If there was ever a period that India's democratic advantage was supposed to give you an overall (or even localized) edge over China, that period has long gone. People like you have been saying that consistently for decades. But the gap between India and China in all development indexes is growing wider. It's always Indians who are the most steadfast at predicting China's imminent doom. How else can one cope when the differences in development are that wide apart, considering China even started off with a LOWER base than you. You should really be quiet and work hard to improve your country, like a true Asian
India always looks at all the systems adopted by the world and chooses the worst aspects out of all of them. Your country is a hyperplutocracy more than a democracy. And when a plutocracy competes with a meritocracy like China, it'll always lose. China has a closed political system but open minds. India has an open political system but incredibly closed minds.
Your manufacturing has stagnated. You tried to leapfrog into high-end services and advanced manufacturing (which can't even compete globally, unlike China) without addressing very basic but critical shortcomings. All the wealth that has poured into your country in the past 20 years was used to create relatively higher-paying jobs, mostly in the service industry. It attracts a small majority of your workforce, leaving the rest as literal shit pickers. If you look at 50% of your country (700 MILLION people), their income barely improved adjusting for inflation. Whereas the top 5% has skyrocketed. And Sanghi's likes to portray that as an amazing achievement. Manufacturing as a % of GDP in India has gone down. Indian wages and the cost of living near major urban areas are already way too high. What makes you think you'll receive a sudden manufacturing boom this decade?
While your GNI is comparable to that of China in 2007, you do not have the mechanisms to achieve the growth rate they have achieved in that period, year after year, decade after decade. In 2007, China had a 90%+ literacy rate, no mass hunger, high schooling rates, and a populace that's vastly more educated than present-day India.
Even places like Bangladesh are far better managed than the big clusterfuck of India. As an example, if 100 crore of foreign money enters India, it'll end up paying for maybe 1000 software engineers/tech folks. Which would be fine if you lived in a half-developed country, but you don't. Your country still employs people who carry human fecal matter on top of your heads, even in government jobs.
In Bangladesh, that money will go to 50,000 textile or factory workers instead. Like it did in China, virtually all developing Asian countries. That 50,000 workers create way more GDP, as they would use that money to buy rice, cloaths, beef, toilet paper, etc than the 1000 higher-paid tech coolies in India, who would use that money to buy (most likely a CHINESE) cellphone. If you had 1L in your hand right now, you would create far more economic activity if you distribute it to 10 poor families. They will use it to buy local essentials, support local business, multiply GDP growth, as opposed to buying a Xiaomi (and then flooding the internet with anti Chinese comments).
And this is why "chaddi stitchers" overtook you in per capita income, something you folks struggle to accept. Bangladesh's GDP increased 3.7 times from 2010, without any fancy infrastructure, foreign investment, and low-value industries/exports. India, in spite of "make in India", billions in FDI, mega infrastructure projects, increased 1.7 times. China increased its GDP 2.6 times in that period, and it had a much higher base, to begin with.
And when Induistrilisation finally happens in Bangladesh, it'll have a much firmer foundation than the half-arsed approach you have in India. As it did in virtually all developing Asian countries
A country that gets overtaken by the likes of Bangladesh shouldn't shit-talk countries like China.
