Can India be like the USA?
I can't give you a short answer. But I can tell you a short story that might highlight the differences.
I have an associate who lived in the USA studying biology (or something). She's an Indian. She didn't like the USA. She's a rare breed of Muslim that is sort of reformationist (like Lutherans or somesuch). She rejects (what I think are) the later occurring Hadiths. She is (or was then) a strict, "Qur'an Only" Muslim, pacifist, egalitarian. Maybe I'm an ignorant American, but I've not seen many of these. We sparred quite a bit but usually got on quite well: we challenged each other brutally and kept each other on our toes.
Anyhoo, after having a conversation with her and a group of other associates in which I expressed my love of and passion for India/Indians, she retorted (angrily) that I was a racist, culturalist "standard American". I asked her why and I remember her pointing out something that may well be true about me. I'll try to be as accurate as possible in quoting her.
"You love Indians because you see all the IT professionals, doctors, scientists and 'hard-working' college students here in the USA. You don't love anything about Indians. You love what you think Indians do here in the USA: the perfect immigrant. No criminals. Hard working, well-educated. Your prejudice is obvious because you conveniently leave out other immigrant groups like Hispanics which demonstrates your racism.
"This is because your opinion of Indians is stilted by the very distance which Indians must cross to get to the USA, which effectively filters out all the people you'd think were 'undesirable'. Because if India were next to the USA, you'd have a lot of illegal border crossing. You'd get all the rapists, the sexists, the criminals, the thugs. You'd see the horrible corruption that comes with being Indian and you'd simply be 'silent' the way you are with Hispanics† or other groups. You'd have gangs just like Latino or Black gangs. Prisons would be full of Indians because of that.
"But the very fact that Indians have to get an education, then experience, then a visa, then spend a thousand dollars, get on a plane, fly to the USA completely filters out all the 'riff-raff' that would be here were it not for those obstacles. This self-selection sends you India's best and brightest. So of course, you love Indians. The USA gets what is effectively all of India's least corrupt, best educated most upwardly mobile people!
"So don't say you love Indians. You love doctors and IT engineers. Not Indians. When I say 'I love India', I know what it means to love my country -- warts and all. That's why I'll be moving back there one day."
I have to admit, I can't argue with her. It doesn't change my fascination with India, but she's a persuasive person. I can't help liking what I see here in the USA. I hope that doesn't change when I finally get to India. But when you talk about how well Indians do in the USA, you have to understand what my amiga -- Sadia -- was saying and why the general opinion of Indians in the USA may well be stilted when compared to opportunities for Indians back in India.
I hope she's wrong.
†I reject that claim on account of -- you know -- my other passion for my Spanish-speaking brethren; a passion that made me move overseas to learn the language. But that debate for another time.
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