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From the outside, India appears to be a nation of peace. After fighting three wars with neighboring Pakistan and one war with China, all over the issue of national borders set by the former Brit- ish colonizers, it has managed to largely quell the insurgency in Kashmir. This province in the northwest has been effectively split between Pakistan and India (reflecting a Muslim-Hindu divide in the population, respectively) after armed conflict and peace treaties failed to provide either nation with control of the entire region as they desire. India has shot up the ranks to become one of the global lead- ers in military spending despite having no formal alliances with any other nation. Today, India projects power throughout South Asia and the Indian Ocean. Its rivalry with Pakistan has evolved into a nuclear rivalry, because both nations have these weapons of mass destruction. Moments of great tension between these two unfriendly neighbors have called into questionwhether either side will use them. For the vast majority of Indians, nuclear war with Pakistan is a faraway thought. Most Indians instead must focus on the here and now: how to get a better job, get more food for their family, ensure their children get an education, and keep the traditions of the past in an ever-changing world. Indian society features many traditionalist elements, dating back centuries or even millennia, all of which can potentially create friction when contrasted with idealized notions of a secular, democratic, and equal society. Issues like the caste system, debt bondage , abuse of women, child labor, religious strife, and poor public healthmust all be addressed before Indian citizens can enjoy the freedoms and benefits of the modern world.With hundreds of millions of people living below the global benchmarks for poverty, India has few solutions to a wide variety of problems. One great challenge lies in India’s tremendous diversity. Hundreds of languages, ethnicities, and religious practices divide a single country into a vast array of individual cultures. Each state of India (29 in total) may have people, religions, and languages unrecognizable to its neighbors. Indian census data create the

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