> There is apathy

Thats a massive understatement from western point of view. I have only personal anecdotes, but tons of them due to backpacking all over India for 6 months. Generally the poorer the people, the better the character, with exceptions (which is maybe universal human trait).

Utter ignorance of plight or suffering of dalits you see everywhere (simply because there is 300 million of them). They will never get a fair chance in life like rest of wealthier society. The mostly IT folks you will meet in west (or on call support call) are never from this caste, they just can't escape the vicious circle of poverty.

Seeing young women not giving a nano-fraction of a f*ck about dog dying in the middle of the street from horrible wounds sustained from being hit by a car (literally stepping over it like it was some dirty rag, I sat there crying my eyes out and the memory is still strong in me even after 10 years).

When talking to young brahmin couple, educated, visited west, very nice, soft-spoken and polite, and they considered its perfectly fine that 5-year old kids of poor have to work in firework factory and will never go to school (and they are 1 mistake away from ending up as finger-less beggars for rest of the life). 'At least they bring home some money' was their mantra. I had strong urge to ask them if they would be OK for their daughter to walk the same path but didn't want to be nasty for their generosity (they gave me a ride when hitchhiking in Yamunotri).

The treatment of leprosy (or more precisely lack of it due to religion, aka kiss of god).

I could go on and on, 6 months gives you a bit of perspective especially when you cover a lot (mostly north, west and south, not much east) from such a massive and diverse country.

It is probably still the best country in the world to do backpacking, it can change your perspective on the world and life, but boy sometimes it was too much.

See my point about desensitization. If you live in India and want to remain sane, you have to develop a barrier. Kind of the barrier you develop in the west pretending to not know where or how your hamburger was made.

>Kind of the barrier you develop in the west pretending to not know where or how your hamburger was made.

Is there any data about how widespread this issue is ? I know plenty of people who know perfectly well from where their meat comes from, and are not bothered by it. Some even want to know, think Ron from Parks and Recs, who refuses to eat anonymous animals. On the other hand, I'm totally ok if other people do not want to have to think about it. A succesful society should provide for both needs.

Widespread enough that people find it shocking how poorly food animals are often treated when they bother to look.

This is the same kind of sensitization one needs to live in San Francisco. I lived in SF for a few weeks. The barrier I developed in India was no use.

> The mostly IT folks you will meet in west (or on call support call) are never from this caste

And how the heck do you know this? With very few exceptions, I don't know the caste of most of my colleagues. FYI, the government already has enforced quotas in schools, colleges, and government jobs for most of the traditionally "backward" castes. In private industry, we people don't go around announcing our castes to colleagues, suppliers, or customers, and no one cares.

Everyone in the West should spend some time in places like India. Paying 21%VAT on everything doesn't feel so bad anymore!

> 'At least they bring home some money'

This is a valid argument. What would you prefer 5 years old child to do: work at a factory or die from starvation?

These are sometimes quite real choices in poor countries.

Oh boy. This is such a naive Western POV and sounds incredibly condescending.

Are you sure you're not just reacting in anger because someone criticised your country?

I love India, but from the couple of months I spent there it's clear that there is a huge amount of apathy and resistance to very much needed social change. This criticism is valid. Just look at the attitude to rubbish and pollution - complete apathy and desensitization. The sacred cows do not eat grass, they eat plastic mixed with food waste. Literally. And as far as I can tell, nobody cares about this, or about the obvious poverty everywhere, the disfigured beggars and starving child workers, because they have become desensitized to it, just as I did after a couple of weeks.

When someone is entirely critical of a comment but doesn't explain what the truth is, I assume it is probably because they know the comment was true but don't want to admit it.

His comment is self evident. Indians = heartless. Westerner = savior. That movie has been played hundreds of times. I don’t have time to debate such useless conclusions.

Whether it's karmic reincarnation or an afterlife, the morality type it generate is the same. Nietzsche seriously need to be taught/explained early so people stop with this "slave" mentality (i'm paraphrasing here).

And maybe more didactic consciouness philosophers could be taught as well, for even in non-materialist theory, monism (that did not need "god hypothesis" unlike most dualism) seems to be mainstream. And perhaps people (esp those interested in psychology, neurosciences and/or IA) could be lured into materialist illusionism (insert maniac laugh here).

Be it N (the philosopher) or other criticism on Hinduism. Buddhism still is the answer for people who believe in Hindu (that is why it was created to begin with).

Most people answer like a personal attack if they have been hurt because of this mentality they have in India. I assume that something like that happened to you.

Christianity does not teach reincarnation.