Ethnic Strife

India's GDP is still too low to say its not a failed state. I hear recently they tried to increase the number of affirmative action seats (read undeserved seats) in Medical School from 22% to 49%.

There is a lot of reasons to believe India will be a failed state and less to belive they will succeed, above a limit which they havent yet reached anyway.

To some extent, India isn't a very strong state. It has significant federalism and allows Muslims to have their own batshit crazy family law tribunals. That undoubtedly decreases some of the pressure to kill your neighbors, keeping the numbers down to a few hundred deaths and a few dozen bombs a year, not counting the dozen or so ethnic/communist insurrections in the north.

"I think I would be more comfortable with an analysis of countries within sub-Saharan Africa or the Middle East": are you deliberatley trying to incite sarcastic comments?

India isn't a failed state, but it is a successor to the catastrophic failure of British India.

Modern day Iraq and India were among the first places to become civilized on this planet. Just because the past few hindred years have been rough does not mean that the entire civilization is about to collapse.

I visted India in 1997 and was surprised to learn that there are more muslims in India than there are in Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia combined. More surprising is the fact that many sects of Islam were represented, not just the Sunni and Shia. Given Iraq's interfactional fighting between Sunni and Shia, I am surprised that India does not suffer from more violence rather than less. Maybe that crazy guy Gandhi and his non-violence has something to do with sucess. It certainly worked for Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement in America.

Ghandi's great ideas got him killed, and after the partition many other Muslims and Hindus were killed. I don't think it's fair to compare the India of 97 with the Iraq of today.

IMO the success or failure of a society is not based on ethnic strife rather on ideological outlook. Mainly non-violence is a better way to achieve change rather than violence.

India and Pakistan began as the same population. Therefore, any differences are a result of choices and beliefs not inherent differences in ethnicity. Yes, there are difficulties, but democracy seems to work well. India’s success is squarely based on its investment in education and political systems. Pakistan’s failure is squarely based on its investment in religious indoctrination (the Taliban began in Pakistan and spread to Afghanistan).

Yes, Gandhi was assassinated, but his ideas remain relevant. South Africa is peacefully transforming itself from centuries old prejudices and even the staunchest of conservatives in the southern United States salivate to see Rice elected Vice President and maybe even President. (btw. Gandhi was a lawyer in South Africa and sparked the non-violent movement before the SF gov’t sent him back to India). India and South Africa’s success can be traced to the non-violent ideologies that Gandhi introduced and the individuals who made a conscious decision to act on those ideas.

In 1947, the British division of India created a mess. In 2003, Iraq was a mess because of the borders the Brits drew up after WWII. In 1947, India was split along radical and moderate beliefs. India has more Muslims than the entire population of Pakistan, so the split is not based on religion but rather violent / non-violent ideologies. Currently in Iraq, the violence is based also on violent and non-violent ideologies. The Kurdish areas are relatively peaceful. Areas where there is a mixture of Sunni and Shia, experience the majority of violence. Iraq faces the same problems India did in 1947. India had Gandhi as a guide Iraq does not. Most likely if Iraq is split, the Kurds (being moderate in their ideology) will benefit greatly. The violence between the Shia and the Sunni factions will continue as it has since Mohammed’s death.