Chinese media says India has the surprising ability to overcome caste conflicts
An outsiders’ view about India’s social issues based on the recent Jat protests has appeared in the Chinese official media of Global Times. The editorial published in the newspaper tried to compare social problems in both countries and unsurprisingly concludes that India is in a difficult situation compared to China.
Unlike the usual harsh and out of the truth assessments, this article titled “A lesson from caste-triggered India unrest” says that China has a lot of lessons to learn from the Indian experience.
The writer wanders in several unrelated or remotely related issues about India while analyzing the Jat trouble.
He brings caste, injustice, economic growth, democratic nuisances etc to conclude that India faces bigger problem from inequality.
But the article in the context of the Chinese tightly controlled system sees the Jat issue in a disproportionately bigger scale. It indirectly produces a wrong assertion that caste based inequality has developed into an unsolvable problem like a tumour.
“Although many believe the traditional caste system raised the Indian lower class’s toleration of injustice or even their numbness toward injustice, more and more people think the wealth gap will eventually become a tumor that India cannot overcome.”
Linking development with social justice, the writer says that despite progress, India’s system is weak to block injustice.
“India has been developing fast, while it has a relatively weak system to curb injustice.”
On an entirely different tone, the article says that Indian society has the ability to comeback from such disturbances. It also deducts that the occurrence of the Jat type conflict in China would have produced big (adverse) effects.
“While astonished by repeated bloody riots in India, Chinese observers are also surprised by Indian society’s ability to resist turmoil. If similar unrest happened in China, it would be earth-shattering.”
Tightly controlled Chinese media often tries to understand problems in other countries in the Chinese context and often comes at wrong conclusions. Though their analysis may appear to have objectivity, patriotism often destroys the quality of observations.
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