Here’s my unsolicited opinion. You wrote, “If we don’t start respecting our own fellow Indians and take care of each other, we’ll never be a super power.” I think you really hit the nail on the head with that statement. Thousands of years ago, India was a world superpower. And like the other ancient superpowers (e.g. Egypt), India rose to power on the shoulders of a culture lacking human rights (e.g. caste system). Although India has progressed at an incredible pace, even since Gandhi returned from South Africa to conduct years of satyagraha, that cultural trait that served the country so well will not magically go away with India’s embrace of the game of capitalism. In fact, as the game gets more and more competitive, it will only expose those bad traits even more.

Now don’t get me wrong. America has tons of problems and we’re certainly not a superpower (for now anyway!) because we’re nicer or smarter or harder working than the average society. In fact, we began our rise to power on the shoulders of a culture lacking human rights, too. But the one thing we do have is our country’s “creation myth” about equal opportunity–this concept of fairness is the backbone of our national identity and has been a major contributor to our relatively recent success.

So, what is that thread in India’s creation myth that will help it succeed today? Figure out what that is, as Gandhi just might have done decades ago, and India will effect true change instead of a narrow distribution of wealth.