The truth is that FIFA is desperate to get India to play in the World Cup, has been for a while as we are literally the largest sports market with just a single sport dominating, the last fairly unexplored major market in sport.
They gave us the FIFA U17 World Cup on which I worked for that reason. The women's U 17 as well, they also wanted to give us the U20 tournament if our team continued to do improve, but the AIFF had imploded by then.
FIFA, like every world sporting body other than the ICC, wants to bring our huge audiences to their sport. It is our collective sports administration incompetence coupled with a clunky structure of sports being in the state list instead of the central list that is shooting us in the foot.
And why most major Indian sporting achievements have been individual, despite the system instead of thanks to the system.
If FIFA decides to expand the 2030 World Cup to 64 teams, then the AFC should receive at least 11.5 qualification slots.
With Asia's population, investment in football, improving competitiveness and the growing number of nations capable of competing at World Cup level, a proportional increase in AFC representation would be justified.