India's passage to power -

Its plunge into the market economy was much later, yet it may catch China and even surpass it, writes Peter Hartcher.

Scattered around India's thriving capital, Delhi, lie the impressive stone remains of seven earlier capitals, the ruins of once-great empires.
The first of these cities was built 800 years ago, and the last was the seat of the mighty Mogul emperors until the British overthrew them in 1857.
The British built their own monumental new seat of power in Delhi, but got to enjoy their expensive capital for only 16 years before being forced out, and modern, independent India took shape in 1947.
For Indians, the inevitable rise and fall of great powers is no remote textbook notion but part of the landscape. And today its rulers are convinced the rise of modern India is well under way.
"The US is clearly the pre-eminent power in the world today, but other countries are not far behind," says M.K.Narayanan, the National Security Adviser to India's Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh.
"There is China, the European Union, Russia is emerging, Japan is back and, I dare say, India is not far behind. Economically, militarily, philosophically, India carries weight.
"Quite clearly, the locus of growth is moving to Asia, and what's happening in China and India is extraordinary."
The rest of the world is coming to agree. The same projection by the Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs that foresees China as the world's biggest economy by 2050 sees India becoming the third biggest behind the US.
In a forthcoming book on the outlook for India and China, Dancing with Giants, the World Bank comes to a similar view. It begins its survey by pointing out two of the shared characteristics of China and India: "Their populations are huge and their economies have been growing very fast for at least 10 years."
Together, the two account for nearly one in four of the human race.
But even after a decade of strong growth they make up only 6.5 per cent of the global economy - China 4.7 per cent and India 1.8 per cent. This hints at the tremendous scope for catch-up that remains.
Dr Suman Bery, the director-general of the National Council of Applied Economic Research in Delhi, says: "If it's about the distance between yourself and the frontiers of economic development - being propelled forward like a rubber band - it's a reason for bullishness."
The Australian economist Professor Ross Garnaut has pointed out that the evidence from fast-growing East Asian economies is that they tend to grow at high speed until they reach average income levels of about half those of the richest countries.