Without the merit source, it is not possible to see noticeable effect in the activity for sure. I am doing my part of inviting everyone via social media campaigning especially from reddit and some of them replied to me they will surely take a look and I hope they do. Since the activity on reddit is very high from Indian crypto community whereas it is crawling in OG bitcoin forum.
I try to avoid the forum politics and any disputes but as you said some guys are after indian members for no reason hope they realize there is no border when it comes to BTC.
India might play a crucial role in the geopolitics along with that bull run expected to come this year which surely bring a new wave of users from India.
Reddit is now a den of crypto users from India and the same goes for X.com. It is not that simple for the Indian community to join the forum where they might be asked to pay the evil fee in Bitcoin. Both Reddit and X are free and most Indians using those two platforms are not for Bitcoin but to invest in coins which can help them in short-term gain. I am sure you are putting a lot of effort to convince them to join the forum some might have tried but when they see the evil fee they would have changed their mind.