Alt Left: India and China: A Comparison

SHI: The Rapeublic of India is taking a leaf out of the PRC book when it detains Kashmiri politicians and opposition leaders. So every time I read about the Uyghurs in China, it rings close because the Indian fascist regime is engaged in closely similar tactics.

They’re different countries. China is a Communist dictatorship. Commies don’t mess around. They kill people, put lots of people in prisons, etc. It’s just what they do.

India is theoretically a democracy. They should not be acting like a totalitarian state. That’s way out of line.

To me, China runs on the Maoist principle of serve the people. They are also one of the countries on Earth (unlike us) who believe in the greatest good for the greatest number. They really are out to help everyone, with a special emphasis on the poor. Does India (or the US for that matter) work on the principle of the greatest good for the greatest number? Of course not.

India has utterly failed its poor. India and China were approximately equal on most social figures in 1949. Since then, China has leaped far ahead of India.

And the Indian capitalist system has resulted in 200 million excess deaths compared to China since 1949. That is, if they had followed the Chinese model, 200 million lives would have been saved. There are still 4 million excess deaths in India every year compared to China. Check out Amartya Sen’s work. That’s where I got most of these figures.

Further, at least 30 years ago, 14 million people died of malnutrition and hunger-related illnesses every year in the world. Most of those deaths were in South Asia. In my opinion, most of those deaths are tied into the private ownership of land (I am talking farmland here).

Neither India nor Pakistan, Bangladesh, or Nepal ever did a proper land reform. The issue comes up from time to time in India, but the Indian state is ruled by large landowners (instead of  corporations), so it never gets implemented. India’s going to have terrible problems until they do a proper land reform.

for Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh. Pakistan still has semi-feudal land relations with debt bondage and sharecropping, and it also has always been ruled by large semi-feudal landowners.

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6 thoughts on “Alt Left: India and China: A Comparison”

  1. Some quotes about India from recent travelers. You gotta love the fetishization of Westerners.

    1.

    India rearranges all your cultural furniture. I thought I knew what music was, I thought I knew what pain and love and faith were, but India changes everything. Everything is different. You can’t explain India to people. I can explain Ireland, Norway, the Alps, but I can’t explain India.” – Rick Steves, famous travel writer and TV personality

    2.

    A land of eternal decrepitude – Paul Theroux, famous travel writer. The link with the past is unbroken. No matter how high-tech things are today, you’re still seeing holy men in the street, people brushing their teeth with a twig, people bathing in the Ganges, beggars. And cows are still sacred, even if they are sick and stumbling around.

    By contrast, a buffalo isn’t holy even though it’s sleek, in great shape, and has practical value. And Indians can make anything. They’ll make a suit for you overnight. China is now a disposable culture. But because of the poverty, India is still a make-do society.

    3.

    India is a smorgasbord of sights, sounds and smells. This is a place where the astonishing becomes the commonplace, where the best and worst of life are dished up in equal doses often at the same time, and the senses are assailed by sights, sounds, and smells that could not possibly be forgotten.

    Trust me, the people who warn you beforehand of the impending culture shock are not doing India justice. It is a veritable mind warp for first-time travelers, and it is difficult to imagine spending a couple of months here without your outlook on life being altered forever. – Richard Boock

  2. I have one more:

    For all its size and importance, India is a relatively unknown nation to the rest of the world, trapped in its own self-absorption, suspicious of the outside world, unwilling to interact as a nation among nations. Torn by racial violence and conflict, impoverished, ardent, mystical, religious, exciting, dangerous, and powerful – India is all of these things and more.

    – BARBARA CROISSETTE

    1. Look, man, I am banning you. It’s quite appalling that you are a Sikh. Are Sikhs normally this wildly Hindutvadi? We don’t allow Hindutvadis on here, sorry, pal. Shiv Sena is thattaway ——->.

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