I've known Indians to treat books with respect. It's ingrained in the culture. Books can't be on the floor or touched with a foot. Kids spend days learning how to create books sleeves with brown crafts. Texybooks are well treated due to hand-me-down culture. Vidya (books) is specifically worshipped online home idol-houses. Pirated books or fake photo copies get mistreated, but mostly because they're printed on low budget paper backs. The state of libraries is bad, but so is the state of all infrastructure generally.
In the US, I have yet to see individuals take extraordinary care of books. Yes, textbooks worth $100+ are well treated, but anything that expensive is well treated. (I still have an old HC Verma copy). Libraries are exemplary, but the budgets are incomparable.
I will agree on the sorry state of Indian liberal arts including museums and libraries. The education, quality of scholarship and resulting professionals are subpar compared to the western world. India has excellent STEM and Medical education. The rest have a long way to go.
You're right about the respect part, but it does in fact compute. We (I'm Indian) treat books with respect, but we have no preservation ethic beyond treating them with respect. An old book is in our home until it disintegrates or termites get it. But beyond that, shrug. Humidity control etc, what's that. This is of course partly because India is a poor country, and partly because of corrupt government, but it's also because of the fatalism - we simply do not care about the past as is the norm in the West. You know how even a tinpot town's history is available in the local library in the US? Beyond rarefied academia and the odd hobbyist, India just does not have that culture.
In my experience, the worship part is purely theatrical, and is largely the reason stuff like this happens. I'd rather have books treated well for practical purposes than because "Vidya is God" - it makes more sense this way, and you aren't bound to a holy/unreachable ideal.
Feet don't have any use for books, so that doesn't matter much. Book sleeves and brown crafts are because of school rules, else those don't happen. Anyway, you should see how the books within those brown sleeves get by end of school year. Books get handed down in good shape only when a parent is unusually strict about those books (mine were, which is why I have a chip on my shoulder regarding this topic) or if the kid is conscientious. Woe betide you if you loan a book to a random friend; there are good chances it won't come back whole because of the "why-should-I-care-I-don't-own-it" mentality.
Part of it, as you imply, is the cheaper price, and thus quality and binding of the books made in India.
I've known Indians to treat books with respect. It's ingrained in the culture. Books can't be on the floor or touched with a foot. Kids spend days learning how to create books sleeves with brown crafts. Texybooks are well treated due to hand-me-down culture. Vidya (books) is specifically worshipped online home idol-houses. Pirated books or fake photo copies get mistreated, but mostly because they're printed on low budget paper backs. The state of libraries is bad, but so is the state of all infrastructure generally.
In the US, I have yet to see individuals take extraordinary care of books. Yes, textbooks worth $100+ are well treated, but anything that expensive is well treated. (I still have an old HC Verma copy). Libraries are exemplary, but the budgets are incomparable.
I will agree on the sorry state of Indian liberal arts including museums and libraries. The education, quality of scholarship and resulting professionals are subpar compared to the western world. India has excellent STEM and Medical education. The rest have a long way to go.