Steel bows eh? Those required a lot of strength to draw, am I right?
if you built it like Europeans did, yes.
but the Indians wanted something that could be drawn by hand like a normal bow, so one thing you'll notice is that the steel bows are very thin front to back compared to normal examples--basically a long, sturdy sheet. besides, they had the means to get the right type of steel, though as evensgrey said it was not easy prior to the Bessemer process. (what the Indians did was likely to make the crucible steel, and then beat out or rub in the needed carbon content till they got what they wanted--in this case a low carbon steel that was very springy--like the Ulfbehrt swords).
people forget that India was host to some pretty extreme metallurgic skills for centuries: during the Gupta period for example, they made iron pillars, some of which still stand today, after almost 1500 years:

in the Arab world in fact, the finest swords were not locally made (themselves of good quality), but imported from India or produced in Indian Style smithies in Oman and Yemen.