Indian voters on IMDB hurt indian movies

What I do is I click on the number of votes to see the demographics breakdowns and look for US Voters. That will give me a hint.

For example this movie. This movie is not bad, but it's not good either. I would say is a 6.

Then I go to the demographics breakdown and I can see: Non-US Voters: 8.1. US Voters: 6.5.

So that's what this is to me: just a 6.

Hey,
I mostly agree with you. Upvoting all Indian movies really takes the credibility out of these ratings. A lot of Indian films dont deserve the ratings they have, when compared to global cinema.
But, I'll share how I process all this.

I have been watching old Hollywood movies that have very high ratings and I couldnt understand the charm at all... eg.- 12 angry men, Citizen Kane, The graduate, To kill a mockingbird, It's a wonderful life, Psycho etc. To me, they didn't belong in the top 250. When I read more on them, I came to understand how these films were pivotal in changing the face of Hollywood for the years to come. They uplifted the levels of the then-existing cinema and the films that followed were one step better bcoz of these films.

CUT TO: BOLLYWOOD

Currently Bollywood produces 90% garbage. And Indians are mostly fed up. These are watched as a distraction from everyday life, and then forgotten. (Like most Hollywood romcom films). You wont find anyone recommending these cliched films anywhere.

Out of the remaining 10% that are talked about, most are reviewed well coz they are wayyy better than the trash that Bollywood has been churning out so far. These ratings are PURELY LOCAL. A large no. of Indian people appreciate them with an expectation that this will raise the standards of Indian cinema. But these films stand nowhere compared to global standards. (here an Indian 8 equals a global 6) That's the kind of films that non-Indian viewers have come to hate and this has led them to entirely disavow Indian ratings (and rightly so). But for Indian viewers and for the Indian cinema movement, they mean a lot; just like the above mentioned Hollywood films. Only bcoz they're voted for in large numbers, thanks to our population, they accidentally end up among the top few.

The very tiny fraction of films that are actually at par with IMDB top 250 are mostly low budget films with poor marketing. The people who watch these films in cinemas are mostly familiar with global standards and rate them accordingly (around 8). But a lot of non-Indians still might not be able to appreciate them, bcoz of the huge language barrier. A lot of info is lost in translation. Since we have a *beep* of local languages here, a lot of character background can be inferred from dialect and accent. But to an outsider this may appear to be all the same and thus a richly detailed picture may appear flat.

This film, in particular, has a lot of intricate dialect work and local flavor which is delightful. That aspect will be lost to you, but still it has a great plot and some visual comic relief which you can enjoy. Also, it is based on a true story, so it has much more gravitas. It is at par with most iconic mafia films (I didn't like them until I read about the Italian mafia). Though, it isn't like Breaking Bad, which provides context as it proceeds, but it is great and iconic cinema, nevertheless.

I hope you get the picture. I wrote this long ass comment hoping that the way my reading up on those old Hollywood films helped me understand their place in history, providing you with context will probably help you understand these ratings... and that these films will eventually become important in Indian history, even though they should mean nothing to you.

This is true, you couldn't make my thoughts about this theme more clearer :)
Actually I tried watching some of the Bollywood movies which climbed on the top like "Dil Chahta Hai", but is was so strange to look all the dancing and singing without any serious plot development (I dont't remember anymore what this movie was about :))