‘What delulu! $1 is Rs 94’: Ashneer Grover reacts to Vembu’s call for Indians in America to return home

What began as a patriotic appeal from Sridhar Vembu has now sparked pushback from Ashneer Grover, a former Shark Tank India judge widely known for his blunt and straightforward attitude.

Reacting to Vembu’s open letter urging Indians in the America to consider returning home and contribute to India’s growth, Ashneer Grover, who is also the co-founder of BharatPe, dismissed the idea in blunt terms, calling the argument economically unrealistic.

In a post on X, Grover wrote, “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.”

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.

— Ashneer Grover (@Ashneer_Grover) April 27, 2026

The remark came as a direct response to Vembu’s emotional appeal to the Indian diaspora, in which the Zoho co-founder had written, “Bharat Mata needs your talent,” and urged skilled Indians abroad to return with the expertise India needs to strengthen its technological and civilisational standing.

Vembu’s post framed the issue not simply as reverse migration, but as a long-term nation-building project.

He said that the respect Indians command globally depends increasingly on India’s own fortunes, and that technological strength, not moral approval from the West, will define the country’s standing.

But Grover pushed back with a more hard-nosed economic argument, suggesting that patriotic sentiment cannot override material realities.

It was not just Grover. Many people in the comments on Vembu’s post voiced similar skepticism, arguing that emotional calls to return overlook persistent concerns around work culture, bureaucracy and quality of life in India.

“The people who left didn’t leave India. They left Indian systems,” a user wrote.

“Build the hospitals, clean the air, give builders access to capital and you won’t need to write an open letter asking anyone to come back,” another added.

Sridhar Vembu's Open Letter to Indians in America:

Open letter to Indians in America.

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.

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.

Meanwhile there is one thing that is true now and will be true in the future: the respect Indians command world-wide will substantially depend on the fortunes of India herself. 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.

Respect in today's world, along with prosperity and security, comes from one source: a nation's technological prowess. 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.

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. Let's do it with a missionary zeal. Respectfully Sridhar Vembu.