The statistics are by now familiar. Indians lead OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Adobe, IBM, and dozens of other technology companies. Indians hold cabinet or senior governmental positions in the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Portugal. The Indian-American community generates annual income exceeding the GDP of many middle-income nations.
This is an extraordinary achievement. But it raises questions that the diaspora has not yet collectively answered: What are these positions for? What obligations, if any, do they create?
Two Failure Modes
The first failure mode is the parochial one — using diaspora positions primarily to advocate for India’s national interests as defined by whichever government happens to be in power in New Delhi at any given moment. This mistakes the diaspora for a foreign policy tool rather than a global community.
The second failure mode is the opposite: a complete severance from India’s developmental challenges, treating success abroad as a personal achievement with no wider obligation.
The right path is neither. It is to use the knowledge, relationships, and resources accumulated in the global economy to help solve the problems that still hold hundreds of millions of Indians back — not as lobbyists for any government, but as citizens of both worlds.