Post: #51

(12-03-2013 10:21 PM)Wutang Wrote:  Something that confuses me is that India is known for being a harsh country for a female to live in but at the same time I'm always hearing about how Indian American girls are super spoiled. If Indian men really are as sexist as the stereotypes, wouldn't their behavior towards women in their family be the opposite of spoiling and pampering them?

The tl;dr explanation is that there are two Indias... there's the uneducated, illiterate India which is mostly responsible for the "keeping women down" and the rapes, and there's the educated India, which is mostly responsible for the princesses.

Sometimes the two clash, such as in the Delhi bus rape example where a princess somehow got raped in a bus by the untouchables and the whole country erupted as a result.

If the girl speaks English, guarantee that she is a princess. She may not behave like one to a foreigner because they are more high status, but she'll think she's too good for 99% of her countrymen.

Post: #52

Great posts Genghis. Quintus, I'm sure you know that the 3 large cities of Mumbai (Bombay), Chennai (Madras) and Kolkatta (Calcutta) are only a few hundred years old and were founded by the British?
My home state of Gujarat is full of clever businessmen who are making shitloads of money in India and in many anglo countries, they used their British passports to gain citizenship in many countries such as Uganda, USA, Canada, Australia, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania and of course the UK. I guarantee 90% of the top businessmen of Indian heritage are from the state of Gujarat. However I also guarantee that all their children speak clear Gujarati, in my home, my parents speak English, however in the house we use Gujarati most of the time, as do all my aunt's, uncles and their son's and daughters. When children are born into a Gujarati family, even when abroad, they are spoken to in Gujarati as the assumption is they will learn English at school anyway. I'm sure this varies though now in different countries but the Gujarati community and the Punjabi community in the UK really take pride in their languages and culture.

Hindi is a bastardised mix of Sanskrit, Urdu and Persian. Southern Indians will never want to speak this, as their languages are completely different and have no relation to even Sanskrit, they are of the Dravidian tongue, whilst the Deccan and the north is Aryan tongue (sanskrit). The most populous state is Uttar Pradesh where Hindi is most common, however this was the place where Urdu and Persian were really common before, Hindi just usurped it due to it becoming 'Hindustan's' common language.

India is a mish mash of tribes, that have never been united until 1947 as one.

Post: #53

Bojangles:

True enough, and well said. Maybe I was a little hard on India. But it's a real pet peeve of mine to see English creeping all over the world and smothering minority languages like a noxious weed that can't be eradicated. And the governments of so many countries are not taking this issue seriously. I just don't want the world to end up looking like an endless chain of Walmarts, staffed and patronized by overweight blimps speaking English and knowing nothing.

One of the things that really turned me off to Korea was the fact that everywhere I went, people were trying to pimp me out for English practice...and yet I was there to learn their language, and they didn't seem to care.

Like all the rest of us, India is a prisoner of her history, geography, and social systems. Now that you and Genghis have put it in proper perspective, I can see it a bit differently. I did not know that Hindi was so strongly rejected by Bengalis, Gujeratis, Tamils, etc.

I read a travel article in the magazine "Afar" recently. It had a feature story on Kolkata (Calcutta). I found it amusing to read a tour guide state this frank advice:

"Feeling good is not a service we provide here [in Calcutta]. Nothing works here. If you're looking for the easy path, you're in the wrong place. So you learn to improvise."

Governments and people around the world need to start paying attention to language extinction. A lot of humanity's heritage is slipping away subtly with the inroads of global English culture, and this trend has to be resisted by the most severe measures. Until now, governments are not doing enough. And this is one of the reasons (among others) that I feel such hostility towards the Gulf monarchies (Saudi Arabia, UAE, etc.). These governments use English everywhere, and import huge numbers of foreign workers who are never assimilated into the mainstream.

Post: #54

Thanks Quintus, appreciate the feedback! I'll definitely check out Clay Sanskrit Library. Since it seems forum members are a bit curious about how Indian people work (rape/princess issue, etc.), I'll try give my input in several posts. Skip whatever you like.

***********

The entire rape thing/India being sexist vs. princess complex: what augen sehen said is relatively true. Understand I might be wrong, as I've said India is complex and I'm still trying to fully appreciate exactly what's going on:

It's getting hard to make a clear distinction, but from what I can tell:

yes, the well-educated/rich will treat their daughters like royalty. It is effectively the well-educated or hard-working or rich (or combination) Indians you see in the Western world: these people have the opportunities to get to the US and the UK. Even if they're IRTs. Something pretty funny I noticed: the vast majority of Hindus in the US are Brahmin (highest caste, priest caste --> educated). Makes sense. You know, I'm still not 100% sure why the dads pamper the daughters so fucking much. I believe it does have to do with the fact that there is a significant amount of respect of women (especially mothers) in Indian society. This may sound weird considering all the rape, but for example Raksha Bandhan/Rakhi is a very popular Indian holiday where:
the sister ties a piece of string around the brother's wrist and in return the brother promises to protect the sister and gives her money/chocolates. An Indian girl's biggest white knight will always be her brother...he will fucking hate you just for staring at her. I've seen guys become the biggest bitches trying to defend their sisters, even if they know their sisters did something fucked up. Moms - India is known as Bharath matha (mother India), cows are sometimes referred to as moms as well (as they provide milk), dudes in Bollywood movies always say: 'If I don't beat your ass today, I didn't drink my mom's milk.' A lot of popular Bollywood movies have their main heroes revenge their moms' death.

Anyway, on the other end, you have people that live in worse conditions than the Middle-Ages. Extremely poor, can't read, really no future. Only thing they have to hold on is their community. Hence why even with poorer Indians, status matters. This is also why caste system is so notoriously hard to get rid of. Your caste is effectively your community and safety net. Very entrenched in their thinking. And I can't blame them that much, shit they can't read. How are they really suppose to get enlighten? Go online and get on RVF? Not happening. Anyway, with these people, daughters get married off, while sons take over what dad does and takes care of the parents. Having a son is a status symbol (like serious, what else of value are they going to have?). So key thing here: even these extremely poor Indians care about women, BUT only for their moms or wives. As moms/wives can provide sons. Think about it, you're super poor, can barely feed yourself and you're suppose to take care of a daughter for 14-18 years so you can give her to some other family. On top of that, in a lot of places dowry still exists: i.e. you have to pay a family to take your daughter (supposedly to financially support her). Is it a surprise Haryana has about 750 girls for every 1000 boys (what the Bollywood actress in the clip Roosh posted was talking about - foeticide)?

So looking at that type of society: what happens when a girl gets raped? Say she doesn't tell anyone...rapist gets away. Say she does tell, then:
1. her reputation is ruined so no dude is going to marry her...dad's never going to get rid of her and will have to pay for her living cost for the rest of his life --- very high incentive to never tell anyone you got raped. The cruel irony here is that by telling you got raped you ruin your life.
2. the question then arises: why were you raped? What did you do to get raped? In India, police officers will literally tell you its your fault, even if you're a 13 year old girl. Unlike in the West, rape brings stigma to the victim, not the supposed perpetrator. The perpetrator is a guy, which means he needs to carry his family lineage and work, so a lot of pressure on women to prove rape actually happened as a family is not going to let perhaps their sole breadwinner take a fall because some bimbo regretting her actions.

It's funny. In the West, if a woman accused a guy of rape, he is ostracized and she is hailed as a courageous person coming forth under tremendous mental agony. In India, it's the other way around. That's why I feel disgust for women in the US who falsely accuse men of rape, they have no idea how their lives would get crushed in India if they did that.

Now I don't know if rape rates have increased recently in India or if it's more media attention, but nevertheless I hope members here can appreciate why a real rape culture (unlike the supposed one feminists proclaim exist in the West) can persist.



That said, I have another theory that could explain the sudden explosion in rapes in India (and it's not mutually exclusive with the above one):

Indian society is changing faster than people can grasp. The middle-class is growing and becoming more affluent. Although social mobility is still hard, it is not impossible anymore. Society at large is becoming more liberal...as a poster mentioned in this thread, women in Mumbai are actually trying to look pretty, bar scene is exploding.

Bollywood...is the epitome of it in my opinion. As Bojangles stated, two decades ago that video with the 'raunchy' dancing in the rain caused an outrage. Now: there's literally tons and tons of movies coming out with sex themes. One of the most popular ones, called Murder, had nudity (no boobs, but bare shoulders, exposed skins, almost nudity sex scenes,...). I think we're pretty close to finally seeing a Bollywood movies with tits. My money is on Sherlyn Chopra, I think she outdoes Mallika Sherawat as a whore.

At the same, a lot of the really poor are moving into the cities as the Indian economy is booming...in the cities (not the rural areas). People go where work is, similar to Industrial Revolution in Europe. But these really poor people are still stuck in their ways. And what do these people see in movies (even Hollywood movies that are dubbed): women acting very promiscuously.

So these guys are living in the city and nowadays there's tons more girls dressing up in more revealing clothes and lower cuts, etc. What are these guys going to think? 'Damn, these girls are clearly promiscuous.' (most of them probably are, but with people of their own caste/class, they wouldn't be caught banging an illiterate dude from the village --- remember, image is everything here).

Guys get a bit drunk or smoke a bit (if there's one thing impoverished people seem to love, it's alcohol, no matter where they are). Now you have the combination of the following:
- A bit of a buzz
- Some oldskool ideas about women (mom/wive/sister awesome --- every other girl potential whore)
- Some serious thirst from watching bollywood and hollywood softcore porn

So...honestly, is rape really that surprising now? As a last though on this particular post: the New Delhi bus gang rape:
- main perpetrators were two brothers who lived in the slums (google Indian slums if you need convincing of what this implies)
- both were drinking and smoking
- girl wasn't a princess (she actually did come from lower/lower-middle class), but she was getting educated at the college level and that particular night she was out with a guy friend to watch a movie --- what would the main perpetrators think of an a guy and girl hanging out while not being related?You guessed it: "she's a fucking slut and loves the dick (confirming their whore hypothesis)."

Post: #55

Yep, I'm a Uk born Gujju so I can relate to and confirm this post.

As far as Hindi goes, I haven't really heard it widely spoken outside of Uttar Pradesh. Sure the local politicians may speak it and people may have a familiarity of the language through movies (most of us do), but it's not as widespread as portrayed to be.

Hindi itself is split up into multiple dialects, you have 'khari boli' which is the Sanskritized dialect and then you have Urdu, which draws more vocabulary from Persian.

As far as English goes, there is a whiff of superiority with some Indians. At the end of the day, knowing a foreign language is used by some people as another form of 'status whoring'. It probably goes back to the Empire days when there was more social mobility and access for the mid / lower castes. The only way the upper caste Hindus could distance themselves from the rising status and wealth of the lower castes was to take on English habits, customs and sensibilities.

I see this with some members of my extended family, they act like English snobs because of the inferiority complex that they have. We call these folks 'coconuts' and frankly it makes me sick. But somehow they delude themselves into thinking that they are better than other Indians because of their 'civilized' behaviour.

As far as India not being a united entity until Independence, yes this is true to a point. A unified India hasn't existed since the Maurya / Gupta Empire, however the 'bhumi' (land) has always been known as Bharata, Aryavat. So India has always existed as a land and an area, but only recently as a unified political entity (before this there were 600 or so principalities). It actually parallels Italian history and culture in many ways before the unification of Italy.

Regarding the recent high profile 'tourist' rape cases in India, I have a feeling that Bollywood movies have a lot to do with it. 10 years ago you wouldn't see too much raunch or any white chicks in movies. Now, the vast majority of dancing girls in the movies are white (mainly Russian I think). Now think about what happens to an ignorant, dirt poor, sexually repressed guy? It's a bomb ready to explode, they watch these movies that reinforce the stereotype that all white chicks are whores. I'm not defending the rapes, just trying to get to the bottom of what is going on.

Good discussion by the way!

(12-04-2013 08:11 AM)bojangles Wrote:  Great posts Genghis. Quintus, I'm sure you know that the 3 large cities of Mumbai (Bombay), Chennai (Madras) and Kolkatta (Calcutta) are only a few hundred years old and were founded by the British?
My home state of Gujarat is full of clever businessmen who are making shitloads of money in India and in many anglo countries, they used their British passports to gain citizenship in many countries such as Uganda, USA, Canada, Australia, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania and of course the UK. I guarantee 90% of the top businessmen of Indian heritage are from the state of Gujarat. However I also guarantee that all their children speak clear Gujarati, in my home, my parents speak English, however in the house we use Gujarati most of the time, as do all my aunt's, uncles and their son's and daughters. When children are born into a Gujarati family, even when abroad, they are spoken to in Gujarati as the assumption is they will learn English at school anyway. I'm sure this varies though now in different countries but the Gujarati community and the Punjabi community in the UK really take pride in their languages and culture.

Hindi is a bastardised mix of Sanskrit, Urdu and Persian. Southern Indians will never want to speak this, as their languages are completely different and have no relation to even Sanskrit, they are of the Dravidian tongue, whilst the Deccan and the north is Aryan tongue (sanskrit). The most populous state is Uttar Pradesh where Hindi is most common, however this was the place where Urdu and Persian were really common before, Hindi just usurped it due to it becoming 'Hindustan's' common language.

India is a mish mash of tribes, that have never been united until 1947 as one.

Post: #56

Genghis:

As an outsider who knows very little about India, my opinions and impressions may be amusing to you. Here are some of them:

1. The food is to me one of the best in the world. You get addicted to those intense spices, butter-laced sauces, fragrant rice, etc. But not easy to cook at home. I've tried with mixed results.

2. I have a lot of respect for the intellectual heritage of the ancient Hindus. They made contributions in mathematics and astronomy that were top-notch. Also, one of the classics of early Arabic literature is "Kalila wa Dimna" a collection of stories that came from Persia, which got them from India, where they were know as the "Fables of Bidpai"

3. Hindu temple art is surprisingly sensual, with female figures with huge torpedo-like breasts and round asses. This erotic religious art is very appealing...at least to me anyway.

Post: #57

Yea the true ideal of Indian beauty etc is what we as a society should be striving for everywhere. Many years of being a colony, and intentional mental subjugation has led to an insecure Indian society, although it is slowly but surely rising up. This is one of the reasons you get very insecure Indian dudes. Also, Hindi is very commonly spoken in most places actually, except the deep south, and some Eastern states bordering China. It is also true that some of the socially backwards states are the Northern ones like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi, where most off these cases are happening. A place like Mumbai is a lot more cosmopolitan, and much more enjoyable to live in.

Post: #58

Had no idea it was mostly the elite Brahmin class that immigrated to the US, interesting. I always thought it was the poorer, darker skinned ones that had to resort to leaving the country in order to get ahead since they would have very little social mobility in their home country. I live in NJ which has a big Indian population in the central area of the state and I've met quite a few South Indian Christians over the years.

Post: #59

@ Slim Shady, I'm not extremely convinced of Mumbai being more chill. Rape probably happens a lot in Mumbai as well, it's just not easy to come forward with it. The reason why the northern shit holes get so much press is because they go far beyond rape (trying to kill the girl, etc.)

Actually in case anyone's interested. I was googling for Mumbai rape 2013, ran into this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/world/....html?_r=0

Quote:Two hours later, a 22-year-old photojournalist limped out of a ruined building. She had been raped repeatedly by five men, asked by one to re-enact pornographic acts displayed on a cellphone. After she left, the men dispersed to their wives or mothers, if they had them; it was dinnertime. None of their previous victims had gone to the police. Why should this one?

Quote:But the Mumbai case provides an unusual glimpse into a group of bored young men who had committed the same crime often enough to develop a routine. The police say the men had committed at least five rapes in the same spot. Their casual confidence reinforces the notion that rape has been a largely invisible crime here, where convictions are infrequent and victims silently go away. Not until their arrest, at a moment when sexual violence has grabbed headlines and risen to the top of the state’s agenda, did the seriousness of the crime sink in.

Clear stigma, women are terrified of reporting getting raped in India out of fear of becoming a social outcast in their community.

Quote:The photographer and her colleague, a 21-year-old man, were interns at an English-language publication and had decided to include this spot — the backdrop for any number of fashion shoots — as part of a photo essay on the city’s abandoned buildings, the editor said. On that Thursday last August, they reached the ruined mill about an hour before sunset.

My first instinct? Princess complex - girl works at English-language publication as a photographer

Quote: The five men they encountered there later came from slums near the mill complex, claustrophobic concrete warrens where electrical wires tangle at one’s head and acrid water flows in open gutters around one’s feet.

None of the men worked regularly. There were jobs chicken-plucking at a neighborhood stand — a hot, stinking eight-hour shift that paid 250 rupees, or $4.

As you can imagine, these men aren't the upper class type...

Quote:“It’s just frivolous; they just do it casually,” she said. “There is so much abject poverty. They just want to have a little fun on the side. That’s it. See, they have nothing to lose.”

Extremey poor and horny...recipe for rape right there.

Quote:At last they brought her out, weeping, and told the two to leave along the railroad tracks. Before releasing her, they threatened to upload video of the attack onto the Internet if she reported the crime, a strategy that had worked with previous victims.

But this one did not hesitate. The two caught a cab to the nearest hospital. There they reported the crime, and the woman’s mother arrived. “I went inside. I saw her there crying,” her mother told the police later. “She told me in English, ‘Mummy, I’m vanished.’ ”

Yep, princess complex. Although I'll be honest, in a real fucked up way, the fact that we're seeing princess girls getting raped might help reduce rape rates in India. There have been some really brave lower class girls speaking, but I think seeing upper class girls getting raped has probably made the people in politics, media (upper and middle class) take attention. In a fucked up way, this trend of really poor people raping the wrong girls (i.e. those that won't get killed by their own dads) combined with social media might actually reduce rape across the board.

Quote:“I asked Kasim, ‘Son, why did you do this to her? If it happened to your sister, would you come here and tell me or would you beat him?’ ” said his mother, Chandbibi Sheikh. He told her that his friends had come upon the couple embracing in the mill, and “they thought: ‘What is she doing with this boy here? She must be loose.’ ”

Translated as "Every woman except mom/sister/wife is a potential slut. The fact she's with an unrelated guy confirms she is a slut."

Quote: She related this exchange from the family’s home, a sort of shelf wedged between a gas station and a garbage dump; as she spoke, a rat the size of a kitten clambered over containers stacked in a corner. She said far too much onus was being put on the men.

“Obviously, the fault is the girl’s,” she said. “Why did she have to go to that jungle? It’s her fault, too. Also, she was wearing skimpy clothes.”

She did not deny that he had done it. “He must have,” she said. “He told me that they tied up the boy who was doing bad things to her and said, ‘Madam, let us also do it.’ The madam said, ‘Don’t do it to me, take my mobile, take my camera, but don’t do it to me.’ Her body was uncovered. How could he control himself? And so it happened.”

I swear to you guys, I did not know this article existed when I wrote the post above about my hypotheses on why India has a rape culture, but damn this article is confirming everything.

In abject poverty, even the mom will say that girls in skimpy girls are effectively sluts. And the question I stated above comes up here as well: "Why did the girl get raped and what did she do to get raped?". The mom aptly answers: the girl effectively seduced her son. And to emphasize, the guy's family is heavily on his side as he's probably the only breadwinner in the family.

Quote: Much news coverage over the next days zeroed in on the defendants’ poverty, but Mr. Roy shrugged off that line of inquiry. After interrogating the five accused men personally, he said they were “social outcasts,” not indicative of any deeper tensions in the city.

“They were deviants, sociopaths, predators,” he said in an interview. “If there was a larger socioeconomic framework, these crimes would be happening again and again. It was only these guys. I’m 100 percent sure that this kind of crime doesn’t happen in Mumbai. I’ve been here all my life and have been born and brought up here.”

That argument I made above about these type of cases actually getting important people's attention...just kidding. It's really not funny so pardon me for this: but fucking LOL. This lawyer (well-known, rich, etc.) is in complete denial, just like the journalist in Roosh's clip: they genuinely think these are odd cases and not representative of India. Just reinforcing what several people on this thread have said about the Indian elite.

Sigh...the Indian elite, only upper class people in the world that think they're middle class and representative of their nation.

Post: #60

(12-04-2013 12:55 PM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  Genghis:

As an outsider who knows very little about India, my opinions and impressions may be amusing to you. Here are some of them:

1. The food is to me one of the best in the world. You get addicted to those intense spices, butter-laced sauces, fragrant rice, etc. But not easy to cook at home. I've tried with mixed results.

2. I have a lot of respect for the intellectual heritage of the ancient Hindus. They made contributions in mathematics and astronomy that were top-notch. Also, one of the classics of early Arabic literature is "Kalila wa Dimna" a collection of stories that came from Persia, which got them from India, where they were know as the "Fables of Bidpai"

3. Hindu temple art is surprisingly sensual, with female figures with huge torpedo-like breasts and round asses. This erotic religious art is very appealing...at least to me anyway.

1. Agreed. I've actually lived in the West for almost my entire life and I really do like Indian food. Hard to make, much respect for my mom.

2-3. Definitely agree. India has a very interesting history with Hinduism. Ancient Hindus were extremely liberal. Kama Sutra, the temples you mentioned (I remember seeing them live as a teenager). LOL, I was walking around the temple with a boner, while I should've been praying...

The English came, with their Victorian age rules. Before the Raj (British Empire in India), Indian people had relatively healthy sexual lives. Now India might be the most sexually repressed country in the world. To make things worse, there was no real Hinduism. Everyone really just believed what they wanted. Sure there were overcoupling believes such as karma and reincarnation (philosophical foundation of the caste system), but besides that people prayed to whichever god they wanted.

During the British Raj, all people that believed in Karma were placed into this Hinduism bin and it stuck as a useful vehicle to put people up against each other (i.e. hindus vs muslims: divide and conquer while previously everyone tended to live in relative peace). After independence, Hinduism became an even more powerful symbol, especially for those that disliked muslims and wanted to make India the nation of Hindus (Hindustan as India is called quite often in Hindi/Urdu) as Pakistan became the nation of Muslims. Didn't work too well as India does have a somewhat secular Constitution (i.e. no state religion). But the Hindu movement (Hindutva) stuck and still exist/is popular.

I don't mind the Hindutva movement as it brings a sense of pride to people who've stuck to indigenous belief systems. I just wished it wasn't so rigid or tried to make Hinduism be a very structured religion, e.g. Hindu fanatics trying to block movies etc. because it's against Indian/Hindu culture.

Ancient Hinduism was a really cool and flexible system in my opinion. Supposedly, there was actually even an atheist branch (Nastik), which really just questioned if any of it was true. Pretty cool that back then they didn't burn you for heresy. Nowadays though...

Post: #61

(12-04-2013 02:10 PM)Wutang Wrote:  Had no idea it was mostly the elite Brahmin class that immigrated to the US, interesting. I always thought it was the poorer, darker skinned ones that had to resort to leaving the country in order to get ahead since they would have very little social mobility in their home country. I live in NJ which has a big Indian population in the central area of the state and I've met quite a few South Indian Christians over the years.

Yeah so I don't have hard data, but from what I've seen most Hindu immigrants tend to be Brahmin. I might be having selection bias.

But that being said, so Brahmins...they're on the top of the caste system, which really just means they feel superior to everyone else. There's actually quite a lot of poor Brahmins. And these people tend to obviously focus on academics (priest caste) and they don't have issues getting into schools (schools typically accept Brahmins and reject lower castes). So you do end up with a decent amount of poor/OK Brahmins that can emigrate due to skills and acquired English. The way India was set up before they opened the economy was effectively you could be Brahmin, but if you were poor you'd stay poor.

The people that are straight up fucked are the untouchables/Dalits. Supposedly 60% of India's population is Dalit. Their kids are routinely denied entrance to schools or if they get in, they get teased/are outcast/have to clean the toilets. Not kidding, there's videos of school administrators making Dalit kids clean toilets. Why? So that the kids can learn their parents' trade (it's really that messed up).

South India has a larger percentage of Brahmins than the North. The North has typically been the landing carpet for invaders and thus most of the 2nd highest caste (Kshatriya/warrior) are from the North. So most Brahmins are actually darker skinned and I don't have hard number, but I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the Indians in Silicon Valley are Brahmins since tech is a very studious subject.

And then you have a massive merchant class. Many of whom (haha, actual all perhaps?) are Gujurati. Gujuratis are also commonly known as Gujjus. Bojangles and 007 are Gujjus and so am I. I might be generalizing a bit from my family's experience, but Gujjus are really good business men. Your Indian accountant or motel/hotel owner or whatever is probably Gujurati. A lot of us have very strong extensive families and when we move to Western countries, I feel a lot of us tend to move as a unit. Or at the very least, one brother moves to the US with some dough saved up by the entire family (typically the oldest brother of 4 or something). He sets shop, slowly makes enough money to justify bringing family over as employees and before you know it, they own 11 gas stations and 5 liquor store and their kids are driving BMWs. Not all do that well, but many have. Not to hate, but I always get amused when people (women, race mongers, etc.) complain about discrimination in the US. Yeah, OK, tell that to the Indian guy who moves across the world with $2000, maybe $10k at most, probably had to deal with a shit ton of stereotypes and discriminating and still made it. My dad got denied a bank loan for his business, he still hustled and made bank. Now the banks love him.

But once again, they do tend to have a certain level of education and knowledge of English, allowing them to move and set up shop in the West. And in the old days, since India had a rigid system, it wasn't always easy for these savvy business men to get the opportunities they wanted to get up the social ladder, hence why they moved west. Although now Gujurat is a much different place with economic shit booming (free market and a state filled with natural businessmen work well together).

The South Indian Christians are a whole different breed. They don't do caste, so there's no hardcore discrimination based on stupid shit and they have the highest literacy rate in the country (96% or so). I've met a lot of them in the US and it makes sense there's a big contingency, they're all well educated.

Post: #62

Genghis:

I was laughing when you said you were walking around the temples, sporting wood. I would have been the same. Those statues and sexual positions are just...sublime.

Yeah, ancient India was totally different from now. It had an amazing religious vitality: Vedic legends, Baghavad Gita, etc, Buddhism. And from what I've read, it was not overpopulated, like now. People had space to move, live, breathe, love.
But the colonial era ruined everything.

People forget that the main reason behind the Age of Exploration in the 1400s and 1500s was to REACH INDIA. Europeans craved those spices and riches just like we do now.

Yeah, it's a country that is hard to categorize. I remember a couple years ago, I heard of a vast fortune in gold and jewels that was discovered in a temple that was worth a colossal amount of money. It had been left there, unguarded and untouched, for many centuries. No one would have dreamed of stealing it. And it was worth hundreds of millions, maybe over a billion in US dollars.

Only in India. I knew an Indian guy in my college dorm who once related to me the harrowing story of how he was almost lynched by a mob of Kali worshippers, after he accidentally interrupted one of their processions in the street. Gulp.

Post: #63

India had a lot of mineral wealth, gold, diamonds, silver. The Arabs plundered it, more than any amount plundered by the Brits. Hinduism is still a wonderfully lax religion where the belief system is dependent on the believer. It's the story whose creation myths and timelines (9 billion years since the birth of the universe) are the closest to science. The freedom of people, scholars and patronage of arts by kings between the years 500 BC and 1100AD contributed a shitload to world knowledge and in particular led to the magnificent Islamic golden age which had a knock on effect into the renaissance in Europe.

Genghis is right about the sexual attitudes of Indians, British colonialism really fucked them over, you only have to read the accounts of Muslim invaders and Arab traders of the Indian population to realise this. Have a read about Vijayanagar, a huge empire in South India in 1500, it's capital of Hampi was the largest and most populated city in the world at the time, there's some excellent quotes about the Indians and the city by catholic and Islamic visitors.

Post: #64

(12-04-2013 02:16 PM)Genghis Khan Wrote:  @ Slim Shady, I'm not extremely convinced of Mumbai being more chill. Rape probably happens a lot in Mumbai as well, it's just not easy to come forward with it. The reason why the northern shit holes get so much press is because they go far beyond rape (trying to kill the girl, etc.)

Actually in case anyone's interested. I was googling for Mumbai rape 2013, ran into this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/world/....html?_r=0

Quote:Two hours later, a 22-year-old photojournalist limped out of a ruined building. She had been raped repeatedly by five men, asked by one to re-enact pornographic acts displayed on a cellphone. After she left, the men dispersed to their wives or mothers, if they had them; it was dinnertime. None of their previous victims had gone to the police. Why should this one?

Quote:But the Mumbai case provides an unusual glimpse into a group of bored young men who had committed the same crime often enough to develop a routine. The police say the men had committed at least five rapes in the same spot. Their casual confidence reinforces the notion that rape has been a largely invisible crime here, where convictions are infrequent and victims silently go away. Not until their arrest, at a moment when sexual violence has grabbed headlines and risen to the top of the state’s agenda, did the seriousness of the crime sink in.

Clear stigma, women are terrified of reporting getting raped in India out of fear of becoming a social outcast in their community.

Quote:The photographer and her colleague, a 21-year-old man, were interns at an English-language publication and had decided to include this spot — the backdrop for any number of fashion shoots — as part of a photo essay on the city’s abandoned buildings, the editor said. On that Thursday last August, they reached the ruined mill about an hour before sunset.

My first instinct? Princess complex - girl works at English-language publication as a photographer

Quote: The five men they encountered there later came from slums near the mill complex, claustrophobic concrete warrens where electrical wires tangle at one’s head and acrid water flows in open gutters around one’s feet.

None of the men worked regularly. There were jobs chicken-plucking at a neighborhood stand — a hot, stinking eight-hour shift that paid 250 rupees, or $4.

As you can imagine, these men aren't the upper class type...

Quote:“It’s just frivolous; they just do it casually,” she said. “There is so much abject poverty. They just want to have a little fun on the side. That’s it. See, they have nothing to lose.”

Extremey poor and horny...recipe for rape right there.

Quote:At last they brought her out, weeping, and told the two to leave along the railroad tracks. Before releasing her, they threatened to upload video of the attack onto the Internet if she reported the crime, a strategy that had worked with previous victims.

But this one did not hesitate. The two caught a cab to the nearest hospital. There they reported the crime, and the woman’s mother arrived. “I went inside. I saw her there crying,” her mother told the police later. “She told me in English, ‘Mummy, I’m vanished.’ ”

Yep, princess complex. Although I'll be honest, in a real fucked up way, the fact that we're seeing princess girls getting raped might help reduce rape rates in India. There have been some really brave lower class girls speaking, but I think seeing upper class girls getting raped has probably made the people in politics, media (upper and middle class) take attention. In a fucked up way, this trend of really poor people raping the wrong girls (i.e. those that won't get killed by their own dads) combined with social media might actually reduce rape across the board.

Quote:“I asked Kasim, ‘Son, why did you do this to her? If it happened to your sister, would you come here and tell me or would you beat him?’ ” said his mother, Chandbibi Sheikh. He told her that his friends had come upon the couple embracing in the mill, and “they thought: ‘What is she doing with this boy here? She must be loose.’ ”

Translated as "Every woman except mom/sister/wife is a potential slut. The fact she's with an unrelated guy confirms she is a slut."

Quote: She related this exchange from the family’s home, a sort of shelf wedged between a gas station and a garbage dump; as she spoke, a rat the size of a kitten clambered over containers stacked in a corner. She said far too much onus was being put on the men.

“Obviously, the fault is the girl’s,” she said. “Why did she have to go to that jungle? It’s her fault, too. Also, she was wearing skimpy clothes.”

She did not deny that he had done it. “He must have,” she said. “He told me that they tied up the boy who was doing bad things to her and said, ‘Madam, let us also do it.’ The madam said, ‘Don’t do it to me, take my mobile, take my camera, but don’t do it to me.’ Her body was uncovered. How could he control himself? And so it happened.”

I swear to you guys, I did not know this article existed when I wrote the post above about my hypotheses on why India has a rape culture, but damn this article is confirming everything.

In abject poverty, even the mom will say that girls in skimpy girls are effectively sluts. And the question I stated above comes up here as well: "Why did the girl get raped and what did she do to get raped?". The mom aptly answers: the girl effectively seduced her son. And to emphasize, the guy's family is heavily on his side as he's probably the only breadwinner in the family.

Quote: Much news coverage over the next days zeroed in on the defendants’ poverty, but Mr. Roy shrugged off that line of inquiry. After interrogating the five accused men personally, he said they were “social outcasts,” not indicative of any deeper tensions in the city.

“They were deviants, sociopaths, predators,” he said in an interview. “If there was a larger socioeconomic framework, these crimes would be happening again and again. It was only these guys. I’m 100 percent sure that this kind of crime doesn’t happen in Mumbai. I’ve been here all my life and have been born and brought up here.”

That argument I made above about these type of cases actually getting important people's attention...just kidding. It's really not funny so pardon me for this: but fucking LOL. This lawyer (well-known, rich, etc.) is in complete denial, just like the journalist in Roosh's clip: they genuinely think these are odd cases and not representative of India. Just reinforcing what several people on this thread have said about the Indian elite.

Sigh...the Indian elite, only upper class people in the world that think they're middle class and representative of their nation.

No I do agree there are crazy rapes like the ones recently in the press lately. I think the problems are still with more rural parts, less educated parts, plus via people from these rural parts coming to the cities. There is certainly a real violent rape problem in India, for sure. Still I must say that Northern cities/culture is more oppressive to women. Cities like Mumbai and Bangalore, are probably the best places in India in terms of working, having some kind of nightlife with young people, plus safety for women. The state of Gujarat is also a very safe place, but it is also technically a "dry" state, so that sucks.

Post: #65

(12-04-2013 05:31 PM)bojangles Wrote:  India had a lot of mineral wealth, gold, diamonds, silver. The Arabs plundered it, more than any amount plundered by the Brits. Hinduism is still a wonderfully lax religion where the belief system is dependent on the believer. It's the story whose creation myths and timelines (9 billion years since the birth of the universe) are the closest to science. The freedom of people, scholars and patronage of arts by kings between the years 500 BC and 1100AD contributed a shitload to world knowledge and in particular led to the magnificent Islamic golden age which had a knock on effect into the renaissance in Europe.

Genghis is right about the sexual attitudes of Indians, British colonialism really fucked them over, you only have to read the accounts of Muslim invaders and Arab traders of the Indian population to realise this. Have a read about Vijayanagar, a huge empire in South India in 1500, it's capital of Hampi was the largest and most populated city in the world at the time, there's some excellent quotes about the Indians and the city by catholic and Islamic visitors.

@bojangles Yeah, especially coming from a strong science background, the amount of knowledge in the Vedic culture with regard to medicine, science, astronomy, mathematics, etc is shocking. Actually many of the discoveries attributed to the Greeks, Eyptians, etc were done in India, many many centuries prior. Pythagorian theorem, a form of calculus even, etc.

Post: #66

Slim, our Vedic corpus is divided up into physics, alchemy, astrophysics, music, grammar, martial arts, mathematics, architecture, politics and I could go on...

Unfortunately only around 4 Vedas are still extant, the others have been lost to time.

I'm very proud of what my people contributed to the world, but am also the first to admit that India at present is a shadow of it's former self. I think things will change as things normally go in cycles, but we'll see!

This has actually been a 'productive' and intellectually interesting 'Indian' thread for once

(12-04-2013 07:16 PM)Slim Shady Wrote:  

(12-04-2013 05:31 PM)bojangles Wrote:  India had a lot of mineral wealth, gold, diamonds, silver. The Arabs plundered it, more than any amount plundered by the Brits. Hinduism is still a wonderfully lax religion where the belief system is dependent on the believer. It's the story whose creation myths and timelines (9 billion years since the birth of the universe) are the closest to science. The freedom of people, scholars and patronage of arts by kings between the years 500 BC and 1100AD contributed a shitload to world knowledge and in particular led to the magnificent Islamic golden age which had a knock on effect into the renaissance in Europe.

Genghis is right about the sexual attitudes of Indians, British colonialism really fucked them over, you only have to read the accounts of Muslim invaders and Arab traders of the Indian population to realise this. Have a read about Vijayanagar, a huge empire in South India in 1500, it's capital of Hampi was the largest and most populated city in the world at the time, there's some excellent quotes about the Indians and the city by catholic and Islamic visitors.

@bojangles Yeah, especially coming from a strong science background, the amount of knowledge in the Vedic culture with regard to medicine, science, astronomy, mathematics, etc is shocking. Actually many of the discoveries attributed to the Greeks, Eyptians, etc were done in India, many many centuries prior. Pythagorian theorem, a form of calculus even, etc.

Post: #67

I don't know Sanskrit, but I have heard it spoken on internet radio. I found a website that has broadcasts in many different Indian languages, and was intrigued by Sanskrit.

I could tell just from listening to it that it has a complex structure of inflectional endings on words, much like Latin, and had a pleasant harmony in its spoken delivery.

The Indian guys on this thread: can you understand this language? I am told that it is relatively close to modern Hindi, but I suppose that may mean different things to different people.

About classic Indic civilization and culture: definitely, things were better in the old days. Once the Moghul empire dissolved, the civilization lost confidence and began a long, slow decline.

It may seem incredible now, but overpopulation was not always a problem in India. The historians say that it was reasonably populated, but not crushingly so, as now. And the riches were immense: ivory, spices, precious woods (Burma), gemstones, gold, etc., etc.

Post: #68

@ Quintus, Even though the Northern and Central Indian languages are derived from Sanskrit, the modern vernaculars sound very different from the 'mother language'. I can't speak for any of the other Indian bro's on the the thread, but I pretty much guarantee they can't understand Sanskrit. I mean I speak Gujarati fluently, have an understanding of Hindi and Punjabi, but I am lost on Sanskrit.

Sanskrit isn't really a 'spoken' language anymore, although it is almost exclusively the language used in hymns, prayers and classical texts. Saying that, it's not a 'dead' language like Latin either, so it has a funny status.

It is extremely complex, depending on what research you read it's the mother language of 'indo-european' language group (which is a big ass language group)

It's crazy to think that from pre BC times and all the way up to the 19th century, India was continuously one of the richest nations in the world. India also managed to survive the Islamic invasions (most of us still have our foreskins) for a thousand years of low intensity constant warfare. We fared much better then many other nations.

But as history has shown, things can change a lot in a very small time frame.

(12-04-2013 08:42 PM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  I don't know Sanskrit, but I have heard it spoken on internet radio. I found a website that has broadcasts in many different Indian languages, and was intrigued by Sanskrit.

I could tell just from listening to it that it has a complex structure of inflectional endings on words, much like Latin, and had a pleasant harmony in its spoken delivery.

The Indian guys on this thread: can you understand this language? I am told that it is relatively close to modern Hindi, but I suppose that may mean different things to different people.

About classic Indic civilization and culture: definitely, things were better in the old days. Once the Moghul empire dissolved, the civilization lost confidence and began a long, slow decline.

It may seem incredible now, but overpopulation was not always a problem in India. The historians say that it was reasonably populated, but not crushingly so, as now. And the riches were immense: ivory, spices, precious woods (Burma), gemstones, gold, etc., etc.

Post: #69

Can't understand Sanskrit at all and I feel it has no similarity to Hindi which I feel has it's base more in Urdu and Persian than Sanskrit to be honest. I've heard stories read in Sanskrit and only been able to make out a few words, all the ancient and venerated Hindu texts for the north and south of India are in sanskrit - Vedas, Puranas, Ramayana, Mahabharata. I'm pretty sure only Brahmins learned Sanskrit in the past but now all those scriptures are in local languages like Telugu, Gujarati (I've heard them), Tamil, Kannada, Marathi and Bengali etc

On a side note, the Mahabharata is one of my favourite books of all time, it's really long, a story lasting over generations with multiple characters, some who even feature in the Ramayana which in story form predates the beginning of the Mahabharata by 10,000 years or so. The Bhagavad Gita of course is a core of this and is the longest poem ever written. They made a tv show of the book in the late 90s and it was quite a hit on the BBC in the UK surprisingly, it was well made too

Post: #70

Genghis/007, what you have said so far is true. But I will give a bit of info and let's hope it solves the little gaps on what has been said so far.

Historically, India has been led by kings all across the country and as well as Pakistan/Bangladesh, which were together as one piece of land ealier. It is said that during the Mughal (Turks) invasion, most of the people in the North moved to the South and the current people are descendants of these invaders. Thats why you see a mix of different skin colors in the South but a lot of fair-skin in the North. The Northern people are really descendants of the Turks from a genetic sense while the original people in the North were a mix of people based on the caste system. However, the invasion really caused a lot of migration downwards to the South and thats why the original south people "Dravidians" were pushed downward, even into Sri Lanka.

Thats why you see the resistance towards Hindi being pushed into Tamil Nadu and other Southern states simply because they fear it dilutes the traditional heritage and resent Hindi imposed as a national language just like the US has a strong resistance to naming English as a national language (Thats a diff topic altogether). The people who moved to the South had a bigger population of Brahmins due to this mix and thats why the area witnessed a Hindu religious and intellectual resurgence in the form of religious books, temples and heritage in 15th/16th century.

The British rule really fucked up the country and it has been trying to find its footing ever since. When the economy opened up a bit in early 1990s, people here hailed it as the second coming of the Indian civilization. But given the disparate growth across the country (good growth in South while North and East are impoverished), you have the formation of two "Indias".
It has really go up in the last 10 years where growth in India has been pushed primarily by the South while the rest of the country is still waiting to develop literally and continues to do so. The rest of the country is developing quite fast but it wont beat the growth seen in the South originally.

Given this level of impoverishment, no wonder you see a lot of rapes in the North. Its simply a dog eat dog world out there and the men from the North really have nothing to lose by going for such an act. For them, the mindset is seeing others enjoying benefits but they dont have any due to a difficult environment growing up. And the powerlessness of the police makes it really hard to handle rapes. With the poverty in the North, these people move to the South seeking jobs and they try to do the same things here too. But it isnt as if people from South don't do rapes and only the illiterate North people do it. Everyone tries to do it but really cant report to police. So the number is also high in the South. It just goes unreported due to family shame and honor loss.

There is currently a new rape case on TV here. A prominent journalist has been accused of molesting a woman and he responded initially by taking a 6-month sabbatical from his head post. The outcry from women's activists has now resulted in police arresting him and investigating him. The media is having a field day with this everyday on TV. During this, some girl went on TV and claimed that this is a new India where rapes will be reported to defend the honor of the woman and her family. No idea where this is going to go but it looks as if rapes will continue to happen and will go unreported.

Post: #71

This is a stimulating thread...

I hope one of you guys takes up the study of Sanskrit, if only for scholarly or heritage reasons. If you love the old Vedic classics that much, I can guarantee you that reading them in the original is a whole other world than reading them in translation. I am telling you: you would be blown away by how good some of this old stuff is in the original.

I can tell you that this is true especially in poetry, which Indic civilization is rich in. Someone get on this...

This "Clay Sanskrit Library" project looks intriguing. I get the feeling that Sanskrit is one of the keys to unlocking the secrets of Indian history.

It's true that Sanskrit is no one's mother tongue any more, but it is still spoken (or some variant of it) is some isolated places, much like you can still find Assyrian in Iraq or versions of Aramaic in Syria. Even Latin still has some limited use among clerics and specialist circles.

Even Latin has not so much "died" as just evolved into the modern vernaculars. Same is true of classical Chinese, Arabic, ancient Greek, biblical Hebrew, etc. Modern Spanish is as different from Latin as modern Chinese is from classical Chinese.

And for me reading old Arabic from the Middle Ages is very difficult. Many words and roots have different meanings than what the mean today, and the sentences are very long and convoluted.

Post: #72

Considering Rai is an actress, you would think she'd do what most actresses or models do after they've pushed out a child - get some celeb trainer in to whip them back into shape. Granted, I'd still give her a good crushing in her current state, but it's disappointing that she's choosing to stay fat. Mallika Sherawat can definitely get the D. Why is she considered the least attractive of Bollywood actresses?

Post: #73

@ VillageIndian

I can agree with and appreciate most of what you are saying bro, however I must disagree that most North Indians are descendants of Turks. If you look at graphs showing the distribution of Indian specific DNA haplogroup, you'll see that it drops off very rapidly once you go past Afghanistan and get to modern day Iran. Our Haplogroup however,does spread into central asia and the caucuses.

History forgets that at one time the Hindu Kingdoms stretched from the Caspian Sea, central Asia, Parts of Iran, Afghanistan and the whole of South East Asia. So there were plenty of Tartars, Khazars, Huns, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Khazaks, khambojas, Yadav and Sakas that were Hindus.

Also consider the fact that these races and tribes are mentioned in the Vedas, Ramayana and the Mahabharata and actually fought in the armies of these ancient wars, explains their infusion into the Hindu/Indian stock.

At the time they were Hindu and because of their occupation (warriors) they were absorbed into the Kshatriya Varna. Even the mother of Shri Ramchandra (Lord Rama) was from one of the 'northern kingdoms' (meaning central asia).us

@Quintus. I am a romantic and I love the Sanskrit tradition, I absolutely agree that to understand and recite our scriptures in the original language would make them even more beautiful. Thankfully as Bojangles mentioned, our scriptures are very well expressed in our modern vernaculars as well. It is a full time job though, learning Sanskrit. It's really only the Brahmins and scholars who study it nowadays and they keep it alive. Maybe I'll get around to it one day!

@Timoteo: Obviously Mallika Sherawat isn't ugly, I would bang her rotten, raw and not pull out. It's just that as far as Indian actresses go, she is right at the bottom of the 'A' list. She is actually more famous as an 'Item Girl', that is a girl who mainly makes appearances in a movies main music video. That's how bitches like Katrina Kaif got famous, it's only after she started sucking Salman Khans dick that she actually got big as an actress.

(12-04-2013 09:33 PM)villageindian Wrote:  Genghis/007, what you have said so far is true. But I will give a bit of info and let's hope it solves the little gaps on what has been said so far.

Historically, India has been led by kings all across the country and as well as Pakistan/Bangladesh, which were together as one piece of land ealier. It is said that during the Mughal (Turks) invasion, most of the people in the North moved to the South and the current people are descendants of these invaders. Thats why you see a mix of different skin colors in the South but a lot of fair-skin in the North. The Northern people are really descendants of the Turks from a genetic sense while the original people in the North were a mix of people based on the caste system. However, the invasion really caused a lot of migration downwards to the South and thats why the original south people "Dravidians" were pushed downward, even into Sri Lanka.

Thats why you see the resistance towards Hindi being pushed into Tamil Nadu and other Southern states simply because they fear it dilutes the traditional heritage and resent Hindi imposed as a national language just like the US has a strong resistance to naming English as a national language (Thats a diff topic altogether). The people who moved to the South had a bigger population of Brahmins due to this mix and thats why the area witnessed a Hindu religious and intellectual resurgence in the form of religious books, temples and heritage in 15th/16th century.

The British rule really fucked up the country and it has been trying to find its footing ever since. When the economy opened up a bit in early 1990s, people here hailed it as the second coming of the Indian civilization. But given the disparate growth across the country (good growth in South while North and East are impoverished), you have the formation of two "Indias".
It has really go up in the last 10 years where growth in India has been pushed primarily by the South while the rest of the country is still waiting to develop literally and continues to do so. The rest of the country is developing quite fast but it wont beat the growth seen in the South originally.

Given this level of impoverishment, no wonder you see a lot of rapes in the North. Its simply a dog eat dog world out there and the men from the North really have nothing to lose by going for such an act. For them, the mindset is seeing others enjoying benefits but they dont have any due to a difficult environment growing up. And the powerlessness of the police makes it really hard to handle rapes. With the poverty in the North, these people move to the South seeking jobs and they try to do the same things here too. But it isnt as if people from South don't do rapes and only the illiterate North people do it. Everyone tries to do it but really cant report to police. So the number is also high in the South. It just goes unreported due to family shame and honor loss.

There is currently a new rape case on TV here. A prominent journalist has been accused of molesting a woman and he responded initially by taking a 6-month sabbatical from his head post. The outcry from women's activists has now resulted in police arresting him and investigating him. The media is having a field day with this everyday on TV. During this, some girl went on TV and claimed that this is a new India where rapes will be reported to defend the honor of the woman and her family. No idea where this is going to go but it looks as if rapes will continue to happen and will go unreported.

Post: #74

Hinduism really got distorted by the Brits and Arabs, the same with Buddhism. These religions were given names that they never had before, Hinduism was and still is just a way of life, the numerous gods are in response to what people needed and what people prayed for.

Example:

A farmer in India requires rain, he typically prays to the God of Rain - Indra who is also King of the Gods.
A housewife wants good fortune for her home - she prays to Lakshmi - the Goddess of home and wealth

It was practical religion and it's flexibility made it more popular.

Jainism and Buddhism were considered as part of the same religion but unorthodox beliefs as say Protestant is to Catholic. The fact that the Buddha is revered in Hinduism as a reincarnation of Vishnu says enough about that. This flexibility and practicality though made it from the most followed religion worldwide in the 7-13th century to smaller than the two main western religions now. The evidence of Indian culture is spread throughout South East Asia and even west into Afghanistan, Iran and the central asian republics. The capital of Indonesia, the most populous muslim country is still named after the birthplace of Lord Rama.

Post: #75

(12-04-2013 08:11 AM)bojangles Wrote:  Great posts Genghis. Quintus, I'm sure you know that the 3 large cities of Mumbai (Bombay), Chennai (Madras) and Kolkatta (Calcutta) are only a few hundred years old and were founded by the British?
My home state of Gujarat is full of clever businessmen who are making shitloads of money in India and in many anglo countries, they used their British passports to gain citizenship in many countries such as Uganda, USA, Canada, Australia, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania and of course the UK. I guarantee 90% of the top businessmen of Indian heritage are from the state of Gujarat. However I also guarantee that all their children speak clear Gujarati, in my home, my parents speak English, however in the house we use Gujarati most of the time, as do all my aunt's, uncles and their son's and daughters. When children are born into a Gujarati family, even when abroad, they are spoken to in Gujarati as the assumption is they will learn English at school anyway. I'm sure this varies though now in different countries but the Gujarati community and the Punjabi community in the UK really take pride in their languages and culture.

Hindi is a bastardised mix of Sanskrit, Urdu and Persian. Southern Indians will never want to speak this, as their languages are completely different and have no relation to even Sanskrit, they are of the Dravidian tongue, whilst the Deccan and the north is Aryan tongue (sanskrit). The most populous state is Uttar Pradesh where Hindi is most common, however this was the place where Urdu and Persian were really common before, Hindi just usurped it due to it becoming 'Hindustan's' common language.

India is a mish mash of tribes, that have never been united until 1947 as one.

Nice Post Bojangles.

Now a days its not just Mumbai (Bombay), Chennai (Madras) and Kolkatta (Calcutta), but also cities like Bengaluru(Bangalore), Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad etc have developed into major cities and business centers.

Most of the south indians now a days can speak hindi due to many north indians coming to south for jobs/business and vice-versa. Only people from states like Tamilnadu and kerala does not speak hindi.