Slow Train: Where India Is Heading on TenTao

Preface: India, a Place I Want to Keep Looking At

Tue, 13 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

First, why I'm curious

My interest in India has ordinary reasons, three of them.

A household's Ganesh during Ganesh Chaturthi, 2021. Hinduism has no unified church; festivals, home shrines and temples hold more than a billion people together.　Source: Wikimedia Commons, TheMacGuy2005, CC BY-SA 4.0

The first is people. In April 2023, the UN Population Fund's State of World Population estimated India's population at about 1.429 billion and China's at about 1.426 billion: India had overtaken China and become the most populous country. The UN itself says it can't pin down which day: India's last census was in 2011, and the next has kept being postponed. But the direction isn't in dispute; since the UN began counting in 1950, this is the first time India has ranked first.

Can India's Gods Solve India's Poverty?

Tue, 13 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

First, two sets of numbers

In late 2019 and early 2020, the Pew Research Center ran a major survey in India: nearly thirty thousand people interviewed in person, in 17 languages. The result: 97% said they believe in God, and 84% said religion is very important in their lives.

For opinion polls, that degree of agreement is already a wonder.

Now another set. By the estimates of the International Monetary Fund and other institutions, India's GDP per head in 2024 was between 2,500 and 2,700 US dollars (the sources differ slightly), and in 2025 about 2,800 (the IMF's October 2025 figure is 2,818). At the same time, China's was over 13,000.

Put the two side by side, and a thought comes easily: such a devout country, so poor? Do the gods not work?