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Comment by dilawar | Hacker News Reader

According to at least one anthropologist, the religious leaders were so obsessed with the idea of ritual purity and pollution that physical cleanliness took a beating. It is not easy to understand even for an Indian. Caste system foundations were also based on, or at least justified by, the idea of ritual purity and pollution. 'The remembered village' by MN Srinivas hints a bit about these things.

While growing up in village, there were so many sayings now I understand. Like my soul is pure what if my hands are dirty or I havnt took bath for two days. Cleaniness of place is even less cared for and personal cleanliness.

I get it that other dont understand why its so hard to keep your neighborhood clean. Its not hard, its just most dont care!. And before thr age of plastics, nature did all the cleaning during monsoon and summer.

PS: It is not the politician. It is the people and culture.

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This depends on religion - Sikh temples are cleaned every day, are usually immaculate white, and incorporate foot washing into every entrance. It's pretty marvelous to see how efficiently a group of ~100 volunteers clean the Golden Temple in Amritsar every day - whoever happens to be around at 3 pm might grab a broom, bucket, or stand in the holy pool to fill buckets of water. The surrounding city and state (Punjab) is much cleaner than you would find elsewhere in India.

Japanese culture also has a number of "ritual purity" elements, such as taking shoes from outside off in the genkan (vestibule) before stepping into the main part of a house, and ritual cleansing with water when visiting a shrine. I understand that Japan is far more economically advantaged than India, but even so, the difference in how clean things are between New York City (for example) and any major city in Japan is quite stark. [I'm from the US but lived in Japan for a year. Haven't been to India but I know a lot of people from there.]

> religious leaders were so obsessed with the idea of ritual purity and pollution that physical cleanliness took a beating. It is not easy to understand even for an Indian.

Yeah, no. You see the same happening in poorer parts of South East Asia and Africa.

In one of the Attenborough documentaries, they showed Hyenas visiting the capital of Ethiopia that locals feed them at night. I was like looks like a much poorer city than Bangalore, but darn their streets are so clean (even at night).

I have been to many villages in India, where even local streets are narrow, hard to navigate for cars. And people love to occupy a few more feet from the street for personal use (you can see this behavior in cities too, by extending buildings onto streets). Sometimes, these issues lead to fights among neighbors, including deaths. A local daily reported that a family was sending a drain pipe from their washing machine onto the street; and the next door door had been complaining for months, leading to a fight. The end result: the dishwasher's owner's wife was killed by a huge stone hurled at her by the neighbor.

I've travelled extensively all over Asia, and spent a lot of time in India (especially Mumbai and Delhi) - IMHO India is by far the worst for trash and filth. The only parts even remotely close I've seen were in Nepal and Indonesia.

Indeed, I was particularly struck by how clean and tidy poor parts of SEA are!

This makes sense. Steve Jobs famously observes this stark contrast during his india trip too.

Though one can ask why this can’t be true of any ‘world-denying’ religion too? Judaism? Christianity? Why bother with physical cleanliness in this life when you’re gunning for salvation in the next one?

Hinduism's concept of salvation is very different from the Judeo-Christian understanding of salvation

What a xenophobic statement. I’m in the UK and I see exactly the same thing here with trash abandoned all over the streets. That’s before you look at the filthy state of our rivers with businesses brazenly dumping waste.

What’s the excuse here then?

> What a xenophobic statement

I think the person you are replying for is saying that they grew up in India

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