Do you approve of the academic pressures placed upon very small children in India?

I am a U.S. raised Indian SAHM married to a man raised in India. We live in the same Southern California town where I was raised. Our daughter turned 4 in December. She can recognize the letters of the alphabet in both upper case and lower case but prefers to only write in uppercase and makes reversals frequently. She can also count orally and recognize numbers up to 20 but makes frequent reversals for numbers over 10. For instance she'll write 13 as 31. I am okay with this as her preschool teacher says its normal for kids to make reversals until 6 and the focus early childhood should be learning through play and hands on activities. More formal academics (such as reading, proper letter formation, and beginning writing) are taught in the kindergarten year but that starts around 5 or 6. (My daughter will be almost six when she starts kindergarten!). I personally remember coming home from school in elementary school, eating some peanut butter crackers, doing my homework in 20 minutes, and then spending the rest of my afternoon and evening either playing outside with the neighborhood kids, watching TV, reading books of my choice (usually popular fiction), playing with my Barbie dolls, dressing them up, or coloring with crayons, etc. Kids here don't start "studying" in the formal sense until around middle school (6th grade).

From what I'm reading on this board, it seems that early education is very formal even at the age of 4 with cursive writing (I learned cursive at age 8 in third grade but they don't teach it here anymore due to computer literacy and typing being more important), memorizing math facts, and sitting down and studying.

For me the best part of being a stay at home mom is being able to play with her and enjoy her childhood. Some days, we'll go to the beach, zoo, park, or local library story hour and maybe meet another SAHM there and all hang out together. (best part of being in Southern California is being able to go outdoors almost every day all year round!!! Our weather is the best!!). She is in preschool 3 days a week so during the time she's in school, I may grab coffee with a friend, go shopping, or get some housework done. Then I bring her home and she takes about an hour nap (I usually surf the web while she naps) and then when she wakes up, I spend the afternoon playing with her. I do let her watch a little bit of TV in the evening when I'm cooking dinner (I cook Indian food for my husband and usually American food for my daughter, but sometimes I'll also make a variation of Indian food that she likes like Naan and tandoori chicken). I feel lucky to be a SAHM and wouldn't want it any other way!

My in laws are coming to visit from India in July and I'm wondering if they will pressure me about making my daughter "study" or worry that she's "behind". I teach my daughter plenty, but through play. We build together with blocks (spacial skills), sculpt with play-doh (motor skills), and pretend with dolls and stuffed animals (imagination building). Last time they were here, my daughter was almost 3 and they gave me a hard time about how I feed my daughter the "American" way (let her eat on her own and decide how much she wants to eat, don't coax, bribe or distract to get her to "finish" or eat food she doesn't like).

My husband is very cool and quite Americanized and agrees with my more American way of parenting but it's hard when you deal with their family circles and people compare kids (like if kids her age in India can neatly write their memorized times tables in rows (but I'm not allowed to mention how that same kid needs to be hand fed all her meals while my daughter was self feeding before a year old!).

Anyway, enough venting for now, but my question is how do you personally feel about the pushing of academics and studies upon very small children in India? Do you feel it is required because of the immense competition they will face in the future?