Wow .. This dude is frustrated! I though his first article was a one-off but he continues from where he left with his second letter to NY times!
To be honest, I do agree with some of his premise about out-of-touch NRI patriotism, inequalities amongst Indian masses and paralytic corruption at every level. And I totally agree with him about the insane blind following all the spiritual gurus have in India amongst the "educated".
But I don’t agree with his idea and implication that such extremes are unique to India and therefore the recent peaks of achievement aren't reasons for celebration.
For instance, Commonwealth Games were plagued with huge corruption and Kalamdi was correctly persecuted. (That's a different matter that he's living it up on a government holiday in Tihar Jail and is planning Tihar Olympics!!!!) But Kalmadi should be persecuted because corruption is bad and not because the Chinese Olympics were "better organized".
I think we have a very unkind obsession about making one-to-one comparison between events happening in India and "seemingly similar" world events without caring to know the full story and factoring in different ground realities. I mean South African FIFA World Cup 2010 was a great success because you weren't one the local shopkeepers who were not allowed to sell anything within 1.5KM radius of the stadiums. China is booming and has a great story because you aren't the millions who live in remote villages in awful conditions or political activist who mysteriously disappear!
So yeah if you are feeling cynical or just don’t have anything else to do, go ahead read these articles. Whether you agree with him or not, his articles do make an interesting read.
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Searching for Something Good to Say About India
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