Thoughts on the Existence of India, and Indians.

I am reading a fascinating book written by Ramachandra Guha, called 'India after Gandhi'. He suggests, perhaps unconsciously, in the beginning of the book, that the British propagated the administrative creed of 'divide and rule', in India, because they did not understand India as a nation, when they used the yardstick of the typical western nation. In the west, after the 1857 struggle, there were new nations being carved in Europe, on the basis of common modes of culture. I believe, Romania was formed, when one of the larger European empires was divided, perhaps, and this was before 1857, around 1815(?), or thereabouts. In the west, people need ideas to bind them together. In India, I have never heard of a revolt, apart from the revolt of 1857, against the British Empire. This was because, the British did not want to assimilate into the Indian culture, because the idea of the Indian identity, did not appeal to them. In the west, the poor are rejected by the rich, or are ignored by them, In India, the poor and the rich, live together. In the west, it is thought, that poverty, and the poor, are indecent. In India, a person can be poor, and be respectable. Perhaps, poverty is not seen as indecent, in the present, by the west. But during the times of the Industrial Revolution, it was perhaps a fad, to think that poverty was the refuge of those who were incapable of earning a respectable amount.
The main idea, which comes to mind, is that the Indian is much too individualistic, to think that the larger community is responsible for his good, or bad fortune. If the westerner, does not belong to a larger cause, then he revolts. The Indian ethos, does not allow for this to happen. The Indian is responsible to himself, while the westerner thinks that his existence is linked to common factors with others like him. For example, whatever the government may think in India, the poor people do not think that the government is responsible for their plight. Also, in modern India, in the metropolitan societies, one does not see a culture of feudalism, which may be experienced in some remote areas, and the poor do not revolt, in these metropolitan areas. Now I must express a slight paradox. The Indian, is equally social, and equally individual. The Indian, if he is poor, puts himself in the shoes of the rich, and has the strength to be a part of the larger society, even if he is the disadvantaged part of the society.
Because the west, is dependent on ideas of state, or was dependent, on ideas of state, to exist as a state, they needed mechanisms to assure that the state existed. In India, individual existence, or life, does not depend on the idea of the state. Perhaps, this has to do, with the abundance of that, which sustains life in India, in nature, as compared to the nations of Europe.