"Those of us who have lived through the earlier days of free India, when the entire nation was looking forward with zeal and fervour and with a sense of national pride, cannot but look upon the present times with deep anguish and distress. I do not think India in its entire history of 5,000 years has ever reached a lower level of degradation than it has reached now..."

"..In 1950, we started as a Republic with inestimable advantages. First, we had 5,000 years of civilisation behind us -- a civilisation which had reached 'the summit of human thought' in the word of Ralph Waldo Emerson. We inherited great skills and many-splendoured intelligence, since the genes had evolved over five luminous millenia. We had a superb entrepreneurial spirit, honed over a century of obstacles. A few years ago, a World Bank report on India mentioned two very favourable factors -- an unlimited reservoir of skilled labour, and abundance of capital available for investment in new projects. The trader's instinct is innate in Indian genes. An Indian can buy from a Jew and sell to a Scot, and yet make a profit! .."

The author is said to be a 'visionary'..

https://www.rediff.com/republic/2000/feb/01nani.htm