Another book on India this time about the economic growth in India reviewed in an article titled "Miracle, Interrupted" by the author Akash Kapur (India Becoming: A Portrait of Life in Modern India). A few choice excerpts from the article that hit the nail on the head:
The truth is that India’s prospects were never quite as bright as they were made out to be—nor are they quite as dire as they are held to be today. Instead, the recent swings in the Indian narrative are another reminder of the role of sentiment in investors’ perceptions and decisions. Nations, like markets, are subject to often irrational (and certainly ill-informed) cycles of boom and bust.On corruption in India:
Corruption has been rampant for decades, though today’s scandals—such as the furor over the nation’s allocation of 2G telecom licenses—are shocking for their brazenness and the sheer sums of money involved. They are in many ways the fruit of India’s rapid prosperity and the brand of robber-baron capitalism it has bred.
And the summation is apt, and describes the paradox that is India very well:
This ambivalence—this messy, complex, and even self-contradictory reality—is what defines the modern Indian condition. It is not easily captured by even the most sophisticated narratives or concepts. It lacks the neatness of a model. There is only the country’s irreducible, and at times maddening, multiplicity. That makes interpretation hard. India is never as grim as it may appear, nor as glittering.
