Once again...let me clarify my view in crystal clear terms....India and West have a lot in common...democracy, free speech, open society, individual property rights, private business model and quest for knowledge. Indian civilization believed for centuries in not just equality of gender BUT ,in fact, superiority of women...(Men in India always have worshipped Godesses ) So, lots of core values at least in theory,,West and India share, lets be honest about this fact. India and West are not too far in most areas of thinking.
The difficulty in Indian mind is that West preaches great values BUT practices just the opposite in many instances..such as supporting dictators in Pakistan, Egypt , being a protector and ally of Saudi Royal family and King of Jordan (both undemocratic), preaches individual privacy and liberty, but, secretly
tapes phone calls, read e-mails and monitors computer activities of its own citizens (height of hypocracy)...atleast communists tell you in advance they they are spying on and monitoring you. Making thousands of nuclear missiles and other very deadly weapons themselves and telling other nations not to have high tech weapons, Now, this duplicious behavior of West drives Indian mind nuts. They don't believe in Gandiji but expects India to believe in Gandhiji's non-violence.
Traditionally, Indian civilization has a core belief that one should rise above "me" to "we" (let every one be happy and healthy), connecting with other and accept and respect their cultural values and traditions...On other hand, West has this self centered attitude and assume that "we are the exceptional and indispensable civilization better than all others" This is sign of an unwise and immature civilization. India has been ruled by Muslims and Britishers for centuries and lots of its core values got distorted and confused. e.g.
Can you give me one example of a Hindu Goddess who wears a veil (burka)? The way they say "ji' at the end of a person's name inherently expresses respect for that person. The greeting "Namaste" means "I bow to the existence(God) which resides in you. The answer to "Namaste" is "Namaste"...the other person is also, expressing respect for the God in the first person. How beautiful is this example of true mutual respect ! Its not shallow like whether the morning is "good' or 'not so good" West lost its way to being great civilization because it chose single-minded path of pursuit of materialistic things. They started defining success in terms of how much money a person makes, how big a house he lives in , how new is his cell phone, how expensive is his car...this is disaster as it keeps West stuck at a lower level of civilizational development.So, West is losing respect fast.
India has its own big problem..one is forgetting its great, deep and wise heritage and blindly imitating western shallow and narcissistic model..second..it has not succeeded until now in keeping a clean environment, rule of law, and basic physical needs of nutrition, housing, clean water etc.
China and India and most Asian Nations are "WE" civilizations where collective good takes upper hand to "I ,Me and myself" narrow ,selfish ideal. Other fact is that Eastern civilizations don't have tendency to dominate, control and enslave other civilizations but have an ancient concept of peaceful coexistence and mutual respect (Panchsheel principles) Chinese prez, Mr Xi recently said "We, Chinese do not have Domination and imperialist DNA in us" Indian PM, Mr Modi said " Lets take all of us on the path of development together" These thought patterns indicate depth, maturity and wisdom of Indian and Chinese civilizations.
Until we start thinking again" the entire World is one family" the major problems, wars and violence ,ethnic conflicts will keep on escalating...and peace will elude us .it's time for West to learn some wise values of "WE" civilizations and drop the "Only I, Me and Myself" selfish ideology.
