For context, according to 2011 census there were 118 million farmers and 144 million farm labourers in India. 12,000 suicides per year puts the suicide rate at 4.5 per 100,000 people. This is lower than suicide rate of most countries.
Actually, there is strong feeling in at least in North India, that Kerala is where whole India should be. I am from Haryana and though Haryana is much more developed economically than Kerala, all my friends agree that Kerala is much better.
And when comparing to Bihar, the state is way ahead. At least the statistics show that.
Kerala has the cleanest railway stations, the best sex ratio, the most literate population, second least malnutrition (after Punjab).
Reading this article reminds me a story from "The Great Indian Novel" by Shashi Tharoor that explains the present state of Indians -
"A man, ... a symbol, shall we say, of people of India -- is pursued by a tiger. He runs fast, but panting heart tells him he cannot run much longer. He sees a tree. Relief! He accelerates and gets to it in one last despairing stride. He climbs the tree. The tiger snarls below him, but he feels that he has at last escaped its snapping jaws. But no -- what's this? The branch on which he is sitting is weak, and bends dangerously. This is not all; wood-mice are gnawing away at it; before long they will eat through it and it will snap and fall. The branch sags down over a wall. Aha! Escape? Perhaps our hero can swim? But the well is dry, and there are snakes writhing and hissing on its bed. What is our hero to do? As the branch bends lower, he perceives a solitary blade of glass growing on the wall of the well.On the top of the blade of grass gleams a drop of honey. What action does our Puranic man, our quintessential Indian, take in this situation?
He bends with the branch, and licks up the honey. "
No matter how desperate the situation, Indians will always find a way to adjust, to live with it. So despite all the filth, over crowding, corruption, inefficiency, Indians have learnt how to live and enjoy.
I would like to point out that the extreme poverty that India is known for today is pretty much a legacy of the British Raj.
The 'enlightenment' you are talking about came much before that, when India was a much more peaceful and prosperous area.
So the 'Out of necessity' argument you made is pointless.
I would like to point out that the extreme poverty that India is known for today is pretty much a legacy of the British Raj.
Today (2012) is sixty-five years since the independence of India from British rule (1947). As an American, I have to agree with the general proposition that British colonial rule is not the best form of government, but as an observer of the great variety of former British colonies in the world that are now independent countries, I invite readers here to think about why some of those countries (including some that became independent more recently than India) are now prosperous and free. Perhaps there are details about life in India and policies of the independent government of India that kept India comparatively poor and backward even after India won independence. It's a backward-looking set of excuses to say "British rule was bad for us," as it may indeed have been, without also being curious about "How have other countries thrived since winning independence from Britain?"
As far as the bad influence of colonialism goes, I think in general French or Spanish colonial rule have been even worse for most countries than British colonial rule. And it appears that one way harm was mediated to many places of the world by colonial rule is that socialism (especially hard-left socialism like Marxism) was transmitted to colonies by Western colonial officials, and then many countries pursued ineffective policies for national development for decades after independence, because they were stuck in socialist ideology for too long.
British rule in the Dominion countries went like this: exterminate or wholly subjugate the natives, then flood the place with whiteys from Blighty. Same thing happened in the US, but they took the subjugation a step further into crusade territory with 'manifest destiny'. In effect, Britain was able to transplant its culture and laws directly in these places.
British rule in India couldn't do this - half a billion people is a bit too many to simply overrun. Instead they played factions against each other, one trick being to give a smaller faction superior arms, they keep the peace and a slice of the pie, but are wholly dependent on the supply of arms. British rule in India was a massively different beast to the Dominion countries.
