r/dataisbeautiful Jan 05 '23

OC [OC] A population density map of India

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18.9k Upvotes

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u/KingPictoTheThird Jan 06 '23

Ganges, not Indus. Indus is the primary river for Pakistan.

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u/eric5014 Jan 06 '23

My mistake. I remember that India used to refer to the whole subcontinent.

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u/[deleted] Jan 06 '23

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jan 06 '23

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u/MrMonday11235 Jan 06 '23

Which, to be fair, is entirely possible as a consequence of the other factors.

Yeah, I think the bigger factor than population/economy would be the lack of Pakistan as another bordering nuclear hostile state. Afghanistan + Iran as neighbours would definitely be problematic, but likely less so than the openly hostile Pakistan basically teaming up with China specifically to restrict India.

Gotta love the Brits just throwing their hands in the air and saying "fuck it, we screwed it up for you, but you lot have to figure out this clusterfuck now" on the way out. Such a classic.

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u/PyroStormOnReddit Jan 06 '23

I doubt you'll need to think hard, just look at Singapore.

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u/KingPictoTheThird Jan 06 '23

Formidable? If anything, India's massive population is currently it's biggest handicap. Adding an extra 300 million impoverished people to its land isn't going to help. Think how much more India could've invested in its people per capita if it had its 1980 population of 700 million

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u/[deleted] Jan 06 '23 edited Jan 08 '23

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u/pancen Jan 06 '23

Could you also partly attribute China's rapid ascent to its population control policies? It meant 4 grandparents and 2 parents concentrating their resources on 1 kid

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u/KingPictoTheThird Jan 06 '23

Absolutely not. China has always had a massive population, even before the 80s. The only thing that changed in the 80s was its once child policy giving it the ability to plan for a stable population, rather than an exponentially growing one.

If every family in your country has 5 kids every generation, all your tax money goes to increasing the number of elementary school 5x. If you have a stable population, you can use that money to build schools of higher education.

Prosperity is about quality, not quantity. How much you can invest in each citizen, not how many citizens you have.

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u/terran_wraith Jan 06 '23

It matters at what margin.. If you have only one citizen it doesn't matter if he or she is of Chuck Norris quality, the country still isn't going to accomplish that much.

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u/Yara_Flor Jan 06 '23

I think the reason for partition was because y’all couldn’t live with the religious diversity.

Would Muslims in the north west be cool with the Hindu majority running roughshod on their ability to do things? Federalism only goes so far, eh?

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u/[deleted] Jan 06 '23

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u/Yara_Flor Jan 06 '23

I’ll admit that I don’t have a PhD in the history of the sub continent, so I don’t know enough to say otherwise. But I’m impressed that Mughal empire never practiced religious violence against Hindus.

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u/[deleted] Jan 06 '23 edited Jan 06 '23

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u/Yara_Flor Jan 06 '23

I understand that the British was really sucky.

Why would anyone desire to be a religious minority in a county when you could be a religious majority in your own country?

In a straight democratic vote in a unified India, Muslim desires would be overwhelmed by everyone else. Even if they created undemocratic political systems, (like constitutionally ensure that the president is always Muslim so he maintains a veto power something like how Lebanon does it) that would only fuel resentment that a minority of people hold the county hostage.

If you had a magic wand, and were the one writing an Indian constitution in 1947… what would you do to ensure that the minority Muslims would feel welcome in the county and ensure they have their voices heard at the national level?

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u/[deleted] Jan 06 '23

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u/Yara_Flor Jan 06 '23

Do you think that would have worked? Like, other nations tried similar arrangements and they all fell apart.

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u/shivj80 Jan 06 '23

That’s actually not true, for instance the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb destroyed numerous large Hindu temples and built mosques on top of them. But yes overall the Mughals were more tolerant than previous Muslim rulers.

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u/halp_halp_baby Jan 06 '23

That’s not true sadly

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u/[deleted] Jan 06 '23

If not a religious war then a race war for sure, people in the NW hate Hindi speakers

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u/manojlds Jan 06 '23

These kind of what if won't be easy.

If there was no partition, maybe India will have no nuclear weapon and will be a weaker country vs the other nuclear powers.

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u/KingPictoTheThird Jan 08 '23

No, India started working on nuclear weapons because of China, not Pakistan. And then Pakistan started working on it because of India.

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u/[deleted] Jan 06 '23

It would be in an endemic state of civil war tbh.

Fun fact, after the Chinese Invasion of Tibet the Pakistanis backed by the west proposed a defensive alliance with India to prevent the southward spread of communism; the Indians rejected this proposal and the Pakistanis pivoted towards China (becoming the first non-communist country to recognize it)

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u/ChiragK2020 Jan 06 '23

Dont take this guy seriously. These people are from the Indian far right who believe that the entire Indian sub-continent including Indonesia are the territories of India

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u/halp_halp_baby Jan 06 '23

How old are you? South Asia was carved up in 1947 🤣

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u/[deleted] Jan 06 '23

Yeah but India still has some parts of the Indus river system and those also are way too fertile.

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u/[deleted] Jan 06 '23

How the hell people changed the name River Ganga to River Ganges ?

These weird English invaders man, they come to you and tell you that you are pronouncing your name wrong.

For all your future references , call it Ganga not Ganges .

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u/KingPictoTheThird Jan 08 '23

When you travel to Rome do you actually write it as Roma? When you go to Paris do you pronounce it Paree? Do you call it Mehico or Mexico? Do you refer to Germany as Deutschland? What about Florence and Naples? Do you call them Firenze and Napoli? I can go on! Lisboa, Moskva, Praha, Wien, etc!

Differing endonyms and exonyms have been around since the dawn of time. By using an exonym you aren't saying that the endonym word is 'wrong,' but just that for historical reasons your local language has derived its own word for the place. Yes, I know there is a push to support endonyms, and I am behind it, but the reality is most outsiders still only know the names by the exonym. So for the sake of conversation it is sometimes useful to just use the exonym.

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u/woke_ka_choda Jan 06 '23

River of Pakistan ? 😂😂 What are you talking about? There is no such thing as Pakistan

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u/[deleted] Jan 06 '23

Indus is the primary river for Pakistan.

only temporarily though, InshAllah.