I'm an old friend of the Oberoi family, so we were staying in various of their hotels--five star hotels in India are extremely inexpensive--around US$ 50 a night. But there are many other options, especially outside the main cities, which can cost US$ 1 a night.
My cyclist friends camped and stayed in modest accomodations.
The main problem they mentioned with camping, especially in the villages, was being such an object of curiosity that they never were able to be alone, were followed everywhere by crowds of people, would go out, arrive back at their tent, and find a crowd of people waiting for them at their tent, would wake up and find a crowd of people waiting for them to wake up etc. It was all very innocent, but after the 50th night of that, it tended to get to them.
It's an interesting mystery how the villagers will relate to a female cyclist of Indian heritage. I suspect people will be a touch less intimidated. What that will mean I'm not sure. If it were me, and I wanted to camp, I'd experiment a bit in areas that appeared especially safe. I would probably not camp by the side of the road, but rather take advantage of the over the top hospitality that's part of being in India, and politely ask to camp in someone's back yard or something.