My family has lived in South India for many decades. India's infrastructure and emergency response in not very good although it has improved over the years. One thing I have observed is - it is the bystanders, the common man who rushe to the aid of victims in case of disasters - accidents, train derailment, floods, earthquakes. I could give you dozens of examples gathered from newspapers and from first hand experiences of kith and kin. People just jump in and start helping in such situations. People help each other especially when the emergency response is not reliable or immediately available. If your car slid into a ditch in rural Minnesota, passing cars will come to your aid. Where as in New York City, people may just drive by knowing that you will get a tow truck.
This is the issue with reports like this - they pick one or two such statistically rare case and write a report it, opening the door wide to generalization especially on a globally popular news site. For every such incident, I'm sure there are tens of thousands incidents where people help, which never get reported.
To be fair, all the cases that you mentioned are those where where the police and the system do not look for someone to blame.
The article doesn't disagree with you:
> what safety campaigner Piyush Tewari saw wasn't a lack of compassion but an entire system stacked against helping road victims.
...
> He contrasts the reluctance of passers-by to help victims of road accidents with their response to train crashes or bombs blasts.
In these cases, he says, "before the police or media arrives everybody's been moved to hospital".
There's also very important information in the article about new guidelines published by the supreme court of India to protect good samaritans.
It also says the new Supreme Court orders (not guidelines) are being widely ignored, and so they are now running a state-by-state campaign to get laws passed that match the orders.
Even my family lived in India for many decades. The most common refrain culturally is "Don't get involved. It will end up becoming a police case!"
The police are under pressure to resolve the case and the first person to be taken into custody is the good samaritan.
This is the issue with reports like this - they pick one or two such statistically rare case
No! This is not a rare thing. This is common knowledge. I think the real issue is people trying to put it under the rug because they don't want their country to lose "honor" on a globally popular news site.
"one or two such statistically rare case and write a report it". These are not rare as you are trying to imply. I have many friends and family members who went through road accidents. They always had to cry for help and people passed by on their vehicles. Every time I see a negative news online about India, people comes forward to defend their country with excuses. "This happens in every country", "This is a rare incident" etc..
A very real, slightly non-obvious problem is the size of the Indian population itself. There are so many people here that, competition is a stronger emotion than community. To an extent that sometimes it is considered normal to put someone else at risk for your benefit, while self-empathizing along the lines of "Hey, if I don't do it, someone else will stamp on that person to move ahead in life."
Competition is everywhere.
- Want a seat in a University? Compete with, literally a million others for just one seat.
- Want a train ticket to travel within India? Login to the IRCTC exactly at 8 am, and pray that the next 5 seconds is your lucky time.
- Want to travel via local train? Hang on to the windows outside (Mumbai).
Too many people that -- it is dangerously becoming almost culturally normal to prioritize your life over someone else's. Combine this with the corrupt administration, and poor infrastructure... and it is painful to think about.
We're forgetting humanity at the cost of too many humans to compete with.
That being said, there are definitely people who do help. Helpful people in India are in fact, extremely helpful. I've received help myself. But these days, the probability of that happening is perhaps decreasing.
Fun fact, the train ticketing systems in India and China using Apache Geode for their backend.
Anyway, back to the point, I agree with you. Indian's population situation is really insane. Last time I was in India was in 1998 and the traffic situation was totally insane. All the red lights had "relax" written on them in English in an attempt to calm drivers down.
You'd think the 2nd most populated country in the world would be able to chose from that pool of talent; find the right people to help solve these major problems plaguing the nation.
But it doesn't work that way. People struggle to get out. My dad had dreams of returning. He visited after retiring and said the water is still unsafe to drink, the air unsafe to breath and a flat in Delhi was over $300k USD. Decades after he left, the situation has only gotten worse.
You get to choose, but the people who scored better get to choose first. So depending on the engineering job market situation, your choices are limited by your score.
It was randomly pointed out in the context of a discussion that might be summarized as "the problems India has," so it could reasonably be read as a slight on Geode. I don't think it was meant that way, but I had to read it a couple of times to determine that it wasn't.
Nothing. The article mentioned Indian and China and trains and I learned from some Geode guys at a talk a while back that both their government use Geode as their ticketing backend store.
I just thought it was a fun fact. I haven't used Geode myself, but it looks fairly well designed.
> - Want a train ticket to travel within India? Login to the IRCTC exactly at 8 am, and pray that the next 5 seconds is your lucky time.
This if incorrect. Train tickets are available online round the clock (almost). It's the "tatkal" (last-minute / emergency) bookings that opens at 10 AM. The system is under immense load, and despite that the availability has improved over the past 2 years.
Indian rail network, despite its shortcomings, is pretty amazing I think. It moves the nation. It's also one of the largest employers in the world [1].
> culturally normal to prioritize your life over someone else's
I think this is common to the US as well. Of course I think my life is more important to someone else. That's why I drive like an idiot, cut in line, take without asking, talk loudly on my phone in quiet places, smoke/vape wherever I want, etc.
India is populous but USA is populous as well, and Japan is dense as well. The problem isn't too many people, it's insufficient per-capita wealth/opportunity.
A billion people for a thousand seats is the same problem as a million people with for seat.
Actually there are a lot of business opportunities. Certainly not enough to accommodate the whole population, but then again not everyone is in a position to take advantage of available opportunities.
What is really lacking, is access to information and in many cases people just dont want to pursue said opportunity. Everyone instead wants to do that one thing that made that guy rich.
There is a saying in Hungarian that could be translated as "the prayer wheel spins faster yonder", that is referring to the extreme levels of population that is observed in India and China.
I think there are too many people in the world overall, and it is unsustainable. The planet could do better with a fourth or fifth of its current population.
India is projected to be one of the twelve countries who together will account for 50% of the world's population growth until 2050, at which point it's assumed India will host 1.7 billion humans. Asia will in total have gone from 4.3 to 5.2 billions, which is by far not as dramatic as the projected growth of Africa from 1.1 billion now to 2.5 billion in 2050.
> Indian people I have talked to are enthusiastic about the prospect of edging out China in terms of future economy, and population size is seen as the primary means of achieving that.
Huh? The problem with that statement is the sample size. Even if you talked to every Indian person you know (presumably anywhere between 100 and 10000), it will be less than 0.001% of the total population of India.
Yes, it's anecdotal, that's why I had prefaced the entire paragraph with a huge disclaimer. But I see how complementing a string of google-able facts with some personal impressions and experiences might be perceived as gratuitous, and that's why I removed it now.
No, they haven't. As of 2013, the UN projected India's population to surpass China by 2028, and peak at ca. 1.6 billion in 2050, and fall back to about 1.5 billion by 2100.
For comparison China is expected to start declining around 2030, and fall to around 1.1 billion by 2100.
How in the world can someone make anything but a wild ass guess about what the population patterns will be 84 years from now? Even 20 year predictions are dubious IMHO.
context: "...the story of a man named Peng Yu in Nanjing who was sued by a woman after helping her. The old woman was successful in seeking damages from the man because the judge claimed that the man wouldn’t have helped her unless he was guilty of injuring her in the first place..."
Not really relevant, the problem in China is that one has[1] to pay for a disabled person for all that person's life while a death incurs a one time payment.
[1] IIRC the recently changed the relevant laws or are currently debating to change them.
IMO the above case is more of a symptom of the problem rather than what causes the problem itself. Someone who helps is implicated as guilty because being indifferent and lacking morals is expected behavior, while 'helping' is considered highly abnormal and therefore the action is suspect.
From personal experience I do not believe this is the real reason for why a family is left dying on the road. When I travel to certain countries in Asia I notice that there is a severe lack of morals and ethics. Heck in China, drivers back up over accident victims that they just hit to make sure the victim is dead so as to avoid a lifetime of hospital fees. I mean, this is murder done in the name to avoid paying a fee.
What you see here in India is part of this same lack of ethics and morals that pervade certain cultures. People are honestly capable of great evil.
What makes one culture more ethical than another country? I believe that the anthropological correlation lies in wealth and population. If a country is of high population and poor, then you will see more of this type of behavior.
High population cities that are wealthy like tokyo or singapore are not like this at all while in the rural areas of nepal I've seen a sherpa carry an injured european stranger on his back down a mountain to base camp.
Of course this is all anecdotal. There really needs to be a scientific study on ethics and culture. It would be a very touchy subject though as the results of the study will implicate some cultures as more 'evil' than others.
"It would be a very touchy subject though as the results of the study will implicate some cultures as more 'evil' than others."
You don't say? There is a mighty good chance it is even worse: this is a brain trait, and we know that brain traits are at least partially due to DNA. Anybody who dares to research this one is completely nuts, with or without tenure.
I disagree. I believe there is higher chance that the trait is cultural. But this of course is just derived from my anecdotal observations of human nature.
>Anybody who dares to research this one is completely nuts, with or without tenure.
What is interesting though is that in the field of anthropology there is total awareness of a certain fact. Throughout all ancient and historical human cultures, women have consistently been to certain degrees less privileged and more subservient to men. There is no definitive reason why this is the case, however biological imperative has not yet been ruled out. It's "nuts" but this is a case where political correctness has not yet suppressed what is otherwise a scientific observation.
More interesting is that I was made aware of this fact by an anthropology professor at UCLA. She specifically believed that it was biological. She thought that women in general do not want to be leaders. (keyword: She)
This theory has been examined. It is unlikely. First and foremost strength does not correlate with power, neither does violence. The most powerful people throughout history are not those that are strong or violent, but those that are well connected. Obama, Warren Buffet and Donald Trump are not known for their physical strength. Additionally, power correlates with age. Those that are older and weaker tend to be more powerful then younger people while younger people tend to be physically stronger but less powerful.
When the most powerful people throughout history are not simple minded violent brutes, it becomes unlikely for men to be in power due to physical strength or violence.
Personally, I do not believe that the reason is biological. Other than that I'm as befuddled as the rest of the anthropological field, I don't know why men have consistently been in power throughout the majority of human history, but the correlation cannot be denied.
This is one of those subjects where people like to put moral consequences on the bystanders when it's the rules and larger structures of the society that matter.
Driving in India is completely insane and after about a week of white-knuckle driving you kind of just go with the flow and convince yourself that it must just work. While that is true the definition of it 'working' is totally unexpected for a westerner. Driving conditions are extremely adversarial and accidents are frequent. People are injured and die all the time. It's the kind of problem that absolutely needs to be solved at the regulatory/policy level.
My brother and sister-in-law were being driven to the airport to come home (to Cupertino) by his Father-in-law, at 2 in the morning. He drove at high speed, ignoring traffic lights and signs. They were alarmed; he was unconcerned. "Nobody is about this time in the night; we're perfectly safe!" So there's some kind of mass insanity going on in India for sure.
This used to happen to me every time I had to go to the airport in the night, and would book some local taxi to do that. The drivers just never cared about the traffic signals in the night.
The prevalent attitude seems to be that traffic rules are more like guidelines and can be broken if it seems "okay" to do so. Driving on the wrong side of the road is for example quite common, and most people do it to avoid making a long U-turn. Someone who I knew was driving a car and had a head on collision with a scooter travelling the wrong way on a highway, and the scooter had three passengers on board it (it's called "tripling" and is also pretty common). Sometimes you get to see cars reversing on highways with fast moving traffic, because they missed a turn and wanted to go back.
Things could probably get better in the future though. In New Delhi, for example - according to a new law, if you are caught in a traffic violation (such as ignoring a traffic signal), you lose your license along with the right to drive for three months. I saw somebody's status on Facebook that this happened to them, so it's not just an empty threat too.
When I was in Vietnam & Indonesia, I regularly saw people driving on the wrong side of the road. Luckily, they would generally drive just off the road, so traffic on the road wouldn't be at risk of a collision. It was also similarly common to see entire families riding on one scooter - I regularly saw families of 4 riding together.
If you're "driving" (a scooter?) just off the road, or walking alongside a road, it is better to doit counter-traffic so you can see the traffic comming.
If you switch sides, the traffic will aproach from your back, and that's a lot more dangerous.
This is the kind of low-effort, off-the-cuff pronouncement that I hate seeing on here. Because an Indian (presumably) you knew was driving in an unsafe manner, you can directly make pronouncements about "mass insanity" about a country of a billion people?
Mind you, I'm not saying Indians are safe drivers. Indian driving, I freely admit, is spectacularly unsafe and makes me worried. There are a host of factors that cause this unsafe driving, including:
- Roads built for way smaller cars
- The sudden liberalization of the economy in the 90s leading to way more vehicles than the roads were designed for
- A lot of people owning a vehicle, and having social expectations from them about automatically knowing how to drive (I'm not kidding, and we're talking stick shift here)
- Traffic policemen numbers from the middle of the last century
- Mushrooming urbanization and the resultant low level of trust among urban populations
...but "some kind of mass insanity is going on in India because my brother's Indian father-in-law ran a bunch of red lights at 2am" is ridiculous.
Sorry to hit your hot button! That was meant kindly. But I see your point. And thanks for fleshing out the argument - certainly there is something desperately wrong with the Indian road situation.
Frankly, it is not just India, but, well, most of the hemisphere. Traffic is nuts, and drivers are nuts across most of the area (China, India, SE Asia, Russia), except for maybe Japan.
Its not a race thing, but maybe it is a culture thing. We certainly have our share of asshole drivers in the USA, but it doesn't at all compare to what I've seen elsewhere, in terms of quantity / quality.
In Mexico cities(Mazatlan & Pueto Penasco) a red light only means 'avoid collision with cross traffic' with no obligation to stop or slow if you don't have to.
> Sorry to hit your hot button! That was meant kindly.
The apology is meaningless; this has nothing to do with buttons. I merely pointed out a generalization based on an random anecdote, based on no real experience of the situation. Acknowledging it as such would help.
Driving in India is only insane to westerners. I have been driving in India for a decade and I dont find it hard at all. Driving in the US though is one of the most stressfull things for me.
Part of the stress in US is because of the different side driving, but also a lot because I have to keep in mind a TON of rules - lane markers, speed limits, lane changing etc.- and everyone moves in super high speed so any mistake can be fatal.
In India, on the other hand I just need to take care of the signals and otherwise wherever my car can fit, I am good to go. If my car rubs a bit against another car or a small bump here and there - no big deal. Driving in the night though is stressful in India also and I avoid it.
According to Wikipedia[1], there are 56% more traffic fatalities annually than in the US. Compared to the UK, it's 472% more. I don't think it's merely a matter of perspective. The data indicates it's much more dangerous in absolute terms.
Those figures dont necessarily mean that driving in India is stressfull.
To give you one data point - almost ALL cars in the US/UK will have Air Bags. My guess is that MOST cars in India do NOT have an air bag. Additionally, this figure also included two wheelers, which will obviously have a higher fatality rate.
India might be having a lot less accidents than the US (and possibly because of low speeds), but just because most vehicles do not have air bag, the fatality rate could be much higher.
In any case, I am not really arguing that India traffic should not improve. Just that the perceived 'stress' level might be just because of a relative comparison against a different 'system' of traffic.
I drove in India for 6 years and have been driving in the US for 8 years now. I used to feel exactly the same way initially. I used to wonder how I would follow so many rules. But once I got used to them (in a few months) driving became SO easy. The traffic situation in India is objectively insane, without a doubt.
> because I have to keep in mind a TON of rules - lane markers, speed limits, lane changing etc.- and everyone moves in super high speed so any mistake can be fatal.
You're really not going to like driving in Germany, then.
Seriously though - the Germans are amazingly good drivers (easily the best in the world), and it's mostly because their training is so thorough. This results in their having a common driving culture, so that going 300 km/hr on their remaining unrestricted/uncongested Autobahn is quite safe.
I just spent a month in India, and the driving is COMPLETELY INSANE. Saying it's only insane to Westerners, is the same as saying it's only not insane to South East Asians. If you're not tied up in absolutely hellish gridlock for an hour and a half to go ten miles. You're flying down "highways", playing constant chicken with every single oncoming vehicle. There is no argument that complete anarchy on the road ways is less stressful than actual civilized structure. It's not even worth going out at night further than you can walk, because by the time you got there, the night would be over. Red light? Bah, I'll go through it. Car there? I'll run into it. People walking? Ahhh they'll move. Wasting hours of your life to drive across town everyday? Pfft, who needs a life. Want a car with a seat belt? GOOD LUCK.
Nothing about any of that says stress free. Even if the traffic was perfect, the streets lined with absolute filth is enough to stress anyone out.
Everything that you mentioned isn't hard for me at all. The hellish gridlock - I rarely venture out on the main arteries during peak time. The playing chicken - I do it almost instinctively and dont even think about it.
The anarchy that you talk about is simply a result of diverse driving platforms sharing the same space. Indian roads need to have a wide variety of vehicles (2/3/4 wheelers) because 95% of the country simply cannot afford the cheapest car that sells in the US. We can't have wide roads with speed limits because its just too expensive and India is a dramatically poor country.
This model works for now and hopefully India will skip the insanely high energy American model on the way to the next.
Just because you're used to it, doesn't mean it's not completely insane and stressful for the rest of the world. You take two people who have never driven car before in their life, and throw one in a western driving scenario, and another in India. You tell me which one would be more stressed out.
That is murder. Incentives explain the logical reason why a person is murdered rather than maimed, but it doesn't explain why the chinese person has the ethical framework of a psychopath.
In america, if you injure a victim in a car accident and no one is around, you still have the option of killing the victim and driving away to avoid getting caught. The inventive is the same, you avoid insurance increases and hospital bills. Yet this rarely happens in America!
In America the killing the person avoids a couple hundred dollar insurance increase, while putting you at risk of going to jail for a long time, and the legal system strongly enforces things. Now suppose that you had to pay the victim's hospital fees out of pocket, like people in China. At $10k/day (which I believe is standard hospital costs), that could quickly ruin you financially. If you thought there was a good chance that you could bribe the judge or use your connections to get out of it, it changes the calculation.
You could probably substitute "America" in your argument with "Germany in 1920," yet the German population killed millions of people. Is the problem the people, or the system that enables the evil that all of us are capable of?
So according to the statistics from the above article, approximately 40,000 die every year in USA with 100 people dying every day due to road accidents. That is approximately 5 per hour. In India it is 100,000 per year. The population of USA is 318.9 million compared to 1.252 billion of India. If you put it in perspective, 0.013% of total population die every year due to road accidents in the US while only 0.00798% of total population die every year due to road accidents in India. So by looking at these calculations India "seems" to be a lot safer than the US (in-spite of horrible traffic rules and no proper emergency services). The issue is not the stats but proper implementation of emergency services which might help in saving a fraction of the total lives lost. But the real issue is regulating traffic (which is more erratic in the cities than in towns/villages in India).
I suspect that you're making a bit of a mistake yourself in your calculations here if we want to get an understanding of if it's "more accidents" or "access to help when the accident happens" that is more important.
I think you would really want to compare serious accidents per vehicle mile driven to compare effectiveness of policy and driving behavior across countries.
No I'm not making a mistake. I know very well that my calculations are skewed. That is precisely the point I was trying to make: Taking a statistic in isolation presents a wrong picture (that is also the reason I said: 'So by looking at these calculations India "seems" to be a lot safer than the US'. Note the stress on "seems")
As rfrey says, the number of vehicles is also an interesting stat. Adjusting for the number of vehicles, the death rate in the US is ~1/10 that of India.
That's using a lower number of deaths for the US (but it really is closer to 35,000 in recent years) and a larger number for deaths in India than you did.
In a country of 1 billion+ people you'll always get these stories.
Since as we know, we get in them in the west as well, the media will drum up, child left to die by road.
When we all know the drivers just didn't seem them or didn't know what happened. But that's a crappy story.
People help people in obvious severe immediate need and take risks doing it. It's human nature.
They get bystanders effect and sometimes they won't know they are in severe immediate need (A sleeping homeless person vs someone unconscious) but they don't ignore them because they will be sued.
Blaming people because of bystanders effect is poor form.
Didn't know it was in question, added a link to snopes.
> Blaming people because of bystanders effect is poor form.
My point, perhaps poorly made, was also that the larger societal incentives are to blame. Many people respond as we would hope. In the aggregate, people tend to respond to the pressures applied to them.
Driving in India is kind of insane. You need some skill to navigate the roads without hitting anyone. Need to watch all around. But in cities traffic moves very slowly so you can manage it.
Tragic. I, personally, could not sit idly by and watch, or record, anyone suffering without attempting to assist. Consequences be damned, I would hope for the same assistance if I were injured & needing aid.
This is something I have spent a lot of time contemplating lately as I watch people texting while operating multi-ton vehicles at any speed, let alone at 80mph(130kmh)down the highway. I have witnessed a notable increase in single vehicle rollovers under optimum driving conditions on the US highway system in the last +/- two years. Thankfully, I have yet to arrive before the 1st responders but if I ever do, I will forgo the "they brought it upon themselves" judgement and assist my fellow man/woman, if need be. Yet, I still wonder, how many could have been avoided if distracted driving laws already on the books were enforced?
> Tragic. I, personally, could not sit idly by and watch, or record, anyone suffering without attempting to assist. Consequences be damned, I would hope for the same assistance if I were injured & needing aid.
Until last year I would have said the same but then I learned about the harsh reality in the Dominican Republic: A rich person who helps will always be blamed even if one arrived at the crash site an hour after the crash. In case of bodily harm to the victim, the accused goes to jail until trial (which can take weeks or even months). You can even get some insurance that covers you for that case - if you have that, you can go into a hotel in Santiago that was converted into a luxury prison. And of course the accused is asked to provide for all 50 or so people in the victim's family until s/he can work again - because none of those 50 people has a job and they depended on the victim's low paying job to feed them all. And one cannot count on a fair trial since corruption is so widespread that even judges are for sale (friends were ordered to pay severance package to a former employee based on a 12 year long employment - they arrived on Hispanola 9 years ago, started their business 8 years ago and had all papers to prove it...)
So no, I would not always help anymore.
I think India is doing the right thing: Enabling people to help by creating the laws that protect them from becoming a victim themselves.
Would you still do that if you had friends or family who had been bankrupted or jailed because they helped a crash victim?
It's easy to say that you would help when it's a hypothetical situation. It's much harder to actually do it when the consequences are staring you in the face. Maybe you still would, but you can't really know how you'd react until you've actually been in that situation.
Indians are not fundamentally different from you and I. The main difference is the situation they're in.
People are people. Societal norms vary. And yes, I would and have put myself in physical jeopardy assisting people in need.
Edit: In the US we have 'Good Samaritan' laws for most of that. It is possible I could do more harm &/or be liable for my actions. Yet, I refuse to not do what I believe is 'right' out of fear. Yeah, my lifestyle & welfare has suffered(sic) for my principles in many facets of life, but principles require sacrifice and I am comfortable with my choices so far.
Ok. Then would you still do that if the consequences were jail, separation from family, which also means putting family in a desperate situation of worry and runaround? Plus the rebuke that you would get from family too for putting them through so much trouble? Plus if you are the partial or whole breadwinner, which is often the case, putting family in financial calamity?
I support what you feel, and I too would put up an aggressive stance of helping the individual, but the cost is a lot higher than just my personal efforts. I put a lot more people through the misery.
It's one thing to take a small, calculated risk on your life to save someone, and quite another to take a substantial and likely risk of financial ruin or prison just to help someone who will probably be turned out to die by the hospital.
Also, keep in mind that India's legal system is broken. Law enforcement and courts are woefully underfunded. Police, lacking adequate resources, are always looking for scapegoats to close cases and declare victory. An easy target is an ordinary individual at a crash site. The immediate instinct of law enforcement in that situation is that the individual is guilty or "knows something". The follow-on steps are locking up the individual and even torturing them to get information. Remember, Indian courts and justice system is broken. Police can get away with virtually anything without any real consequence as long as the detainee is not well connected.
The "safety campaigner" has the right idea - change the incentives. People respond to incentives, and if the incentives are heavily against helping strangers the average Amit isn't going to help.
> I, personally, could not sit idly by and watch, or record, anyone suffering without attempting to assist.
We should be careful with this kind of statements. I remember that in Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman describes an experiment which shows that most people don't actually take action when the responsibility is shared among other people. Of course most people think they would.
My favourite description of dealing with this is from Cialdini's Influence, where he describes getting in a car accident, and worrying about the bystander effect as people drove past without stopping, and how he applied his knowledge about it to counter the effect.
The most important aspect is basically that your chances of getting help goes up dramatically if you address specific people and ask for specific action ("you in the red shirt, please call 911" rather than "help").
Once people understand that there is a problem, and nobody else has it in hand, and they've been asked, chances are they will help, and once one person has started helping, the odds that more people will help of their own accord goes up significantly as well.
Incidentally this translates to many aspects of life. If you ever want a group of people to take action, address specific people and get them to start. Once someone starts it becomes far harder for others to remain idle, and the first people are far more likely to start if you specifically task them with it.
I have observed exactly this in team group chats at work, where addressing the group results in being ignored, but didn't make the link until you brought up that car accident example.
Yep. Take charge until an authority arrives. Engage the victim, if conscious, ask questions and gather any info you can to give to 1st responder to arrive on scene. Give direct commands to specific peoples. Do NOT make matters worse by moving the injured unless immediate danger is present. Most importantly, educate yourself/certify beforehand. I used my CPR cert once 25 years ago, yet I still renew it every year.
Oh yeah, when the pro does arrive, don't take it personally if he/she is brusque or 'rude'. They are sometimes brutally efficient.
Also: do what you can to create, and maintain, a decent ingress into the scene for emergency personnel - clear a hallway, get the doors opened, and keep the way in and out clear.
Years ago was cycling to work in winter and on the side of the road a young woman was sat in her panties and T-shirt vest crying, this was a main road, she was shivering violently, I stopped, rang for an ambulance and the police and gave her my outershell and fleece while the ambulance got there.
She'd been sat at the side of the road for at least half an hour in rush hour and one other person had phoned in but not stopped. I didn't know about the bystander effect at the time but ever since then if I see someone I distress/hurt I act straightaway on the assumption no one else has and it won't hurt if they have.
I was slightly ashamed of the people in my home town that day tbh.
Indeed, you never know until you're in the moment. Several first responders, friends and family, have enlightened me with their experiences and I have witnessed their "Duty to Act" requirement, first hand. I have limited training, know my limits(do not cause more harm) and even some experience. I was injured(sprained finger) and put myself in harm's way of heavy traffic in the last 12 months providing maritime assistance when everyone else was oblivious or apathetic. I try to practice what I preach... it's a mindful exercise which I have to always work on.
What if a close personal friend had done so in the past to horrible consequences for themselves? What if time and again, you hear stories of good Samaritans reaping life destroying "thanks". What if you are a parent, and know that helping may risk putting you in jail, and unable to provide for you very poor family?
> Tewari set out to understand this behaviour, and found the same pattern repeated time and again across the country. Passers-by who could have helped were holding back and doing nothing.
> "The foremost reason was intimidation by police," he says.
> "Oftentimes if you assist someone the police will assume you're helping that person out of guilt."
I have never looked into any statistics other than personal observation. Sure, correltion != causation. However, I have over 6000 highway driving miles logged so far this year and have witnessed at least a dozen single vehicle rollover incidents, excluding incidents in rain & snow conditions, while in the recent past I could travel 10k miles and never see one. My ASSUMPTION derives from the fact that it is not uncommon to see drivers interacting with their devices (and weaving, and varying velocities) on the highways.
> legal proceedings can be notoriously protracted in India
This is the root of so much evil in India. It is probably the largest issue facing this country. Every citizen should have a fundamental right to a speedy resolution to their grievances.
To be fair, it's not just India that faces this problem. Italy, and to a lesser extent France, are kept back in economic development due to extremely long (civil) legal proceedings - in fact, Berlusconi and his crooks abused this multiple times to STFO of jail time.
In Germany, it's mostly the criminal justice system that suffers from massive case overload - it takes sometimes over a year to get the first trial in a simple pub brawl case or a small store theft - and that disconnect between infraction and punishment has been shown multiple times to result in more infractions (because thieves will think "ah, won't happen anything anyway").
I get why people want to claim India is a 3rd world country (and, for what it's worth, parts of India ARE, given e.g. sanitary conditions!), but one should not compare based on the efficiency of the legal system. Some might say that the USA could be considered a 3rd world country under this comparison, given that you can land in jail for civil debt, end up life-long in prison for small thefts (3 Strike Rule), end up on the chair for dealing drugs, ...
Indians are insanely good drivers given their actual traffic conditions. I just spent two months there and as (fucking annoying) as it was to walk through the crowds with motorcycles whipping by, inches away from me all the time, I wasn't very concerned with them hitting me. Anecdotally, everybody appeared to be watching everyone else on the road—otherwise it would have been sheer insanity because their infrastructure is horrible.
I've always been curious where the downright crazy driving style/culture came from in India. It's like nowhere I've ever seen, they drive on whatever side of the road they want, there are no traffic lights, I mean I get that it's a developing country but none of this stuff is that expensive to procure, is it?
Traffic lights are not an issue. Its present in most towns as well. Most of the time if you break a traffic light you would not be penalized. Usually there won't be an policeman nearby. Even they are present they do not implement the law.
Also related, but a different problem: the "hit-to-kill" phenomenon in China. Drivers try to kill any pedestrians they injure because they will be liable for more economic costs if the victim survives.
India is a diverse country, and people in different cities behave differently. I've had my experiences. I have found bystanders in Bangalore, Mumbai, Ahmedabad to be helping. But bystanders in Pune get a brain-freeze, and in Delhi they just don't care
1) This is highly dependent on the place. In rural areas or smaller towns, there is high probability that someone will take you to the hospital.
2) There is no equivalent of 911 in India. You can call the police but they usually don't have ambulances. Most cases you will have to take the injured in a private vehicle to the hospital.
3) Harassment by police is a real thing in many places. They will suspect you of being involved in the accident. At least in my state (Kerala) there has been conscious effort to resolve this and seems to be working.
4) There is government hospitals who will treat you, no questions asked. But these are not present everywhere, and many don't have adequate resources (Operation theaters, Intensive Care Units etc) in many of these. So there is a chance that you will have to travel to bigger hospital to get appropriate care.
Anecdote. Few years back , I was driving to my home when police flagged me down and asked me to take a lady injured (she was pillion-riding on a two wheeler) to the hospital. Took then to fairly large government hospital (which is also a medical college). The attending doctor asked me whether I was involved in the accident and the told me I can leave. I informed the relatives of the injured (got numbers from her companion) and left.
Real naive question time, sorry ahead of time - are the police as corrupt as they're portrayed to be in western media? Bribes requested constantly, that sort of thing?
Short answer is yes.
Long answer is that it is that the level of corruption varies from place to place but the police susceptible to political influence everywhere. A daily interaction with the cops like a traffic stop can be similar to one in US , cop checks your documentation and issues a citation, or it can be “indian” one where he accuses you of a crime (that you have committed or not), gives a option of pay him x amount as bribe or paying a fine of 5x.
There are many honest policemen/women (as well as dishonest ones) but if you are pitted against someone well-connected politically or rich or (usually) both then chances are police is going to side with them and you will probably lose regardless of who is guilty. Unless something extraordinary happens,like you get showcased in the media.
It is not only police. The government machinery on the lowest level is inefficient and corrupt. You need to pay a bribe to get a power connection to your home, a drivers license etc. If you refuse to do so, you will be forced to spent your time in following up, complaining to superiors. It is doable to some extent but you will spent significant amount of your time and energy.
This is my experience in one of the better states in India, which makes me wonder about the rest of the country.
If you have done mistake and need to escape yes bribe is relevant or you want something to happen faster again yes otherwise mostly if you are not in hurry or did not do anything wrong mostly need not pay anything. SOme police may still ask you to buy him a coffee or 50 to 500 rupees depending on ur urgency and his tightness
I often hear news of this service being extremely efficient and the reports of bystanders not helping accident victims are rare from that state. This has to do something with the literacy rate as well as an efficient emergency service. Most of the cases of "no one helps you in India" cannot be generalized is my opinion.
I would like to add one more issue to this. In India local roads are narrow and it is mostly two lane or 4 lane with heavy traffic blocks. Even if someone tried to carry someone to hospital,(op already has mentioned about the ambulance crisis, and don't even think about air ambulance), he/she will be met with roadblocks after roadblocks.
I can't find it now, but there is a video of a dozen pedestrians lifting a double decker in London.
It's all started by a single person, but others quickly joined. I wonder where is "helping others" on the Maslow piramid?
That's a good example of both crowd generosity and crowd stupidity: everybody joined in on trying to lift the bus instead of just making the bus driver reverse off the guy who was trapped.
I am from India and many people I know at least think that they will get into more trouble with police or hospital formalities if they help.Even many films made here portray same picture to the public. My mother once told me (when i was a kid) one person from her hometown who was a lorry driver ,once helped an accident victim and took him to hospital. But in the end they framed the same guy on murder attempt and he had to run behind the case for long time and he eventually lost everything.
Having said all this,I personally think how can someone ignore an injury to anyone ? My conscience will not let me pass through without offering help if I ever see anything.
I heard these kind of stories as well. But the driving school where i went specifically mentioned to help injured passengers. Maybe times are changing.
When first visiting the US many years ago I was warned always to carry with me proof of insurance, for otherwise a hospital might not treat me until I could provide some proof that I could pay.
I wonder if that was true, whether it's still true, and what the situation really was or is.
In the US, a hospital is required to give you emergency treatment first, and figure out how you're going to pay later. If you don't have insurance coverage, that can mean ruinous bills, but no, they don't check before treating you in an emergency situation. For non-emergency stuff, yes, you need to pay or present insurance info up front.
It's important to understand the difference between "any medical care you want" and "any emergency medical care you need". Emergency is the key word there, and it's generally applied in a fairly common sense way. (When it comes to payment things are far more screwed up in the US, but for "not denying care" it's pretty straightforward.)
djrogers said "hospital emergency room in the US has to provide you any needed medical care - full stop."
That is what I was replying to in the immediate parent comment.
As to your comment- even if the hospitals definition of emergency is generally 'common sense', it may differ from ones expectations. Further, it seems (I may be wrong) that emergency rooms are given a great deal of leeway especially in edge cases that may not be general, but probably occur more often than one might expect.
Hasn't been true for ages - at least as long as I've lived in the US (since 1990). Hospitals are required to give emergency medical service regardless of insurance or proof of ability to pay if you show up in the ER. An unintended side-effect of that is that it's sadly not at all uncommon for people to show up to the ER for non-emergency services, then stick the public or the hospital with their bill if they can't pay it.
> Hospitals are required to give emergency medical service regardless of insurance or proof of ability to pay if you show up in the ER.
Hospitals (that take Medicare payments) are required to screen for emergency medical conditions and provide treatment to stabilize any emergency conditions found through the screening if you present at an ER; they are not required to either screen for and diagnose or treat any other conditions.
> An unintended side-effect of that is that it's sadly not at all uncommon for people to show up to the ER for non-emergency services, then stick the public or the hospital with their bill if they can't pay it.
Note that hospitals are not required to screen for, diagnose, or treat non-emergency conditions without regard to ability to pay when a patient presents at an ER.
Some societies have a tree structure with "help" flowing only one way... as we can see from this and other articles (also about China), this is not actually a natural condition but a consequence of the rules (laws) in the society.
Change the law. In Spain not helping someone that is found helpless and in danger, when you can do so without risk to yourself or others, is a criminal offence.
Sure, why fix the problem (being too easily blamed for an accident when you give aid, etc.) when you can just write a law that does nothing to address it? You assuage whatever societal guilt you might have for the problem without requiring the hard work of actually making any substantive change.
Such a law would be virtually impossible to enforce in any reasonable way; yes, you can make the odd example of someone, but are you going to spend massive effort on tracking down every passerby on whatever surveillance video might exist should they fail to give aid? If you were said passerby, wouldn't you just get away from the scene all that much more quickly to avoid the greater likelihood of being caught up in the mess?
While I disagree with your thinking, I do have to say you're clearly qualified for politics as this sort of logic drives a significant part of lawmaking... certainly in the U.S. and I suspect in other places around the world as well... maybe even India.
In the western world the law is the answer to most problems, but that's not possible in developing worlds where the judicial system is ineffective, biased and sometimes corrupt. In many situations, the laws hinder the countries from becoming better.
No, it sounds like they need to fix a whole range of issues including medical fees, police culture, and so on, that each has a part in enabling social trust.
This kind of answer to social problems is itself a problem -- no single reform will do much good, so we risk paralysis. But really to move forward people should try to make whatever easy reform might help a bit.
In this case a procedural reform in the courts might help. If someone who looks prima-facie like a good Samaritan is being charged with something, and if the court is too swamped to deal with it quickly, they should just drop it.
That could help with the police too -- the reason police harass people is to try and get bribes. People pay those bribes because they fear endless red-tape if the try to fight a spurious charge.
Typically, a good samaritan law relates to the situation where a bystander tries in good faith to help someone, and accidentally makes things worse. A good samaritan law says they won't get in trouble for that.
I don't see anything in the article about people being punished for trying to help and making things worse. People get punished just for trying to help. Things go south before a good samaritan law would come into play.
Government/charities need not award us any lottery. All the Government needs to do is bring a law that protects the good-samaritans (remove all the unnecessary legal hassles and allow us to be anonymous). Heck I would even be willing to pay the hospital's initial deposit only if I don't have to be entangled in all sorts of legal issues.
Currently if you report an accident or get the injured person to a hospital you'll be treated as a witness and have to attend all court proceedings. The law should differentiate between a samaritan and a witness (unless the samaritan also wishes to be treated as a witness).
> you'll be treated as a witness and have to attend all court proceedings
sounds like FUD. why should a witness have to attend any time other than one time to testify (usually as a friendly witness, i imagine forcing hostile testimony is even rarer). court proceedings can include filing various forms which are done by one person or not done at all (causing delays). I don't see anyone dragging you to court to file papers that you have nothing to do with... Unless they are charging you with something and arresting you or making you serve on a jury (india doesn't even have jury trials), why would you have to be at the court multiple times just as a witness ?
> I don't have to be entangled in all sorts of legal issues.
The way to avoid being entangled in legal issues is 1. avoid doing things you know are illegal and 2. avoid pissing off someone (who will see that you get prosecuted for failing at 1).
It is not FUD. It is a fact and has been the case with lots of accidents in India. If that was not so, the Supreme Court of India would not have approved guidelines on how to treat Good-Samaritans. Read about it here: http://thewire.in/2016/03/30/sc-guidelines-now-protect-good-... .
The PIL (filed by SaveLIFE foundation) that enabled this issue to be brought to the notice of the Supreme Court clearly states that 88% of the people who they surveyed had attributed this hesitation to fear of legal and procedural hassles: “These hassles include intimidation by police, unnecessary detention at hospitals and prolonged legal formalities,”.
The problem is that these guidelines are not enforceable unless they are turned into a law.
hospital has no power to detain you, unless they are committing you to the psychiatry ward. You stay for the same reason you bring that person to the hospital (to help).
I understand that people in india are afraid. But my point is that it is a fear based on uncertainty and doubt due to ignorance of the law and other reasons (economic) mis attributed to "legal formalities". Its a polite term to use when the real reason is you have better things to do (your own problems to deal with).
> guidelines on how to treat Good-Samaritans.
they sound reasonable and within expected legal procedure to begin with... the reason they might have been issued is because of the FUD, not because the law already doesn't say the same thing...
When I visited India a couple of years ago, we also observed this indifference towards victims of accidents. Someone noticed that we were puzzled by this a told us that this is due to Indian culture. First, if someone is seriously hurt or killed that's this person's (perhaps deserved) fate. Second, helping others may not be as much a moral imperative as it is in Christian cultures. I don't know whether this is correct and even if it's correct it would of course not negate the reasons discussed in the article. It may rather be an additional factor. Would be interesting to hear an Indian person's view on that.
> Someone noticed that we were puzzled by this a told us that this is due to Indian culture.
You may have been misled there because Indian culture isn't homogenous. Even from a Hindu thought perspective, as per Chapter 17, Sloka 20 of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says
दातव्यमिति यद्दानं दीयतेऽनुपकारिणे।
देशे काले च पात्रे च तद्दानं सात्त्विकं स्मृतम्।।17.20।।
While I'm not an expert, loosing translated, it means that one must do charity without expecting anything in return. Doing so, in the right manner and in the right place is the epitome of goodness.
I interpret that to be a pretty clear moral imperative to help someone in genuine need.
> Someone noticed that we were puzzled by this a told us that this is due to Indian culture. First, if someone is seriously hurt or killed that's this person's (perhaps deserved) fate.
As an Indian I can tell you that that viewpoint is incorrect. Culture is the last thing that would come in between a good-samaritan and a person in need.
> Second, helping others may not be as much a moral imperative as it is in a Christian culture
Are you implying that Christians don't exist in India? If they do, then why are Christian Indians not coming to the rescue of those who met with an accident? This is a completely incorrect take on the situation. Mixing religion with a social issue is dangerous. Indian culture is good enough that we can accommodate any culture and have been doing so for centuries. To say that we do not have moral fiber is an insult. If that was the case why is it that when there is a terror attack or a natural tragedy in India people help in huge numbers? See the number of people out there to help in the recent Kolkatta Flyover accident: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XmvROEYYps
So why do you think that Indians are more than willing to help when there is a natural tragedy / terror attack but not when a single person/family meets with an accident?
I appreciate the response but you completely misinterpreted my comment. I did not say or imply that there are no Christians in India, and I did not say or imply that every Christian would rush to help while every non-Christian would be indifferent. I also didn't imply that Indian culture(s) are somehow inferior to western culture(s). I just related what one person in India told me and asked whether Indians think it's correct. I don't see how this insults anyone.
There are so many different types of Indian people in India, it's hard to generalize.
- There will be some people who believe that this was deserved
- There will be some who believe they should help right away
- There will be some who want to help but have no financial or social resources to do so
- There will be some who'll act as bystanders to avoid Police investigation
- There will be some who'll do the bare minimum help (maybe find the victim's id and call someone) but then run away...anonymous help
There are many different Indians (often within the same city, same neighborhood)
American GI's noticed the same thing in India during WWII but it was attributed to Hindu fatalism. I wonder if that cultural history plays an unspoken role too.
Karma. If something happens to you, it is your actions in the past either in this life or a previous life which are the original cause. Hence you are just receiving back the same as you have given. The problem with ignoring someone in trouble is those people are actually missing the chance to create good karma by helping those in need.
Also, reincarnation played a part in the American understanding. They were moving on to a new life and you wouldn't want to interfere.
I'm not saying that this was a sophisticated understanding. These were random American service men send to support the airlift to Burma. All I'm saying is that this was a common phenomena in the early 1940's in at least part of India and it's unlikely that it was the result of the British-Indian judicial system of the time.
I have a friend who lived in India and one of things he got impressed here in Brazil was how helpful we are, specially in these situations.
Which is weird because as someone said before, I could not sit and watch someone suffering in front of me without attempting to assist too. But if you're inserted into a culture that says "don't be a good samaritan unless you want to be sued for it", you have to think twice.
> Oftentimes if you assist someone the police will assume you're helping that person out of guilt.
That doesn't make the bystanders apathy any more tolerable. I'd like to think I would help someone in need even if I went to jail for it (you never know what you'd actually do unless you're in the situation, but still...)
>I'd like to think I would help someone in need even if I went to jail for it
You have no idea how bad indian courts and jails are. You would not want to go to jail in India. It would be miracle if you get to see a judge in India between absentee judges, strikes, power cuts ect. Absolutely noone will give a shit about you being incarcerated unfairly.
There are not many reasons except the nightmare of getting their time wasted by Police officers (Along with a gift of being treated like a accused) only turns the bystanders heart stoned.
"The foremost reason was intimidation by police," he says.
"Oftentimes if you assist someone the police will assume you're helping that person out of guilt."
Apart from the fear of being falsely implicated, people also worried about becoming trapped as a witness in a court case - legal proceedings can be notoriously protracted in India. And if they helped the victim get to hospital, they feared coming under pressure to stump up fees for medical treatment.
I wonder how does that even work? If someone drops in an injured person and leaves, will the hospital just let the injured person die on the floor? If bystanders doing nothing raises headlines in India, I'd imagine hospitals doing that would be an even bigger scandal.
I can confirm this. Hospitals don't treat unless the injured person's relative(s) sign legal papers. The general rule of thumb in India is that one should always carry at least an ID proof (better yet an insurance policy) so that in case of an accident the hospital can contact the relative.
This is what a true free-market health care system looks like.
I always wonder about this when I see people arguing against socialized medicine. Should accident victims be left to die like this? Any answer besides "yes" implies some sort of government intervention. In the US, since 1986, ERs must treat everyone. This basically gave us a really bizarre socialized medicine system with horribly inefficient funding and procedures.
That exists in India in the form of societies like Lions Club, Rotary Club etc. However, the number of hospitals that are supported by these charitable societies are understandably smaller in comparison to the number of private hospitals.
So when we take a look at societies that actually do it this way, such as India today or the USA before 1986, why do we find hospitals dumping patients who can't pay?
I double-confirm this, but with the exception of charity and government hospitals. There are several such hospitals in every major metropolitan city in India. Of course, the 'nearest' hospital may not be one such. The private hospitals operate on pure capitalism and patients who cannot pay are always delayed and then later declared as brought dead on arrival (DOA).
A quick story in Pakistan: A brain surgeon had a lot of success doing brain surgeries and received much fame, award, and status worldwide, and even though he started out modestly helping the poor and less fortunate, fame and greed got to him, and he became more demanding in terms of payment.
Well, a man brought in a young individual involved in a car accident who had received a big blow to the brain to the hospital where the doctor worked. The young man was a passerby to the accident and a complete stranger. He begged and pleaded this world famous doctor at the hospital to operate, but the doctor wanted payment. He eventually offered his own car keys as a security deposit for the time being while he would try to raise money in other ways. The doctor accepted the security deposit and began to operate. It was too late, however, because when the doctor opened the curtain he found the injured individual to be his son about to take his last breath. The doctor went insane and died.
I know it sounds that way especially with the last line, and I have been trying to find some documentation to back it up, but no luck. However, the story is true. The story is known with relative popularity in Pakistan including the name of the doctor, which escapes my mind.
While I haven't been to Japan, a documentary [1] on expats living in Japan had a part (if my memory serves me) where the same sentiment was expressed, ie, "don't involve yourself".
I've only watched the first 20 minutes of the documentary, but I'm impressed. It's probably one of the most accurate portrayals of what it's like to be a foreigner living long term in Japan that I've seen. Like always, documentary directors usually like to be controversial, so I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop ;-)
In terms of "don't involve yourself", I wouldn't say that's really true. The very few times I've seen anyone in trouble, people have rushed to come to their aid. I live in the countryside, though, so it might be different than the big city. Social duty is a big part of Japanese culture, though, so I can't really imagine people ignoring others in distress.
As a brief diversion, I recently went to Tokyo and was surprised by how many more homeless people there are now than there were roughly 10 years ago. People seem inured to that kind of distress (as they are in any big city, I guess), which is too bad.
Thanks for your comment. The sentiment I recall is, for instance, related to a thief that's running away after having just stolen a purse and you have the ability to stop him. It was said in regards to big city living and making yourself part of the act in some manner, where you might get pulled into the police station to make a statement and spend hours on something you didn't want to be a part of. Again, I've never set foot in the country, so I can't say either way. Another smaller example might be someone is talking on their cell phone on the train, and thus a Japanese person wouldn't go up to the one yapping on the phone to tell them it's rude, per Japanese standards.
Oh I see. Yes, in that instance, I think you are probably right. Generally speaking, people like to cause the least overall disruption even if the outcome will be sub-optimal. I might be wrong, but I think in the case of stopping a thief or asking someone to be quiet on the train, there may be a fear of not being able to control the situation. So the disruption may escalate. For helping someone who is injured or comforting a lost child, there is less fear and people seem to act more quickly. Even as I write this, I'm not entirely sure of the distinction, though. It is strange :-)
So according to you rape culture is not prevalent in any other country except India? Guess what? The number one, numero uno, rape capital of the World is the United States.
"India only ranks third for the number of rapes reported each year. What country ranks first? The United States. In India, a country of over 1.2 billion people, 24,206 rapes were reported in 2011. The same year in the United States, a nation of 300 million, 83,425 rapes were reported. In the United States, every 6.2 minutes a woman is raped."
Whoops! So that means you shouldn't set foot in the US too!!! And if you are already staying in the US pack your bags and move to let's see... How about Saudi Arabia? The reported cases are way lesser than US or India so it should be safe right?
The obvious keyword here being reported. Not that I'm necessarily agreeing with the GP; it's just that rape/sexual assault is something that is generally under-reported for various reasons, including shame, fear of reprisal, futility, and so on. That makes any statistics relying on reported rape essentially meaningless when talking about "rape culture", since reports are more likely the less culturally acceptable something is.
EDIT: And that is why I gave an example of Saudi Arabia having lesser "reported" cases than India or USA.
That's precisely why there was a revolution of sorts in India regarding rape and reporting of cases. Why do you think the Indian people took to streets and stormed into one of the most well guarded places in the World: the President's House (Rashtrapathi Bhavan. See this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWVGWH1e5xQ) if not for bringing a change in the society? How many countries do you see this happen where the general public takes to the streets to demand equality for women and their rights?
The problem is that people outside India chose to focus more on the rape culture itself rather than the response to it by the Indian public and that pains me as an Indian.
Huh? What rubbish! It has nothing to do with race. In India we do have a caste system but even with that you won't be able to look at an injured person and get to know his/her caste.
Being able to know someone's caste has nothing to do with it. It's the willingness to see someone else as an "other" rather than part of your own group that allows you to dehumanize them. The caste system teaches people to become desensitized to the suffering of those around them, which is a precondition for the behavior described in the article.
Nonsense. Is this something you learned from reading articles online? The caste system doesn't teach people to become desensitized to suffering around them. Quote me the scripture which supposedly "teaches" you such nonsense. The only one that is directly associated with caste system is Manu Smriti and even that scripture does not say any such thing. If you know anything about Indian history you'll know that caste system by itself was not the problem. It was the misuse of that system by upper castes. The modern day caste system is way different to the ancient caste system that was practiced in the 11th-12th century.
If the caste system teaches people to become desensitized to the suffering of those around them why do the same people go en-masse to rescue the so called "others" when a natural tragedy or terror strike takes place in India? Do they suddenly forget the "teachings" of the so called "caste system"?
Or are they conveniently becoming desensitized when only a person/family meets with an accident?
Don't you see how ridiculous your statement sounds now?
Your continued defense of the caste system is entirely missing the point. This isn't and Indian thing, it's a human thing. It's a prerequisite for allowing suffering to take place without feeling the need to help and owes to our tribal nature. Look at any genocide or mass murder in human history and you'll find the targeted group was an "other" that those perpetrating the slaughter were made to feel was fundamentally different from them.
Or look at it in reverse...have you ever traveled to a far off place and met someone who was from, say, your home state/province? Back at home, you'd feel very little connection with them since the live in a different city from you and you're surrounded by people in your city whom you feel closer to. But meet that same person half-way around the world and suddenly you feel closer to them. They're now more part of your tribe than those around you.
We're tribal animals, by nature, and our capacity to help and tolerate the suffering of those we consider to be in our tribe is significantly different from those outside our tribe. If aliens invaded, you'd see almost all racism and human conflict disappear almost overnight. We'd become a human tribe struggling against an alien "other". But absent that, we'll continue to subconsciously divide ourselves along tribal boundaries. In your rabid defense of India from what you perceive is an attack on one of its customs, you're perceiving me to be an "other" to the Indian tribe.
This is well established human psychology. My point was that the caste system is divisive, by it's very nature and purpose. According to our understanding of the human capacity for experiencing the suffering of others, anything that divides us in any capacity can only increase the kind of unfeeling behavior described in the article.
And you need look no farther than India to see the exact opposite type of force. How many devout Buddhists would stand by idly as someone in a car crash lay dying? The Buddha realized (warning: ridiculous oversimplification approaching) that our sense of self is an illusion and we're all one...there is no "other." When viewed through that lens, what is the hassle of being dragged into and administrative mess or needing to pay for hospital care when compared to the suffering of a dying person? A Buddhist would jump in to help without even the slightest regard for the consequences that would result.
how does racism explain why people in India won't help other Indians? I know Indian has a wide diversity of languages and religions but even at the very least I would expect people from the same group to help but that doesn't seem to be the case here.
India's Caste System is very rigid, apparently. I asked an Indian friend in college to explain it to me before the interwebz. After the rage she showered upon me for asking I never followed up. Perhaps I will now...
Caste system is not the same as Racism. However, it has nothing to do with accidents. When you see a person involved in an accident in India you won't be able to make out his/her caste by looking at them (unlike race where the racial features are apparent).
How does the caste system survive if you can't tell what caste someone is by looking at them?
Is it on your ID card? Can you tell via their accent? Is there anything stopping someone from moving to a different city and pretending to be a different (better?) caste?
No you can't tell by looking at their ID card or their accent unless the surname of that person clearly indicates the caste.
> Is it on your ID card?
EDIT: The only place where you ever need to fill your caste is in your application for ID card or while applying for an University. However, your caste is not printed on the ID card though you are provided a certificate for it (that you need to provide in case you want to avail any government benefits). You can see an example of Voter ID card here: http://3.imimg.com/data3/RA/DI/MY-513699/pvc-electrol-photo-...
> Is there anything stopping someone from moving to a different city and pretending to be a different (better?) caste?
That won't work. The issue is that no one wants to "leave" their caste. There is no better or worse caste these days. It was the case centuries ago where the Brahmin caste was considered superior to the rest (when Kshtariya Kings ruled India). That is no longer the case. In the ancient times, education was only restricted to upper castes. These days we have quotas (almost 50%) in education/jobs sector for lower castes.
The only place where caste has a major impact is in marriages and politics. If you love a person from a different caste and your in-laws are against your caste you'll have a tough time dealing with that situation. Unless your in-laws are total whackos (see news reports on honor killings) you should be able to convince them. Those who can't convince elope and get married.
When it comes to politics casteism is rampant. If you belong to a particular caste and your caste does not have enough representation in that constituency you are standing from you are bound to lose (irrespective of whether you are a good candidate or not). Each caste votes as a group and only vote for their own candidate. The reason for that is all castes in India want a slice of the pie. Some castes want higher quota in education while others want quota in private sector etc.
If you hear stories about how bad the caste system is in India take it with a pinch of salt. Most of it is politicking. There are however a few real cases of caste based violence that mostly go unreported by the mainstream media as the people involved in that violence do not have political patronage.
If you hear someone saying that they want the caste system to be abolished what they really mean is the modern caste system (of which I gave examples of) rather than the traditional caste system (that which existed centuries ago and of which you find a lot of articles/writings on the interwebs).
Thanks for the info, I assumed apparel and appearance were distinguishable between the groups. I will follow up on my unanswered inquiry for my edification.
I can help you get a fair idea of the prevalent caste system:
1. You can get all knowledge about the caste system from the interwebs. Especially read up on "Manu Smriti" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manu_Smriti). The caste system that was practiced centuries ago does not exist today. So whatever you read on the interwebs take it with a grain of salt. A lot has changed for the better.
2. Caste doesn't come into picture in day-to-day life (unlike race where you might be harassed for the race you belong to as there is no escaping your racial features).
3. Caste plays a major role in marriages. Inter-caste marriages are discouraged by a section of the society. This is more prevalent in northern parts of India in comparison to the south.
4. Education/Government jobs have a quota system for lower castes. This has become a reason for hatred between the upper and lower castes because it doesn't encourage meritocracy.
5. In some really orthodox parts of Indian society (which is very small) segregation exists where lower castes are not allowed for example to take water from the same well as the rest of the village.
6. Violence on lower castes still exists in some villages.
However I can happily say that I have hardly come across any casteism myself. Maybe that is because I live in urban India.
