A final boarding call for India’s demographic dividend

Most of my fellow passengers were clearly salesmen—first-time-abroad enthusiasm radiating from every seat. The signs were unmistakable: company-logo backpacks, reels playing at full volume because “who needs Bluetooth," and the call-button for the cabin crew being pressed with the confidence of someone ordering room service. Laughter erupted in generous bursts, often at jokes that would never pass HR training. It was a boys’ outing with just enough corporate sponsorship to ensure that their WhatsApp group would later be flooded with photos captioned ‘Living the Dream.’

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It’s not the first time I’ve been on a flight abroad where the Indian presence is impossible to miss. It’s just that these days, the scale of it feels… different. And perhaps it’s no coincidence.

Last year, the UN officially crowned India the world’s most populous country. We edged past China—and in doing so, we also edged past something else: the luxury of anonymity. We are over 1.4 billion strong. Which means that wherever we go, we no longer just ‘show up.’ We arrive.

It wasn’t always this way. A couple of decades ago, spotting a fellow Indian on a foreign holiday was a minor thrill. We’d exchange polite nods, maybe a sotto voce “Which city are you from?" before melting back into our separate itineraries. But somewhere between low-cost airfares, visa-on-arrival schemes and the relentless grind of aspirational advertising, the Indian traveller has multiplied—not just in number but in confidence, volume and visibility.

Now, we don’t just form part of the crowd. We are the crowd. On the ski lifts of Switzerland, in the queue for the Colosseum, at the night markets of Bangkok—there we are, selfie sticks at the ready, haggling for fridge memento magnets with the same zeal we reserve for buying saris in Chandni Chowk.

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On one trip to Jungfrau in Switzerland, I remember watching the snowy mountains dotted with women in colourful saris, their chiffon pallu flying dramatically in the Alpine wind, each trying a personal Yash Chopra fantasy sequence. In the middle of this cinematic tableau, a man nearby declared loudly, with unmistakable pride: “Switzerland ka India!" It was meant as a compliment, but also summed up the demographic shift. We weren’t visiting Switzerland; we were annexing it, one Bollywood pose at a time.

A sudden escalation in our global presence has shifted perceptions. We are no longer the ‘exotic other.’ We are a demographic superpower, a walking pie-chart slice that represents one-sixth of humanity. That’s a lot of responsibility to carry in a cabin bag. The trouble is, we don’t always realize it.

Take volume control. In most cultures, a group conversation in public space stays within a polite decibel range. For us, public decibels are like GDP growth—the higher, the better. Whether it’s narrating a shopping bargain or debating the price of a Thai massage, our voices travel farther than our passports. And in a crowded aircraft cabin, that can mean the entire plane learns of a struggle for a good roaming data plan.

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Then there’s our complicated relationship with queues. Queuing, for many of us, is not an orderly arrangement of human bodies, but a competitive sport. We’re not rude; we’re simply trained to spot and exploit gaps in the formation. A security check in Singapore or boarding gate in Madrid is merely a new arena for this skill set.

And, of course, the food question. The Indian instinct to inquire about “veg options" has gone global. Airline catering managers across continents can identify us by the urgency with which we ask, “But no onion, no garlic, right?" In many ways, it’s admirable: we travel with our values intact. But to the uninitiated, it sometimes comes across as mystifying—as if we’ve been despatched from a planet where diets are treaty-bound.

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Yet here’s the paradox: much of what makes us noticeable abroad—our group energy, curiosity, willingness to engage— are assets, not liabilities. The problem is one of calibration. When a nation of 1.4 billion plus travels, the margin for error shrinks. If one Indian is rude to a shopkeeper in Milan or leaves a mess in a Bali hotel room, it’s not “that tourist" who’s remembered—it’s “Indians." Our statistical heft magnifies both our charm and missteps. We need to recognize that just as a whisper can carry in a small room, our collective presence carries in a global setting. 

The challenge our globe-trotters face is to ensure that the world sees us as explorers, not invaders; guests, not conquerors. Because now that we are the most populous country, the world’s impressions of us will form far more quickly—and permanently. We have arrived. But can we also belong?

These are the author’s personal views.

The author is professor of economics and policy and executive director, Centre for Family Business & Entrepreneurship at Bhavan’s SPJIMR.