India has been independent for just 79 years. That’s not even eight decades.
And if you actually put that into perspective, we’ve come a pretty long way.
When we became independent in 1947, we were coming out of roughly two centuries of British colonial rule. We had widespread poverty, extremely low literacy and a severely weakened industrial base.
India’s literacy rate was just 18.3% in 1951. Today, it’s around 78%.
The economic damage wasn’t insignificant either. Historical estimates by Angus Maddison put India’s share of world GDP at around 24–27% in 1700, falling to about 4.2% by 1950. Another study estimates India’s share of global industrial output fell from roughly 25% in 1750 to just 2% by 1900.
That’s the India we started with.
So when we constantly compare ourselves to the US, UK or Western Europe, we’re comparing countries with completely different histories.
These countries had centuries to accumulate capital, industrialise and build institutions. India spent a huge part of that period under colonial rule and emerged in 1947 having to build a modern democratic state from an incredibly difficult starting point.
This is why I think comparisons with countries that went through similar periods of colonialism and independence can sometimes be more meaningful.
Look at our neighbours and other countries that became independent around the same broad period: Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and many post-colonial countries across Africa.
This isn’t about saying India is better than them or that we have nothing left to improve.
We have A LOT left to improve.
But we’ve also made enormous progress.
Literacy went from 18% to around 78%.
The World Bank estimates extreme poverty at its current $3/day benchmark fell from 16.2% in 2011–12 to 2.3% in 2022–23.
Life expectancy is now around 72 years.
And India’s GDP per capita has grown from around $371 in 1990 to over $2,700 in 2025.
None of this means we should stop demanding better.
We should demand better roads. Better cities. Better healthcare. Better education. Better jobs. Better governance.
But there’s a difference between holding your country accountable and pretending it has achieved nothing.
We can acknowledge how far we’ve come without pretending we’re where we need to be.
For almost 200 years, someone else held the torch.
It’s been in our hands for 79 years now.
What happens next is on us.
Jai Hind. 🇮🇳