How structural and policy reforms made most populous India better governed than small population West

Westerners, particularly the once mighty and ruling British, used to say, with a complacent and patronising air, that if India realised its potential, someday, it would be unstoppable. Little did the West think that this day could arrive so quickly, just 75 years after an impoverished independence. That is why, even as significant parts of it professes to be allied to India as fellow democracies etc, it often fails to recalibrate its superior tone when speaking to, or about us. After all, it takes a lot of getting used to, when an erstwhile member of the chronically deficient, if talkative,…