It is to an India in the midst of dramatic transformation that President Bush travels tomorrow, a country confidently surfing the tide of change, acknowledged as a rapidly emerging economic power and an increasingly responsible force for stability in Asia. Mr Bush will emphasise the “natural” affinities between the world’s most powerful, and its most populous, democracies. So have previous American Presidents, but more in hope than in belief. During the Cold War, India and the US had little other than democracy in common. India’s idea of non-alignment was a friendship treaty with the Soviet Union, its legions of bureaucrats tied the protectionist “permit Raj” economy in knots, its politicians worshipped at the altar of Fabian socialism and its diplomats were notorious for their prickliness.

India’s first steps down the reform road 15 years ago excited some comment, but small optimism. The speed of India’s turnaround has astonished the country’s critics – the harshest of whom are, of course, Indians. In the knowledge economy, India has made free speech its economic ally. On the basis of only a fraction of the capital invested in China, India’s economy has nearly doubled over the past decade and is now growing by 8 per cent a year, a rate approaching that of China.

The country’s emergence changes not only the economics, but the politics of Asia. India’s greater political maturity means that America’s ties with Pakistan are no longer a hindrance to the strategic partnership with Delhi that the Bush Administration seeks. It is in India’s interest to respond positively. As a regional, and before long global, player, this vast and irrepressible democracy is coming of age.

The transformation does not strike the eye. Soaring skylines, superhighways and modern airports are absent, power blackouts are routine, water and sanitation can be appalling, and the transport system is a disgrace. But these problems are outweighed by invisible strengths – the rule of law, property rights, free speech, political accountability and thriving enterprises able to draw on millions of skilled, intellectually independent, English-speaking managers, technicians and scientists. India’s economy holds huge promise precisely because it is demand-led and talent-centred.

Big challenges remain. Politicised labour unions are a drag on modernisation; bureaucrats still take 89 days to register a business; and highly restrictive laws make it almost impossible to close one down. Government revenue is low because tax evasion is chronic. Growth is uneven, not only geographically and because of caste prejudice, but because the modern economy has yet to touch the majority of Indians. The information technology sector employs 1.2 million but it can absorb only a small proportion of the eight million people entering the job market each year. Because education, superb at the top end of the market, is abysmal at primary and secondary level, illiteracy is still shamefully high. Politics is factionalised, with the current Congress Government led by Manmohan Singh, awkwardly reliant on the Marxist communist party for a majority.

Reform in India is thus a two steps forward, one back and one sideways affair. But a prosperous middle class, 300 million strong, is driving the liberalisation of the economy, pushing for the dismantling of state controls that for decades hobbled growth. Unmistakably, democratic India is on the move.