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Comment by blueblisters | Hacker News Reader

I think a technocratic single-party system (however terrible for liberty) would have never worked in India. The wounds of a colonial past followed by region-specific societal differences would be just to vast to overcome with an "enlightened" bureaucracy trying to force homogeneity down people's throats.

I suspect China had similar problems but the cultural revolution appears to have largely effaced the echoes of the past through horrible means.

India can still learn a lot from Chinese-style governance - it seems effective at dealing with local issues efficiently, especially in urban areas. India's urban regions suffer are chronically starved of funds and infrastructure because of lack of executive powers for local representatives.

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> I think a technocratic single-party system (however terrible for liberty) would have never worked in India.

True. Not for the reason of colonialism. In china majority(98% plus) believe they are descendants of the Han dynasty. This unified view of belonging is what allows the single party system.

Total opposite is with India. The Hinduism religious vedic books dictates to segregate the society in the name of varna system(its successor modern day caste system) and even goes as far to restrict the education to only the priestly caste. This is the reason India is far behind in terms of education before the british era. Only after the conquest of British slowly everyone had access to education. This is the reason almost 95 percent of people are first college goers in India.

> Hinduism religious vedic books dictates to segregate the society in the name of varna system(its successor modern day caste system) and even goes as far to restrict the education to only the priestly caste

Which vedic books? Can you provide a source? I have skimmed some vedic books, but never came across such restrictions.

> Only after the conquest of British slowly everyone had access to education.

To the contrary, some historians blame the British for worsening the caste system. See https://www.britishempire.co.uk/article/castesystem.htm for example.

> Which vedic books?

Rigveda and later codified through Manu smriti which codified this Varna and Jati system and made a class of untouchables [1].

This is one of the reason father of Indian constitution gave up Hinduism and became Buddhist. Current Indian govt actively promotes jati and Varna and perpetrate communal divisions to stay in power and people justify those divisions.

[1] https://legaldesire.com/dr-b-r-ambedkar-views-on-abolition-o...

Both Manu and Ambedkar were extremely unreliable relays of anything Vedic. They both had their own agenda for propping up some castes at the expense of another. Consider that the Rig Veda is written in a language that hardly anyone understands, there is no reason to believe Ambedkar could have faithful translated even one sentence of Rig Veda. Currently, the most authoritative source on RV is Jamison & Brereton's translation. I don't have access to it at the moment, but as I recall, there are just passing references to the varnas, shudras, etc.

There is a large body of evidence and research available for systemic exploitation based on Jati and varna's and the legitimacy of it claimed through vedas and manusmriti. May be go through wikipedia and other research sites can find an evidence of this system coming from vedic age and than subsequently developed into more repressive schemes. [1] [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varna_(Hinduism)

[2] https://sci-hub.se/10.1080/00472338085390141

Again, Manusmriti is not a vedic source. Mentioning it will only serve as a distraction and weaken your argument. The paper by Dipankar Gupta is junk. It does not cite the specific verse numbers of specific vedas. Apparently, Gupta has a lot to say, but gives the impression that he is simply making up stuff as he goes along.

The Wikipedia article is better. But you will notice the article citing the book I mentioned earlier: 'Stephanie Jamison and Joel Brereton state, "there is no evidence in the Rigveda for an elaborate, much-subdivided and overarching caste system", and "the varna system seems to be embryonic in the Rigveda and, both then and later, a social ideal rather than a social reality"'.

If there is really a "large body of evidence", I am still waiting for something concrete that you would cite, so that I can go look it up, in the Vedas.

Much of what you say about "Caste" is either Church propaganda or Caste politics.

Large parts of India was under islamic occupation for 300-700 years followed by 100-300 years of Christian occupation. Both were quite destructive, destroying universities, burning down libraries and destroying/looting temples.

Hindus pray to trees, animals and consider everything divine. The misinterpretation of the Varna is a devious christian evangelical agenda.

This flies against the face of numerous example of leaders of the Hindu society and authors who are not part of the clergy. The whole caste system which originates in Europe was transplanted to India to divide and rule.

> The wounds of a colonial past

China in 1949 was pretty much destroyed from both previous Japanese aggression and subsequent civil war. These wounds were substantial.

But I agree with the gist of your comment. India is too diverse to support a one-party, one-nation utopia.

One giant bad event vs generational damage. Quite a lot of difference.

Not to mention the century of humiliation, which by its name alone reveals a lot.

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