Well, if you look at a comparison graph of the countries directly adjoining India, the differences are pretty stark.
https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...
https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...
All of these countries require a recent negative test prior to arrival. The Central Asian countries show inflection at pretty much the same time, barring Uzbekistan which is a week late. However, India has a lot more relative traffic going on with Sri Lanka and they and Maldives, both South of India, inflected a whole month later.