It’s honestly not very unified today. Their national languages are Hindi and English, yet only 55% of the population consider Hindi to be their first or second language. In fact, I asked my coworker from S. India where Hindi is pretty rare, and he said he’d use English if he traveled around India because he’s not very comfortable w/ Hindi (despite studying it in school), though he could use Hindi if he had to.
Somehow the government holds things together. I guess people see themselves as Indian despite the extreme differences between regions. So I guess that’s something the Brits somehow got right, though they completely screwed up Pakistan (many Indians believe Pakistan and India should be the same country, despite their fierce rivalry).
From what I’ve heard about Modi it’s pretty much the opposite…
It’s not a unified system where everyone gets along, it’s a rigid caste system (I think technically outlawed but not enforced) where people with power are ok with it because they’re not on the bottom, and the people on the bottom don’t have enough power to change anything.
There’s a reasons Modi’s friends are trump, putin, and kim.
The reason for Modi’s approval is very similar to Trumps. He’s very good at blaming the other (in this case Muslims and several other groups).
He’s also in power at a time when India was inevitably going to grow stronger economically and people can feel that. GDP is growing at 7-8% annually which is massive for a country of India’s size, even if GDP per capita leaves a lot to be desired.
Though India is developing at a steady pace now and is on a trajectory to be a developed nation in two decades, I don’t think I’d rush to give Modi credit for that. It’s a relatively untapped market that constitutes a fifth of humanity. It was bound to grow barring war, natural disaster, crippling geopolitical / trade tensions etc. He’s just at the right place at the right time and had the right type of divisive rhetoric that seems to be hot all over the world right now.
Sure, and I think the same is true for Trump. He inherited a strong economy and, despite his best efforts, didn’t completely screw it up during his first term. Had he won reelection in 2020, I think the economy would have struggled a bit more because his “solution” to the supply chain issues would be tariffs (that’s his answer to everything), which would make the supply chain issues even worse, and I think we’d get a double dip like we did when Hoover did the exact same thing just prior to the Great Depression.
But unfortunately, people don’t seem to look at longer term impacts to things. I think this is an interesting breakdown on how the economy/market relates to political party choice. According to Ben Felix, people turn to conservatives when they’re bullish about the economy (tends to be at the top of a business cycle) and to progressives when they’re bearish (tends to be at the bottom), which leads to conservatives tending to preside over market crashes and progressives tending to preside over growth. There’s some strong correlation there, and I think the analysis makes sense, at least in general terms.
That said, Modi is in a different position entirely. India has been poised to see massive growth, and all they needed was for one of their major competitors (e.g. China) to falter so they can take their spot. With Trump wanting to punish China, the US will likely turn to India more and more, leading to further growth.
Leaders rarely significantly alter the direction of the country’s economy, and their impact tends to be only in screwing things up.
I thought Modi’s policies were generally bad for the populace at large. I haven’t been tracking it very well though, so I could be mistaken.
Trump’s policies tend to be bad for the population at large (basically triggered the massive inflation we had), and so are Putin’s (triggered a ton of sanctions w/ his stupid war), so if his policies are anything like either of those two, then I would assume they’d be bad for average Indians.
It’s honestly not very unified today. Their national languages are Hindi and English, yet only 55% of the population consider Hindi to be their first or second language. In fact, I asked my coworker from S. India where Hindi is pretty rare, and he said he’d use English if he traveled around India because he’s not very comfortable w/ Hindi (despite studying it in school), though he could use Hindi if he had to.
Somehow the government holds things together. I guess people see themselves as Indian despite the extreme differences between regions. So I guess that’s something the Brits somehow got right, though they completely screwed up Pakistan (many Indians believe Pakistan and India should be the same country, despite their fierce rivalry).
From what I’ve heard about Modi it’s pretty much the opposite…
It’s not a unified system where everyone gets along, it’s a rigid caste system (I think technically outlawed but not enforced) where people with power are ok with it because they’re not on the bottom, and the people on the bottom don’t have enough power to change anything.
There’s a reasons Modi’s friends are trump, putin, and kim.
Yeah, I’m not a fan of Modi either. But somehow Modi has a high approval rating, which is why I say they somehow hold things together.
The reason for Modi’s approval is very similar to Trumps. He’s very good at blaming the other (in this case Muslims and several other groups).
He’s also in power at a time when India was inevitably going to grow stronger economically and people can feel that. GDP is growing at 7-8% annually which is massive for a country of India’s size, even if GDP per capita leaves a lot to be desired.
Though India is developing at a steady pace now and is on a trajectory to be a developed nation in two decades, I don’t think I’d rush to give Modi credit for that. It’s a relatively untapped market that constitutes a fifth of humanity. It was bound to grow barring war, natural disaster, crippling geopolitical / trade tensions etc. He’s just at the right place at the right time and had the right type of divisive rhetoric that seems to be hot all over the world right now.
Sure, and I think the same is true for Trump. He inherited a strong economy and, despite his best efforts, didn’t completely screw it up during his first term. Had he won reelection in 2020, I think the economy would have struggled a bit more because his “solution” to the supply chain issues would be tariffs (that’s his answer to everything), which would make the supply chain issues even worse, and I think we’d get a double dip like we did when Hoover did the exact same thing just prior to the Great Depression.
But unfortunately, people don’t seem to look at longer term impacts to things. I think this is an interesting breakdown on how the economy/market relates to political party choice. According to Ben Felix, people turn to conservatives when they’re bullish about the economy (tends to be at the top of a business cycle) and to progressives when they’re bearish (tends to be at the bottom), which leads to conservatives tending to preside over market crashes and progressives tending to preside over growth. There’s some strong correlation there, and I think the analysis makes sense, at least in general terms.
That said, Modi is in a different position entirely. India has been poised to see massive growth, and all they needed was for one of their major competitors (e.g. China) to falter so they can take their spot. With Trump wanting to punish China, the US will likely turn to India more and more, leading to further growth.
Leaders rarely significantly alter the direction of the country’s economy, and their impact tends to be only in screwing things up.
Because 50%+ of India that votes benefits from it…
I think we’re just using different definitions of “hold things together”
I thought Modi’s policies were generally bad for the populace at large. I haven’t been tracking it very well though, so I could be mistaken.
Trump’s policies tend to be bad for the population at large (basically triggered the massive inflation we had), and so are Putin’s (triggered a ton of sanctions w/ his stupid war), so if his policies are anything like either of those two, then I would assume they’d be bad for average Indians.
But it gets worse the further down the ladder you go.
trump will be bad for his white voters, but he’ll treat the people they view as below them even worse
Some people compare themselves to others to judge their worth, so they’ll settle for less if others get nothing.