I don't know why you're insulting me when it sounds like you agree with me. You can compare different regions at the same time, and in the pre-industrial world,

I don't know why you're insulting me when it sounds like you agree with me. You can compare different regions at the same time, and in the pre-industrial world, per-capita incomes didn't vary a whole lot -- maybe over a factor of 2. Whether you want to call this "mired in poverty" or not depends on your taste in adjectives, but India was not exceptional. The huge differences (factors of 10, even 100) arose only later, because of some pulling ahead.