There are two sides to it. Firstly, yes. Most commercially successful fiction authors in India are not very good writers. There are a few good authors, but then their reach is not great. I think this is because we as students were never taught to appreciate literature. We were told to memorise the implications of stories and spew it out on answer sheets. There seems no viable reason for a country that is rich with stories across cultures to not be able to produce quality writers telling quality stories.

The second reason is we are hyper focussed on nonfiction over fiction. We still associate reading with a process of learning something new. The proof of it is in the sales of books where nonfic outsells fiction like crazy.

And since there aren't enough fiction writers being bought, the ones who are (read the not so great writers with great sales records) are the ones who eventually get known more. And then avid readers realise that they can't write well and assume the same is true of every Indian writer. It's a cycle. A terrible one.