On 7/30/21 2:35 AM, Ameya Nagarajan wrote:
Could you expand a bit more on the un-nationality of India? Are we not, rather, a multinational state and the trouble we run into is that we're trying to forge a unified identity and unlike the US we don't have strong citizen rights etc?
I think the US could also be defined as a multinational state. Strong citizen rights? Not so much, and they are presently under attack from a substantial minority who want to impose authoritarian rule.
Fortunately, this minority is incompetent, and doesn't include our military, which is all that kept us from becoming a military dictatorship last January.
But it is hard to try and form a nation from a state that was created by a combination of occupation, mass kidnapping, loose borders, and a history of internal strife. The very fact that we still have fifty nearly autonomous States speaks loudly to the level of tribalism still prevalent here, and even those are multinational.
I can thus sympathize with Indians over the challenges. Yes, both countries are worse due to the pressure of the pandemic, but if there weren't cracks in the foundation to begin with, the pressure wouldn't have spawned such evil changes.
So far, the only proposal I've heard that has even a chance of success is to hand everybody guns and let them shoot it out. Sadly, that's the process the US is going through, though not deliberately, and it's not going well.
I wish I had answers to go with my sympathy, as we two aren't the only countries facing this problem.
Cheers, / Bruce /
