I'm pretty appalled by those pictures. That's sad, disgusting and just wrong. I don't care about which race, country or whatever those people belong to. We should have agreement that this isn't how humans should live.
I see lots of indignation at the way members here are expressing their shock, calling them racists etc. and playing it off as though this isn't indicative of India. I personally feel instead of calling us all racists over how shitty we perceive your country to be, you should instead GO CLEAN UP YOUR FUCKING SHITTY COUNTRY.
The Ganges is the dirtiest river in India, because of the way it (the river!) was attributed 'mystical' powers in history - namely, its waters are self cleaning, healing, even magical. Maybe people just thought the river would clean up their dead even if they were careless with it. Some years ago its water was classified as bad as industrial waste and disallowed for consumption of any sort. I have not seen any other river in as bad a shape as the Ganges. While India has always struggled with generic pollution, the Ganges has suffered the brunt of collective stupidity.
I do want to add a (feeble) caveat : those pictures by OP, horrific as they are, are not something you'd see in one place, or one day. And they are from many years ago. I have visited the same places quoted there, and have not seen any dead body - human or animal - ever. I am not saying those pictures are false, or anything less than disgusting, but that those pictures are a painstaking collection from various places and times, and posting them in one place makes it look worse than what it is. (Ok, I agree,
even one dead body floating in a river is the worst possible thing, but still...)
Good thing is, modern India knows, and are working towards cleaning it. They have taken a huge ($1 Billion or more) loan from the World Bank just to clean up the Ganges, planning to add a few billions of their own, and around 20 years of effort, starting in 2009. All the activity that brought us to this point (disposal of anything dead, or industrial waste, etc) is now declared criminal and liable for legal prosecution. Implementing all that is not easy with limited resources and centuries of legacy, but it's a start.
They can't. They are way over populated.
At least China was smart enough to know that their country was over populated so they limited couples to having only 1 kid.
China is way ahead of India in human development and what not; no comparison. But I can never accept that the 'one child policy' of theirs is better, or in any way 'progress', or even acceptable. No true democracy will have that, and in that particular (maybe only) point, India is better.
Amazing. What would it be like to be so heavily populated that human life has no value?
I had a friend who backpacked across India for a month a few years ago. I thought he was insane for wanting to do that in India of all places. He has some similar stories.
I think India's main problem is not only do the rich stay isolated and exploit the poor, but the poor castes themselves have no internal value and also see no value in other poor Indians either. They've been told all their life they're untouchables and so is everyone around them.
As for me, India is honestly the last country I would ever want to visit. No offense to any Indians on this board, but I've worked with dozens of Indians over the years and they are always the children of the wealthy and elite from the high castes. They typically have many servants back home and are more racist against the poor Indians than anybody in this thread. These guys have been given everything on a silver platter who come to go to school and work for 10 years or so before going home to their palaces, whereas most other US Immigrants are the poor who come to work for a better life. Now I'm not saying they don't work hard while they're over here. In fact my employers loved hiring Indians because they typically lived to work and they had no friends or family around so they'd put in 12 hour days while my american compatriots and myself would put in the regular 8. I just can't wrap my head around how there are probably hundreds of thousands of these guys who come over to the US and are so smart and get great educations and so much experience in our culture while they're over here but then they go back home and instantly re-acclimate themselves to their shithole country and keeping the untouchables in the streets. I'm not talking about East vs West culture either. I'm just talking about basic human decency.
That earlier anecdote by Genx8 does seem hyperbolic; but I think you have good observations. It's a huge adjustment for me to reconcile some of my 'progressive, modern thinking' friends with their attitudes regarding all this. But again, global exposure is eroding all that away - slowly, but surely.