the peoples of any country (or region for that matter) have at least one false pride. its a belief for them, and therefore its the highest ultimate truth for them. but for an outsider, it is a joke.
in America it is nationalism. the belief that "we are the most sophisticated and therefore the most superior (we are not racists, mind you)and the mightiest peoples on earth today. and along with great power comes great responsibility which leads us higher mortals to teach you lower beings the ideals of civilized human life."
for Indians it is their proximity to the supernatural, it is their spirituality. "the poor in india are happier and more content than the rich in the west. we have a lot to teach the west about attaining salvation of the body and mind." notice the poor in india never brag about being happier than the rich of anywhere. yet this is the national belief, the pride of india. Naipaul calls it "lack of intellect", "total absurdity" and ridicules it brutally. in his opinion those from the west who revere india do so in search of their medieval barbaric roots. and those indians who swell with pride at the reverence are self-humoring idiots.
Naipaul writes with prejudiced opinion but he is spot on. reading his writing on india never fails to anger me. my papa always says (though he never learned to control his anger) that anger is one's incapability to deal with the situation at hand. and that's spot on, too. the anger within me on reading Naipaul is not so much targeted at him, as much as it is at myself, at my incapability to concretely disagree with him, to prove him wrong. or to change things.
