India is not short of capable indi­viduals or reform ideas. What it lacks is a sufficiently broad and durable coalition that sees institutional transformation—not merely growth or pres­tige—as central to its interests, and that possesses the po­litical leverage to impose costs on those who benefit from stasis. Until such a coalition emerges, India is likely to continue along its current path: resilient, consequential, and incrementally improving, but structur­ally constrained in its ability to convert potential into first-rank power.

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