Modi, despite his embrace of business, comes from a very different intellectual tradition. In seeking to modernize Gujarat, his role models were Asian strongmen, such as Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew and China’s Deng Xiaoping, rather than Anglo-American economists. In the “Asian tiger” model of development, which Yew and Deng, along with South Korea’s Park Chung-hee, helped to popularize, markets and foreign investment play an important role, but so does the state—by directing industrialization, building infrastructure, and distributing the proceeds. As Modi seeks to revive India’s economy, which has stalled in recent years, it’s likely that he will look to Seoul and Beijing for inspiration, rather than to London and Washington.
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