Hacker News Reader

Comment by nsns | Hacker News Reader

Is there any other place in the world, called a "nation" but made up of 28 different states, each with its own unique language and culture (not minorities, but full blown states)? Just see what happened in Europe when they tried to unite their currency.

In reality, India is more like Europe than the US (shared culture and history, different national entities, never really jointly ruled until modern times), yet its government is centralized and cultivates hopes of becoming like China. I'd be extremely sad to see India break up into separate states, but I'm becoming more and more convinced it's the only way to solve its real problems.

View on HN

You would surprised to see how mind numbingly similar the middle class is across all the states in India. Or for that matter similar to middle classes across the world.

Also - I dont think breaking it up will solve anything - If anything pakistan and bangladesh are excellent examples of states that were broken out of what you could call old India, and their struggles are getting worse after 60 odd years, not better.

I'm not Indian, but I do know Tamil, Bangla and Hindi, and love this country. I've been watching the rise of the middle class in India, and was devastated to see how the poor have become much much poorer (I'm thinking about Adivasis and migrant workers mostly), and how some north Indian families that were semi-middle class ten years ago, are poor now. The situation is really bad, IMO, and I hope there will be some improvement in the near future, perhaps after the imminent fall of the UPA2 government (though the alternatives seem just as bad...).

The Eurozone (17 countries, 333M people) is a subset of the EU (27 countries, 503M people) which is a subset of Europe (50 countries, 739M people).

So less than half of the people in Europe united their currencies into the Euro.

The demise of modern India has been predicted ever since it gained independence from British. It is hard to understand from a western perspective how such a diverse nation can survive without anything common except religion. However there is a strong sense of unity (despite clashes) among Indians. E.g. legendary boxer Mary Kom still wants to win a gold medal form India despite the atrocities of Indian government has committed on her region. I feel the people know that in order to prosper they've to be together as a nation. An independent Chhattisgarh nation will be ineffective.

The Southern and Western states are way ahead of Northern states in terms of progress but Bihar has shown that it can have good governance and make economic strides.

The main issue is the media which wants to portray India as an alternative to China and the ruling class who think it's possible. India is an elephant; slow, messy and taking its own course on its own terms. I will consider India a superpower the day it solves all its internal problems and citizens can achieve what they aspire.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com