Germany: 61% of railway lines are electrified & plans to electrify 75% of rail network by 2030.
India: 85% of route kilometers electrified & railways set to achieve 100% electrification.
this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2023
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What part of this is racist? And what does you fact about electrification have to do with the cartoon?
Explanation:
First, the trains: the chinese train is depicted as a kind of modern train. it is very areodynamic which suggests it being fast. No smoke is visible indicating it is an electric train. The indian however is more bulky/less aredynamic (indicating it is slow, older, etc. ). Smoke is visible indicating that the indian train uses coal, like a 1920 train or something.
So the cartoonist intends to depict the indian technology as "backwards" compared to the chinese one. Compare that to the stats from the poster indicating that indian is actually ahead in technology compared to india.
Second, the people: the indian train is running and there are many many people visible around and ontop of the train, which suggests that the inside is already full with people. Since that is very dangerous, the cartoonists intends to show that the safety standards from india are low.
Also the cartoonists wants to depict india as socially backwrads, that they would have more people than good infrastructure for the people (=people being able to sit inside the train comfortable instead of hanging on the side of the train).
So all in all, the german cartoonists wants to show superiority using popular stereotypes of india and that is racist, also because it is based on beliefs instead of facts.
ah and it is also structurally racist: for instance many right wing/conservative people look at the climate change and above cartoons and say that the problem is the so called "overpopulation". That is: for them, a solution to climate change is to simply kill people or let people die or something. (of course not rich german people flying around in private jets, not they mean people in poor countries.)
so this cartoonist indirectly references this idea by using the same stereotypes.