Our Progress: Good or Bad

I travel by trains everyday. Today it got me thinking about what India would be like without this tremendous medium of transportation. I don't know much about the period when the British ruled India but I thank them for providing education, judiciary, transportation and technology to us. We can't imagine what our country would be like without this progress.
But it also holds a counter view. What if the British had never ruled over India. We might have become independent of the world. Right now we all follow the British legacy, be it the education system, the transportation or the judiciary. Even our economy has major contributions from foreign countries mainly due to offshore work provided due to our ease with the English language. Maybe we would be like Japan or China, independent and sustaining our own economy. One wonders.

Progress now seems to be coming at a snails pace in India. Sure we have a booming economy to talk about. But that seems only in the urban areas. Rural areas have always been ignored. Only the progress of the people of the country can result in the progress of the country. Also we are too selfish to consider of the progress of the country. I don't mean about things like working for your country not for a foreign country and all that stuff. Working depends on an individual and if he wants to earn money it is in his right to do so. But one of the things that I mean is the cleanliness. We Indians keep our houses spic and span, but empty the garbage on the streets. Education and progress does not have meaning until and unless it is utilized. Somehow we have lost civic sense along the way. Corruption is the major force which is eating away at the progress of the country. In fact, it is considered as a norm in most of the government offices.

Frankly, I don't see any solutions for all these problems. India seems to be trying to become a country that could have been but just isn't. Well, too bad Adbul Kalam. Your vision 2020 just doesn't seem possible.