The war between Israel/USA vs. Iran in the Middle East has created a natural experiment that can answer the question I asked in the title of this article: What would India be without the help of the Christian West? The Modi government and his supporters do not get tired of bragging about how India is a Vishwaguru (a World Leader), and how its inventions and discoveries are at the foundation of modern civilization. For example, below are some things being claimed by Prime Minister Modi and his Hindu fundamentalist supporters.
At a Mumbai hospital inauguration (2014):
“We worship Ganesha… there must have been some plastic surgeon at that time who got an elephant’s head on the body of a human being.” “This indicates that genetic science was present at that time.”
Karna as evidence of genetic science (2018):
“Karna was not born from his mother’s womb… this means genetic science was present at that time.”
Satellite and internet in ancient India (2018):
“When Sanjaya narrated the Mahabharata to Dhritarashtra, it means technology like television existed.”
India as global knowledge leader:
“India was once the ‘Vishwa Guru’ (teacher of the world)… we gave the world zero.”
Ancient aviation claims at Indian Science Congress (2015):
“We should not hesitate to accept our ancestors’ achievements.” “Ancient Indians had planes that could travel between planets.”
Space achievements:
“ISRO has shown the world the power of Indian science with missions like Mars Orbiter Mission.”
Modi minister Harsh Vardhan:
Claimed that Stephen Hawking said the Vedas might have a superior theory to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh affiliates:
Ancient India possessed advanced science in aviation, medicine, and nuclear technology.
The ongoing war between Iran vs. Israel/USA has exhibited how hollow these claims are. It has showed us how heavily dependent India is on Western knowledge and technologies eg., oil and gas exploration and extraction. Table 1 presents all important world changing inventions and technologies that originated from the West.
Table 1; World changing inventions and technologies.
| Year | Invention | Era / Location / Notes |
| ~1440 | Printing Press (movable type) | Germany – Renaissance; revolutionized knowledge spread |
| ~1594 | Backstaff (navigation tool) | England |
| 1608 | Telescope | Netherlands (Galileo improved it) |
| 1642 | Mechanical Calculator (Pascaline) | France |
| 1643 | Barometer | Italy |
| ~1665 | Compound Microscope | Netherlands |
| 1687 | Laws of Motion & Universal Gravitation | England |
| 1765/1780s | Improved Steam Engine | Scotland – Powered Industrial Revolution |
| 1794 | Cotton Gin | USA |
| 1800 | Electric Battery (Voltaic Pile) | Italy |
| 1804 | Railway Locomotive | England |
| 1807 | Steamboat | USA |
| 1826/27 | Photography | France |
| 1831 | Mechanical Reaper | USA |
| 1837/1844 | Telegraph | USA |
| 1876 | Telephone | USA/Scotland |
| 1876 | Practical Internal Combustion Engine | Germany |
| 1879 | Practical Incandescent Light Bulb | USA |
| 1885 | Gasoline Automobile | Germany |
| 1895 | Wireless Radio | Italy |
| 1903 | Powered Airplane | USA |
| 1928 | Penicillin (first antibiotic) | UK |
| 1937 | Early Electronic Digital Computer concepts | USA |
| 1942 | First Nuclear Reactor | USA (Manhattan Project) |
| 1947 | Transistor | USA – Foundation of modern electronics |
| 1960s–70s | Integrated Circuit & Microprocessor | USA |
| 1970s | Personal Computer | USA |
| 1980s–90s | World Wide Web | UK (at CERN) |
| 1980s–90s | GPS (practical system) | USA |
| 2007 | Modern Touchscreen Smartphone | USA – Integrated mobile computing |
| 2012 | CRISPR Gene Editing | USA/France – Biotech revolution |
Without Western white men like Edwin Drake inventing oil drilling techniques it was impossible to profitably extract Middle East oil and gas, and without that commercial drilling there would be no oil and gas available for a country like India. As the Straight of Hormuz, from where about 20% of the world’s oil and gas supply passes, remains effectively closed, Indians are starving without the supply of oil and gas. Without this supply, India will effectively revert back to the dark ages! Like in the bygone ages before the Britishers arrived, Indians will be forced to burn candlesticks, oil lamps, or wood!
As a thought experiment, imagine India without any interaction with the West. Think of India as an autarchy completely cutoff from the rest of the world. What were the chances that Indians would have invented even a simple thing like mechanical cotton gin? A steam engine? Electricity? Printing press? Telephone? Cars? Airplanes? Roads? Education? Medical and health services etc? Even today, Indians can’t provide clean drinking water, breathable fresh air, or nutritious healthy food for themselves. They don’t even use a simple toilet!
The commodities in which India holds a top rank as an exporter are almost all basic agricultural commodities like milk, pulses, spices, banana, mango, papaya, okra, turmeric, chickpea, jute, castor seed etc. Even here, without the help of the Western technologies and scientific advances India’s Green or White revolutions were not possible. Moreover, the socialist central planning policies of the Indian government distorts this export picture because it is not true that India is producing surplus of those commodities to export them. Indian government starves the Indian population (India ranks 102 out of 123 countries in Global Hunger Index 2025) by exporting those goods to earn dollars which they can use to buy imported oil and other technologies which keeps it’s so-called growth story going!
Notwithstanding the ridiculous claims of Modi and his followers, India would be nowhere near where it is today without the West. Indian population would have been below its present 1.5 billion mark, and the average Indian would be grinding in even worse poverty and misery (like millions in India even today) if the West was not there to help provide its inventions and technologies. There would be no middle class; the class that overwhelmingly supports the absurd claims of India being a world leader.
As the West slowly declines under the constant pressure of its woke leftist open door policies of migration from the third world, countries like India are going to come under tremendous pressure because they can’t make any progress on their own. We are already seeing this in India where the society, economy, and political institutions are rapidly reverting back to the dark ages under Modi’s 12 year long authoritarian rule.
