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I wish that NYTimes would differentiate between Individual indian States. Individual states have significant autonomy and depending upon the government elected can range from moderate to leftist. Largest indian states have populations similar to large nations such as Mexico ~ Maharashtra. And have huge variation in metrics like literacy rates ranging from 93% (Kerala ~ Canada ) to 63% (Bihar ~ Philippines).

~ is used to show country with similar population.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_states_ranking_by_liter...

http://www.economist.com/content/indian-summary

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Who cares? The government is hardly the solution here. This kind of problem usually requires major grassroots efforts, usually lead by insiders within all these sub-cultures. The government at best could band-aid the solution, at worst, it'll antagonize them.

> the government elected can range from moderate to leftist

Isn't the BJP, the Hindu nationalist party that now runs the country, right-wing? I know they are openly anti-Muslim in some times and places.

> I know they are openly anti-Muslim in some times and places.

What makes 'anti-Muslim' inherently right-wing? Certainly in the US and Western Europe, there's no shortage of Islamophobia to go around in the left-wing parties.

Hmmm ... could you give examples? In my experience nationalism, xenophobia, and religious prejudice overwhelmingly are only on the agendas of right wing parties.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_politics#Us...

"right wing" in the US has a very different meaning than the rest of the world. At its core, left/right is a statement about social (in)equality and the government's involvement in the same. It often is tied with conservative or nonsecular politics (inextricably so in the US, less so elsewhere), but that does not define it.

India's government is pretty heavily involved in trying to break down social inequality. Whilst people disagree about the intentions and/or impact; we have plenty of policies trying to break down this inequality. We're also more on the socialist side of the capitalist-socialist spectrum (the constitution, for example, explicitly calls India socialist).

As far as cross-party agreement on government "interference" in equality is concerned, India has it much more than the US AFAICT. Whether this makes the main parties left-wing; I don't know, but it's not clearly right-wing. Then again, Wikipedia seems to call the BJP right-wing.

.... terminology sucks.

(IMO this dichotomy isn't particularly useful in India.)

Especially when the Sangh is for Swadeshi and actively for Protectionism. RSS happens to Hindu Nationalist but have Fabian socialist tendencies.

> India's government is pretty heavily involved in trying to break down social inequality.

Is the current BJP administration trying to do that, or is that the long-term trend? Also, is the BJP trying to help the Muslim minority or only Hindus?

It's a long term trend.

As far as the Muslim minority is concerned, there haven't been any changes in law that I am aware of regarding them (besides, India has a bunch of laws that make it hard to remove laws pertaining to minorities without involvement from minority leaders. Or something like that).

There probably have been internal policy changes. I don't know. One would expect them to focus on fixing "Hindu rights" issues over Muslim rights, sadly. I'm not sure what they have done so far in that direction (and there's a lot of debate over this right now; whether or not the atmosphere in the country has changed due to them). I'd rather not get into that debate here.

You correct. Perhaps that is why you are being downvoted.

Indeed you can trivially get a rough idea of political leanings of European parties from the university of Bergen. For example http://www.nsd.uib.no/european_election_database/country/uk/...

Obviously googling will quickly show each party's stance on any issue of interest. There are a finite number of significant parties in the EU and they are not secretive about what they stand for.

And it's hard to imagine anyone being unaware of a US politician's alignment or the difference between say Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump on say the issue of xenophobia. But perhaps chimeracoder is such a person.

I do not know about India but chimeracoder only mentioned Europe and the US

In fact, the US definition of left vs right is nearly identical to the European understanding of that difference. What differences there are would stem from the prominence of far right ideas in the US: In Europe, parties form all sides generally agree on issues such as firearm regulation, climate change, the wisdom of the metric system and the right to medical care

UK labour party had mugs before last election with anti-immigration messages.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelectio...

They were Thatcherites and couldn't honestly be described as left wing.

No doubt there is.

But Internationalism[1] is a left wing doctrine, and while it can be quite anti-religious it promotes unity across ethnic and religious divides.

It's probably fair to say most left-wing anti-Muslim movements are anti-religion in general. I'm sure the exceptions to this will be pointed out to me soon (The Zionist movement is probably worth noting here. Interestingly the early (pre-WW2) socialist Zionist weren't particularly religious and generally had quite good relations with Muslims).

Left-wing nationalism[2] is worth examining in this context. For example the Indian National Congress is generally seen as a left-wing nationalist party, and primarily endorses social liberalism – seeking to balance individual liberty and social justice, and secularism – asserting the right to be free from religious rule and teachings.[3]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalism_%28politics%2...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_nationalism

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_National_Congress

BJP is right-wing hindu but the only party in the country to demand uniform civil code.

Right-wing parties often sell themselves as bringing more order. Famously, Benito Mussolini, who openly embraced fascism in Italy, promised to make the trains run on time.

(It's order for the groups the fascists represent but state-imposed disorder for the minorities and others that are oppressed.)

Because this is Hacker News and we can have opinions with more nuance and respect people with intellectual differences to improve our understanding of the world...

we should also note that, at its best, there can be wonderful things that you get from certain principles of order and uniform civil codes and right-wing thought, such as the Rule Of Law (Not Of Men) and the idea of Equality Under The Law. but we shouldn't.

These principles, if combined, mean that no one is unfairly oppressed by the legal system and the government (that most powerful of all potential oppressors) and that no one is favored with special rights and privileges and handouts. This is not the sole essence of freedom in and of itself in isolation, but it's an important component of the foundation of freedom, and a powerful check on dictators like Mussolini. Our strong tradition around these principles here in the Anglosphere is why our tyranny rate has been so incredibly low for centuries.

If you are attributing to me any disrespect toward conservative members of HN, please point out the words. We need to be able to say things that are critical of ideas without people jumping to the conclusion that it's personal disrespect.

I absolutely agree that order and many other ideas that are more associated with the right, such as the free market, are extremely valuable. I don't happen to agree that everything you named is actually right-wing, including the rule of law, equality under the law, or resistance to tyranny. As a simple example, conservatives in the US supported slavery and segregation for centuries, and still work to limit voting and other rights of minorities.

Nah, I'm not accusing or anything. though I should have stricken the "because we shouldn't." from the previous post but didn't because I was on the edge of falling asleep and editing nonlinearly and missed it. But if you can compare a wing to Mussolini I can surely point to the virtues, no? :)

> conservatives in the US supported slavery and segregation for centuries

while progressives in the US only supported eugenics and forced sterilization of minorities - thank God that's behind us, amirite?

> and still work to limit voting

You mean that they work to limit voter fraud? ;)

> I don't happen to agree that everything you named is actually right-wing, including the rule of law

Look at the current American right wing's complaints about President Obama and the rule of law. They've been complaining since his administration railroaded the GM bankruptcy settlement through the courts and gave big-money to the unions (reliable Democratic campaign contributors) instead of the senior bondholders who had paid extra for the legal right to first dibs. Later, it became a question of executive agencies being Excessively Creative with the way they wanted to enforce things: The use of the Clean Air Act, originally passed to clean up acute and toxic pollution like acid rain, in order to fight global warming, a gas which has always composed a substantial portion of the atmosphere. Various maneuvers regarding Obamacare, like whether an exchange established by the federal government should count as "established by a state". Immigration laws.

Is this noise at least as much situational whining as it is right-wing principle? Hell yes it is. Normal in most parties, obviously - one of the reasons they need each other to be healthy, and keep each other honest.

I have no idea whether the right wing of India (which sparked this thread) does the same. I won't dismiss the idea out of hand just because they're being dinged as 'right-wing' and they're pursuing uniform civil codes (though the allegations of being hostile to religious freedom will in fact bother me).

Khemer Rouge, Gulags in USSR, The Great Leap and Cultural Revolution in China etc. Sorry , Commies/Left too sold themselves to people as crusaders of justice and there by order. The trains on time, thing was also promised in India esp. in a era that is remembered in INDIA as "EMERGENCY", and that violation of civil rights was brought to you by....(drum roll) Center-Left Indian National Congress.

> Khemer Rouge, Gulags in USSR, The Great Leap and Cultural Revolution in China

I agree these groups are radical left (Communist) and did horrible, horrible things. However, I don't think they are examples in this case:

1) I was talking only about some specific problems as characteristic of the right wing: nationalism, xenophobia, and religious prejudice. The Communists were anti-nationalist; a core tenant was internationalism, effectively erasing national borders for their movement (their anthem was The Internationale[1]), incompatible with xenophobia. Secularism, or an outright rejection of religion, was another principle, IIRC.

2) I was referring more to current parties in democracies (though I did bring up the Italian fascists as an example).

So I agree, the radical left can be just as dangerous as the radical right - in fact I agree with many who think the political spectrum is more of a O shape, with the extremes closer to each other than to the center. But in my comment above I was speaking about the characteristics of the current mainstream-to-far (not extreme) right.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Internationale

> The Communists were anti-nationalist; a core tenant was internationalism, effectively erasing national borders for their movement (their anthem was The Internationale[1]), incompatible with xenophobia.

In theory, sure.

In practice, have you no idea about ethnical relations and discrimination in USSR?

I agree that theory and practice are much different. However, Russia long has had those problems (and still does); I don't see it correlated with the Communists. Also, the USSR supported communists all over the world, from China to Angola to Nicaragua.

I'm not sure I understood you right - are you saying 7% Canadians are illiterate?

What does it mean to be literate in India?

http://gbytes.gsood.com/2006/07/03/literacy-in-india-can-ind...

This "survey" was held in villages in 5 of the most backward states in India. In Hindi. 13 years ago.

Two of the states also do not speak Hindi as their primary language.

Do you really think this is a fair representation of India as a whole ?

That's from 2006.

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