India, Oct. 4 -- True respect does not arrive from visas or tariffs, nor from applause abroad. It is born only when we stop looking outward for validation, and begin to live from inner strength. That alone is dignity. Everything else is illusion

For decades, success in India has meant distance. The farther one could go from home, the more accomplished one appeared. Families saved not so that their children might build here, but so they could leave for farther pastures. Coaching centres, consultancies, migration agencies, and an entire economy grew around this one idea: respect lies in being elsewhere. And now, a stroke of a pen in Washington, a sudden hike of tens of thousands of dollars in visa costs, and whole cities in India panic. On...