Entrepreneur Ashneer Grover on Monday pushed back against Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu’s appeal asking Indians in the United States to return home, calling the suggestion unrealistic and urging people to “look at numbers.”
Grover reacted to Vembu’s open letter to Indians in America, in which the technology entrepreneur urged members of the Indian diaspora to come back and help build India’s future.
“What delulu! Record-breaking heat in India is clearly making people dizzy. Just DON’T – be scientific in your approach. Look at numbers – $1 = ₹94. Temperature = 50C,” Grover wrote on X.
Vembu, in his open letter, addressed to Indians in the United States, said that many had arrived in America with little money but strong educational foundations and had gone on to achieve success.
He said Indians should remain grateful to the United States, writing: “America was good to us. For that, we must remain grateful – gratitude is our Bharatiya way.”
But Vembu argued that a growing number of Americans believe Indians “take away” jobs and that the country’s political divide offers little comfort to immigrants.
“You may think the next election will fix this, but your choice would be between people who hate our Bharatiya civilisation and people who hate civilisation itself. That is the ‘hard right’ vs ‘woke left’ battle. You are mere bystanders to that conflict,” he wrote.
Vembu said India’s global standing would depend on its own economic and technological rise, arguing that respect, prosperity, and security flow from national capability. “Respect in today’s world, along with prosperity and security, comes from one source: a nation’s technological prowess,” he wrote.
He then urged Indians abroad to return.
“As difficult as it is for many of you to contemplate this, please come back home. Bharat Mata needs your talent. Our vast youthful population needs the technology leadership you gained over the years to guide them towards prosperity.”
Another social media user, Karthik Balachandran, also criticised Vembu’s appeal, saying emotional calls were unlikely to persuade professionals settled abroad to return. “Such emotional tweets are unlikely to persuade anyone. If at all anyone returns, it will be because they were chased out and had nowhere to go to. Or they had made so much money that the downsides of being in India can be mitigated partially,” he wrote on X.
Balachandran argued that India needed visible improvements rather than appeals rooted in sentiment. He proposed building a model city within a decade with efficient services, merit-based systems, low corruption, high safety standards, and strong education, healthcare, and entertainment infrastructure. “Real results are far more convincing than endless yapping about ancient glory. Sadly, it would take a lot more than just money for real change,” he wrote.
