I am an Indian and I have noticed that Indians are way too proud of their country for some reason and at the same time lack any civic sense towards it, they are extremely loud and extremely proud. We feel like the world revolves around India and our culture is superior to that of others. Also, a considerable chunk of the population has been sold the “India is a world-leader” myth and they think India is somehow leading the world in innovation, science and technology, human development etc.,
Now, I know for a fact that this is not true, when I try to gauge the perception of Indians abroad on Twitter, I get pretty negative results, but Twitter has nothing good to say about any group of people, so… I kinda wanted to know what you people though of India, don’t base it upon the etnic Indians who might be your friends and are decent people, but base it upon the news you read, the stories you hear from those Indians, etc.
So from the perspective of being in the United States. Remote Indian work it’s cheap but of extremely low quality. This ranges from call center workers to programming and engineering work.
This is usually a sign of the company trying to cheap out and having poor products in general. So it’s kind of a compounding problem.
Politically India seemes racist, nationalist, and terrible on climate change. I’m from the USA so yes I know we are not great on these topics as well.
Having been to India a few times from inside here it’s what I’ve noticed in the country.
The poverty and wealth gap between Indians and westerners means almost everybody wants money from you and to up charge you. From beggars, to chai vendors, to high end stores and hotels. They also love hidden fees and you have to be vigilant about details. This puts me on a constant tense alertness when dealing with people that gets very draining.
I’ve also spent time with an indian family during holy. My western friend was dating a member of the family and we went for a visit. The family was very generous and welcoming. It was the only time in India when I was relaxed and able to chat and enjoy the company.
Racism and classism abound. The ways different ethnic groups treat each other and try to force the use of their language on the other group. For example a Hindi and Malayalam language standoff when I was in Kerala.
Or when at a store that sells stone art has two clearly miserable lower cast people working a human powered cutting tool for the tourists when you can hear the sound of high speed electric tools from the back room.
Animals other then cows are treated horribly. Elephants in particular always looked miserable and broken.
People with government jobs are arrogant and lazy. From customs and immigration to the national parks. I arrived 20 min before closing at a national park to buy tickets for a late night tour that was latter that evening. The ticket both was empty with one other person waiting. Two minutes before closing the guy came to the window in a towel because he had been showing before getting off work.
The belief in crap science abounds. I got an ayurvedic massage that wasn’t a very skilled massage and then the guy tried to give me medical advice. Several people tried to explain that the ayurvedic guys were just as good as doctors. On way out another of the ayurvedic “doctors” tried to sell me a medicine that he assured would remove belly fat and regrow hair. This from a fat bald man.
The fiet time I was in India Modi had just won his first term as Prime Minister while I was there. There was a huge procession of angry young men yelling and pushing people out of the way. I assumed they were from the losing party. My driver informed me that no they had just won the election.
It was clear that this wasn’t a jubilant celebration of success. It was a angry group that now had the power to do what they wanted.
I know i’ve been negative and there is a fair amount of nice things in India but they always are fleeting and overshadowed by something. In the multiple times i’ve been to India i’ve never had a bad meal and there are a lot of nice people. I just think they are constantly at odds with each other.
The most Indian moment I had was drinking tea while enjoying the smell of the spice fields. Then the wind shifted and all I could smell was the stench of shit and diesel from the cesspool over the hill.
India is one of the last places I’d like to visit. This is based on how India has been portrayed in various travel shows over the years (Amazing Race, Top Gear). It looks crowded, dirty, and the locals often aren’t very friendly, especially towards women.
One of your main exports to the west is scam calls. It’s a huge PR problem and your government refuses to address it. Your other main export right now is Russian oil.
Indians used to have a fairly large online presence in English-speaking spaces with mixed results. There were a lot of helpful tech bros on YouTube, but also a lot of horny dudes on Facebook. I don’t really see much of either of those anymore though.
My wife works in software testing and has regular interactions with Indians. Some are really nice, but others are really not. Misogyny is far too common and when Indians are rude they are boldly rude.
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I know there is innovation but nothing major springs to mind
There is NO INNOVATION. There are no discoveries happening here. R&D budget and the budget for education is peanuts, there isn’t much innovation happening in India and the innovation that does happen, happens in handful of universities by students who could not afford to move out to a better country which would fund their research.
I don’t see much about India in the news. I have a friend who worked in a small town for a month during medical school and talks about the poverty and the number of people she saw sleeping on every flat surface in the city.
I work in public education in the US. With Indian families I’ve seen two very different attitudes, which leads me to believe that culturally they either serve others or expect to be served. Most are kind, pleasant, and very appreciative of anything we do for their kids. Others expect us to bend every rule for them- start and end times, attendance, bus times/routes, etc. Our Indian families tend to carry and feed their kiddos longer than others and it seems like little kids (especially boys) ‘rule the roost’ as parents often say things like - he won’t go to bed, won’t stay at the table to eat, won’t get up in the morning, etc. You want to say, “He’s 5. You’re the mom. Set some rules.”
culturally they either serve others or expect to be served
Ohh yes, that’s a nice observation. I have seen people who would just crumble when they encounter someone they perceive to be of a higher class (not caste), but I have also seen people who are “I own this place guys”
It probably talks a lot abt the socio-economic circumstances of their upbringing. Most including me belong to the people who become servile when they encounter authority/class, I am trying to change that tho.
I hate the servility I see around me, people think so less of themselves and way too highly of the corrupt bureaucrat, I have seen what kind of people this culture creates and it’s pretty gloomy!
The things that come to my mind are
-The country has a set goal to improve in tech industry, aiming to rival big countries like China.
-The people definetly know their spices. While they use it a bit too much at times, it certainly works well.
-The country is overpopulated, leading to talented people having harder time to succeed.
-If you’re watching an Indian man’s tutorial on any topic, you can assume it’ll work well.
-It has a noticable split in religious beliefs.
-fuck the remote scammers operating from Kolkata. The people in India also hate these people.
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Norwegian here. Not that often I think of India tbh, but here is a short bullet point list
- Massive overpopulation
- Rich and dirt poor at the same time
- Castes
- Politically governed by nationalists
- Rape stories
- Massive market thats the only reason we care about India
- Good tech industry (moon landing?)
- Don’t go to Kashmir
- Holi
- Bollywood
- “Indian” food (know that some protein in some sauce with nan and rice is not all an entire subcontinent can offer)
Last show I saw about India was that James May show on Amazon
To be fair, every country believes their culture is superior in some way, partly because it’s beneficial for governments to instil a sense of nationalism in its citizens. India’s not alone in that.
I agree, but we have crossed a limit between self-love and self-obsession. It’s hindering progress because people in India are not even ready to acknowledge what’s wrong with our priorities, culture and way of living and are calling anyone who questions their way of life anti-national. Sometimes, it feels like I am living in Eritrea or something!
You see that everywhere. Even within countries that aren’t classed as developing nations. The UK massively shot itself in the foot with the disaster that was Brexit thanks to nationalistic propaganda and outright lies from campaigners, and US liberals have faced “anti-American” backlash for their views.
When I think of india, I think of scam centers disguised as tech support.
Talking of tech support, I must mention that your McAfee subscription has expired and at a low cost of $40 you can get lifetime access :)
- Massive potential
- Nationalistic
- Somewhat racist
- Unfair caste system
- Not enough bathrooms
- Poverty and hunger
- Extremely rich people
- Excellent food
- Food poisoning
- Nice people
- Misogynistic
- Rich history
- Modi vs INDIA election
- Smart pivot to service sector
- Tata steel
- Lots of languages
- Diverse nature
Going to be a superpower soon if they manage to create a robust middle class and get some nice institutions up and running. India is doing good but it’s hard to manage a country on that scale without being, like, China.
So speaking as an American, the Indian diaspora here is typically thought of positively, at least in the sense they tend to be responsible members of the community.
Unfortunately, Americans are pretty geopolitically ignorant, and so end up developing views on countries based on the behavior of their American communities.
So I would say most Americans impression of India is “vaguely positive”. This notably includes at least tacit approval from American conservatives, in that Indians are left off their “which minority group are we targeting today” bingo card.
This is probably mutually reinforcing with America’s geopolitical priorities, which is essentially deepening ties with India as a counterbalance to China.
As to your “too proud of your country” comment, obviously as an American I sympathize, but they’re not wrong in that because of your country’s size and growth, India will become more prominent in global affairs.
Unfortunately as you’ve noticed, that leads to some people having an inflated view of themselves. It’s just something you have to live with as a world power.
Anyway, the below article actually answers your question, and overall, generally positive is the answer (but what did you guys do to South Africa though?)
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2023/08/29/international-views-of-india-and-modi/
One of the largest countries in the world and a hell of a lot of ethnic diversity, so it’s hard to make generalizations. Kerala and, say, UP are very different. But here’s my attempt.
Geopolitically as an entity it’s currently suffering from some of the same things the world’s other largest countries (China, US, Indonesia) are suffering from - namely: populist leaders and a large group of poorly educated people in the population propping them up.
Consequently there is way too much militant nationalism and complacency about aggression towards other nations, territorialism, persecution of certain ethnic minorities, religious fundamentalism. All the biggest countries have those traits at the moment, so it’s not specifically a reflection on India.
In terms of resource and development it’s dealing with a similar situation to other ex colony LICs - years of resource exploitation left it with a low GDP per capita and consequently major challenges when it comes to provision of infrastructure (eg pollution management), health, education, living standards etc.
India has made huge strides in the past but the current wave of populism relies on leveraging social conflict (as it does elsewhere in the eorld) so I think that growth has slowed. For the same reason the fault lines along ethnic, religious, caste lines - which colonialism entrenched or deepened within the region - are still a big aspect.
My personal experiences with Indian people is that just like from anywhere else there are good and bad. Cultured, well educated people are easier to deal with because there is more shared knowledge. Statistically speaking, many of the world’s worst arseholes you are going to meet are going to be from India, China and the US, and that holds up.
I am not sure of assholes. I think they distribute evenly across all nations. On the other side those countries tend to be specifically nationalistic. Russia would also go in this cluster, but it is much more seldom to meet Russians these days in Europe or the US. I just want to add that India has the huge advantage that a lot of people can speak some kind of English. Most with a strong accent, but the percentage of English speaking Indians is very high compared to china, Korea, Japan.
I think arseholes are distributed evenly too.
If 5% of all people are arseholes, everywhere, then a country with 50 million people has 2.5 million arseholes. But a country with 1,428,000,000 people has over 71 million arseholes. This is why they seem to be over represented by the large nations.
You are right that we are more likely to notice them if they travel near us or communicate in a language we understand. This is why Estonians are more likely to think badly of Finns whereas South Africans are more likely to think badly of Nigerians.
On India itself, its impressive that it’s the world’s largest democracy. Indians are well educated relative to similarly poor countries and have high English literacy, which is why many believe it could outpace China.
I admire their charitibility. My local area has a large Indian population as I live near a large hindu temples in the US. There is always cheap, high quality food for those in need (1$ for a large plate of food). The kitchen is operated by volunteers and rely on donations and food banks. I Believe this is also common practice in many temples within India proper.
There are plenty of unsavory things such as the caste system but overall harbor a lot of respect for the country and people.
Too many cultures/languages in a large space, they should split into smaller countries, it’s like judging Europeans from knowing some Brits, but
– People with money are very arrogant, selfish and wasteful – Many clingy/creepy people that keep talking to you when no longer appropriate – Headbobbing – Mostly friendly, sometimes too polite – Workaholics – Always complaining about their parent’s high expectations – Lots of IT workers who know what they learned to do step by step but it’s like they don’t know why they do what they do – Pretty condescending to other Indians from other regions – The usual: good but spicey food, hot weather, corruption, expensive weddings, overcrowded but still mass producing babies
bunch of daredevils that can somehow cross roads WHILE CARS ARE SPEEDING BY in expert fashion
LoL
From afar, I love the food. I’d love to visit and learn more about the country but as a woman I don’t feel safe going there.
