India's journey has been distinctively "precocious" in comparative terms. It opted for democracy before development and social change, promoted high-skilled services before and over low-skilled manufacturing, and chose a globalization that favored exports of talented people and short-changed the poor. The socialist state became an inefficient capitalist one before providing the public goods of physical infrastructure and human capital. The outcomes have been surprising, with the country achieving high-skilled services success and creating and sustaining democracy, albeit flawed, and…
