How India is going to handle all those people?

probably just kick them into the gutter the way India has always dealt with it's unwanted population. they're smart people, but i would definitely take off points for their moral stance. they sell A LOT of copies of Mein Kampf over there in India.

there's an article up on Huffington Post, from 2009 that discusses how Mein Kampf is considered a business/self-help book in India. google "mein kampf india" and it should come up on the first page of the results.

IDK

I am curious to know what the projected effects of the environmental impact of the industrial boom in Asia is. I can't see things being sustainable

now you've done it. you've mentioned india and nuclear power. doctor j will be along any minute to sing the praises of thorium and of india for working on reactors that use it.

(point of order: indians have a much stronger likelihood of aryan heritage than any european group does. nothing "supposed" about it.)

the0ther wrote: probably just kick them into the gutter the way India has always dealt with it's unwanted population. they're smart people, but i would definitely take off points for their moral stance. they sell A LOT of copies of Mein Kampf over there in India.

Let's look at the per capita GDP for the U.S. - $46,000 - and compare it to the per capita GDP for India - $3,100 (CIA Factbook). Yet, when footage of New Orlean's Ninth Ward under assault by Katrina broke in 2005, people all over the world were stunned that so many Americans lived in what they considered "third world" conditions. Who is the moral superior, then? Of course, India's extreme poverty is a direct result of British colonialism over hundreds of years. Are the British morally responsible, then, for India's poor?

I would also suggest that you broaden your survey of Indian reading habits and look at sales of Ghandi's autobiography. I am certain that more copies of "My Experiments with Truth" were sold in India in any given year than "Mein Kampf."

But still, the whole notion of the Untouchables cannot be blamed on the British, can it?

AW, as much as I like Manga and Anime' it always bugs me out that Japanese animation artists rarely draw Japanese people realistically. There is the tendency to 'europeanize' the characters. Some characters have blonde hair, red hair, etc. I always found that interesting. I have a graphic novel where the author has a protagonist bemoaning that in Japan there is so much conformity. I often wonder if the tendency to draw characters differently stems from the desire to create a world that was unlike the sameness of the one the artist lives in, more so than a desire to approximate the aesthetic of the European. Still, I think it's the latter.

The notion of whiteness/paleness as an ideal is prevalent throughout Asian history -- by Asian here I mean Indian, Chinese and even Persian lore... I recall reading somewhere that a sign of beauty was having untanned skin. That to be darkened by the sun was akin to having a calloused hand: it meant that you were more peasant than noble, as it was only the peasants and slaves who worked in the sun and therefore were tanned by it.

This aversion to darkness is very fascinating. It's mentioned in a very interesting book, "Empires of the Indus," amongst other places. In my own youth in the Caribbean, I recall dark-skinned Indians with aversion to darker skinned Indians, and African descendant people. I don't know if that is a cultural attribute associated with European influence, or if it evolved before European control. And those children that were the result of two distinct groups of people were quick to 'correct' ANYONE who wanted to identify them as a member of their DARKER ancestral group. Contemporaneously, I can't help but to think about this when I hear bi-racial rhetoric...

I hear you AW. I was wondering if the notion of whiteness in Manga and Anime' comes from this fixation on paleness. Can you point me to a document where the Russians are drawn as less than white? I am not challenging you here. I have never heard of this, and I would like to see this for myself. I am quite fascinated by this.

I have spoke of this before: I went to Madagascar a few years back and saw Malagasy women using the starchy white component of a specific planet on their faces. The walk around with this white stuff all over their faces. I asked a Malagasy gentleman why did they do this, and he responded that they make an ointment from the plant and apply it to their face as it is 'good for the face'. I asked him to explain some more: "What do you mean by being good for the face?" He looked at me and said it LIGHTENS the skin. So whenever you see imagery of women in Madagascar with this white stuff on their face it's because they are BLEACHING their skin.

And this is common in the Caribbean and the Caribbean community too. This notion of 'paleness as more beautiful' is rife throughout the world. There is a very beautiful sister who works in a nearby restaurant. She bleaches her skin. And getting back to India, one can't watch a Bollywood movie and see these pale-assed Indian chicks singing while some darker Indian dude pursues. These women are constantly Brahmin yellow. I have yet to see a Bollywood flick with a chocolate Indian chick -- big-bootied and all -- being chased by some Brahmin looking dude.

Yep, Asian and African influences there.... Without a doubt. Indonesian-looking folks. And it's obvious by the language. The names of the people are multi-syllabic, like Indonesian names. And the people are predominantly Afro-Asiatic looking. By that I mean, they are dark-skinned, straight haired folk, with what would be considered Asian features.

AW, could you provide some info about Japanese art and how they rendered Russians as dark-skinned?

MHA wrote: But still, the whole notion of the Untouchables cannot be blamed on the British, can it?

No, the caste system was codified at the time of the Aryan invasion of the Indus valley, around 1 - 2 A.D. It was likely a way for the invaders to consolidate power by making sure that they were on top of the caste hierarchy. Part of the evidence for that (as you point out) is that that the highest caste members tend to have lighter skin, such as the Aryans, while those at its bottom tend to have darker skin. After two thousand years, though, that a striation from dark to fair represents a movement from low to high caste is a general rule, not a specific one.

Many - most? - Indian historians believe that the caste system would likely have died out without the intervention of the British. It was weakened substantially by the advent of Buddhism, as well as by the incursion of Islam and Christianity into India. But, starting in the 17th century, the officials of the British East India Company dealt only with the highest caste Brahmins, and the British legalized the caste hierarchies through census. The British attitude towards castes is generally understood to be a part of a "divide and rule" strategy that sought to enflame divisions between Indians in order to allow the British to consolidate their power.

There is no question that Indians fetishize "whiteness." (I could give many despicable examples.) I think the origin of that fetishization - as in so much of the world - goes back to European colonialism (not the caste system). In India, the British deliberately developed an elite class of Indians (consisting mostly of Brahmins) to act as their administrators. They were educated in a British educational system, spoke English fluently, and embraced British mannerisms. Nowadays in India, adopting "modern" or Western mannerisms and especially English language is still seen as the number one means to get ahead. I think that the fetishization of "whiteness" is an extension of that.

Don't say this too loud Krownhill. CTK might hear you and call you a self hating white woman. He would just say that it's only ECONOMICS that caused Europeans to be what they were. It had nothing to do with manifest destiny, and a culture that think it's shit don't stink.

Please, don't confuse the arbitrary nature of race with CTK.'s rationales...

But seriously, I think India is changing as result of its population explosion.l The caste system is being overlooked, and Indian's are thinking rationally, instead of through the gaze of 'better than'. I predict that there will be some cataclysmic event that will lead India to exploit Pakistan. the people will be forced t move to areas of underpopulation. Afghanistan will be lookin' real pretty to India real soon... I think that India is going to drop the bomb on Pakistan. Seriously. It's going to be written off as Pakistan/Al Qaeda's first strike attempt, but I think that it's just a matter of time before this happens. This will clear up land and resources of India.. Man is beast before anything else, just remember that.
Of course Iran will protest, but India and Iran have so much in common that Pakistan's cultural erasure will be overlooked. Islam may be what links Pakistan with Iran, but this link will be overlooked I think, once those Iranians take a good look at those hi-yellow Indian babes in those Bollywood movies; just my opinion....