I FIRST WENT to the US in the late 1960s, and I did not go back home for the next seven years! When I went there, there was no Indian food, no Indian movies and no Indian music. You had to become an American.
Today, I see people going from here: they eat Indian food, they listen to Indian music, they watch Indian movies, they are on the phone to India every day. They have no American friends. They have not changed at all.
Some of that is warranted, and some unwarranted. Warranted because India is not a land of snake charmers and beggars anymore. That image has changed. Because people like me have done well. We have become CEOs. So, there is a confidence.
Some of that is unwarranted: just because somebody else has been able to do well, you shouldn’t assume that you can do well, too. So, there is a certain amount of arrogance that has come.
One of the reasons there is backlash is this arrogance. Americans feel, “You come here. You don’t mix with us. You are Indian. Why are you here then?”
People like us never faced backlash. I got married there. All my friends were Americans. I went to football games with them. I went to basketball games with them. Earlier you had to assimilate; you had American friends. But today, that is not happening much.
There is an old saying, ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do.’ You blend in. If you don’t blend in, you stand out. When you stand out, there is always a backlash.
The Indian image is farther ahead than the Indian reality. India is a modern entrepreneurial technology powerhouse. But that’s not all of India. There is a part of India which is very inefficient, stuck in the mud. But this modern India is very arrogant, very confident. When they go overseas, they think they are Americans. I think that’s a whole sad aspirational element that because they are the superpower, we also want to behave like them.
But the reality is that India is a very poor country. Even though it is one of the largest economies, on per capita basis, India is around 70th. The average Chinese is five times richer than an Indian. The average American is 30 times richer than an Indian.
So just like there was this phenomenon of the ugly Americans who go out and act entitled, I think this new phenomenon of the ugly Indians is starting to happen.
People like me who have been outside for a long time, we have a very different attitude towards the new people who are coming in. I see them when I travel in Europe and see the behaviour, which I find very strange. Humility is low.
Indians act like they are the superpower but they are not, yet.
Kanwal Rekhi is one of the pioneer Indian-American tech millionaires in Silicon Valley, the first Indian to list a company on the US stock markets and the founder of The IndUS Entrepreneurs or TiE, one of the world’s biggest networks for fostering business partnerships.
As told to K. Sunil Thomas
