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Introduction As the title of Jean Dréze and Amartya Sen’s new book indicates, many Indians have mixed feelings about their country’s progress since independence in 1947. Indians take great pride, deservedly, in the fact that their country has consolidated its democracy and successfully managed most of the ethnic conflicts that threatened the state in the 1950s and 1960s. India remains a secular state, whose governments largely reflect the country’s ethnic, linguistic, religious, and caste diversity, and where minorities feel more secure than in Pakistan, Myanmar, or Bangladesh. India has also consolidated its democracy. Indians vote in large numbers—turnout was a record 66% in the most recent 2014 national election—and 78% express a preference for rule by elected representatives, compared to only 47% over the border in Pakistan.(CSDS 2008). In recent decades, the once-moribund Indian economy has also …