I studied at an IIT in India for quite some time (loved the institution and the student body). I’ve seen more than most people I guess (from Ladakh to Mumbai to Varanasi).
In places without tourists people were generally honest. The street vendor living off a few rupees each day for bananas would not take a rupee too much. I wish I could believe the “the dumb tourist tax is helping the needy and poor” - but it only fills the pockets of the (relatively) wealthy. It’s their sense of “entitlement to the money of these wasteful Westerners”.
India and China (lived there for > 1 yr) were pretty much the same 25 yrs ago in terms of GDP and population. That was long after any British influence - yet both developed very differently.
If I had to make a guess, it would be: how people treat family and society. As a foreigner, it seemed to me that Indians never care about society or anybody except their own family. In China, people are very focused on society and less on family. In India, people were mainly interested in their own immediate gain - in China they had some “boundaries” at least.
Cleanliness is not “we can’t afford better” it is “people genuinely don’t care when it’s outside their house”. The slums in Mumbai were among the best organized and cleanest places I found in India. People cared because they had to and wanted to - not because they could afford.
In India whenever I asked an official (police) for help or advice, they would sell me off to some relative. In China I never experienced that.
I can’t generalize a couple of years abroad in different countries, but I would kind a take the guess that if you worked on actually “trying go make society work beyond immediate personal gain” things might look different in India.
I have a complex relationship with India - because of many positive and negative experiences. As you continue to rip us foreigners and tourists off - we will stop spending money in your country. I’m tired of being accused to “be too dumb to inform myself” when the police and society are just rigged to steal from me because I am white and “look rich”. I am tired of being accused that the entire world is just taking advantage of Indians when the trading balance tells otherwise and it’s Indian people that care so little about each other.
It was really sad and heartbreaking to see how in China pollution gets less and less whereas India really became “totally unbearable” in the recent years.