Everybody can't have the life of a normal, average American person in India - they can't. So, it's about egalitarianism. It's about sharing things more equally. It's about access to natural resources.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I don't think people give Indian society enough credit. We may not like to talk much about things but we do, basically, want to live and let live.
The world is waiting for us, the world wants to engage with us, the world wants to be friendly with us, the world wants to be our partner in prosperity, and the world admires India in many ways.
Much of the conventional analysis of India's stature in the world relies on the all-too-familiar economic assumptions. But we are famously a land of paradoxes, and one of those paradoxes is that so many speak about India as a great power of the 21st century when we are not yet able to feed, educate and employ all our people.
There are people doing yoga in New York, dancing around; that's the power of India. You go to a nightclub somewhere in Spain and there's Amitabh Bachchan on the screen there, dancing around. That's the power of India. That's the power of Indian people.
We take ourselves so seriously moment by moment, but India shows you a sense of eternity. You're one little ant on a hill. You're part of life, but you're not the whole thing.
So Indian policy has become institutionalized and the result has been that American people have become more dependent on government and that the American people have become more dependent on corporations.
Before, Indian people had been so defeated, they were always looking for outsiders, for the government, to somehow come in and fix things. But now, they seem to realize that they're the only ones who can save themselves.
Indians are usually seen as capsulized: limited to one environment, with the illusion of stability in that environment. But Indians have been engaged all over the world for centuries, in Europe, even in Asia.
If we dispense with some of our self-made boundaries, India can really take its place in the world as an economic power. It hasn't happened because we, sadly, don't look at ourselves as Indians but as Punjabis or Parsis, unlike the Americans. Don't make such boundaries.
The extraordinary thing about India is that it's such a family place. It's full of families everywhere.
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