Imagine that the US has a black President and a woman as the majority leader in the Congress. Imagine that UK has a Muslim as its Prime Minister. Imagine that one of the major European mainland countries elect a non-White, non-Christian as its President/Prime Minister. Imagine that in Saudi Arabia, non-Muslims are allowed to practice their religions. Well you might just have to keep on imagining because none of these will be a reality anytime soon.
But there is a country in this world which has already been there and done that in a mere 60 years of gaining freedom. Though western powers often try to preach to that country to be more tolerant of diversity, ground realities often fly in the face of their assumptions. The hubris of the west is almost pathetic. It works on the assumption that equality of women, practice of treating all races and religion as equal are essentially western concepts and ancient cultures of the east need to be made aware of these philosophies.
What then explains the fact that at present India has a Sikh Prime Minister, a Muslim President and a Catholic woman as head of its biggest political party whereas United States which got rid of slavery more than 150 years ago is yet to elect a single black person as its President? Or a woman for that matter. In fact when Barack Obama became only the third black ever to be elected to the US – his victory was hailed as a typical US dream come true – and comes with the cliché that “It can happen only in the US”. It is a typical example of western hyperbole. Well if after 150 years of the end of slavery a third African American to the US senate is hailed as American dream come true then the bar set for dreams for blacks (and any other minority) is pretty low.