• eaterofclowns@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Well I don’t want to get all controversial about it but the thing about India is it’s a country in South Asia with a land area of approximately 3.3 million square kilometers and a population of roughly 1.4 billion. And that might be a hot take, but also we have to keep in mind its primary exports are petroleum goods and textiles. Don’t even get me started on how its borders are the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea, and the Bay of Bengal.

  • PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    I travelled to New Delhi, Jaipur, Rajhastan, Goa, Bangalore, and Tamil Nadu in 2011.

    I hated every fucking minute of that country. It smelled so fucking loud there, lots of open raw sewage, very different interpretation of personal space, if you are non Indian you’ll be followed around by scammers trying to pretend to be your tour guide or sell you things.

    You’d see huge marble houses that were very ornate and their next door neighbour would be lying on the ground underneath a thrown together tin tent structure. The wealth inequality was sickening.

    I would absolutely never return to that country/subcontinent for the rest of my life. Once was more than enough.

    • DeltaTangoLima@reddrefuge.com
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      1 year ago

      I couldn’t agree more - I felt ashamed when I looked at the beautiful hotel I was staying in (business trip), after seeing a father kiss his kids goodbye under the makeshift tarpaulin tent they lived in, on the side of a busy, noisy, smelly road.

      Only place that was (somehow) worse was Bangladesh. Same wealth inequality problems as India, but the blatant abuse of the poor was completely on show. I saw police beating beggars on the side of the road, after they knocked on windows of cars, asking for money.

      • PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Oh you’ve reminded me of all the police stops for bribes. That to me was so fucking wild. Police pull you over and ya gotta hand them money or else they’ll give you a hard time.

      • PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Very much. It was a big culture shock. I was genuinely bewildered at some of the living conditions people had. It was really messed up. That, paired with seeing the visible caste system in real life. Dalits stooped low and disfigured sweeping the streets with brooms but built entirely out of sticks.

        It felt like another planet to me.

    • waterbogan@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This is what puts me off going, the poverty. Pity because I’d love to go for all the great vegetarian food, but I can get a lot of that here

      • PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Food is subjective but I found Indian food in India was very watery. I much prefer North American Indian food.

  • OttoVonNoob@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Canadian here, who is aware of the seveirty of of currenr events. Modhi is a problem, popularism and authoritarian behavior disguised as a somber old fellow. The dude has a 2 part BBC documentary about the evil he’s put in this world. He plays the victim in cold blooded murder in another nation. I believe it is hard to have a accurate opinion of India as a whole. As it is so diverse and is more of a country of British forced making, with a diverse set of cultures and religions. Pre British Raj I belive had 30-40 countries atleast. But the people whom I met are beautiful and generally kind. But keep in mind most are immigrants to Canada.

    TLDR: Modhi is a scum bag and generally immigrant Indians I’ve dealt with are delightful human beings.

  • ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    India is a country that could be a superpower. They have the size, the population, the education, the industries, and the location. What they’re missing is democratic leadership.

    India has aligned itself with China, Russia, Brazil, and South Africa. All countries that have been kicked out of the international adults table because their leadership act like babies. India choose to make these alliances because these countries don’t put stipulations on human rights as part of their agreements. Indian leadership doesn’t want to clean up their country, they’d rather make friends with Xi and Putin.

    This mostly comes from their population voting in religious nationalists, which I hope is a good lesson to everyone as to why that’s such a bad idea.

      • Sharkwellington@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        India has aligned itself with China, Russia, Brazil, and South Africa. All countries that have been kicked out of the international adults table

        …because their leadership act like babies.

        Second quote is me completing the original. Why did you cut that last part of the sentence out?

        You are aware you just counted 40% of the world population, and with them comes 20% more? So you dismissed more than half of human population in one sentence?

        Ah that’s why. Yeah no they didn’t. They were talking about the people leading those countries, not the entire population.

        Let’s not even talk about racist part, which I hope is not intentional, when you take a look of who left on your “interational adult table”.

        It’s racist to call someone of another race “boy”.

        It’s not racist to say that a country’s leadership is acting childish. Heck it would actually be racist if someone were to say “all Indians are childish.” But that’s not what happened.

        People call other people childish all the time without a hint of racist intent.

  • Dandroid@dandroid.app
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    1 year ago

    I visited in 2018. Fun trip. Lots of rain. Horrible drainage. Traffic was so bad that I ended up walking a half mile in knee-high water in the rain back to my hotel because the taxi wasn’t moving.

    Oh, and I got a taste of what it feels like to be a minority. People not wanting to serve me or charging me more for services. My hotel tried to charge me for my room that my work had already paid for. Once they saw I was white, they asked for more money. I think everyone needs to experience this so they know what people have to deal with literally every day of their lives.

    Oh, my favorite part was how bad the power lines were tangled up.

    • TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Being a tourist doesn’t make you a minority. Being singled out for being white doesn’t mean you don’t have white privilege.

      • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        This is silly. “White” Europeans are a global minority, and certainly are in India! If you can afford to travel to India as a tourist, you certainly have wealth privilege - is this what you mean?

  • QuizatzHaderach@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    Everytime I see it in the media, the cities look like a constant traffic pandemonium on a garbage dump. Nature seems beautiful, but India is one place on earth, I intend to never go to, sorry.

  • hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    It has an interesting history and the amount of cultural diversity is fascinating. However, there’s a 99% chance I’ll never go there because of all the horrible stuff I have heard: misogyny, poverty, scammers, pretty damn serious child abuse, once again misogyny and poverty.

  • mim@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 year ago

    Fascinating country.

    It’s worth more than one visit, just due to its huge diversity. Food is amazing, and it’s very lively. But you have to get used to it, and go with the flow. If you can’t live without all the first world luxuries and/or don’t feel comfortable stepping outside your bubble, don’t go, it’s not the place for you.

    Would I live there? No. And I’m deeply saddened by the political direction it’s heading in. But don’t form opinions about countries you’ve never been to.

  • mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    As an indian, Fuck india

    Edit: nvm, its just because how corrupt the government is and we suffering from it, not against indians personally or so

  • sara@lemmy.today
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    1 year ago

    I don’t really know enough to have an informed opinion, but the first thing that came to mind is the news articles I’ve seen that Uttar Pradesh is very unfriendly towards women. There is an article that just got posted in the news community today that is pretty horrifying.

  • yumcake@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    Rapid development has led to stark differences within that country, parts are modern, affluent, well-educated…and they live shoulder to shoulder with tribal, impoverished, and practically primal apes. It’s the same issues every country faces when rapid development comes their way. It’s going to be incredibly challenging for them to develop a healthy middle-class and egalitarian society.

    It’s more likely that the rapid modernization just leads to increased concentration of power to an oligarchy, and exploitation of the most vulnerable. Also fascist tendencies are all the rage these days on the international stage, of course those in power are looking on with interest.

    • thepreciousboar@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I think this effect is much greater on India compared with other countries because it’s so big, so diverse, and already unfair because of the caste culture already present

  • mke_geek@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I’ve never been to India. Unfortunately I’ve heard mostly negative things:

    • Rampant rape of women
    • Too much garbage
    • Smells bad
    • Treating anyone non-Indian badly or will try to take advantage of them financially
    • Overcrowded
    • Poverty
    • Low wages
    • Culture that puts down women / treats them much lower than men instead of being equal
  • Jeena@jemmy.jeena.net
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    1 year ago

    I know quite many people from there because I’m working in the Automobile industry with software, so I’ve been working with quite many people from different parts of India. I would even say that India would be better off if it split into smaller countries because people are so super different, starting with language and food all the way to culture and money. I’ve met the coolest people and the shittiest from India.

    All in all I like that it’s a to some degree functioning democracy.