Well, I'm not too sure about a "billion" people. A minority can be pretty
noisy when it wants, and selective treatment by the media can enhance the
effect. I would agree, however, that this is not the kind of reaction
you and I might expect or express, however widespresd it actually is.
India is highly stratified culturally, especially in terms of education.
The educated classes might welcome it due to the widespread resentment
meme that India should be treated as a world power, but is usually left
out of the "old boys network" of the G7, UN Security Council, etc, and
generally under appreciated and overlooked, in spite of the fact that
much of the world's seminal works in science and applied science
(i.e. technology) come from India, and so on. This meme is so strong in
these circles, and so entrenched due to synergistic cooperation with
other memes, that the usual aversion meme used to inoculate against
"nuclear weapons are good" (i.e. collapse of civilization, nuclear
winter, etc) is too weak to build up an effective immune system defense
by integrating with the memesphere and growing its own synergies, because
the other meme(s) utilize most of the cognition resources each individual
allocates for the meta-meme "politics". In other words, a large and vocal
number of these individuals are angry and resentful, and don't want to hear
or even think about the consequences. I don't think that the prevailing
hatred of Pakistan (and it's significant) has much to do with it in these
circles. They already knew that the Pakistanis knew that they had nuclear
weapons, and delivery systems, however crude (they don't need sub orbitals,
they're next door neighbors).
On the other hand, the bulk of the population is comprised of lower
castes who typically work in the rural areas performing menial labour, and
are for the most part, uneducated. This presents two hurdles to infection
by an aversion meme regarding nuclear weapons. These memes need other
memes to work well (which education would provide), so efficacy is reduced
significantly. Second, the typical vectors for infection (media and close
proximity to already infected individuals) is almost completely lacking.
So, while they don't have the meme for resentment that would cause them
to jump for joy, neither do they have the aversion meme that would cause
them to speak out against it and cancel it out. The result is the perception
that, to the outside world (read: media), "India likes nuclear weapons".
It's interesting to note here how closely this parallels the dynamics
of exposure, analysis, conclusion and expression of an idea at an
individual level.
>From the way the papers look, the populace of India
>is happy about the aparent nuclear proliferation happening in their
>area. In 1950, I might be able to understand it, but currently India
>only has Pakistan for an enemy, and not a very threatening one at that.
Pakistan has nuclear weapons as well, and all the players know it. Pakistan
hates India as much as India hates Pakistan. It would be just as easy for
them to let one go in India. Hardly non-threatening.
>Basically im wondering how a "pro" nuclear stance developes.
>
>Sodom
Dan