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The decisive transition India embarked upon nearly two decades ago has developed through an interplay of perceptions that has created the intellectual conditions needed, both in India and abroad, for change to materialize. At the end of the 1980s, India was stuck in a paradox. On the one hand, it was the direct heir of a brilliant civilization anchored in 3,000 years of intellectual and material accomplishments, and was on the verge of becoming the second country on Earth whose population exceeded 1 billion. On the other hand, its historical depth and demographic expanse were not matched by the country's economic and diplomatic status.Jean-Luc Racine is Senior Fellow at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), Centre for South Asian Studies, Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), Paris.