Dear Sridhar Sir,
I’m writing this from Chicago, and I have deep respect for you, but I also want to share a lived perspective from many NRIs who chose to stay abroad.
For most of them, it’s not just about earning more money, not any more. That’s a very small part of the story. The real reasons are the quality of everyday life and systems that work more consistently:
- lower day-to-day corruption
- less dependency on “connections” for basic services
- stronger safety nets during emergencies
- better civic discipline
- cleaner cities and better infrastructure
- roads without constant stress and unpredictability
These are not luxury factors, that is just daily living in very fundamental ways.
What is their incentive for them to return back ? How long will we just keep pushing the narrative of the homeland?
Many of them didn’t “leave India behind.” They simply built a life where the system around them allows more predictability and stability.
And to be honest, those of us who stayed back in India like you and I did so by choice too. We can choose to work on improving what’s broken here, instead of framing it as something that can be solved by asking people to return.
Both paths matter. Both contributions are valid.
Open letter to Indians in America.
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Dear brothers and sisters from Bharat:
Like I did 37 years ago, you arrived in America with no money but with a good education and cultural heritage from Bharat. You achieved outstanding success. America was good to us. For that we must remain grateful - gratitude is our Bharatiya way.
Yet today, a significant number of Americans, may be not the majority but not too far from it either, believe that Indians "take away" American jobs and our success in America was unfairly earned.
You may think the next election will fix this, but your choice would be between people who hate our Bharatiya civilisation and people who hate civilisation itself. That is the "hard right" vs "woke left" battle. You are mere bystanders to that conflict.
Meanwhile there is one thing that is true now and will be true in the future: the respect Indians command world-wide will substantially depend on the fortunes of India herself. If India remains poor, the woke left will give us moral lectures with pity and the hard right, different moral lectures with scorn ("hellhole") and we must not confuse either with respect.
Respect in today's world, along with prosperity and security, comes from one source: a nation's technological prowess. India produces sufficient brain power to achieve that prowess but alas we exported so much of that talent, particularly to America. As we develop that prowess in India, our civilisational strength will assert itself.
As difficult as it is for many of you to contemplate this, please come back home. Bharat Mata needs your talent. Our vast youthful population needs the technology leadership you gained over the years to guide them towards prosperity. Let's do it with a missionary zeal.
Respectfully
Sridhar Vembu