The Indian economy is one of the true success stories in the developing world. Over the past decade or so, a long-sluggish economy appears to have matured and, unshackled from restrictive government policies, is emerging as a global player. One indicator of this is the veritable cottage industry in books about India's economic growth with titles like India: Emerging Power (Cohen 2002), India: The Emerging Giant (Panagariya 2008), India as an Emerging Power (Ganguly 2003), and India Unbound (Das 2002). Alongside these and many other books on the topic, numerous articles have been penned on the Indian economy, each trying to understand why, after years of trudging along, the “elephant started to trot.”

My comparative advantage does not lie in adding to the now voluminous literature on the sources of growth in the Indian economy, or identifying the timing of structural breaks in India's growth trend. To those interested in those topics, I am content to recommend Panagariya's magisterial account of India's post-independence economic performance (2008). Rather my goal in this chapter is to tackle questions less well-answered by economists concerning the role political considerations play in this story. Specifically I apply the theoretical framework developed in this book to India to see if it can resolve the apparent paradox of India's rapid growth coinciding with a period of immense political fragmentation and instability.