Bloomberg’s Colonial Hangover: India Builds Expressways, Its Journalists Hunt for Failure
India is undertaking one of the largest infrastructure transformations in its history. Expressways are connecting industrial centres, reducing distances between major cities, improving freight corridors and gradually replacing a road network that, for decades, struggled to keep pace with the country’s economic ambitions. The transformation is neither inexpensive nor instantaneous. Building thousands of kilometres of access-controlled highways requires enormous investment, complicated land acquisition, engineering expertise and supporting infrastructure. Yet, instead of recognising the scale of this transformation, sections of the international media appear remarkably eager to discover reasons why India’s progress might fail.
The latest example comes from Bloomberg, whose October 23, 2026 coverage by Mihir Mishra and Aryan Gupta highlights truck operators who prefer older roads because tolls, roadside food, repairs and resting facilities are cheaper. Bloomberg’s social media presentation goes further, suggesting that these difficulties threaten India’s $130 billion infrastructure investment. Apparently, truck operators making perfectly rational commercial decisions are sufficient grounds to raise questions about an entire national development programme.
This is precisely the kind of reporting that raises uncomfortable questions about the colonial hangover within sections of international journalism. India builds a modern highway network, and the story becomes an exercise in finding Indians who are not using it. India invests in faster transportation, and the narrative shifts to why some operators prefer slower roads. One wonders whether the same editorial enthusiasm would be displayed if an American infrastructure project encountered predictable difficulties during its initial development.
A Truck Driver’s Commercial Decision Is Not India’s Infrastructure Failure
The fundamental weakness in Bloomberg’s framing is the leap from individual transport economics to the perceived vulnerability of an entire infrastructure programme. A truck operator does not select a route because it symbolises national progress. He chooses it based on freight charges, fuel consumption, tolls, delivery schedules, vehicle maintenance and the availability of essential services. If the older highway offers cheaper meals and convenient repair facilities, the operator may continue using it until the financial advantages of the new expressway become more compelling.
There is nothing extraordinary about this behaviour. More importantly, it says remarkably little about whether India should have built these expressways in the first place. Transport infrastructure is a long-term investment whose economic benefits develop as traffic patterns change, industrial corridors expand and supporting businesses emerge. Expecting an entirely new transport ecosystem to achieve optimal commercial efficiency immediately is unreasonable. Presenting normal adoption challenges as a threat to a multibillion-dollar national investment is an editorial choice that deserves scrutiny.
Maharashtra’s Samruddhi Expressway offers a useful counterpoint. According to MSRDC figures reported in April 2026, vehicle journeys increased from approximately 1.05 crore in FY2024–25 to 1.6 crore in FY2025–26. Toll collections also rose substantially, reaching approximately ₹1,240 crore. These figures demonstrate that traffic on a major Indian expressway can grow significantly as the corridor becomes established and its economic advantages become clearer.
Bloomberg’s Convenient Omission of the Construction Timeline
Another important consideration is that India’s expressway network remains under development. The Delhi-Mumbai Expressway, prominently associated with the country’s highway expansion, was still incomplete when Bloomberg published its report. On October 20, The Indian Express documented unresolved construction problems involving a 35.4-kilometre section in Gujarat, with further delays affecting adjoining packages. The eventual completion of the corridor had been pushed well beyond earlier targets.
How should freight operators be expected to reorganise their routes around a network that has not yet achieved complete connectivity? A partially operational expressway may offer significant time savings along one section while forcing vehicles back onto existing highways elsewhere. The economics of such journeys cannot necessarily be compared with those of a completed, integrated freight corridor. Any assessment of commercial adoption should account for these limitations before implying that India’s investment strategy is in jeopardy.
The absence of sufficient roadside amenities is another genuine problem, but one that the government has already recognised. In December 2025, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways informed Parliament that 513 wayside amenity sites had been awarded, with 110 operational as of November 30. In June 2026, NHAI directed greater attention towards repair and puncture facilities along highways and expressways. The pace of delivery deserves criticism, but these developments show that the supporting ecosystem is being built and its deficiencies are not being ignored.
When Every Indian Development Story Must Become a Modi Problem
The most revealing aspect of Bloomberg’s presentation is perhaps its political packaging. The expressway programme is not simply discussed as an infrastructure investment. It is presented as Modi’s big bet, immediately transforming a discussion about transport economics into a question about the Prime Minister’s credibility. Public infrastructure is naturally associated with the government responsible for delivering it, but the repeated tendency to personalise structural economic developments raises questions about editorial priorities.
This is where Aryan Gupta’s previous reporting becomes relevant. Bloomberg’s published archive shows repeated coverage of the Cockroach Janta Party protests, including stories titled “Why India’s ‘Cockroach’ Movement Is a Worry for Modi” and “Cockroach Revolt Exposes Cracks in Modi’s Vision of Rising India.” The recurring emphasis on Modi’s vulnerability is a recognisable feature of the headlines associated with that coverage, revealing an editorial fascination with turning political protests into larger questions about India’s leadership and development narrative.
The pattern is difficult to ignore. An emerging protest movement becomes a threat to Modi’s political authority. A developing expressway network becomes a multibillion-dollar gamble supposedly at risk. Whether the subject is student agitation or highway construction, the narrative repeatedly gravitates towards political vulnerability rather than the underlying issue. Why should every Indian developmental challenge become an opportunity to question the country’s progress? Why must the achievements of a rapidly developing nation constantly be viewed through the prism of what might go wrong?
The Colonial-Era Mentality That Still Haunts International Journalism
There is a particularly troubling mentality in which recognition of India’s accomplishments appears to require approval from an international establishment, while every shortcoming becomes an opportunity to question the country’s capabilities. It resembles the intellectual servility of the colonial era, when foreign judgment was treated as inherently superior to Indian experience and achievement. In modern media, this attitude can present itself as sophisticated scepticism, even when its underlying assumptions deserve examination.
One might call it the journalism of colonial-era bootlickers: a habit of looking towards foreign editorial approval while treating India’s developmental ambitions with habitual suspicion. What makes this particularly frustrating is that such narratives are frequently produced by Indian journalists themselves. Instead of bringing the complexities of India’s development to international audiences, they sometimes appear more interested in presenting the country through a familiar catalogue of shortcomings, contradictions and supposed failures.
Mihir Mishra and Aryan Gupta should not expect Indian readers to accept Bloomberg’s framing merely because it appears under the banner of an influential international financial publication. The Bloomberg name does not confer unquestionable authority over India’s economic future. Indian journalists reporting for international audiences have an opportunity to explain the extraordinary scale of the country’s transformation, including its genuine difficulties, without converting every implementation challenge into a story about national vulnerability.
India’s economic transformation is not happening inside an air-conditioned newsroom. It is happening across thousands of kilometres of construction sites, industrial corridors, ports, highways and manufacturing centres. It involves workers, engineers, transporters, contractors and businesses confronting the practical difficulties of building infrastructure at an unprecedented scale. Reducing this enormous undertaking to a narrative about truckers preferring cheaper roadside meals does little justice to the larger economic story.
India Needs Better Expressways, Not Lectures About Its Ambitions
India’s government must ensure that the expressways it builds are commercially attractive, properly maintained and equipped with affordable facilities for truck operators. Nitin Gadkari’s ministry and NHAI cannot escape accountability for delayed projects, inadequate roadside services or toll structures that discourage freight movement. An expressway that saves two hours but imposes disproportionate operating costs will struggle to attract some transporters, regardless of the quality of its construction.
But these are arguments for improving the infrastructure, not for questioning the wisdom of constructing it. There is a profound difference between identifying operational weaknesses and implying that the national investment itself may be endangered. The former advances public understanding and encourages corrective action. The latter risks reducing an enormously complicated development programme to a provocative headline designed to attract attention.
India spent decades struggling with inadequate roads, slow freight movement and the consequences of insufficient infrastructure investment. The country is finally attempting to address these structural deficiencies on a massive scale. The benefits will not arrive simultaneously, and the transition will inevitably expose commercial and administrative problems. That is how major infrastructure programmes evolve, not evidence that Indians are somehow incapable of embracing modern transportation.
Bloomberg is free to question India’s infrastructure policies, just as Indian readers are free to question Bloomberg’s journalism. What India does not need is the old colonial instinct of treating every developmental challenge as proof that its aspirations are misplaced. If an international publication wants to evaluate India’s expressway revolution, it should examine the complete economic picture, including growing traffic, improving connectivity, construction timelines, commercial constraints and long-term benefits.
India’s infrastructure transformation deserves rigorous scrutiny, but it also deserves proportionate judgment. A few truckers choosing cheaper roads do not define the future of an entire country’s transport network. And neither does Bloomberg.
