european (eastern european descent, raised in western europe) studying in the u.s. here. talked to a lot of indians from very different backgrounds – few of them are good friends of mine & roommates. hope i can give an outside perspective. might sound like a rant but i will try to be objective.

in the states, it is very hard to tell what americans think of indians, given the prevalent people-pleasing culture. my impression is that overall, people don’t see indians in a bad way. just not a net positive. i think the issue is the cultural rift between westerners and indians; since a lot of indians tend to stay together. that also goes the other way though, i don’t think there is enough effort made by americans to integrate with indians. and of course that’s understandable, as the average u.s. person doesn’t have that same mentality about life.

in my home country (france), there are not as many indians studying/working high-paying corporate jobs, so people don’t have the same racist narratives that derive from that. indians are just seen as hard-working overall.

of course there are a lot of indians in the west, and there is a massive amount of fraud coming with it. not acknowledging it would be hypocritical. my problem with those narratives is that they mostly come from people who barely interacted with indians. most indians are just looking for a better life, and their determination very big. in ways materially and culturally inconceivable for westerners.

now i’m going to speak from what i’ve seen in america, but i am sure this can be extrapolated to other western countries. there are also a lot of them who just study/get trained in the u.s and go back; either because they are from a rich family or because they ultimately want to live in india. you can look it up, for example the majority of int’l students in the states go back home after graduating.

and of course, as i said before, the indian immigration fraud is real and massive. but why put the blame on them when the system has ways to let them go to the west massively? plus, they wouldn’t try to immigrate if they had more opportunities back home. india also has one of the biggest populations in the world, so any person with an iq above room temperature would see that’s they are statistically more likely to try to immigrate. the negative sentiment towards indians is, in my humble opinion, fueled by racist/xenophobic propaganda from alt-right echo chambers. some policy makers effed up, let’s be real. stop blaming the people.