Of course India is a microcosm of the world. Of course versions of what happens there happen everywhere. Of course, if you're willing to look, the parallels are easy to find. The difference in India is only in the scale, the magnitude, and the sheer proximity of the disparity. In India your face is slammed right up against it. To address it, to deal with it, not to deal with it, to try and understand it, to insist on not understanding it, to simply survive it — on a daily, hourly basis — is a fine art in itself. Either an art or a form of insular, inward-looking insanity. Or both.
— Arundhati Roy, Power Politics