What role do you think NRIs and Indians who have worked abroad have played in the evolving culture and politcal spectrum of India? I really spent a long time on the question. I really ask you at least give it a look.

edit: as I was writing the text, I decided to ask a second question but forgot to amend the title of the post. Sorry.

There's a lot of talk about how Indians are blindly patriotic despite glaring problems with our country. I know a lot of people make fun of Indians for screaming about being a global superpower and our feelings of injustice at the hands of oppressors. I'm really young, I'm 18, and spent more of my life in the USA. I'm a citizen but still feel I'm Indian. I speak Tamil and a bit of Hindi (enough to watch movies, haha) and visit India every year or two years. My grandparents and childhood friends live in India and so do most of my family except my aunts and uncles who are part of the diaspora also, living in places with strong Indian-origin communities like Singapore and the UK.

The role of NRIs in Indian economic development and liberalization is unmistakeable, as is Indian recognition of their achievements. Everyone talks about Lakshi Mittal and Vikram Pandit etc.

What do you think the NRI community's effect has been on Indian culture? What what I have observed, Indian movies have a lot of NRI-themes. Sivaji and other movies like New York, Kurbaan, and Delhi-6 have these themes. Even back in 2001 when the economic revolution in India was relatively small, 2001 when I left Chennai as a young boy, movies like Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Gham were popular. I'm not talking about movies though. What has this very well advertised and successful NRI diaspora done to culture?

Has India become more liberal because of NRI influnce? How so?

Has India become more open? less corrupt? How so?

Have there been many negative consequences?

There's intense competition to leave the country for temporary jobs or permanent resettlement. This has spilled over into the 12hours a day study for IIT, etc. Is there a significant movement by anyone, governmental or nongovernmental, in keeping Indian talent in India? What are we doing about that?

Anything else you can think of?

Here's my second question.

Most of the Indians I know here, from high school and college, are not religious. Many are atheists and even if they celebrate diwali, pongal, of they wear the turban and carry a comb and a knife, they are almost as American as all my similarly assimilated Asian and naturally incline White friends. When I go back, people make fun of my accent but since I spent my formative years of childhood in India, I'm accustomed to it. I have little sense of perspective concerning what an ABCD, American Born Confused Desi in case people don't know (unlikely, haha), would feel when visiting India. The dirt and the smells are familiar sights to me and the new shopping malls and fancy cars that spring up every month are shocking to me when my only memories of Chennai were pre-2001 and my only memories of the rest India were the government-owned flats my father's father lived in on the IIT-Delhi campus my mother's father taught at or or the rural countryside with dark buffalos and wet rice, stinky rivers and magnificent dams that I spent multiple days staring at while on the train eating thayir sadam and mango pickle.

I left before I would have started studying like a maniac for the IIT exams or gone crazy over tuition classes but I still have perspective based on what my friends tell me. My athletic and outgoing friends retreated into their homes for 4 hours, rarely coming out and getting fat without exercise as they studied daily for a test they had to succeed on if they wanted to amount to anything by the standards imposed on them by society. This isn't something the ABCDs I know of can relate to. They have cousins in India but they don't have any practical experience there. It wasn't until the 7th grade in the USA that I found the intensity of work matched what I experienced as early as the 3rd standard in India.

Most ABCDs say they hate visiting India, which I guess I understand since they have little connection to our country apart from ceremonies. They have no experience sitting in front of a dung-fueled fire with burning eyes and thick smoke for a few hours because you're the youngest boy at the wedding and the groom wants you to sit next to him. They'd consider it disgusting but it's a part of our culture and if my 80 year old grandfather can bear it without complaint, why should I be worried?

If there are any people who can shed light on the perspective of these fellow Indians who have this tenuous connection to India, can you please explain how you view India? Why you view it that way?

Being a part of both worlds but not fully committed to either makes me feel a bit alien wherever I go. I guess I feel a bit like Spock. Half human, Half Vulcan, but with no true home.

At least I'm fortunate that my parents decided to come to the USA where people are very accepting of other cultures and desis aren't discriminated against like I hear we are in the UK or Australia. I've never found my race an issue which really confuses me more since I'm not treated as an Indian but I still feel I'm not completely American.

I take no credit for anything you may or may not say about the NRI community. I'm only 18, a college freshman, and have achieved nothing outside personal accomplishments that affect few others. I'm not "proud" to have left India like many people seem to be. I moved here when I was 9, my parents are completely to be credited. They worked hard and they brought me here.

I really want some discussion on this. I know r/india isn't particularly active but maybe we can make an exception?

edit2: tl;dr - what role have NRIs played in Indian culture? How do Indians perceive ABCDs and how do ABCDs perceive India? But please read the rest of the text if you have time.