Autism was first described in Austria and the United States, and the intellectual history of autism has been dominated by this North American - European axis. This is a history characterised by a disconnection between researchers on the one hand and families, teachers and therapists on the other, and so replete with missed opportunities: the broader autism phenotype, links between autism and disrupted sleep, gut abnormalities and immune dysfunction, and autistic disparities between expressive and receptive language all were recognised first by families or teachers and only belatedly investigated by researchers. In India, in contrast, the rhetoric of autism has been dominated by those who love, live and work with people with autism, and many researchers have listened. The result is a nascent Indian autism research community with a unique and valuable sensibility to community-driven therapies: India is leading the field in treatments based on music and movement, and others addressing basic, prerequisite skills of motor and cognitive control and perceptual organisation that form the bases for development of social cognition. In the context of autism's multifactorial ætiology, India also has unique population-genetic and epidæmiological perspectives to contribute. And therapeutic technologies have benefited from India's skill at engineering practical innovations in low-resource environments. If India is to share these insights and inventions fully and most effectively with the rest of the world, though, several challenges remain: it must continue to embrace the potential of its collectivistic cultures to scaffold and to support people with autism rather than to ostracise them; it must complement local therapeutic practice with international scholarly publication; it must internationalise its universities and research institutes at the same time as it resists postcolonial appropriation of its homegrown ideas; it must balance tangible research facilities and equipment with the expertise and know-how to make use of such resources. And above all, it must keep listening to families, teachers and therapists about what what works and what's needed.