I am an Indian and I hate to admit this.

Don't forget Fascism based on religion.

Israel and America are trying to wrestle for that one, too
- Israel's got us beat by a lot, man. In the US we have grasps for religious power (some successful) but it doesn't describe everyone in government
- There sadly are even more countries that are completely under control of religious leaders. Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Iran, Afghanistan, .... Vatican City (they even have something like their own military).
- The Abraham Wars
- They're all already greased up and there's an inflatable pool with green jello right there.
Or scams!

I think I missed the "mysticism and spirituality" period. Twenty years ago I knew India for cows, castes, and crap in the rivers.

You may be too young for Depak Chopra.
- He specifically said he thought of it as being full of shit.
Never heard of 'Eat, Pray, Love'?

Idk how the general public viewed India 40 years ago, but from my vague understanding of their modern history they've always been known for a cruel caste system resulting in poverty and disease, which was massaged by the English introducing more widespread transportation and education but castes and disparity still persists after several revolutions. Don't get me wrong, the English were cruel and apathetic, but clearly the locals learned a lot from them in good and bad ways both.

I recently learned about CPI parties of India but they also ingrain religion into their politics? That sounds like one step forward two steps back. I'd love to see more Indian politics and international news in the news and politics communities on Lemmy, sounds like a lot is going on over there and I'm getting real sick of hearing about Taylor Swift's jet and Biden's Cookies.

Oh and also, skin whitening cream is pretty fucked imo. I saw a story awhile back where a famous light skinned actress played an ethnic minority role where they blackfaced and lived in filth, clearly something is wrong there.

Skin whitening is not unlike tanning in the west, an indication of status/wealth. In India lighter skin shows you don't need to work outside. In the west tan skin shows you can take vacations.
And in both cases people fake it with creams and tanning salons. And it becomes so entrenched people don't realize why they are actually doing it. Just like makeup and clothing choices.
Yes, there are problematic racial undertones...and in general is definitely fucked up...but I think it's more complicated than just a race thing. I mean, people in the West are literally exposing themselves to cancer causing UV to fake the look of having recently taken a trip to Hawaii or whatever, which is also kinda fucked up.
- Pretty sure lighter complexion in non-white countries is status symbol in the same way tanning is among white Westerners. You don't need to work outside means you are affluent enough not to do so. Getting tanned means you are also affluent enough to go on holidays abroad to somewhere exotic.
  Before the European colonisation in non-white majority countries, light skin has always been seen as status symbol. The racial aspect came later upon Western colonialism.
- In the west tan skin shows you can take vacations.
  What? I see a dude with a tan in the middle of winter and I automatically think "he spends way to much time in tanning booths" and "that's a lot of skin damage". I never once thought "that guy can afford vacations". If that's the effect they're going for they need better PR.
- Spray on tans are also frowned upon, where I'm from. But the natural production of pigment in response to sunlight isn't nearly comparable to chemically changing tones or caking on makeup to hide your ethnicity.
  I still don't see them on the same level as attempting to change ones race as a show of wealth. People should see the beauty of their natural skin.
  UV Radiation is required to produce Vitamin D, the World Health Organization recommends a minimum of 5 minutes of direct sunlight exposure a week to avoid deficiency.

On the bright side, you need a tech tutorial, they've got your back.

Yeah, but it's often in the form of a YouTube video with narration that's not always so easy to understand. I miss written tutorials, but most of the good ones I find these days tend to come from Central/Eastern European forum posts.
- Feed it to an AI explainer

Don't forget scammers!

It's scammers all the way down.

Germany f*d up so bad we're still using them as a meme after most of a century. Never go full Germany.

I guess Germany after the 30's (and maybe even after 1919), France after the whole Revolution and Napoleon thing, the UK after voting to KEKW their economy, Norway after being ruled by Sweden... The list probably goes on

Which french revolution? ;) There's lots of people who saw and still see the whole french revolution thing as a net positive. The UK has never had a good proper revolution and it shows.
Napoleon did a lot of things, but those bad things were in line with the absolutist rulers from before the revolution, he just happened to be more successful at it. But he also did many good things during his rule. Fe, the Napoleonic code was hugely influential worldwide and a major change for the good. 2 centuries later it doesn't hold up as well in the countries that still use the same justice system, but for it's time, it was really good. Overall, I'd say Napoleon still has a stellar reputation, unlike India.
How was Norway worse after they last gained independence from Sweden?
- never had a good proper revolution
  Are you forgetting or discounting the English Revolution and Glorious Revolution?
- A lot of good came out of it in the end, but I doubt the French felt great after the battle at Waterloo and the resulting peace treaty
- The UK had to murder his king to get a parliament though :D and tbh the french revolution was a great moment, but also a hugely violent one, and the people did not prevail. The liberals did.
How did Norway's "PR" fall after independence?
That just touches on leadership issues, not the people. So I don't think it is valid in this context.
- I dunno I think Nazi Germany says a lot about everyone that was there I reckon.
How did France's PR fall after the revolution?

This is insanely relevant to me right now. I left India in 2004 and I am there right now for my cousins wedding. I legit hate it everywhere I look. Love my family, but idk if I want to come back.

Hello unkill

4chan is gonna know the world through the perspective of an average 4chan user.

Rapists and shit being India's image is far, far from being exclusive to anons on 4chan...
- I unfortunately have to agree on the rapists front because of the impotent fucks sitting in the parliament sucking each other on religion, but the shitting part has gotten considerably better in my region and in India overall, though.

Also the land of abhorrent javascript horrors.

mysticism and spirituality

You mean scammers like Sadhguru and Deepak Chopra?

America has been full of New Thought/LoA grifters like these too: Neville Goddard, Napoleon Hill, Joseph Murphy, to name a few.

Thought to myself "San Francisco isnt a country"

Never forget the Designated Shitting Streets

To be frank, google's reputation fall pretty significantly in the last 25 years.

Not a country yet
- Google had a revenue of 305.6 billion dollars in 2023.
  That's more than the GDP of Finland, the 48th largest economy in the world.
~~Don't~~ be evil.

Good luck with this post OP lmao

edit: Did way better than I expected. Maybe I think too poorly of Lemmings

Yeah things are pretty bad here. People lack even basic civic sense. I've always felt like an outsider.

Superpower by 2020

They've been 'emerging' for 20 years lol

I hope Bloodywood manages to stop every rapist. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a65A626Ed20&t=0

I kinda feel the opposite. Seen as some backwater third world country 30 years ago, to the most populous country in the world, a democracy aligned to its own goals forming a third pole in the global order apart from the US and Russia/China.

Even their reputation as scammers comes from the insane growth of English-language tech work that is now focused in India.

I don't know if "the most populous country in the world" is really something to brag about nowadays. And if I'm not mistaken, approval of the current gov't isn't really across the board. I understand the scamming being a thing because of the amount of people, that's just gonna happen everywhere, but it says a lot about the lack of regulation out there where it can happen so blatantly.
- Sure population isn't everything but it helps them throw their weight around economically.

To be fair, no one believes in Mysticism anymore...

Observe.
Neopagans are dumber than Evangelical Christians, and all their manufactured rituals just whitewash dead religions that belonged in the dirt.
- I wish mysticism was true, but sadly.... it's nothing but a faerie tale...

Went from delusional to schizophrenic.

That reminds me... I have to try Indian food sometime. It looks good, but I like to try food made by someone who knows what they're doing before making it myself, so I can tell if I did a good job or not and there aren't many Indian places 'round here.

I don't know if there are any left post-Covid but Indian Buffets got me hooked, you can try all the different major foods and Naan and often some good tea.
Chicken Biryani or Butter Chicken are good places to start. You could even cook your own butter chicken it's not too bad. I'm not Indian, but those 2 dishes got me into the food.
so I can tell if I did a good job or not
that's what tasting is for. if you taste it and like it, no one can tell you that it's not right.
If this post makes you want to try one of the most popular foods on Earth, I would think on that.
- Okay: A post about India makes a person think about India, which reminds them they've never had Indian food and want to.
  There, I thought on it for them. What was the point you were trying to make? Oh, you were trying to paint them as a racist? Muppet.
- I dont think they went from "shit on streests" to food. Propably it was "hmmm india, their food looks good"

Internet exposed that every or almost every country is a class system with pedo rapists in charge.

The shit river is a cherry but all countries are a shit pie.

In southern US there people without plumbing or other towns have poluted water piped to low peasants.

So rich, so powerful....

The population of people in the US with no / seriously tainted water is a blip compared to the population on the yamuna or ganges rivers.
It's a disservice to those folks to even remotely compare their experience to those in north America.
- Is that because India has the highest population or its high even as a percentage?
Sorry to break it to you bud, but many countries are not shit.
Yeah you are just flat out incorrect :(
- How hurt is u, boy?

That's what colonialism does to one

UK: hold my beer...

No one ever liked them tho

I mean it took India two decades, and even then it isn't all of their reputation. It took Israel 4 months.

Who did Israel have a good reputation with before 2023? Politicians?
- Liberals
Land of honey and milk and Arab blood
- Id say blood for the blood god but it aint really applicable, the god of skulls and blood has fucking standards!

So we switched from exotic fetichizing orientalism toward casual racism? Sounds like two pieces of the same coin.

Why the downvotes? You're 100% right. Westerners absolutely fetishize India over its perceived mysticism. And there's no shortage now of anti-Indian discrimination in North America.
- comment OP: a salient point downvoted heavily
  reply: agrees with the downvoted comment, has 100% upvotes
  humans are weird
Young ignorant dumb boomer mentality to old racist boomer bullshit

With the exception of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Islam is currently responsible for a majority of the war happening in the world and has been for the last two decades.

The world would be a better place without Islam.

Did you comment on the wrong post? What does Islam have to do with OP?
- Current Indian government is full of Hindu ethnofasicists that are deeply anti-islam.
- Plenty of people will grab literally any opportunity and quite a few non-opportunities to rant. I'm a freaking edgelord atheist myself, but some of it is just embarrassing.
- Probably a Hindu nationalist
It's not the muslms who lynch people transporting cows now, is it?
I think that's just because Hindus have been poor in history. Give them power and they'll show they're just a cosmetic difference away from Islam. You remember the murder on live TV? Do you know what the murderers chanted after shooting? Jai Shree Ram is just the new Allah Akbar.
Hindutva shithead.
hahhahahhahahahahahhahaha. God that's one hell of a warped perspective.
You mean because certain countries (The US) keeps starting wars against muslims??? Do you also blame jews for the second world war?
In places destabilized by colonialists…
- Bring back the Ottoman and the Mughal empires!
  Most countries got a lot more stable under colonialism. Its only after they left they went back to destability and genocide.
Geez man have you studied history and geopooitics at all?
America is responsible for a good few as well.