivation.

 

[ajtr]

democracy under cloak of captalism = fraud greed lies and more bloodshed

What you have to say about democracy under the cloak of socialism???

 

[huzihaidao12]

One of the reasons why there are no active armed insurgencies in China
is because your government can deal with them with a heavy hand without worrying about HR advocates unlike in India. Another reason is that China's growth has been more inclusive and insurgencies are generally fuelled by economic deprivation.

This is another misleading, any country is strictly to rebel activities, including India.

 

[indushek]

Maybe...

It's worth noting that there are no active armed insurgencies in China.

While there is some unrest in the Western provinces, the vast majority of the Chinese population are connected by a common sense of Chinese identity. This has been the case for a long time.

Exactly right.

We had more of the choice than they did really. Ours was a "people's revolution".

No "external power" chose our fate for us.

CD there is no may be here in India. That is the main point, due to differences in castes, religions, regions and the ever present haves and have nots it is a true wonder that India pulled along for this long.

Indian Gurkha's point is valid, due to economic differences people are taking to arms. However this is changing slowly, but the problem of caste politics will take more time because this has been around for centuries and not a new phenomenon.

Regarding your other comment that our choice was extraneous i don't accept that, the people of India allowed these leaders to choose for us because then we didn't have thugs and goons as leaders. These were educated people like Vallabhai Patel, Maulana Azad, Nehru, Gandhi and many many others who were all fighting against the british rule. The people of India could switch to the non-violent moment by the words of these leaders only.

Your comments are like the British sat at a conference and decided what India should be like after Independence. No sorry this is not true, we had ample choices that is the reason why we had both democratic parties and socialistic parties like CPI (Communist Party of India).

Just because we didn't have a armed rebellion against the British it doesn't mean we have taken the choices of outsiders?? It was the decision of our leader Gandhiji to go for a non-violent moment, there were lot of people who wanted to fight the british with arms like Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. But the moderates won the argument what can i say??

 

[indushek]

This is another misleading, any country is strictly to rebel activities, including India.

No this is not misleading, India has to bow down at some point to the so called human activist groups. If u can just follow the media u will find many articles about how these armed insurgents are actually innocents gone the wrong !!! when we have people who try take on the government for everything this is what we get.

Look i have tried to explain as much as i can, but u don't seem to buy these arguments any way. So give us poor Indians ur final judgement on how to govern ourselves and i will move on.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

Regarding your other comment that our choice was extraneous i don't accept that, the people of India allowed these leaders to choose for us because then we didn't have thugs and goons as leaders. These were educated people like Vallabhai Patel, Maulana Azad, Nehru, Gandhi and many many others who were all fighting against the british rule. The people of India could switch to the non-violent moment by the words of these leaders only.

To clarify, I made that post specifically in response to another Indian poster, who said that Communism had been "shoved down our throats", despite the fact that it was a people's revolution. The people of China took up arms against the Japanese and the corrupt KMT government, they made their own choices.

CD there is no may be here in India. That is the main point, due to differences in castes, religions, regions and the ever present haves and have nots it is a true wonder that India pulled along for this long.

Yes I understand that. China is a mostly homogeneous society in terms of ethnicity/culture, India on the other hand is a very diverse society, with no predominant ethnic/cultural group.

The situations in both China and India are very different, which is why I believe China works best under a one-party government, and India works best under a multi-party democracy.

 

[huzihaidao12]

No this is not misleading, India has to bow down at some point to the so called human activist groups. If u can just follow the media u will find many articles about how these armed insurgents are actually innocents gone the wrong !!! when we have people who try take on the government for everything this is what we get.

Look i have tried to explain as much as i can, but u don't seem to buy these arguments any way. So give us poor Indians ur final judgement on how to govern ourselves and i will move on.

According to my understanding that India take action to suppress the rebellion minority northeast, and that there are some cruel means.

As for our debate, I object to your point, I put forward the reasons, you are against, you may ask reasons. No problem, as long as reasonable, I accept.

 

[CardSharp]

One of the reasons why there are no active armed insurgencies in China
is because your government can deal with them with a heavy hand without worrying about HR advocates unlike in India. Another reason is that China's growth has been more inclusive and insurgencies are generally fuelled by economic deprivation.

I'll just ask a simple question. Which cost more lives? To put down an armed insurgency quickly and cold-heartedly or to hesitate and allow it fester for years and years?


Also I think the difference between China and India's approach lay not only in how much force each side is willing to apply. China also takes a more community minded approach to insurgency. Here is a good article comparing separatist in China and India.



Sovereignty and separatism in China and India: The myth of difference

Author: Dibyesh Anand, University of Westminster

When it comes to dealing with dissent within the country, the contrast between the two rising powers in Asia — China and India — is distinct. The Chinese government believes in total co-option or complete marginalisation of intellectuals; the foreign ministry’s strong response to the Nobel Peace Prize for Liu Xiaobo is an interesting case study in this regard. In contrast, the response of the Indian government to international recognition of critics — such as Binayak Sen of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, known for his campaigns against state-sponsored armed vigilantes in Naxal-affected Chhattisgarh in central India — is usually muted. An active civil society, competing media sources, multi-party electoral system, and effective judiciary — all with their own flaws, no doubt — cannot ensure an accountable government in India, but it does mean that dissenting voices aren’t suppressed as easily. This different attitude toward intolerance of dissent is to be expected as India is a multiparty democracy and China is a Party state (where no redressal mechanisms exist against the ruling party).



But it would be misleading to buy fully into a democratic India versus authoritarian China narrative and assume that more plurality, openness and fairness flows automatically out of the former. Anti-minority violence perpetrated by Hindu fanatics, often with state complicity, reminds us of the precariousness of life as a minority in India. While majoritarian nationalisms (Hindutva in India and Han chauvinism in China) are dangerous threats to the mainstream multiethnic nationalisms in both the countries, their lethality is more obvious in India than in China. The Chinese system is authoritarian, but it is so for everyone. Many Han Chinese feel that the government appeases the minorities but they cannot do anything about it. In India, this feeling of perceived appeasement of minorities contributes to the success of rightwing political parties like the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

If we shift from state-majority-minority relations to the relations between the State and the ethno-nationalist movements in the periphery, again there are some apparent differences between China and India. Protests in Tibet in 2008 were quickly followed by a complete expulsion of foreign media, a crackdown, and a denunciation of the Dalai Lama and foreign forces for encouraging separatism. Ethnic violence in Xinjiang in 2009 was handled slightly differently. More foreign media were allowed (mainly because the government knew that, in contrast to Tibetan Buddhists, Westerners were unlikely to have sympathies for Uyghurs Muslims) but the attitude toward demands made by the protestors remained uncompromising. Internet is severely restricted in Tibet and Xinjiang and was in fact completely banned in the latter for many months after the protests. It has become clear that the Chinese government will not accept any outside pressure on matters it considers to be ‘internal affairs.’ Nor will it recognise as legitimate any demands made by citizens for greater participation; any change that comes, must occur from the top-down. Even a whiff of separatism and a crackdown is inevitable.

Kashmir is different, partly because the Indian system is different, but mainly because the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir is an internationally recognised dispute. Unlike Tibet or Xinjiang, where no sovereign state questions Chinese sovereignty, all international actors see Jammu and Kashmir as a disputed territory between India and Pakistan and so sovereignty is already an unsettled question.

If we look at the most recent protests in Indian-controlled Kashmir, we find that more than 100 Kashmiris, mostly boys and young men, have been killed by the security forces. The Indian response to this ‘threat to sovereignty’ is different from the Chinese one. Kashmiri political leaders, including moderate as well as hard-line separatists remain very much in public, announce their protest calendars, denounce the Indian government, and the media can approach them. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the internet has been utilised by Kashmiris to mobilise and raise awareness, even as local journalists face severe restrictions. The Indian prime minister has appealed to the youth for calm, politicians visit Jammu and Kashmir capital Srinagar for ‘fact finding’, and an eight-point plan has been put forward to solve the problem.

But, and this is a significant but, it is a mistake to over-valorise the differences between India and China. The Indian approach is no less repressive when you look at the actual experience of Kashmiris, or many other ethno-nationalist communities living in north-eastern regions of the country. The face of Indian democracy that the marginalised communities witness here is worlds apart from the celebratory tone of the overwhelmingly nationalist Indian media, as well as compliant Western commentators.

Democracy for Kashmiris and many in the North East has meant corrupt and compliant local elite propped up by the Centre through fraudulent elections; everyday humiliation and reminders that mainstream India does not trust them; the overwhelming presence of the security forces, protected by special laws; the onslaught of Indian propaganda, often with active complicity of broadcast media, to misrepresent all demands made by the ethno-nationalist activists as illegitimate and as stemming from extremism.

If one goes behind the fog of propaganda and misperceptions and closely studies Chinese and Indian government policies and practices in the peripheral regions, they’d see that the rising Asian powers have more in common. When it comes to dealing with ethno-nationalist communities questioning the dominant nationalist narratives, a fight against ‘separatism’ and ‘splittism’ overrides any concern for rights enshrined in the states’ own constitutions. In this sense, both China and India are, what I term, ‘postcolonial informal empires.’ While claiming to be anti-imperialist, both countries seek to consolidate and discipline their borderlands and reduce the people living there into culturally different but politically subservient subjects.

Dr Dibyesh Anand is an Associate Professor in International Relations at London’s University of Westminster. His research interests include majority-minority relations in China and India, Tibet, and China-India border dispute

 

[below_freezing]

Nor will it recognise as legitimate any demands made by citizens for greater participation; any change that comes, must occur from the top-down. Even a whiff of separatism and a crackdown is inevitable.

I have issue with this statement. If resisting separation is a crime, then the US is the worst criminal in history, killing 800,000 americans (5% of the US population at the time) in a brutal civil war in an effort to stamp out the southern way of life. There is no crackdown in chinese history that can compare to what the US did.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

Nor will it recognise as legitimate any demands made by citizens for greater participation; any change that comes, must occur from the top-down. Even a whiff of separatism and a crackdown is inevitable.

I have issue with this statement. If resisting separation is a crime, then the US is the worst criminal in history, killing 800,000 americans (5% of the US population at the time) in a brutal civil war in an effort to stamp out the southern way of life. There is no crackdown in chinese history that can compare to what the US did.

I think the wipeout of the Native Americans was far worse. The death toll there was astronomical, estimated up to 100 million.

 

[below_freezing]

white americans don't view native americans as real americans. to them they're just dumb subhumans to be butchered and used as fertilizer.

 

[hembo]

I think the wipeout of the Native Americans was far worse. The death toll there was astronomical, estimated up to 100 million.

Although ethnic Americans were depopulated by War & violence, exploitation and massacres, More native Americans died out due to varus epidemics of common diseases like influenza, small pox etc. Although some smaller fraction of conspiration theorist do suspect the Europeans of deliberately infecting the natives with this viruses, there is very little truth in that. The native's immune system were not good enough for these viruses carried by the Europeans as these diseases were alien to the natives.

The Europeans did try to vaccinate when they realized the real cause of the mass deaths in village after village. But by then the worst had already happened.