India

As recent protests indicate, Indians increasingly believe that their government is letting them down. New Delhi's faults -- criminalism, cronyism, and corruption -- are well known. Less understood is that these problems result from positive developments, that they will get worse before they get better, and that the solution is not less democracy, as some have suggested, but even more.

Late this month, India's Congress Party created a new post -- party vice president -- and then named Rahul Gandhi to it. The effort, led by party elite, was meant to shore up the status of this scion of the powerful Gandhi-Nehru clan and place him on the path to the prime ministership. In a maturing Indian democracy, though, such tricks may no longer work for Gandhi or for the party.

The most talked-about global economic trend in recent years has been “the rise of the rest,” with Brazil, Russia, India, and China leading the charge. But international economic convergence is a myth. Few countries can sustain unusually fast growth for a decade, and even fewer, for more than that. Now that the boom years are over, the BRICs are crumbling; the international order will change less than expected.

Just a few years ago, India seemed on the brink of becoming the world’s next great power. Today, its future appears less certain. Although some have blamed the global economic recession, the real problem is domestic -- namely, the centralized, secretive, and arbitrary political culture that pervades New Delhi.