"The President has proclaimed Emergency. This is nothing to panic about."
         Those words, spoken in 1975 by India's prime minister, Indira Gandhi, on state-controlled radio, confirmed every dour prediction that Western critics had been making. For decades, their thinking had gone something like this: Because its people were so divided along the lines of caste, religion, and language, India would eventually cave to autocratic rule.
         Now, barely 30 years into the country's life, it looked as if those predictions were already coming to pass...

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“Subcontinental Drift,” The Weekly Standard

When your computer crashes, who you gonna call? India! Only 20 years ago, though, India was known as a land of snake charmers and Mother Teresa. Now, as the country turns 60 this year, we look at the improbable rise of the world’s largest democracy and see whether its past might be a guide to its future.