"Admit it - before the west arrived.................... India was a land of ragged starving beggars overseen by a regime of money grabbing avaricious feudal elites.
Well, I only saw a very small part of Bombay area when I was there (1980)
and the contrast between the two India's still sticks in my mind to this day.
I can still remember the slums, shanty's, beggars versus the nicer area
of the city.
So at least at that point nothing much had changed.
The Maharaja's were obviously not as wealthy then as before
as they were selling of great collections of things at what you
might say were very cheap prices !!!