Thursday, July 12, 2007

Naipaul's take on India's new fissures

V S Naipaul's diagnosis of a new India's new fissures in Tehelka:

The English-knowing population of India has increased by leaps and bounds. And it is more than a matter of language now. Independent India has new money; and the world has opened up and given English-speaking Indians new ideas of possibility, new ideas about what they might do, and where they might go. These people, put in a very broad way, yearn for the United States and green cards. There has risen a fracture between them and the more local people who might be called temple-goers. They have always been a part of India, the temple-goers. But the new success of India makes them more assertive and they set the teeth of the green card people on edge. This fracture, seemingly only a cultural matter, a matter of taste, has begun to define some aspects of political life... It is very strange.


Read the full text here.

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