It’s not only not absurd but reality.

Amartya Sen various works often covers this topic, like in Hunger and Public Action.

Besides one doesn’t even need that, a simple calculation using Infant Mortality Rate and Poverty metrics (and basic common sense talking with elders in the family) makes it clear and obvious.

Far more Indians died in India in worse abject conditions than did in China in 49-79 timeframe, despite China being objectively far far worse off at starting points (1947-1949 for both new States).

And morally speaking, Accidental calamity over short timeframe (which is what GLF was, a sporadic 3 year mess that was accidental due to various compounding factors, yes including State Incompetence among those List-parts. CR was more socio-political and less worse than late 50s famine situation) is objectively less Worse than Intentionally Malevolent situation that existed in India over a far far longer timeframe of decades (since everyone, society & leaders, knew what was happening and yet it persisted till early 2000s. Indian poverty and infant mortality metrics only became “Digestible” from utter insanity by 2000).

So yes, “Disaster” is contextual and timeframe is part of that context. If some dire situation lasts decades, that is de facto Intentional acceptance by People and that State. THAT is Disaster of actual horrifying scale. People just find it hard to comprehend because Time-scale of decades is hard for people to comprehend.

>1949-79 wasn’t Really a Disaster of the Scale that’s supposed to be evocated here. More Indians died in this timeframe in abject poverty and poor conditions than in PRC

This is……questionable to say the least. The horrors unleashed during the ‘cutural revolution’ cannot be washed away by simply pointing to ‘poor conditions’ in India. Do you have any sort of data to back this absurd claim up?

What makes India even a proper state? We all just seem to be pajeets loaded over a common country-cart by the brits.

I didn’t mean to imply that China wasn’t diverse. But some 90% of Chinese do identify as Han, so in that sense they are a more proper nation-state compared to India or the EU.

*It’s hard to talk

India is more diverse than Europe when taking into account caste variations, and probably equally diverse when it comes to linguistic distinctions across the length of the subcontinent. China is significantly less diverse on both axes.

But that is hardly relevant here in this context since in practical sense of everyday lives Socio-Cultural-Linguistic and Political aspects matter on question of Homogeneity-vs-Governance Challenges.

Anthropologically, the genetic markers are a proxy for social relations between groups though. It’s hard to talking about “protecting our women” when 99.9% of the population cannot really be considered “your women” since you can’t marry them.

Diversity is a Spectrum and China on that spectrum is closer to India than it or either are to Europe.

There is no place on this planet that’s more diverse than India (when excluding Africa as singular Unit which is not unfair condition).

Despite having National Linguistic Policy since 50s, China barely crossed 80% use-case of Standard Mandarin nationally only about 15 years back. They are still not fully high 90% even now. And this is just proficiency not actual on ground use case, where regional dialects/languages are still alive, people are just better Multi-Linguals now.

Genetically sure as even Razib has mentioned many times that Chinese are closer to each other than peer populations elsewhere. But that is hardly relevant here in this context since in practical sense of everyday lives Socio-Cultural-Linguistic and Political aspects matter on question of Homogeneity-vs-Governance Challenges.

And then there is Scale. Because it’s not that significant if Papua New Guinea has highest LDI (linguistic diversity index), what matters is what the number of humans are on ground who speak that other language/dialect because that is what creates the Governance Challenge to be overcome.

Only on context of Fragmented State-dynamic is Indian history somewhat similar to Europe but that is just 1 facet, not the totality of everything.

Besides it’s not like China didn’t have their own long cycles of Fragmentation. Heck they are still in 1 such cycle even now with PRC-RoC thing.

Wealth accumulated by six adults being spent on one child.

This is the other side of that 1-2-4 China Demographic Doomism. 4-2-1 (4 Grandparents, 2 Parents giving to that 1 Child).  
Besides in practical reality, only about 35% of the Chinese population was affected by having 1 Child, the rest had more (due exceptions, minorities, different Rural-Urban rules, & someone having the kid anyway and either paying a fine or not even that).

What I would like to know is how they got an ancient civilization to let go of its past, how did they bulldoze consumerism and materialism through societal networks that had evolved over centuries- how did they do away with God.

Religiosity is Spectrum and China was already near Less Religious even in historic timeframes (context of Religion & State power balance).  

Century of Humiliation & early 20th-century Civil war further alienated Chinese society from metaphysical. This is why Cultural Revolution had so much Sticky-Power because the society for decades was already pissed at Traditionalism (which was blamed for keeping China in a sorry situation).

Then the reforms and policies in the 1950s did the rest. Like Women’s Equality bills. Land reform was also Real unlike in India. 

The Old was reneged upon & forsaken, both by the State and by the Society at large & this wasn’t a CPC only thing, society by that point was primed for this. The State just supercharged it.

What did the Chinese Communist party do to retain legitimacy as it pivoted from ideas like collective farming to allowing a tech and finance led millionaire class to flourish within a generation.

Pragmatism and not Dogmatism to Ideology. Jiang Zemin’s Three Represents is such an example.

Dogmatism (of whatever form/kind) is always Regressive. There is no such thing as a Good Form of Dogmatism.

Is the Chinese model replicable and should we try and replicate it in India.

US Exceptionalism is Universal, Absolute, Eternal and Inalienable norms.  
Chinese Exceptionalism is they’re Unique and no one can copy their System/Approach.

Reality is of course “somewhere” in the middle (though not absolutely dead center).

Chinese Model in macro terms IS replicable because they themselves are using the Japanese/Asian Tigers model, tweaked heavily and supercharged for their Scale. 

Letting a small set of people decide the economic fate of millions is high risk strategy. If the elite are not good enough, the scale of failure is catastrophic. China from 1949 to 1979 is a good example of the magnitude of that disaster.

1949-79 wasn’t Really a Disaster of the Scale that’s supposed to be evocated here. More Indians died in this timeframe in abject poverty and poor conditions than in PRC. And PRC had the context of starting off from a worse position in 1949 than India had post 1947. So where does that put the Magnitude of the Indian Disaster (since for something to be deemed a Massive Disaster a Frame of Reference is contextually must).

Besides, without the Mao era reforms, there would be no Deng era to take advantage of the result of those earlier reforms (like the Highest Female Labor Force Participation Rate of anywhere in human history, till Vietnam beat that value recently).

In India the state gets it is legitimacy through the process of its election. To forego that for a bet that the unelected elite will deliver on outcomes

This is why in System theory terms a Governance System like Democracy is a Cowardly approach. Because it’s predicated on the Fear of the Worst-of-Humanity.

Chinese System (and even their history accounts for this) acknowledges that Humanity can be nasty (Legalism basically says Humans are Born Evil, though other Chinese philosophies also had counter views but this point is relevant because in practical terms Legalism never went away in China) but the Chinese System also is much more Fearless & Daring. 

It acknowledges Humanity is also capable of producing Elite talent who are simply Better than their peers. And giving them enormous amounts of Power to Govern the State.

So even if this approach leads to more Cycles (up-down), the net effect is that in the long-term they come out ahead because the UP-Cycles are so massive that they cover the damages/stagnation of Down Cycles. While Systems like Democracy has fewer Cycles but the development speed is slow/stagnant even in their UP-Cycles (since the System has no incentive for it to be fast, its only concern is Stable Power Transition and System-Survivability) and hence across generations it will fall behind the Chinese like Systems despite them having upheavals. 

This doesn’t mean All Chinese-like System will always be successful automatically. One still needs other pre-requisite, i.e. Competent Leadership.

Only when these 2 pre-requisites (Leadership & Right System) are satisfied does a State thrive. There is no exception.