There is a famous quote from when this book was released in 1997. The quote was the rhetorical question "Would you rather be the poorest man in China or in India?". This rhetorical question was supposed to have the answer INDIA because it was assumed the absolute poorest man would still have their freedom in a democracy. In 2020, China eliminated absolute poverty while the poorest Indian man is probably an untouchable Dalit who is not just the absolute poor but also forced to live with generational Caste system discrimination. To this day, we still have almost the entire Western media and population at large describing India as a vibrant, colorful, spiritual, free democracy while describing China as a dystopian, sad, polluted, dark land of unthinking robot people. It really is amazing how effective the propaganda has worked.An article from 1997 describing how India lost to China in the economic race.
Very interesting insights from the POVs back then. Seems like the ones who were more optimistic about India's democracy have been proven wrong