Overpopulation is always relative. It means that the population at hand exceeds the amount that existing systems can cope with. You can argue that Indian society is badly organized and that their current population levels and densities could be sustained with better societal systems, but that doesn't quite capture how difficult it is to fix societal systems.

What's easier, improving infrastructure or lowering the population?

I get your point - it's obviously easier to solve the problem (at least if you want to act ethically) by improving infrastructure.

But that also has the risk of trivializing the problem. Improve infrastructure is hard, especially in a compromised system.

Genocide (which I assume is the "unethical" option) is also hard, and tends to destroy infrastructure as well...

I do agree that improving governance is much, much easier said than done. And to be fair, India has had substantial progress.

> It means that the population at hand exceeds the amount that existing systems can cope with

I think this is just a different phrasing of "Indian society is badly organized".

Which is a different way of saying I think we mostly agree.

And a lot poorer overall, which certainly doesn't help. GDP(PPP) per capita for India was 7874 in 2018. Versus 41351, 44227 and 53023 for South Korea, Japan and Taiwan respectively. These countries that manage their high population density pretty well are also much smaller (Japan is around 10 times smaller than India) and it is much easier to optimize/organize on a smaller scale.

The way I think of it, India's pollution and poverty are both caused by their society not organized well.

I believe South Korea was poorer than India in living memory!

When my dad was born in what was then Pakistan in 1951, South Korea was about as poor as India and Pakistan. Today, it’s as rich as France.

Just curious: Have you visited China in recent time? The past few years it's made incredible gains, and it continues moving at a blazing speed.

I think one force that can encourage Pakistan to move forward is China. I don't know if Pakistan can have its own Samsung, but it can maybe 'modernize' with China's help. Would you agree?

Japan, Korea or other countries may also be overpopulated yes. But realize the volume spread. A few millions overpopulation is largely different from an over population of a few billions. The magnitude is incomparable.