actually to lump indians under one heading doesn't really make sense.. its like saying all southeast asians are like this or like that. but surely each group of southeast asians eg Vietnames etc have their own traits. India is even more diverse that southeast asia. In fact, about a quarter of the people in India are oriental, coming from the northeast of the country bordering China and Myanmar. So people from different parts of India have different traits. And for them to differentiate themselves from each other is really not surprising. Just like Thais are distinct and nationalistic, so too are each of the ethnicities of India. This should be expected. In China there is a similar issue, thought the differences are not so blatant. most people in China are Han Chinese and the differentiation is between the Hans and Uighurs, Tibetans, Mongolians etc. They too have their own individual ethnic pride and prejudices against each other. They are definitely not one united people. Even amongst the Han, the Shanghainese have always thought themselves superior to the inland Hans. This is inevitable for countries so big.
In India it is more pronounced becasue of its geographic location which led to many different ethnicities passing by and settling down. The most prominent is the Aryan/Dravidian divide. Moving more to the north, the people are more Aryan (caucasian) and moving to the south, the people are more Dravidian (negro stock). Differences in cultural influences and religions have also added to the mix. The result is that each "type" of indian is really quite distinct from each other. In fact, they can even be culturally, ethnically, racially, linguistically and aesthetically different and still be called "indian". Hence it doesn't really make much sense to lump all indians together and stereotype them.
This enlightened spiel aside, I really must agree with alot of what Rastafar has said. I do alot of business in India and one thing Indians are well known for in business circles is theie boastfulness and rudeness. But while this may be true about the Indians in India, I think our Singaporean Indians are different. I used to work in China and I can tell you that the Chinese are no better. Rude and cunning and cutthroat. That's why they are such good businessmen. But again, our Singapore Chinese are different. We go there kena con ourselves. My company went bankrupt trying to do business in China in the 90s.
So I think we need to focus on who is the real enemy. I think Singapore Indians have more in common in with Singapore Chinese that they do with India Indians. And Singapore Chinese have more in common with Singapore Indians than with China Chinese. So we should really as Singaporeans band together and protect ourselves from these foreigners invading our shores instead of unnecessarily fighting amongst ourselves.