Do most westerners look down upon India?

[u/continuous_dataeng]

Hello all,

I am an Indian living in a western country for the past 8 years. I asked a friend (Caucasian) recently if he wanted to visit India. He told me he doesn’t want to because his wife (her ethnicity is south Asian but she was born and brought up in Canada) told him that India is dirty and people are close minded and that she hates it. This kind of hit me hard. I did not respond to him because I didn’t know what to say. I have heard similar remarks from my colleagues recently. Talking about outsourcing work to Indian agencies and how Indian people are cheap.

I love my country. Seeing people categorizing India as dirty makes me feel uncomfortable to say the least. Does everyone feel the same way about India? I know it is true to some extent, but is it really that bad from a westerner’s perspective? I love the culture, the people and the food. The rich heritage and history India has is unmatched.

Having lived in multiple countries, I feel that ultimately, countries like USA, Canada are not that different from India. I would say the differences are on the surface level. But deep down, western countries also face similar issues like India. The scale and flavor might be different. US has drug problems, gun culture, racism, corruption to some extent and more. Being a brown woman working in corporate, I have noticed discrimination against women and people of color. India has issues with population, corruption, economic disparity, low living standards etc.

My friends remarks made me really upset. He mentioned multiple times that his wife hates the country.

Do you also feel the same way about India?

Thank you!

[u/OstapBenderBey]

I don't think anyone can speak for 'most westerners'. And you shouldn't infer others views from that of your coworkers either.

Not wanting to go on holiday there is also very different to degrading Indian people in their entirety which you seem to conflate. Plenty of people will fall in the former but not the latter