I think you right about building a stronger football team takes time to build a strong football team effort and investment, pulse a good football background, which include infrastructure, coaching and support, can help nurture talented players and improve the sports over all standards. And aslo India football team face challenges in terms of ranking and development, which it making it looks harder for the young player's to see a future in football and in sports in total.
From what I can see, in India sports is not valued a lot. Youngsters are forced to spend 12-14 hours a day on studies, and sports is not regarded as a career option. Even in rare cases where it is regarded as a career option, that is applicable only for cricket and not for the other sports. You will find a lot of fans for various clubs such as Manchester United and Inter Milan in India. But that said, most of these fans will never play the sport themselves. And the absence of open space is also an issue in India.
The world is more advanced for this your claim to be true. What I can say is that they are late to embrace the game as a profession. India football federation founded the Indian super league in 2013 with 14 clubs currently participating in it. Every country has their backwards area but I can tell you that this your description is too loud to describe an evolving football federation. You cannot compare even the US football federation to that of the English or German. But this does not undermine the fact that India is seriously developing their football participation. They would eventually join the world cup maybe by 2030 because even their ban has been lifted by FIFA