India does have siginificant national identitiy, verging on nationalism. Strogn national identity was something pushed by governments since India's independance. Still there are large differences in food, language, religious practices and other cultural pillar between states, especially north vs. south.

Indians always embraced a national identity. It was unfortunate that India failed to unite under one king in the history. The connecting link between indian states was dharmic culture or religions. vishnu puran (sacred book in Hinduism which talks about life of vishu (krishna) mentions that उत्तरं यत्समुद्रस्यः हिमाद्रेश्चैव दक्षिणम् ।

वर्षं तद् भारतं नाम: भारती यत्र संततिः ।। The country

that lies north of the ocean and south of the

snowy mountains is called Bhāratam (India);

there dwell the descendants of Bharata. So we can say that concept of India as nation is not new.

> I didn’t know this but apparently when the British arrived, India was the wealthiest nation in the world by a hige margin

Note that this depends on what you mean by "wealthiest". India was wealthy the same way China and the USA are wealthy today, but not wealthy in the sense that Switzerland is a country of rich people.

Before the Industrial revolution, virtually almost all of the population (across the world) would have been peasants living in pretty primitive conditions, be it in Qing China or in Habsburg Spain. Urban populations were only a tenth of the population at best, and the wealthy merchants within them would of course be an even smaller minority.

>Do Indians embrace a national identity? Do they respect the authority of their national government?

Yeah as we've been diverse way before you Westerners made it a trend to flex on

India does not have any strong secessionist movement, except those openly funded by the PRC and Pakistan.

Indians in general are very strongly nationalistic. People may question the party of power in the Center, but will never raise questions on India as a State