India, June 14 -- Early administration institutionalised a restrictive, hyper-bureaucratic web called 'Babu Raj'. This system prioritised red tape over domestic enterprise and state-controlled stagnation over wealth creation.

At the dawn of the mid-twentieth century, the crumbling scaffolding of Western imperialism left three major Asian nations standing at exactly the same starting line. India, China, and Japan each inherited a landscape devastated by foreign occupation, war, and systemic plunder. The path forward was unwritten, and the choices made by their founding leaderships would dictate the destinies of billions. Japan, despite the horrific nuclear devastation of its urban centres, ruthlessly consolidated its industrial core, anch...