>>216659415
Caste system yes, neoliberal no.
India was even poorer when it was an openly Soviet-aligned state, it is one of the few countries on earth that I would say is TOO socialist for its own good. It took all the worst parts of socialism on the economic and cultural standpoints and little of the good. The only difference is that the streets were cleaner because people didn't have money to buy plastic, the country was kind of frozen in place from the 40s to the 90s when the economy should have been growing but instead stagnated and collapsed after Soviet gibs stopped coming through. The last 30 years have comparatively brought a lot of people out of poverty but the mentality of throwing things out onto the street (not a problem when plastic was rare 30 years ago) and actually taking care of your infrastructure (not a problem when there was no infrastructure beyond a dusty dirt road or a British Raj era-crudely paved road built for cars which would explode at 45 mph in 90% of places just 30 years ago) hasn't changed rapidly enough to meet the material conditions.

India is wealthier now but more of a disgusting looking place than it was 50 years ago (picrel: Madras in the 70s)