Why is India an undeveloped country?

Continuing from my earlier post I wanted to answer one more question which I strongly feel about. Why is India an undeveloped country even 50 years into Independence?

At the time of our independence it was well accepted that for all of our misery,famines and poverty the British rule was responsible. As a consequence we developed a fear for all things foreign (Xenophobia). We adopted a policy which aimed at self reliance. Our exports which at the time of independence were 4.5% of world share dropped to .1 % in late 80’s.
Gradually the standards of our industry had dropped to below world standards and even if we were to export our products were just not at par with other countries. All this time the government was sitting on its laurels of having made India a self reliant country in agriculture but it had all this time neglected education. This meant that many more generations even after independence will still be illiterate.

Another fact in India being undeveloped has been our long held beliefs. For centuries we looked down at merchants as low cast people. Brahmins were the most respected and after that come shatrias and then merchants and finally the lowest level was of the shudras who did manual labor. Hence in our society doing work by hand was never a respected job. We looked down at people who did trade. All this mentality cost us dear more so in this modern society.
But the times are changing. More and more Brahmins are doing MBA’s and also hard work is getting the respect it deserves.