I go a bit crazy when anyone calls India a developing country, here is why:

During this period India is estimated to have had the largest economy of the ancient and medieval world between the 1st and 17th centuries AD, controlling between one third and one fourth of the world’s wealth up to the time of the Marathas, from whence it rapidly declined during European rule.

India is a re-developing country (in economic terms). We went from having a greater share of the world economy for almost 2 millenia than the US or China today, to pre-Independence poor India because of a certain immoral people from a tiny nondescript island.

I think people lack this sense of historical perspective when they image India today and this happens because they are perhaps unaware of the economic history of India.

An estimate by Angus Maddison argues that India’s share of the world income went from 24.4% in 1700, comparable to Europe’s share of 23.3%, to a low of 3.8% in 1952.