Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"The reasons for this industrial stagnation are many, ranging from the lack of stimulus from the sluggish agricultural sector to pork-barrel politics which places steelworks or utility plants in inappropriate locations and blocks proposed economic reforms. The greatest cause, however, was probably India’s decision to turn away from world markets and protect domestic industries. Without foreign markets and the stimulus of worldwide competition, India’s public companies grew to rely upon state spending, saddling the economy with a large and overmanned public sector, while private industry had to contend with some of the most complex bureaucratic regulations in the world. . . . Apart from sheer size, India and China differ from neighboring “trading states” in another critical respect: their ambition to be the regional superpower, in South Asia and East Asia respectively. There is little conviction in New Delhi and Beijing of the coming of a new international order; rather, both powers anticipate a 'world of the future … very much like the world of the past, [where] those with real strength have the final say.'"[Kennedy: Preparing for 21st Century, Kindle, Location 3166, 3226]