Cannot agree more! I've always felt leaving India behind can and does intensify the temptation toward symbolic overcompensation. The farther NRIs are from the country, the more some of them seem to cling to it rhetorically and while they may genuinely feel proud, hopeful, even politically approving from abroad, as long as that approval asks nothing of them and risks nothing for them, their sentiment remains thinner than those expressed by someone still enmeshed in the outcomes.
Fair points are being made here. I say this as an NRI myself. Hearing India is great when millions choose to leave does not fill the audience with confidence.
However, to bring a point across from the other side, there is some disdain for the ones that left. As if moving to a western country is an automatic guarantee of riches.
It’s not. If anything unless you are relatively rich you do everything yourself. Even with an Indian community, it can be very alienating. That social support is so needed, and countless NRIs are not the doctors or business owners - they’re the gardener and driver sending everything to their families back home.
Yes. I have noticed this in my circle. Those who have left are often termed as selfish or whatnot. Leaving your family & friends far away takes courage. Not everyone can do that. :-)
Also, while leaving is not an automatic guarantee of riches, you are opting to leave because of the prospect of a better life at the end of the day. Even if it is marginally better. And I doubt if there is an overlap between the "gardener and driver" and those who are cheering from the exit.
Cannot agree more! I've always felt leaving India behind can and does intensify the temptation toward symbolic overcompensation. The farther NRIs are from the country, the more some of them seem to cling to it rhetorically and while they may genuinely feel proud, hopeful, even politically approving from abroad, as long as that approval asks nothing of them and risks nothing for them, their sentiment remains thinner than those expressed by someone still enmeshed in the outcomes.
Apt observation! :-)
Fair points are being made here. I say this as an NRI myself. Hearing India is great when millions choose to leave does not fill the audience with confidence.
However, to bring a point across from the other side, there is some disdain for the ones that left. As if moving to a western country is an automatic guarantee of riches.
It’s not. If anything unless you are relatively rich you do everything yourself. Even with an Indian community, it can be very alienating. That social support is so needed, and countless NRIs are not the doctors or business owners - they’re the gardener and driver sending everything to their families back home.
"there is some disdain for the ones that left"
Yes. I have noticed this in my circle. Those who have left are often termed as selfish or whatnot. Leaving your family & friends far away takes courage. Not everyone can do that. :-)
Also, while leaving is not an automatic guarantee of riches, you are opting to leave because of the prospect of a better life at the end of the day. Even if it is marginally better. And I doubt if there is an overlap between the "gardener and driver" and those who are cheering from the exit.
The natural twin of this category of person is the NRI whiner.
The country is always going to the dogs in their opinion. But they would rather still obsess over it than live their peaceful first world lives.
Would be good to lock the two in a room together.
That’s right. It also becomes irritating. The only big difference is they are less hypocritical. Far less.
Probably.
Hypocrisy is not a sin. It can be cringey but one can ignore it.
We should evaluate both these categories of people based on how they impact us in India.
They are often used as geopolitical cudgels to intervene in domestic policy.
The latter group also gets hijacked by special interests in the US and starts to affect bilateral relations.
That’s my bigger concern.