The ban on crop burning (main cause of Delhi's pollution) was central to the farm bill. But protesting farmers (widely supported in the west) opposed it, and the bill died despite having democratic approval (both national opinion and sufficient votes)
> dared to vote a great scientist to president
We do not vote for Presidents in India. The president was selected by the ruling party (The same BJP as Modi) to be the ceremonial president. The same one that has now elected a tribal woman to President, to signify secular allegiances.
> believe in equal rights
If we are to use leaders as a yardstick to measure equality opportunities and rights, then the incompetent ~6th generation heir of the Nehru/Gandhi family leading the opposition is hardly a good look.
> disappointed by the country I called home for most of my life
As a fellow NRI, this is counter to what I hear from my fellow Indians. There is a ton of optimism around jobs, infrastructure growth and economic policies that are finally opening up the nation, as India embraces the US after decades spent close to the Russia.
> potentially great, secular country
Even as a big supporter of liberal (as in valuing liberty, low authoritarianism) democracies, the evidence for free-democracies industrializing is exactly zero. Every big nation that has successfully escaped poverty has done so through suffocatingly authoritarian means (SK, Japan, Taiwan, Chile, China, Thailand, Malaysia). Every single one of them only transitioned to a proper liberal democracy (if at all) AFTER industrialization had been achieved.
It is depressing. But, the numbers don't lie.