For the most part, I think India is moderately promising. While a whole bunch of ’em are still poking rice into mud with a stick in order to just barely survive, a lot of others of ’em have adopted capitalism and science, and have made at least parts of their nation high-tech centers. They’ve got nukes, they’ve got rockets, they’ve got spacecraft and their own aerospace industry. They’ve got Bollywood… strange and alien as it may be, it nevertheless tends to demonstrate both craftsmanship and a sense of fun. And they have a hell of a lot of tech support.
While I personally find Hinduism to be as theologically sensible as, well, every other religion ever, it at least has the potential of being a perfectly fine modern religion (hint: so far as I’m aware, their texts don’t tell ’em to convert or kill the infidels… unlike certain other “religions” I could mention). Hinduism seems to be perfectly accepting of moderinization, and despite some admittedly horrific remnants (such as wives being expected to throw themselves on their husbands funeral pyres, fakirs still plying their trade, the acceptance of a caste system, etc.), they seem to be ready to get drunked up and party.
But every now and then a news story comes along to show that India still has some pretty bad *official* problems:
Indian skeptic charged with “blasphemy” for revealing secret behind “miracle” of weeping cross
The short form: an Indian skeptic shows that a “miraculous weeping Jesus statue” is actually a “Jesus statue that’s dripping drain water from the local plumbing.” And so the local Catholic Church has blasphemy charges filed against him.
Blasphemy charges. Let that sink in. A nation trying to modernize and gain a position of prominence actually has functioning laws against *blasphemy.* Worse, in this case it’s a matter of the “blasphemer” simply pointing out hard facts.
Feh.
Bad India! No cookie for you!!
Now, at first blush what might seem odd is that this is a distinct minority religion pushing to punish a disbeliever, rather than the local majority religion. But look at the West: it’s generally not the Catholics or Lutherans or regular Baptists causing trouble… it’s a few pushy minority religions that have learned to game the system. While the US fortunately does not have anti-blasphemy laws (thank Odin for that), we have a media and a legal system that think that spurious, irrational and just plain unbelievable charges of “racism” are fun to promote, when it comes to certain religions that, unlike Hinduism, do think that causing trouble for non-believers is a fine thing. Seeing this may have spurred the local Indian Catholic church to decide to punish the skeptic.
As the man (Heinlein) said: Of all the strange crimes that humanity has legislated out of nothing, blasphemy is the most amazing – with obscenity and indecent exposure fighting it out for second and third place.