How difficult it is to understand India as a country

 After moving back to Mysore in 2000 I have realized how difficult it is to understand India as a country
India is a vast country with a population over a billion. Like any other developing country India has a formal and Informal economy. The informal economy in India is the biggest on the globe and is responsible for 80 % of employment. A Grand daddy  of all  the  Slums located in Mumbai has over a 60,000 shanties It is also a churning hive of workshops with an annual economic output estimated to be $600 million to more than $1 billion These poor people in Dhavi alone run over a  million have not worried about cleanliness but making a living and sending their children to school and feeding the family  There are many such slums in India.  We the middle class are in the minority. This is a huge informal economy. Informal is everything else which operates in shadows. They are hundreds of millions of shopkeepers, farmers, construction workers, taxi and auto drivers, street vendors, rag pickers, tailors, repairmen, middleman, black marketers and more. For years, India’s government has tried with mixed success to increase industrial output by developing special economic zones to lure major manufacturers. These Slums by contrast, could be called a self-created special economic zone for the poor. It is a visual eyesore, a symbol of raw inequality that epitomizes the failure of policy makers to accommodate the millions of rural migrants searching for opportunity in Indian cities. It also underscores the determination of those migrants to come anyway. It makes no sense talking about giving first preference to cleanliness and building new toilets at least for now.