Recently, in the American edition, the post of an Indian boy burned, directly blasted the entire commentary area. Mumbai, the central city of Asia, has been ahead of Shanghai for at least 30 years, but why do Chinese still generally consider India to be a backward country?”
This question suddenly hit the most subtle point in the mentality of the citizens of the two major countries. What level is Mumbai compared to Shanghai? And why the vast majority of China people don't buy this account at all.
The Mumbai card, what good card to hold in one hand?
To be honest, you should say that Bombay is nothing, it is absolutely a prejudice.This city, but India’s “cards” in its pocket, is the capital of India’s business and entertainment. The famous Bollywood is here.The number of films produced each year can compare the number of Hollywoods, and the box office accounts for the vast majority of the Indian market.
More hardcore is finance. The Mumbai Stock Exchange, the oldest stock exchange in Asia, was founded in 1875.The Reserve Bank of India, the National Stock Exchange and countless major international banks have their headquarters or branches in Mumbai.
The most convincing thing may be the number of rich people. According to the latest Hurun Global Rich List in 2025, Mumbai, with more than 90 billionaires, surpasses Beijing for the first time, becoming the city with the most billionaires in AsiaTokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong, all behind it.Mucheshambani, India’s richest man, with a net worth of over $100 billion, spent $1 billion building his 27-storey mansion in downtown Mumbai, called Antilia, and hired more than 600 servants to maintain daily operations.
In addition, the Port of Mumbai is India's largest port, and more than half of the country's container throughput must go from here. Judging from economic data, Mumbai’s GDP will reach approximately $31 billion by 2025In any country in the world, this size will definitely be at the level of a first-tier metropolis.
So you see, from the perspective of financial history, rich people’s concentration, cultural influence, Mumbai really has its proud capital. The Indian internet user thinks Mumbai has led Shanghai for 30 years and is likely to be captivated by these bright and bright “top buildings”.
But the problem is, The real leadership of a city is never just to look at the lives of the few people on the top of the pyramid。
Bright B face, is a suffocating folded world.
Mumbai’s richness, like a carefully edited movie preview, shows you only the most wonderful part. But when you walk into the city and experience its physics personally, you will find a real world that is torn apart and folded.
With a population of more than 20 million inhabitants, More than 60% of the population lives in poverty.。Slums, large and small, are scattered in every corner of the city like psoriasis, the most famous of which is the Dharavi slum. This land of only 2 square kilometers is said to be crowded with more than 1 million people, the population density is as high as 270,000 people per square kilometer, and the per capita living area may be less than 3 square meters. There is no complete drainage system, no stable water and electricity supply, garbage is everywhere, and sewage flows across.
The people who live here, the daily income may be less than $10. They engage in the most primitive physical labor, such as recycling garbage, making ceramics, sewing clothes. Children from childhood have grown up in such an environment, with little contact with the outside world. The consolidation of classes is like an invisible wall that puts them deadly trapped here.。
On the one hand, Anbani, worth a billion dollars, overlooks the city, and on the other hand, millions struggle to survive in the three square meters of space. This extreme gap between rich and poor makes Mumbai's "blossom" look especially blunt and pale.
It's not that the Indian government hasn't thought about change. In November 2022, the group of Adani, another super-rich man in India, won the redevelopment project of Dharavi, and plans to invest heavily to transform it into a modern residential and commercial district, which is expected to make a huge profit of 2.4 billion US dollars. Sounds beautiful, right?
But the reality is beyond imagination.The project has been advancing for more than two years, and today, 2025 is still difficult. In March 2025, the Supreme Court of India asked Adani Group to respond to allegations of "unfair bidding", some companies in Dubai want to increase the price and get a piece of the pie. The bigger trouble is land acquisition. The project requires nearly 600 acres of land to resettle residents, involving the relocation of more than 7 million people. Until August 2025, the land issue has not been resolved. The opposition party criticized this as collusion between government and business, while residents who have lived here for generations held large-scale protests. They were afraid of being driven out of their only home, but the compensation they received was not enough to survive in Mumbai.
You see, a slum renovation project involves the deep-rooted problem of private ownership of land, low political efficiency and the contradiction between capital and people competing for profit in Indian society. This systemic obstacle is the biggest bottleneck in the development of Mumbai and India as a whole.。
There is no answer: what about Shanghai?
Looking back at Shanghai, it is a completely different scene.
In terms of economic volume, Shanghai's GDP is expected to reach US$900 billion in 2025, almost three times that of Mumbai。In terms of urban infrastructure, Shanghai's total subway mileage exceeds 900 kilometers, while Mumbai has only more than 100 kilometers. Shanghai has world-class ports, airports and a high-speed rail network extending in all directions. Urban transportation operates efficiently. You can't see people hanging outside trains like Mumbai.
The most critical difference is that Shanghai doesn’t have a huge and stunning cave like Dalawi.The development of Shanghai, more focused on balance and welfare. The city has a perfect planning, the transformation of the old neighborhoods, the construction of safe housing, are all the focus of government work. Although the gap between the rich and the poor also exists, but it will not be like Mumbai, the rich neighborhoods and the poor villages are just a wall apart, as if two worlds.
When we pull the horizon from the city to the national level, the gap becomes more apparent. In 2025, China's total GDP is $13.7 trillion, while India's GDP is $3.91 trillionIn terms of per capita GDP, China is five times India’s. In terms of education, China’s adult literacy rate is more than 97 percent, while India is only about 77 percent, especially women’s literacy rate is lower.
The strength of a country is ultimately reflected in its capacity to support every common citizen.When China adopted a nine-year compulsory education and built a health insurance system that covered the entire population, most of the people at the bottom of India were still concerned about clean drinking water and basic sanitation. Even though Mumbai has more billionaires than Beijing, the Chinese still feel India as a whole lagging behind。
What China sees is "backwardness" in Indian thinking
In the comment section of that post, many foreign netizens hit the nail on the head with their views.
An American said that India's backwardness is "primitive backwardness." The garbage, unsanitary food and excessive levels of Escherichia coli on the streets are unimaginable in modern civilized society. An Englishman said that the China people simply don't bother to compare with India. China's goal is to return to the top of the world, the United States is only a short-term rival, and India is not ranked yet。A Morocco said that Mumbai's modernization belongs to only a few rich people, and the thinking of the entire Indian society is still firmly bound by backward concepts such as the caste system.
These views, in fact, coincide with the perception of most Chinese people.We think that the "backward" is not only the gap in economic data, but also the development philosophy and social form.
The Chinese have lived through a period of poverty and we know that the country’s strength must be built on the basis of industrialization and education for the whole people. India seems to have skipped this process and wants to enter directly into the "developed" stage driven by finance and servicesThe result is the hollowing out of the industry, the manufacturing industry relies heavily on imports, and even basic parts and components have to be bought from China.
What is deeper is the "poverty thinking" and class solidification rooted in social culture. In China, the idea that princes and princes will be peaceful is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. People believe that hard work can change their destiny. But in India, the shadow of the caste system still hangs over, and many people's destiny is decided from the moment they are born. This spiritual shackles are far more terrible than material poverty.
In the end, the problem of Indian netizens exposes the Indian society to a general, aspiring and lack of self-awareness mentality.They are accustomed to amplifying their partial, superficial advantages, but selectively ignore the more fundamental, structural shortcomings. They always think of surpassing China at some point, to prove their success, but do not realize that the national competition is a long run, is a full-scale match.。
Mumbai's skyscrapers and Bollywood's singing dance may give India a moment of confidence, but as long as Dalawi's cry remains, as long as the waters of the Hunan River are not cleared, this "leading 30 years" claim can always be only a self-talking dream.