For fiction, Kiran Desai’s Inheritance of Loss. Second Roy’s God of Small Things.

Vs Naipaul - an area of darkness (overly harsh but also painfully accurate; dated)
Ved mehta- a portrait of modern india
Arundhathi Roy - God of Small Things

Cities like Bengaluru are very modern, and tge center of India’s high tech boom

India has the world’s largest middle class
- Indian American

Regarding regional flavors, this is a great contemporary book about coastal parts of India

https://www.amazon.com/Following-Fish-Travels-Around-Indian/dp/0857896008/ref=mp_s_a_1_8?qid=1682944055&refinements=p_27%3ASamanth+Subramanian&s=books&sr=1-8

( not pertaining to this topic but his book about the Sri Lankan civil war is very good - The Divided Island)

Not the focus on colonialism you are looking for but one of my *favorite* books of all time is Shantaram and most of it takes place in India. So loooooove this book. If you aren't inclined to read it there is a series about it which aired on Apple TV. There will have to be another season if they want to cover the whole book but what they've done is pretty good. The book is always better. I have also listened to it on Audible and the narrator is fantastic (don't judge, I like to listen to things while doing housework and running).

Has anyone read the new Salman Rushdie?