
Rural Indian Girls Chase Big-City Dreams - known
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/world/asia/bangalore-india-women-factories.html
======
dmoy
Fascinating article.

This bit jumped out as extreme - is this usual, or a rarity? :

"Each morning, before she is allowed to eat, the daughter-in-law must wash the
feet of her husband’s parents and then drink the water she has used to wash
them."

~~~
gnipgnip
Sure, we also go and poop out in the fields every day. NyT like most
occidental publications intend to shock and awe their customers under a guise
of enlightenment. Much as does the colonial crowd here. This dance has been
going on for two hundred years you see.

I'd be very wary of the native "mantric" repetitions which are often the
source of such articles, [http://www.hipkapi.com/2011/03/26/indian-way-of-
westernizati...](http://www.hipkapi.com/2011/03/26/indian-way-of-
westernization/)

In any case, it's so damn boring. You can read some old British book from the
30s and get done with this whole charade at once!

(Source: I've spent enough time in Indian villages)

~~~
pessimist
Most Indians do in fact go out and poop in the fields every day. Most Indian
commenters here are from the urban middle class and have literally never spent
a minute thinking about the vast and miserable rural lower classes around
them, and get incredibly offended when a westerner does in fact notice and
write about them.

~~~
gnipgnip
1\. You don't know that ("most").

2\. Water is fairly scarce in certain regions. Considering how unhygienic such
toilets end up in such far off places, I probably would too.

It's not like they can't afford it (most folk carry a smartphone these days,
while earning <$200 a month).

3\. Rural India is generally way more hygienic than Urban India; apparently
has a more even sex-ratio too.

4\. I've spent time in villages from my childhood. I know why toilets were
kept separated in the backyard, and why they've now moved closer home.

Please don't give me the old "white saviour" line. Chomsky and his starlings
may use this line with gusto, but the vacuity of it is readily apparent for
those not afraid of not being fashionable.

I also understand how the stupid policies of the state driven by such
sentences of native courtiers, led to widespread agricultural failures,
ridiculous price fluctuations and rural depopulation.

Do you care ? No.

5\. I've also seen homeless Americans poop on the streets.

6\. I'm not a fan of the whole post-colonial affair of "white guilt" milking.
If you do indeed care, please tell me something that's not religious. Your
experience is not divine.

~~~
pessimist
Let me address your points:

1\. See the latest numbers heres: [http://www.thehindu.com/data/most-of-rural-
india-still-opts-...](http://www.thehindu.com/data/most-of-rural-india-still-
opts-for-open-defecation-nss-report/article8503947.ece)

I should have qualified "most" as "most of rural", sorry. Of course rural
India is 70% of the population.

2, & 4, it is indeed true that people are choosing to poop in the fields out
of choice and it "feels" more hygienic to people. But it is a misguided choice
- likely a major cause of disease and childhood stunting -
[http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjourna...](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0073784).

btw, I am an urban middle class Indian too. Not white by any stretch of the
imagination. And where I did I say the white man is the saviour? I just said
that the plight of rural Indians is completely ignored by those who complain
loudly about western media views of India.

In fact I give full credit to the current government for raising awareness
about toilets and trying to fix the issue.

------
tn13
Absolute racist/hinduphobic garbage from NYT and that is how it is so often.

> "Each morning, before she is allowed to eat, the daughter-in-law must wash
> the feet of her husband’s parents and then drink the water she has used to
> wash them."

Grew up in a very conservative rural area in India. Have not heard any of this
sort of crap.

~~~
viveksri15
Yup. Never happens these days. Probably never happened in last 5 generations
in my family (it never happened in my grandmother's memory)

~~~
tn13
I doubt if it ever happened. Washing feet is a ritual that is considered a
great honor and mostly reserved for super special occasions. For a brahmin
during certain types of Puja, Groom during marriage, Bride when entering the
new home etc.

------
throw2016
The problem with a lot of culture articles on developing countries from global
media is the singular focus on one aspect over decades. Every journalist
somehow end up gravitating to the same thing which skews perspectives.

Its like only writing about deep south US by the global media for decades on
end so there is no coverage of NYC, LA, SFO and all the other bits that make
up the whole US.

So no exposure to Hollywood, to technology, to financial systems, to modern
cities, imagine the kind of distorted perspective readers will form of USA.
While the deep south is US the other bits are also US and you need both or you
end with an deeply unbalanced and distorted perspective.

All cultures and traditions originating from thousands of years ago, be it
islam, christianity or hinduism are going to be regressive in infinite ways.
It takes balanced development and wealth to get people into the modern world
both in mind and body so they have the perspective and freedom to accept and
reject parts.

According the to the UN development indices 70% of Indian's are poor, that's a
mind boggling 700-800 million people (that's more than the combined population
of the US and Europe) just trying to survive and like all people who find
themselves in these cirumstances they will cling desperately to their
traditions.

Even the most committed system will have a multi-generational problem pulling
these many people out of poverty, most developing countries, infact most
countries do not have the luxury of a committed leadership over these time
frames.

------
peter303
150 years ago this sounds like NewYork City or London.

------
f_allwein
Different context, but relevant quote by Christopher Hitchens:

"The cure for poverty has a name, in fact: it's called the empowerment of
women. If you give women some control over the rate at which they reproduce,
if you give them some say, take them off the animal cycle of reproduction to
which nature and some doctrine—religious doctrine condemns them, and then if
you'll throw in a handful of seeds perhaps and some credit, the floor of
everything in that village, not just poverty, but education, health, and
optimism will increase. It doesn't matter; try it in Bangladesh, try it in
Bolivia, it works—works all the time. Name me one religion that stands for
that, or ever has."

~~~
DominikR
I greatly respect Christopher Hitchens but this statement is provably wrong.

There was no control over reproduction by women before the birth control pill
reached the market in 1960. Therefore it would follow that every society
before 1960 was poor, which isn't true.

Also why do we experience today rising poverty while further expanding womens
rights at the same time? Shouldn't we all get richer?

My conclusion is that these two issues are unrelated. Societies get rich by
either creating value (that's the one that I like) or capturing value by the
use of force, period.

~~~
f_allwein
> There was no control over reproduction by women before the birth control
> pill reached the market in 1960. Therefore it would follow that every
> society before 1960 was poor, which isn't true.

No, it wouldn't. The argument here is that birth control is a factor that
correlates to rising women's empowerment, which in turn can lead to a
reduction in poverty. The reverse (societies without birth control are poor)
does not follow.

> why do we experience today rising poverty while further expanding womens
> rights at the same time?

because women's rights are a factor, but not the only one. The argument is
that, in the context of developing countries, it makes sense to empower women.
It is not that any increase in women's rights automatically leads to more
wealth.

~~~
DominikR
> The argument here is that birth control is a factor that correlates to
> rising women's empowerment

It logically follows that women are empowered if you give them the right to
control their reproduction but that's not the argument here.

The argument is whether women's empowerment leads to prosperity in a society
and nothing else.

You yourself state this:

> The reverse (societies without birth control are poor) does not follow.

This is what I wrote before myself. What is missing is that someone shows that
empowering women is a factor (and if so to what degree) that will lead to
prosperity.

Just saying it isn't sufficient. I get that people have their values and goals
and in this case I agree that women should not be second class citizens in any
regard.

But I'm sceptical of statements where people connect arbitrary things to
something everyone wants (prosperity) just to promote their values and causes.
That's usually what politicians do and I'm not one of them.

By the way it is also not helpful to tell poor countries do X (where X is
accept our values in some regard) and you'll be prosperous and rich, when we
cannot prove that indeed they'll be more prosperous if they do this.

That'll create resentment or they will stop taking us serious. In fact I'm
frequently reading news and comment sections in many languages and I can tell
you that this has already happened. They ridicule the West for our stupidity
and our values that we try to foist on them.

------
DiabloD3
I've decided to flag this article.

Usually I won't flat out say something is racist, because it is about points
of view and such; however, these are clearly identifiable biases that stem
from British colonialism, and either no longer exist, or never did in any
relevant time frame.

Yes, India has a weird culture, by western standards (or several, really).
Yes, they have insane amounts of poverty that make even our poorest look
positively middle class. Yes, India has cultural roots in sexist practices.

However, this? This ain't journalism, and this is insulting to the memory of
what the New York Times once was. This is fear mongering, this is a shock an
awe campaign. This has little roots in reality.

~~~
DominikR
So if I say that the Saudi government and their practices which stem from
their culture are bad because they kill gays, kill non believers and enslave
women then I'm being racist?

Well then I guess I don't have to care if I'm being called a racists because
you've made it into a good thing.

~~~
DiabloD3
Not all. What you said is verifiably true.

However, the failure of the Saudi state has come from within, when the House
of Saud was infected by the expansion of Wahhabism in the Islamic world, where
two previous states lead by the House of Saud failed, and a third, today's
Saudi Arabia (formed in 1932) is also heading towards ruin, but doing so
entirely under their own power and leadership.

The failure of the Indian state is due to British rule for over 100 years in
which India's own culture was heavily distorted through the lens of
colonialism efforts; in addition, Pakistan leaving and declaring its own
Islamic government has also not helped India heal from this. The current state
of India is due to outside influences.

Bad things happen due to the extreme poverty in India all the time, but the
very specific things said in the article are all distortions of Indian culture
that are no longer practiced, even in the most backwards towns.

What the NYT did is no different than if today's Saudi Arabia had stopped it's
anti-humanitarian efforts and chose to transition into a modern government
instead, and you claimed they still killed gays, non-muslims, and whoever else
for non-crimes.

India obviously has only taken the first steps in becoming a modern nation,
but what the NYT did is not helping India at all.

In short, the NYT is going to have to prove it. Photos, videos, whatever. This
is no different than any other editorial hearsay otherwise. If they had
actually found human rights violations in the scale and severity implied in
the article, the NYT would be running this as front page news, and world
governments would be pressuring India to fix this.

~~~
DominikR
Look I agree that some of that stuff in this article is complete and utter
nonsense.

For example where it is explained that women wash mens feet and then have to
drink the water. Whoever believes this must be either stupid or ignorant.

And that's exactly how I would comment on this. The person who wrote this
article is clearly either not well enough educated to have any business
writing articles about this for the NY Times or that person is simply
ignorant.

But I very much doubt that there is some racism involved here. People
sometimes write hurtful or stupid things and I did so myself occasionally but
when I did it's not because I hate some specific culture but because of
incomplete information or knowledge. (though I'm not a journalist or a
politician, so it's not that bad if I get things wrong occasionally)

~~~
DiabloD3
Normally I'd agree with you, and almost passed it off as such, but then I
remembered this would have had to pass through an editor at the NYT.

That editor should have known better.

------
corndoge
You'd be surprised at the sheer amount of idiotic and degrading customs in
Indian culture. Parts of it are beautiful and the culture as a whole is
steeped in tradition, but the majority of the social customs are absolutely
despicable.

~~~
shabda
Like other people have said, in a billion people you can find anything you
want to, but the described custom is _extremly_ unusual. I am an Indian,
raised in semi-rural area, and I have never heard of this happening. NYT is
just pushing its narrative.

~~~
corndoge
And yet it's a common occurrence to read in the news of women who were
assaulted and not infrequently killed for e.g. wrinkling their husband's
clothes. Of course I don't purport that everyone in a country of over a
billion people behaves this way but it's far more common than it should be.

~~~
praneshp
Really? Can you point me to 4 or 5 cases where women were killed for such
trivial things?

As a counter example, it's really common to read about dowry-related killings.
[http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-
others/24771-do...](http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-
others/24771-dowry-deaths-reported-in-last-3-years-govt/)

