In the middle of posting this, someone just told me that many previously colonized countries have to outport their goods at an uneven exchange, and India has their culture as a product. Is there a lot of white washing disrespectful appropriation? Are there lots of cults too?
One thing that helped India become a tourist destination in 60s and 70s among Anglos was the London-Calcutta bus route that ran from 1957-76. After the Iranian revolution and other conflicts the route closed and fewer people made the trip. But this era was formative in the aesthetic of new age/hippy culture, so nag champa incense, yoga, the clothing style and such stayed popular.
There is some info about the phenomenon on Wikipedia talking about the ‘hippie trail’, the route from western Europe to India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippie_trail
Cool read