4 ms·

What does heterogenous have to do with it? U.S. is by far more of a melting pot than India.

claytoneast 8y ago
This may be true on the surface, but India is an incredibly diverse mix of people. There are a ton (talking 60-70+) of groups of people with different cultures who speak different languages and often different religions. They make look the same to you; they are not the same. Go there and see it for yourself. It is incredible.
jvanderbot 8y ago
I don't know OPs original intent, but I would have interpreted that as heterogeneity of socio-economic status. India has a very wide income disparity from the poorest to the richest.
umanwizard 8y ago
> U.S. is by far more of a melting pot than India. What do you mean? Basically the only reason India is one country is because the British ruled it as one country. It is about as culturally and linguistically diverse as all of Europe.
- _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
  Not exactly the same entity (British India ended up stretching further east) but Mughals ruled it as one country too, and the East India Company kept up the fiction that the Mughals were still in charge for as long as possible.
danharaj 8y ago
Do you know how diverse India actually is? I don't think you do.
atlantic 8y ago
India has 22 official languages. The US, by comparison, has two (ignoring the native languages of Hawaii and Alaska, which have a tiny number of speakers). That may give some indication of relative heterogeneity of the two countries.
natch 8y ago
India has more than 600 recognized languages (22 official ones) and a highly stratified society in terms of the poverty/wealth continuum, education, opportunities, and ethnicities... pretty diverse I'd say. Have you ever been there?
Symmetry 8y ago
The idea behind the "Melting pot" analogy is that while our ancestors may have spoken German or Irish or Congolese or Yiddish or Vietnamese or whatever, we've all agglomerated now and come to form a single nation with a single shared language (whatever we may speak at home). The various ethnicities that make up India haven't been melted together to the same extent that American ethnicities have - thought my impression is that India has a fairly strong national identity anyways.

This may be true on the surface, but India is an incredibly diverse mix of people. There are a ton (talking 60-70+) of groups of people with different cultures who speak different languages and often different religions. They make look the same to you; they are not the same. Go there and see it for yourself. It is incredible.

jvanderbot 8y ago

I don't know OPs original intent, but I would have interpreted that as heterogeneity of socio-economic status. India has a very wide income disparity from the poorest to the richest.

umanwizard 8y ago

> U.S. is by far more of a melting pot than India. What do you mean? Basically the only reason India is one country is because the British ruled it as one country. It is about as culturally and linguistically diverse as all of Europe.

_emacsomancer_ 8y ago
Not exactly the same entity (British India ended up stretching further east) but Mughals ruled it as one country too, and the East India Company kept up the fiction that the Mughals were still in charge for as long as possible.

danharaj 8y ago

Do you know how diverse India actually is? I don't think you do.

atlantic 8y ago

India has 22 official languages. The US, by comparison, has two (ignoring the native languages of Hawaii and Alaska, which have a tiny number of speakers). That may give some indication of relative heterogeneity of the two countries.

natch 8y ago

India has more than 600 recognized languages (22 official ones) and a highly stratified society in terms of the poverty/wealth continuum, education, opportunities, and ethnicities... pretty diverse I'd say. Have you ever been there?

Symmetry 8y ago

The idea behind the "Melting pot" analogy is that while our ancestors may have spoken German or Irish or Congolese or Yiddish or Vietnamese or whatever, we've all agglomerated now and come to form a single nation with a single shared language (whatever we may speak at home). The various ethnicities that make up India haven't been melted together to the same extent that American ethnicities have - thought my impression is that India has a fairly strong national identity anyways.