I have been thinking about this a lot recently and here are a few theories I have struck upon: Climate in Europe and most of Western Civilization during the in

I have been thinking about this a lot recently and here are a few theories I have struck upon: Climate in Europe and most of Western Civilization during the industrial revolution When the industrial revolution happened in Europe, the political climate was very intense, these countries were constantly at war with each other and any advantage, however miniscule, was seeked out at any length. War has been made unprofitable with the advent of nuclear weopons, therefore there no more competition from cultures to one-up each other after India gained Independence. Nehru + Gandhis and Socialism Nehru and the Gandhi family's socialist mentality ensured that India did not benefit from the Industrial boom after the World War II and ensured decades of inefficient central planning guided the Indian economy. Thankfully, this is changing since the 1991 liberalization, globalization and privatisation push. Country founded by lawyers and not scientists While countries like USA were founded by prominent scientists like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, India was founded by philosophers and lawyers. This means that crictical thinking and scientific enquiry is not prized. This is compounded by the fact that the education system is inherited from the British colonial perid which was designed to train law ranking officers from the population to govern the colony. Diverse nature of India More than 2000 etnic groups, all major religions, more than a score languages spoken means, it is hard to effect any change that can sweep throughout. How to effect change must be studied for each group and implemented. Post-colonialism People thinking that oppression is a way of life is problematic when Prisoner's Dilemma type of situations arise. To end on a postive note, India is projected to have a very low dependency ratio in future and there is work underway to modernise the infrastructure. Many people are working on improving things and in my conversation with older people I think things have gotten better.