This happened on an ordinary Cambridge street. Dr. V and I ran into acquaintances, who in turn had friends (from medical school; a grandmother & granddaughter) visiting from Australia. Polite introductions. Small talk. The weather. Then, inevitably, India.
One of the women mentioned that her husband was “half Indian.” She smiled and added that he had told her she would definitely not like India. This was offered casually, as if it were neutral information, not an insult delivered in front of two Indians.
Trying to keep the exchange courteous, I mentioned Sri Lanka; not as a deflection, but as a bellwether. Our mutual acquaintances had already mentioned enjoying seeing my birthday pictures from there so I thought it a natural segue.
It is often how people test their appetite for the subcontinent: more contained, more legible, still culturally rich. If one enjoys that, India follows naturally; if not, India can feel overwhelming. This was not a provocation. Yet the suggestion was met with laughter, as though I had committed a social error. It was after this, not before, that the tone hardened and the remark about her granddaughter emerged, delivered with surprising persistence, as if the earlier politeness had licensed open disdain.
Then she said the quiet part out loud. Her granddaughter, she explained, thought Little India in Singapore was terrible and had asked, “If Little India is that bad, wouldn’t India itself be the same?” This was not inference. It was quotation. It was said plainly, in front of us, as if it were an unremarkable observation rather than a racial judgement delivered directly to people who visibly belong to the place being dismissed.
It was telling that the disdain was voiced through the teenage granddaughter, who was also present, & appeared more ethnic than the grandmother. The remark carried the quiet weight of self-rejection, a learned instinct to disparage the part of oneself that attracts discomfort.
This was said to our faces. There was no malice in tone. That is what made it worse. It was passive, assured, and completely unselfconscious. A small cruelty delivered as observation. A judgement offered as common sense.
What struck me later was not just the racism, but its selectivity. No one speaks this way about Pakistan in polite company. No one casually announces that Iran is “definitely unlikeable,” even though both countries are far easier to frame as failures by Western standards. Those societies are treated carefully, almost nervously. Their identities are respected, if only because their fragility demands it.
India receives no such caution. India is large, loud, ancient, and rising. It does not ask for approval. Indians, especially abroad, are visibly confident, competitive, and everywhere. They do not need Western permission to exist. That changes the psychology. India is insulted because it can be.
Dr. V put it simply afterward. India no longer needs defending. It is a civilisational behemoth with momentum. Indians today walk through the world with an assumption of pride & relevance. That self-confidence absorbs slights that would wound smaller nations. It also invites them.
I was reflecting privately that Pakistanis and Iranians are pricklier because they have had to be. Their national stories are defensive. Their dignity is guarded closely. You would not dare speak casually about how “horrible” their countries are in front of them, because you sense the edge. With India, the edge is absent. The insult feels safe.
There is another layer. Indians and Chinese are no longer distant others. They are competitors. They occupy the same universities, firms, and neighbourhoods as Westerners. They win. They outnumber. They are not exotic problems to be managed. They are peers in waiting.
Contempt is the reflex of a challenged hierarchy. So India becomes dirty, overwhelming, unpleasant. Its complexity is reduced to smell and chaos. Its scale is reframed as excess. Its civilisational depth is dismissed as inconvenience. These judgements are not about travel. They are about power.
The woman did not intend to be racist. That is precisely the point. She felt entitled to say it. India remains one of the few places it is still socially acceptable to denigrate without apology, explanation, or consequence.
That will not last. As India’s confidence hardens into norm, these remarks will sound increasingly dated, like jokes about the Irish or Italians once did. The world is adjusting badly to the idea that India does not need to be liked. It only needs to exist. And it does.