‘Bharat Mata Needs You’: Zoho's Sridhar Vembu Urges Indians In US To Return After Trump's ‘Hellhole’ Row

Last Updated:April 27, 2026, 12:13 IST

Sridhar Vembu emphasised that respect in today’s world, along with prosperity and security, stems primarily from one source – a nation’s technological prowess.

Zoho founder and CEO Sridhar Vembu has issued an open letter to Indians based in the United States and urged them to consider returning home, saying India’s global standing will increasingly depend on its technological strength and ability to retain talent.

In a long post on X, Vembu described his own 37-year journey from a student in America to a tech titan in India. He warned that the diaspora that they are increasingly caught in a crossfire between political extremes—the “Hard Right" and the “Woke Left"—where they are viewed as mere bystanders.

“Dear brothers and sisters from Bharat: Like I did 37 years ago, you arrived in America with no money but with a good education and cultural heritage from Bharat. You achieved outstanding success. America was good to us. For that we must remain grateful – gratitude is our Bharatiya way. Yet today, a significant number of Americans, may be not the majority but not too far from it either, believe that Indians “take away" American jobs and our success in America was unfairly earned," he said.

Vembu further said that a “significant number of Americans" now believe Indians “take away" jobs — a perception he said is unlikely to change meaningfully with electoral cycles.

“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 added.

In his post, Vembu argued that global respect for Indians would be shaped less by diaspora success and more by India’s own economic and technological progress.

“If India remains poor, the woke left will give us moral lectures with pity and the hard right, different moral lectures with scorn (‘hellhole’) and we must not confuse either with respect," he said.

The tech giant further emphasised that respect in today’s world, along with prosperity and security, stems primarily from one source – a nation’s technological prowess. He added that India produces sufficient brain power to achieve this but has exported much of that talent, especially to America.

“India produces sufficient brain power to achieve that prowess but alas we exported so much of that talent, particularly to America. As we develop that prowess in India, our civilisational strength will assert itself," he said.

Calling for what he described as a “missionary zeal", he urged Indian professionals abroad to bring back their expertise and leadership to help guide the country’s young population towards sustained economic growth.

Vembu’s remarks came against the backdrop of a controversy triggered by US President Donald Trump after he shared a podcast clip that referred India and China in derogatory terms during a debate on birthright citizenship.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) sharply criticised remarks amplified by Trump and said, “We have seen the comments, as also the subsequent statement issued by the US Embassy in response. The remarks are obviously uninformed, inappropriate and in poor taste. They certainly do not reflect the reality of the India-US relationship, which has long been based on mutual respect and shared interests."

Indian-Origin OpenAI CTO Quits

Meanwhile, Srinivas Narayanan, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of B2B Applications at OpenAI, last week announced that he will leave the company at the end of next week after three years. In posts on X and LinkedIn, he said the timing felt right after a run of product launches, and that he plans to head to India to be with family before deciding his next move.

The exit closes a three-year stint that began when he joined OpenAI as Vice President of Engineering. He was promoted to CTO of B2B Applications and led engineering teams behind ChatGPT, the API platform and OpenAI’s enterprise tools.

“I am looking forward to spending some much-needed time with my aging parents in India before deciding what’s next," he wrote at the end. “Thanks again. It has been a privilege to be on this journey with you."

Why Indians Are Thinking Of Leaving The US?

Meanwhile, a new survey by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, conducted with YouGov, has revealed that a growing number of Indian-Americans are rethinking their future in the United States, as nearly 40% have considered emigrating due to political, economic and social concerns.

The survey of 1,000 respondents found that 14% said they had frequently thought about leaving the US while another 26% had occasionally considered it.

Politics emerged as the biggest trigger, while the second biggest concern was affordability, cited by 54% of respondents considering emigration. High rents, childcare costs, healthcare expenses and inflation have made life in major US cities increasingly expensive.

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