India’s current modernization is one of a series that goes back to the Meiji Restoration in Japan. Even then, Indian nationalists perceived it as the beginning of the revival of Asia, hailing Japan’s victory over Russia in 1905. But it was that country’s socio-economic transformation that was the really lasting story. The creation of the Soviet Union, emergence of the ‘tiger’ economies in East Asia and the ASEAN, and, finally, the rise of China – all saw the rest of Eurasia playing catch-up. Each one of these developments have had their influence on India, sometimes unconsciously so.
