贾扬特·班达里：理解印度

https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1hwah2s/understanding_india_article_adapted_from_a_recent/

本文摘自2024年9月19日至24日在土耳其博德鲁姆举行的财产与自由协会第18届年会。贾扬特·班达里（加拿大）：“理解印度”。以下文章改编自这篇演讲：

“大多数西方人对印度的了解仅限于对印度教、瑜伽、灵修导师以及或许略知一二的宝莱坞电影的模糊印象。对这些人来说，这篇文章将是一记当头棒喝……

我成长于印度中部的博帕尔。从记事起，我就在父亲的印刷厂帮忙。我在附近的印多尔学习工程学，之后前往英国曼彻斯特商学院攻读工商管理硕士学位。我回到印度，为一家英国公司设立了子公司，并取得了巨大的成功。在德里生活期间，我曾为印度主流媒体撰稿。我的足迹遍布印度各地以及世界各地。

我最初回到印度的目的是为了改善它，但11年后，我意识到印度正处于水深火热之中，腐败日益猖獗，人民道德沦丧，社会分崩离析。我从未遇到过一位诚实的官员或政治家。我申请移民加拿大，我的申请在创纪录的三天内就获得了批准。”几周。

我现在为东亚和西方公司提供在印度投资的咨询服务。我跟他们说的很多话，在他们听来都夸张、不切实际，甚至难以置信。经过一番折腾、闹剧和大量资金损失之后，他们才开始相信我的话。然而，由于他们拒绝了解印度，这种“学习”从未被系统化。这是一种政治正确，一种正在侵蚀西方价值观的毒药。

我在印度长大，小时候就被灌输“强权即公理”的观念。权力常常被滥用，掌权者仿佛拥有上帝赋予的特权，可以肆意剥削和支配他人。这种权力的展现方式极其极端，以至于质疑权力或期望掌权者履行职责都可能招致报复。掌权者似乎认为他们的职位并非为了服务他人，而是为了谋取私利。

那些表现出尊重的人似乎默默地接受了低人一等的从属地位。善良的人不得不隐藏自己的同情心，因为善良被视为软弱的表现。

在印度，我很少见到掌权者主动解决自己负责的问题。我在大学时，一个在厨房工作的未成年男孩被清洁工强奸和鸡奸。我举报了此事，但​​不仅没有掌权者采取正确的行动——这完全在他们的能力范围之内——校方和同学还威胁我，如果我继续追究此事，将会面临严重的后果。他们缺乏同情心，还嘲笑那个男孩和我。

是的，这里面确实存在某种虐待狂的成分。某种程度的快感……印度人对别人的痛苦感同身受。当局的态度就像那位身居高位的德里官员一样，他告诉我，他的黑牌威士忌之所以如此美味，是因为他知道大多数印度人喝不起。

这让西方人感到困惑。如果他们拥有权力，即便他们腐败，在双方都无利可图或有所损失的情况下——双方都很穷，没有收受贿赂的风险，也没有得罪权贵的风险——他们也会秉公执法，将涉嫌强奸犯绳之以法。而这些印度人却什么都不做，甚至连一根手指头都不会动，除非有好处：金钱或性。他们的冷漠深不可测。

在那些上级眼里，尽职尽责可能被视为娘娘腔。如果你能逃避责任，就会被认为很男子气概。在那种文化里，做正确的事很少有任何荣耀或荣誉可言。如果你叫水管工来修理，他会觉得不弄脏就走有失身份。他甚至可能故意偷工减料。即使做好工作并不需要更多时间，他也会敷衍了事。这种行为背后是一张由傲慢、自私、奴性、种姓制度、部落主义和迷信思维交织而成的复杂网络。他通过留下烂摊子来表达对你的蔑视并占你便宜。而他的客户，就像一枚硬币的另一面，很可能会瞧不起并剥削那些认真工作的人。

如果你工作做得不好，就意味着你不会被再次聘用吗？对于那些一开始就没有标准、缺乏远见的人来说，这无关紧要。那些想要做得更好、更公平或生产更好产品的人，很少能得到积极的反馈。

公平、正义、信任、同理心和公正对许多印度人来说是陌生的。他们很难分辨是非对错。即使公平不需要任何代价，他们也漠不关心。

此外，即便行善无需付出任何个人代价，他们也宁愿不做，因为这会被视为软弱的表现。

印度人从小就被灌输顺从的观念。这种灌输根深蒂固，以至于印度人即使对地位略高于自己的人也称呼“先生”。他们往往卑躬屈膝、阿谀奉承、阿谀奉承。但这绝非尊重，因为尊重对印度人来说是陌生的。当他们称呼你“先生”时，这仅仅反映了他们认为你在互动中处于强势地位，这与他们“强权即公理”的观念相符。一旦你处于弱势，他们就会贬低你。

你要么高人一等，要么低人一等——因此，你要么是施暴者，要么是受害者。平等是不可能的。来访者很快就会明白，“请”和“谢谢”被视为软弱的表现，只有那些想要贬低自己的人才会说。

印度人无法维持英国人建立的制度。这些机构已被掏空和腐败，沦为掠夺者。宪法和法律形同虚设。驱动这些机构的唯一力量是贿赂和关系。无论你接触的是最高政治领导人还是最基层的官僚，他们都会公开且毫不羞耻地索要贿赂。

2023年12月10日，在印度巴特那，活动人士焚烧了国大党议员迪拉杰·萨胡的模拟像，以抗议腐败并追回赃款。照片由桑托什·库马尔/《印度斯坦时报》比哈尔邦政治与治理栏目提供（图片来源：© Imago via ZUMA Press）。

街头智慧备受推崇，逃脱法律制裁的罪犯更是被奉为圭臬。我的一位亲戚曾得意洋洋地告诉我，他从未支付过租住房屋的租金。他贿赂了地方当局，使房东无法将他赶走。

在一个缺乏信任的社会里，如果有人被欺骗，他很少会寻求对欺骗者的公正惩罚。相反，他会去欺骗其他人。男人虐待女人，女人虐待孩子，孩子虐待动物。动物会攻击任何它们能攻击的目标。印度的高种姓群体虐待低种姓群体，而低种姓群体之间也互相争斗，以决定谁更优越。这是一个永无止境的不信任和专断的循环。

西方人谈论的是由英国人正式确立的四五个种姓制度。这种说法混淆了问题的本质，因为它夸大了种姓制度的结构。事实上，印度有14亿个种姓。所有的互动都关乎评估彼此。最终，你要么压迫他人，要么被压迫。所谓的低种姓群体比高种姓群体更有种姓意识。

印度的大多数种姓问题在新闻报道中都以被动语态描述：某某受到了压迫和虐待。是的，受害者是低种姓人士，但施暴者往往也出身低种姓。当低种姓人士掌权时，他们喜欢在高种姓人士面前炫耀。还有什么比欺压他人却逍遥法外更能炫耀权力呢？或者——如果你是水管工——留下烂摊子也是一种炫耀方式。不同的人会根据自己能逃脱惩罚的程度来炫耀权力。

许多人公然撒谎。人人都知道别人都会撒谎，但还是会撒谎。许多印度人会让自己相信谎言，以至于无法区分事实与虚构。即使你不必或不想这样做，你也必须夸大其词、撒谎，因为你知道你的听众会根据你所说的话来判断。谈话往往受个人物质利益驱动。每一次交易都是一场零和博弈——或者说是一场负和博弈，因为虐待狂可能也是其中的一部分。

你或许认为与家人共事就安全无虞，但他们最终可能成为你最大的敌人，因为即使是他们也会背叛你。荣誉并非印度社会准则的一部分。印度人彼此疏离，不懂得忠诚。印度人普遍将黄金藏在家中，甚至对家人也秘而不宣。

我从未（我特意用了“从未”这个词）在印度获得过任何一份合同的履行。行贿必须技巧高超。如果你在法律诉讼中与对方对立，法官和警察会同时收受双方的贿赂。你的律师甚至会在你面前与对方和法官勾结，以求获得最大利益。这听起来或许难以置信，但这并不能改变现实。

大多数美德的词汇都源自波斯语、土耳其语或英语，而非印度本土语言。但这些词汇进入印度语并不意味着印度人就接受这些美德；它们已被扭曲，沦为旧习的幌子。

每个人都会在自己的房产周围建起坚固高大的围栏。几乎每个人买房当天都会这么做，因为邻居们总想方设法侵占他们的土地。我搬到西部好几年后才明白为什么人们不建围栏。

我第一次去英国旅行时，发现那里的动物似乎并不害怕围栏，这让我觉得很有趣。

他们对人充满敌意。我惊讶于那些掌权者竟然不要求人们卑躬屈膝或毕恭毕敬。多年来，我一直感到不安，仿佛只有行贿才能完成交易。

我的祖父母和父亲在财务方面诚实守信，并且自尊心极强——这在印度实属罕见。印度也有善良、理智、道德高尚、理性的人，但我认识的这样的印度人，恐怕连我的手指头都比不上；我一个上午就能找到这么多诚实的美国人。按照印度的标准，我们家算是体面，人脉也广。这让我免受了许多堕落之事的侵扰，也让我能够对听到的那些故事视而不见。

在普通的印度人之间，谈话内容无非是背后议论、八卦朋友、谈论名人、交流迷信以及对其他群体的敌意。印度教徒憎恨穆斯林，穆斯林憎恨印度教徒，锡克教徒也憎恨印度教徒。这些群体之间互相争斗，导致社会分裂，但他们对其他群体的仇恨表面上却将他们团结在一起。

在印度加尔各答，示威者抗议北德里市政公司突然开展的“反侵占”行动。在穆斯林和印度教徒发生暴力冲突后不久，北德里市政公司拆除了多处人行道上的建筑物，例如商店。（图片来源：© Sukhomoy_ Sen/eyepix via ZUMA Press Wire）

直到我在英国生活了一年，我才真正理解荣誉和忠诚的概念。在那段时间里，有人告诉我，在宣传我工作的机构时不要夸大其词。我第一次意识到，人们想要说真话仅仅是因为真话本身。我一直都知道“真理”这个词，但直到那时，我才开始真正理解它的本质。

理解印度的基本原则是：它是一个缺乏道德、非理性和价值观的社会。你试图灌输的任何价值观都会像水从鸭背上滑落一样，毫不费力。

我目睹了印度社会的持续恶化。基督教传教士和欧洲殖民者曾经灌输给印度人的优雅和文明，如今正在慢慢消逝。

我清楚地记得离开印度的第一天。从希思罗机场到曼彻斯特的火车上，我看到的房屋起初看起来平淡无奇，水道和空气也干净得毫不起眼。火车旅途的宁静和缺乏喧嚣让我感到迷茫和沮丧。我不知道该如何应对这种感官不再受到持续刺激的环境。

随着时间的推移，我意识到，对于大多数印度移民来说，这导致了一种强迫性的冲动，想要在他们搬进的贫民窟里重建印度。他们渴望熟悉的气味、喧嚣和熙熙攘攘的人群。他们重现了永无止境的情绪化、毫无意义的冲突、混乱和思想上的近亲繁殖。

当我们获准自由出入曼彻斯特的学校，后来又获准进入我工作的办公室时，我和其他移民常常怀疑英国人是不是太天真了，才会如此轻易地信任我们。谁又能阻止我们把所有东西都偷走呢？大多数移民从未真正理解“信任”和“感恩”的意义。更糟糕的是，他们发现抱怨往往能带来好处——这在多元文化的西方社会，是他们唯一真正关心的事情。人文主义和文明价值观从未触动过他们的心。

有一次，我和一个朋友在曼彻斯特开车兜风。他喝了几杯酒后闯了红灯，被警察拦了下来。警察对他的尊重让我震惊。在印度，警察甚至会羞辱和剥削车上的乘客。我的朋友被带到警察局，在警车送我去的路上，我向他解释了如果这种事发生在印度，我们会受到怎样的对待。

那时，我住在曼彻斯特一个治安很差的地区，警察有时会跟踪我回家。我问那位警官为什么他们从不拦下我或盘问。他告诉我，他们跟踪我是为了确保我的安全，没有正当理由他们无权拦下我。我第一次开始理解英国人对个人空间的尊重，这种价值观也开始在我心中生根发芽。

那位警官让我的朋友坐了一两个小时醒酒，然后没有给他留下任何记录就放他走了。我开始意识到，在英国，掌权者可以灵活运用法律，并考虑法律背后的精神；而在印度，法律却成了掠夺的借口。

当然，英国早已今非昔比。多年来，警务工作不断发展，以应对来自第三世界移民带来的低标准挑战。

统计数据在印度人的思维中难以引起共鸣。他们没有灰色地带的概念；一切都非黑即白，缺乏对细微差别的理解。这种不成比例的性格会导致优柔寡断和无法正确看待事物。最终，不受控制的情绪主导了生活。我也曾深受其害。

这让我深受困扰。重新调整我的思维方式，使其符合理性、道德和西方价值观，是一项艰巨的任务。

我曾就读于印度最好的工程学院之一，并自认为富有创造力、果断且脚踏实地。然而，当我开始在英国观察各种社交互动和行为时，我发现自己缺乏自信。就连杂货店老板看起来都比我自信果断得多。我意识到，我的头脑被混乱的思维和相互矛盾的动机所蒙蔽。

即使在印度优渥的成长环境中，我也根深蒂固地形成了层层叠叠的混乱世界观，以及不诚实、阴险狡诈的行为模式。尽管我竭尽全力，但摆脱这些影响、重塑思维模式却花费了数十年时间。我意识到并试图改变的任何错误信念，都会与其他根深蒂固的信念和思维模式发生冲突。这就像试图在不破坏整个认知结构的情况下，替换掉我认知城堡中一块破碎的砖。有时，我不得不借酒消愁，才能获得片刻的清醒。

随着时间的推移，我发现自己的睡眠质量有所改善，精神也更加轻松。甚至我的身体也开始发生变化，曾经困扰我思绪的阴霾开始消散。身边的人给予我的支持让我倍感安心。那些造成长期压力的混乱矛盾的想法也开始逐渐消失。

我的祖母经常说两句话，我以前觉得很落后，但现在我却很认同。她认为有些人需要保持饥饿的状态，因为如果给予他们更多，他们反而会制造麻烦。尽管她是我认识的最平等的人之一——她甚至和她的司机和裁缝都成了朋友——但她总是提醒我，并非每个人都有资格坐在餐桌旁，除非他配得上这个位置。

“人权”是一个西方概念，对大多数印度人来说难以理解。他们不理解尊重个人的意义。和他们谈论“权利”只会让他们更加困惑。他们无法区分“消极权利”和“积极权利”。例如，当人们被教导财产权时，他们学会了保护自己的财产，却未能认识到他人的权利。当女性被告知强奸是一种侵犯人权的行为时，她们可能会开始在任何情况下都将其视为侵犯，并将其作为剥削男性的工具。当她们接触到权利的概念时，她们的心态从接受自己悲惨的生活转变为充满怨恨的受害者心态。

在人们拥有道德、理性、因果关系和其他西方价值观的基础之前，你无法教导他们任何有益的东西。没有这些基础，西方文明的成果只会将人们常常隐藏的享乐主义倾向转化为更邪恶的东西。在印度，每一种文明的成果——教育、西式服装、繁荣、西方制度——都被扭曲了。

英国人留下的制度已被掏空，变得纯粹是掠夺和虐待的工具。这种情况的出现是因为，在后英国时代的印度，掌权者将权宜之计和财富积累视为人生的唯一目标。如今的印度甚至连欧洲人到来之前那种模糊的法治都丧失殆尽。因此，当印度最终崩溃，英国人到来之前那种类似塔利班的威权体制浴火重生时，反而会是一种进步。

孟买高等法院，由英国工程师詹姆斯·A·富勒上校设计。图片来源：benbeiske via Flickr，CC BY-NC-SA 2.0。

在西方传教士的引导下，基督教被印度的迷信和巫术思想“滋养”，最终沦为巫术。语法被弃之不顾，英语也常常变成皮钦语。

教育和西式服装被一种盲目崇拜的心态所接受。人们关注的是获得证书和穿着西装，仿佛这些外在的象征就能带来地位和物质利益。同样，教育也不被视为促进智力发展或使人成为更优秀人的途径。相反，大多数印度人受动物本能、权宜之计和不道德的资源掠夺所驱使，鄙视自我提升的理念。

教育若应用于一个非理性、以迷信思维处理信息的头脑，反而会成为一种负担，使这些人比未受过教育的人更糟糕。

印度人的思想本应在接受正规教育、接触西方文明的成果之前，就被培养出道德和理性，并被灌输荣誉、纪律、尊重和正直的价值观。然而，这充其量也需要数千年的时间。

经济学中有一个“中等收入陷阱”的概念。我更愿意将印度的处境称为“低收入陷阱”。与专业经济学家的观点相反，这些陷阱有着文化根源；几乎不可能逃脱。

繁荣既没有带来社会和平，也没有带来智力和精神的成长。印度人不理解舒适的概念。大多数富裕的印度人建造的是俗艳的豪宅。

并非为了舒适，而是为了炫耀财富，控制弱者。更糟糕的是，近几十年来唾手可得的繁荣——这本质上是西方科技进步的结果——已经阻碍了人们对理性与道德的追求。社交媒体沦为传播神话、迷信和色情内容的平台。信息技术革命并没有给世界上最贫困的地区带来启迪！

如今，印度比以往任何时候都更加深陷于迷信和魔法思维之中。享乐主义盛行，家庭分崩离析。

大多数印度人在身居高位后会变得傲慢自大、残暴无情。这并非出于掩盖自身无能和心理缺陷的需要，而是源于一种根深蒂固的信念：傲慢和残暴是权力和阶级的标志。这也是他们应对文化中根深蒂固的自卑情结的一种方式。殖民者曾经赋予印度人的优雅和礼貌早已荡然无存。

西方创造的财富令印度人着迷。然而，他们却未能理解这笔财富背后的根源。他们将西方与好莱坞的刻板印象混为一谈：穿着短裙的女孩、放荡不羁、酗酒吸毒、炫耀财富、在豪华办公室工作以及控制他人。这才是真正的灵魂，曾经被维多利亚时代的道德规范和伊斯兰教的束缚所掩盖。这是一种回归前殖民时代、前维多利亚时代的享乐主义文化的回归。

英国人是天赐之福。没有他们，情况只会持续恶化。印度最终会失去从西方获得的所有好处，并退回到殖民时代之前的状态。它会分崩离析，如果其大部分人口沦为战争和饥荒的牺牲品，人口数量下降到欧洲人到来之前的水平，我也不会感到惊讶。

大多数印度人除了金钱、性和生存之外，思维方式几乎一成不变——这与一个平均智商只有77的社会不无关系。他们所接受的每一种西方价值观都被扭曲变形，沦为实现这些目的的工具。印度人没有十诫。他们对这些价值观如此缺乏认知，即使被强行灌输，也依然充耳不闻。对此你无能为力，只能努力理解来自印度和其他第三世界国家的移民会对西方造成什么影响。

评论区

1年前  LEAVESCELL

我曾经在一个行业里与超过一万名印度人共事。现在我避之不及，而且会不断做笔记，确保我知道这家公司是印度人拥有的。我遇到过异常多的欺诈、欺骗、套路、玩忽职守、古怪的商业行为，以及更糟糕的情况。现在我知道，每当我们接近与他们达成交易时，我都会尽量避免。不惜一切代价。这不是种族问题，而是商业道德问题。

正如一位来自印度的评论家所说：“缺乏透明度和对道德规范的遵守，常常使与印度公司做生意成为一项艰巨的任务。”

1年前

我在新西兰从事劳动法规方面的工作，中国和印度的雇主在违规行为中所占比例过高，其中印度雇主尤其恶劣。令人难以置信的是，他们中的许多人来到这里就是为了做这些事，因为他们知道自己可以逃回原籍国，从而躲过任何严重的指控。

更糟糕的是，他们通常会以本国公民为目标，利用移民骗局等手段制造类似奴隶制的局面。

由于中国和印度是新西兰的主要贸易伙伴，政府不敢采取过于强硬的措施，因此很难应对这种情况。

1年前

我本来想讽刺一下在公交车上纠缠女性的行为，但这篇文章比我更胜一筹。

Jayant Bhandari  "Understanding India"

https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1hwah2s/understanding_india_article_adapted_from_a_recent/

This talk is from the 18th Annual (2024) Meeting of the Property and Freedom Society, Bodrum, Turkey, Sept. 19-24, 2024. Jayant Bhandari (Canada): “Understanding India”

Article adapted from a recent speech given at the Property and Freedom Society conference in Bodrum, Turkey.

Jayant Bhandari gave a speech titled “Understanding India” recently. The article below was adapted from this speech:

"Most Westerners know nothing about India beyond vague ideas about Hinduism, yoga, gurus, and maybe a dash of Bollywood. To such people, this article will be a rude awakening...

I grew up in Bhopal in central India. Since as early as I can remember, I worked in my father’s printing press. I studied engineering in the nearby city in Indore and went to Manchester Business School in Britain to do an MBA. I returned to India to set up a subsidiary of a British company, which was a huge success. When I lived in Delhi, I wrote for the mainstream Indian media. I traveled widely in India and around the world.

I had first returned to India with the idea of improving it, but after 11 years, I realized that India was a sinking ship, with worsening and increasingly shameless corruption, degraded people, and a society that was falling apart. I had never met an honest bureaucrat or politician. I applied to emigrate to Canada and my application was approved in a record three weeks.

I now advise East Asian and Western corporations on investing in India. Most of what I tell them sounds to them exaggerated, unrealistic, and unbelievable. After much dance, drama, and a great deal of lost money, they begin to believe what I tell them. However, this learning is never institutionalized because of a refusal to understand India. This is a form of political correctness, a poison eating away the innards of Western values.

When I was a child growing up in India, I learned that “might makes right.” Power was often abused, with those in control acting as if they had a God-given right to exploit and dominate others. The display of authority could be so extreme that questioning it or expecting those in power to do their duty might lead to retribution. Those in authority seemed to believe that their positions were not for serving others but for personal gain.

People who showed respect appeared to have meekly accepted a lower, subservient position. Kind people had to hide their compassion, for being nice was seen as a weakness.

In India, I have rarely seen someone in authority take the initiative to solve a problem he was responsible for. When I was at university, an underaged boy who worked in the kitchen was raped and sodomized by the janitors. I reported the matter, but not only did no one in authority do what was right — something well within their power — the authorities and fellow students threatened me with severe consequences if I pursued the matter further. Devoid of empathy, they also made fun of the boy and me.

Yes, there is an element of sadism here. There is some degree of pleasure that Indians take in the pain suffered by others. The attitude of the authorities was like that of the high-placed Delhi bureaucrat who told me that his Black Label whiskey tastes so much better because he knows that most Indians can’t afford to drink it.

This confuses Westerners. If they had power, even if they were corrupt, in a situation where there was nothing to gain or lose — no bribes to receive since both parties were poor, and no risk of offending someone well-connected — they would do the right thing and book the alleged rapist. These Indians would do nothing, not even lift a finger, unless there was a reward: money or sex. Their apathy was bottomless.

Doing your job may be seen as effeminate by those above you. If you can shirk your responsibilities, you’re considered macho. In that culture, there is rarely any pride or honor in doing what is right. If you call a plumber for repairs, he will see it as beneath him to leave without creating a mess. He may deliberately do a shoddy job, even if doing it well wouldn’t take more time. A complex web of arrogance, egotism, servility, casteism, tribalism, and magical thinking drives this behavior. He shows his contempt for you and gets the better of you by leaving a mess. His customer, as the other side of the same coin, might well look down on and exploit someone who did his job well.

If you do a bad job, does that mean you do not get called back? That doesn’t matter to people who have no standards to begin with and who do not think ahead. There is little positive feedback to those who want to do better, be fair, or make better products.

Fairness, justice, trust, empathy, and impartiality are alien to many Indians. They have a hard time telling the difference between right and wrong. They are indifferent even when no cost is associated with being fair. Moreover, if they could do good without any personal cost, they would still prefer not to, because that can be seen as a sign of weakness.

Indians are indoctrinated to be submissive. The indoctrination is so profound that Indians address those even slightly above them in authority as “sir.” They tend to be servile, sycophantic, and ingratiating. This should not be mistaken for respect, because respect is foreign to Indians. When they call you “sir,” it reflects their view of you only as the stronger figure in the interaction, consistent with their view that might makes right. They will demean you the moment you are in a weaker position.

You are either higher or lower — therefore, you are either abuser or abused. Equality is impossible. A visitor learns very quickly that saying “please” and “thank you” is seen as a sign of weakness and is reserved for those who wish to demean themselves.

Indians cannot maintain the institutions established by the British. These institutions have been hollowed out and corrupted, becoming predatory. The constitution and laws hold little value. The only forces driving these institutions are bribes and connections. Whether you approach the highest political leaders or the pettiest bureaucrats, they openly and unashamedly demand bribes.

Activists burning an effigy of Congress MP Dhiraj Sahu in protest against corruption and recovering of cash on December 10, 2023 in Patna, India. Photo by Santosh Kumar/Hindustan Times Bihar Politics And Governance (Credit Image: © Imago via ZUMA Press)

Street smarts are highly valued, and criminals who evade justice are celebrated. A relative of mine, brimming with pride, once told me that he would never pay rent for the house he had rented. He had bribed the local authorities to make it impossible for his landlord to throw him out.

When someone in a society without trust is cheated, he rarely seeks justice against the cheater. Instead, he cheats others. Men abuse women, women abuse children, and children abuse animals. Animals attack whatever they can. Higher-caste Indians abuse those in lower castes, while lower-caste people fight with other lower-caste people to determine who is superior. It is a perpetual cycle of mistrust and arbitrariness.

People in the West talk about a system of four or five castes that was formalized by the British. This confuses the issue, for this gives an exaggerated sense of structure. In reality, there are 1.4 billion castes in India. All interactions are about sizing you up. You end up either oppressing others or being oppressed. The so-called lower caste people are more caste conscious than the higher caste people.

Most caste problems in India are described in the news in passive tense. So-and-so was oppressed and abused. Yes, the sufferer is a lower caste person but the oppressor is often of a similarly low caste. When a lower caste person rises in power, he loves showing it off to those from higher castes. What better way to show off power than by abusing others and getting away with it or — if you are a plumber — by leaving a mess? Different people show off power according to what they can get away with.

Many people lie openly. Everyone knows everyone lies, but everyone lies anyway. Many Indians convince themselves of their lies so that they can no longer differentiate between fact and fiction. Even if you don’t have to or want to, you have to exaggerate and lie, for you know your listener will calibrate to what you say. Conversations are often driven by personal material gain. Every transaction is a zero-sum game — or perhaps a negative-sum game, for sadism may be a part of the equation.

You may think you will be safe if you work with family members, but they may turn out to be your biggest enemies, for even they will betray you. Honor is not a part of the social code. Indians are atomized people and do not know loyalty. Indians across the board hide gold in their own houses and do not tell even family members about it.

I have never (I am using the word advisedly) had a contract honored in India. When you bribe, you must do so skillfully. If you have an opposing side in a legal fight, the judge and the police will take bribes from both sides. Your lawyer will collude with the opposing side and with the judge right in front of you to maximize bribes. This might sound unbelievable, but that does not change reality.

The words for most virtues come from Persian, Turkish, or English, not native Indian languages. But just because the words came into the language does not mean Indians accept those virtues; they were perverted and became a façade for the old ways.

Everyone builds solid, high fences around his property. Everyone does this the day he buys a property, because his neighbors will encroach on his land if they can. It took me years after I had moved to the West to understand why people don’t build fences.

When I first traveled to the UK, I was amused to find that animals weren’t fearful of or aggressive toward people. I was surprised that those in power didn’t expect servility or reverence. For years, I felt uneasy, as if I wasn’t fulfilling my part of the transaction unless I paid bribes.

My grandparents and father were honest in financial matters and held themselves to a high standard of self-respect — an anomaly in India. There are good, sane, moral, rational people in India, but I have more fingers than the total number of such Indians I have known; I can find that many honest Americans in one morning. By Indian standards, our family was decent and well-connected. This shielded me from much depravity and made it possible to ignore the stories that I heard.

Among ordinary Indians, conversations revolve around backbiting, gossiping about friends, discussing celebrities, exchanging superstitions, and animosity toward other groups. Hindus hate Muslims, Muslims hate Hindus, and Sikhs hate Hindus. These groups fight among themselves, leaving everyone atomized, but their hatred of other groups superficially unites them.

Demonstrators protest against the sudden “anti-encroachment” drive carried out by the North Delhi Municipal Corporation in Kolkata, India. The NDMC demolished several pavement structures such as shops, shortly after a period of Muslim-Hindu violence. (Credit Image: © Sukhomoy_ Sen/eyepix via ZUMA Press Wire)

I doubt I understood the concepts of honor and loyalty until I had lived in Britain for a year. During that time, someone told me not to exaggerate when promoting the organization I worked for. For the first time, I began to see that people wanted to speak the truth simply for the sake of truth. I had always known the word “truth,” but for the first time, I began to grasp its essence.

The foundational principle to understanding India is that it is an amoral, irrational society devoid of values. Any values you try to instill will slip off, like water off a duck’s back.

I have seen a continual worsening of Indian society. Whatever grace and civility Christian missionaries and European colonizers instilled in Indians has been slowly eroding.

I distinctly recall my first day outside of India. On a train trip from Heathrow Airport to Manchester, I saw what I initially thought were dull-looking houses and clean, unremarkable waterways and air. The lack of hustle and bustle and the calmness of the train ride left me feeling disoriented and gloomy. I didn’t know how to cope with a situation where there was no constant assault on my senses.

With time, I realized that for most Indian immigrants, this led to a compulsive need to recreate India in the ghettos they moved into. They sought the familiar smells, noise, and constant hustle and bustle. They recreated never-ending emotionalism, fruitless conflicts, chaos, and intellectual inbreeding.

When we were granted unhindered access to the school in Manchester and later to the office where I worked, my fellow immigrants and I often wondered if the British were so naïve as to trust us so readily. What was to stop us from stealing everything in sight? Most immigrants never truly grasp the significance of “trust” and “gratitude.” Worse, they discover that complaining often leads to benefits — the only thing they genuinely care about in the multicultural West. Humanistic, civilizational values never touch their hearts.

Once, a friend and I went for a drive in Manchester. Having had a few drinks, he ran a red light and was pulled over by the police. I was stunned by the respect with which the officer treated him. In India, the police would have humiliated and exploited even the passengers. My friend was taken to the police station, and as I was driven there by an officer, I explained how we would have been treated if this had happened in India.

At that time, I was living in a high-crime area of Manchester, and the police sometimes followed me when I walked home. I asked the officer why they never stopped or questioned me. He told me they followed me to ensure my safety and had no authority to stop me without legitimate cause. For the first time, I began to understand the British respect for personal space, another value that was also starting to take root in my mind.

The officer made my friend sit for an hour or two to sober up, and then let him go without booking him. I began to realize that those in power in Britain could apply the law flexibly, considering the spirit behind it; in India, laws were excuses for predation.

Of course, Britain is no longer what it once was. Over the years, policing has evolved to accommodate the challenges presented by the lowest common denominator introduced by immigrants from the Third World.

Statistics fail to resonate in the Indian psyche. There is no sense of a grey area; everything is black or white, with no appreciation for nuance. This lack of proportionality leads to indecisiveness and an inability to value things. In the end, unrestrained emotions drive life. I carried a part of this same mindset with me. Realigning my thinking with reason, morality, and Western values was a difficult task.

I attended one of the best engineering colleges in India and believed myself to be creative, decisive, and well-grounded. However, as I started witnessing social interactions and behavior in Britain, I found I lacked confidence. Even the grocery store owner appeared more confident and decisive. I realized my mind was clouded with confused thinking and conflicting motivations

Even my privileged upbringing in India had ingrained into me layers upon layers of confused worldviews, and dishonest, scheming behavior. Despite my best intentions, shaking them off and rewiring my thinking took decades. Any erroneous belief I became aware of and tried to change clashed with other deeply ingrained beliefs and mental patterns. It was like trying to replace a broken brick in the castle of my cognitive constructs without destabilizing the entire structure. At times, I had to get drunk just to find a fleeting sense of sanity.

With time, I noticed that I began to sleep better and felt mentally freer. Even my body started to change, and the mental cloud that had clogged my thoughts began to lift. A reassuring sense that those around me had my back was immensely helpful. The confusing and contradictory thoughts that had caused chronic stress started to fade.

My grandmother often said two things I once considered backward-looking, but I agree with them today. She believed that some people needed to stay on the edge of starvation because if given more, they would make problems. Despite being one of the most egalitarian people I knew — befriending her chauffeur and tailor — she would remind me that not everyone deserved a seat at the table unless he was fit for it.

“Human Rights” is a Western concept that is incomprehensible to most Indians. They fail to understand respect for the individual. Speaking to them about “rights” only leads to confusion. They fail to differentiate between “negative” and “positive” rights. For instance, when taught about property rights, they learn to protect their property but fail to recognize the rights of others. Women, when taught that rape is a violation, might begin to see it in every situation and use it as a tool to exploit men. As they are introduced to the concept of rights, they shift from accepting their wretched lives to adopting a resentful, victim mentality.

You cannot teach people anything good until they have the foundations of morality, rationality, causality, and other Western values. Without these foundations, the fruits of Western civilization serve only to turn people’s often-hidden hedonic tendencies into something more malevolent. Every civilizational fruit — education, Western clothing, prosperity, Western institutions — has been perverted in India.

The institutions left behind by the British have been hollowed out, becoming purely predatory and sadistic. This occurred because, in post-British India, those in power prize expediency and acquiring wealth as life’s sole purposes. Today’s India lacks even the vague rule of law that existed before the arrival of the Europeans. This is why it will be an improvement when India eventually collapses and the Taliban-like authoritarian system that existed before the British reemerges from the ashes.

The High Court of Bombay, designed by British engineer Col. James A. Fuller. Credit: benbeiske via Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Without Western missionaries at the helm, Christianity has been “nourished” by Indian superstitions and magical thinking and has become voodoo. Grammar has fallen by the wayside, and English has often become pidgin.

Education and Western clothing have been adopted with a cargo-cult mentality. The focus is on obtaining certificates and wearing suits, as if these outward symbols alone confer status and material benefits. Similarly, education is not viewed as a means to foster intellectual growth or evolve into better human beings. Instead, driven by animalistic desires, expediency, and the unethical pursuit of resources, most Indians scorn the idea of self-improvement.

Education applied to an irrational mind that processes information through magical thinking becomes burdensome, making such people worse than their uneducated counterparts.

The Indian mind should have been made moral and rational and imbued with honor, discipline, respect, and integrity, before being formally educated and provided with the fruits of Western civilization. Alas, this would have been, at best, a millennia-long process.

In economics, there is a concept of the “middle-income trap.” I prefer to call India’s situation the “low-income trap.” Contrary to the beliefs of professional economists, these traps have cultural underpinnings; it is virtually impossible to escape.

Prosperity has led to neither social peace nor intellectual and spiritual growth. Indians do not understand the concept of comfort. Most rich Indians build garish houses not for comfort but to display wealth and control those weaker than themselves. Worse, the easy prosperity of recent decades, which is essentially a result of Western technological advancements, has derailed the pursuit of rationality and morality. Social media are a platform for exchanging myths, superstitions, and pornography. The IT revolution does not bring enlightenment to the poorest parts of the world!

Today, India is more entrenched in magical thinking and superstition than in the past. Hedonism is rampant, and families are falling apart.

When elevated to high positions, most Indians become arrogant and sadistic. This is less from a desire to mask their incompetence and psychological weaknesses and more from a genuine belief that arrogance and sadism define power and class. This also serves as a way to cope with the deep-seated inferiority complex instilled by their culture. Whatever grace and civility had once been imbued in Indians by colonizers has eroded.

The wealth created by the West hypnotizes Indians. However, they fail to understand the underpinnings of that wealth. They equate the West with Hollywood stereotypes: girls in short skirts, promiscuity, drinking and drugs, flaunting wealth, working in plush offices, and controlling others. This is the true soul, once obscured by Victorian morals and Islamic constraints. It is a return to a pre-colonial, pre-Victorian, hedonistic culture.

The British were a godsend. Without them, the situation has continued to worsen. India will eventually nullify all the benefits it got from the West and revert to its pre-colonial ways. It will fall apart, and I wouldn’t be surprised if much of its population falls prey to war and famine and declines to the level it was before the arrival of Europeans.

Most Indians cannot think beyond money, sex, and survival — just what you would expect of a society with an average IQ of 77. Every Western value given to them has been caricatured and corrupted for these ends. Indians have no Ten Commandments. They are so unaware of these values that they remain oblivious even if they are forcefully presented to them. There is nothing you can do about this, except to try to understand what immigration from India and the rest of Third World will do to the West."

LEAVESCELL• 1y ago

I once worked with many, over 10,000, in one industry. I now avoid them like the plague and constantly write notes to make sure I know that the business is Indian-owned. I have dealt with an unusually high amount of fraud, deceit, games, ghosting, odd business behaviors, and much worse. Now I know that whenever we are close to a deal involving them, I just try to avoid it. At all costs. It's not a racial thing, it's a business ethics thing.

As one critic from India observed: "The lack of transparency and adherence to ethical practices can often make doing business with Indian companies a daunting task."

1y ago

I work in Employment regulations in NZ, and the Chinese and Indians employers make up a disproportionate amount of the breaches, with the Indian employers being particularly bad. It's pretty crazy how many of them arrive with the full intention of doing this stuff, knowing they can flee back to their home countries to dodge anything particularly serious.

The worse thing is that they generally target their own people, using immigration scams and the like to set up quasi slavery situations.

It's hard to counter as China and India are major trading partners, so the Government is scared of pushing back too hard

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1y ago

I was gonna make a snyde comment about cornering women on the bus, but this article has me beat