On January 20, 2009, Dr. Manmohan Singh, the prime minister of India, became the leader of the free world. The free world's attention was focused elsewhere: Senator Barack Obama, who on that day became President Barack Obama, quietly abdicated the role now taken up by Dr. Singh, having run an election campaign premised upon the ever-present but never-quite-articulated proposal that the interests of the United States would be best served by such an abdication. Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, global jihad, global financial crisis, Europe declining, China rising: It was all too much for a country whose aging population was beginning to press heavily upon its finances and institutions, public and private, a situation attested to by the fact that Bill Clinton, once synonymous with youthful vigor (with an excess of youthful vigor) was by that time eligible to begin collecting Social Security benefits. India--poor, illiterate, violent, corrupt, backward, unstable, within living memory the hostage of a short-lived dictatorship--may not seem an obvious candidate to pick up the baton carried by the United States from December 8, 1941, until January 20, 2009, but pick it up it has, and it is far from fanciful to regard Dr. Singh as the leader of the free world. In this article, the author contends that it would be helpful to know something about the civilization that produced him and the society that made possible the remarkable economic and social reforms with which he is associated.