The Path of Least Resistance

Abstract

In a speech to Mumbai college students in November 2010, while on a state visit to India, U.S. President Barack Obama declared, “The United States does not just believe, as some people say, that India is a rising power; we believe that India has already risen.” He was not alone in expressing such gusto about the country’s prospects. A spate of books, both popular and academic, had been highlighting the country’s imminent economic success. Indeed, India seemed on the verge of genuine great-power status, due in no small part to liberalization of the country’s economy. Market reforms begun in the 1990s had soon led to an average growth of about 8 percent annually. India was held aloft with China as an emerging economic powerhouse. And if the rising tide did not lift all boats, it did create a viable middle class in a country long divided between a small elite and a desperately poor majority.