India Express: The Future Of A New Superpower

India Express is a fast-paced analysis of India’s potential role as ‘Asia’s America’. Daniel Lak has covered the region for two decades and draws on his detailed knowledge of the country’s lesser-known byways to bring together a complex canvas of interviews, anecdotes, statistics and history. From the ghats of Varanasi to the campus of IIT Kharagpur to a polling booth in rural Bihar, Lak argues that India’s plural democracy, its rule of law, entrepreneurial talent and military might are together fashioning a country that is globally respected and increasingly influential.

What marks this book out from the many voices proclaiming India’s nascent superpower status is Lak’s clear-sighted grasp of the agents and forces of change in the country today. Acknowledging India’s uninterrupted engagement with democracy as unique in the region, the author points out that the growing political heft of the urban middle classes, linked to a historic strengthening of liberal institutions in the country, is part of a process whereby key blocs of voters exchange their political support for government patronage. Coalition governments—a widely accepted sign of democratic maturity—are both a testament to Indian political pragmatism and a de-facto devolution of central authority in a country that has struggled for most of its independent existence with an imbalance of power among centre, states and communities.