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India's Promise? Conflicting prospects for the world's most populous democracy

Aug 12, 2005

In this artilce, appearing in Harvard Magazine, Kapur asks,

The exceptional confluence of good news—economic, political, international, internal—might seem to indicate that India's moment has finally arrived. Or has it? Is India's future akin to an Asian European Union—a liberal, democratic, multinational polity (albeit with lower levels of income)? Or is Brazil the more likely model—a giant system that has become wealthier but remains extremely unequal, and is afflicted by high levels of endemic violence? Or could India go the bleak way of Indonesia—a sprawling but weak polity led by governments with ostensible power but little authority; one that, despite its size, is likely to continue to languish in the minor leagues?